Important works (besides the collections of short stories mentioned): Les Amoureuses (verse, 1858), Le Petit Chose (1868), Aventures Prodigieuses de Tartarin de Tarascon (1872), L'Arlésienne (drama, 1872), Fromont Jeune et Risler Aîné (1874), Jack (1876), Le Nabab (1877), Les Rois en Exil (1879), Numa Roumestan (1881), L'Évangéliste (1883), Sapho (1884), Tartarin sur les Alpes (1885), La Défense de Tarascon (1887), L'Immortel (1888), Port Tarascon (1890).
Edition: Flammarion, 13 vols. (illustrated); Charpentier, Dentu, Hetzel and Lemerre have each published portions of his work.
LE CURÉ DE CUCUGNAN
This story is an almost literal translation of Lou Curat de Cucugnan, a Provençal story by Roumanille, published by him under the pseudonym of Lou Cascarelet in the Armana prouvençau (Provençal Almanac) in 1867 (Daudet was in Provence during this year). This Almanac was first published in the year 1855, a little after the foundation of the Félibrige (May 21, 1854). The Félibrige was a brotherhood of modern Provençal poets, its purpose was to revive Provençal as a literary language; the word Félibrige is of unknown origin, it comes from an obscure word found by Mistral in a Provençal text; the members of the brotherhood, which later became a great literary society, were called félibres; the brotherhood was originated by Roumanille, who was followed by a more celebrated poet, Mistral, and five other poets, Aubanel, Brunet, Camille Raybaud, Mathieu and Félix Gras. In regard to the Armana prouvençau, the following quotation from an article by Mistral in Les Annales politiques et littéraires, May 13, 1906, will give an idea of the type of this Almanac: «Et sans parler ici des innombrables poésies qui s'y sont publiées, sans parler de ses Chroniques, où est continue, peut-on dire, l'histoire du Félibrige, la quantité de contes, de légendes, de sornettes, de facéties et de gaudrioles, tous recueillis dans le terroir, qui s'y sont ramassés, font de cette entreprise une collection unique. Toute la tradition, toute la raillerie, tout l'esprit de notre race se trouvent serrés là-dedans.» The dialects of France fall into two great classes: the Langue d'oïl, in the north, and the Langue d'oc, in the south (oïl is the old> northern form for oui, oc the southern form). The difference really dates from Roman colonization, which occurred on the Mediterranean some seventy-five years before Caesar conquered northern Gaul (59--5l B.C.). Provençal is one of the principal dialects of the southern group; during the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries (prior to the Albigensian crusade) it was, at least in lyric poetry, the most important literary language of France. Because of political and literary superiority, the language of Paris, or of the Île-de-France, became the general literary language of France. The dialects, however, still live on, and Provençal has, as described above, been somewhat revived as a literary language by the efforts of Mistral and the other poets of the Félibrige. Many scholars regard the characteristics of the territory embraced by the modern departments of Loire, Rhône, Isère, Ain, Savoie, the old province of Franche-Comté and a part of Switzerland as sufficient to form a third group of dialects known as Franco-Provençal. The dividing line between the Langue d'oc and the Langue d'oïl passes approximately from the mouth of the Gironde to the Alps by way of Limoges, Clermont-Ferrand and Grenoble.
[111.]--1. à la Chandeleur. The article in such constructions is usually explained as equal to la fête de; it should be noticed, however, that in Old French a substantive frequently occurred in the oblique without a preceding de, the construction being equal to the Latin genitive, no preposition having been used (the phrase is thus literally: "on that of Candlemas").
2. en Avignon. En is not now used with cities except in ironical imitation of Provençal style (see Brunot, Précis de grammaire historique de la langue française, sec. 496, 2) or as a poetic and archaic survival of the usage of the seventeenth century, un joyeux petit livre. The Armana prouvençau.
[112.]--3. quel bon vent. The verb is to be supplied (quel bon vent vous amène?).
4. le grand livre et la clef. Cf. Matthew xvi, 19 and Revelation xx, 12.
11. disons-nous. Here = vous dites.
27. faites que je puisse. Faire in the imperative is followed by the subjunctive, elsewhere by the indicative (c'est ce qui fait que cela va mal), but notice that faites attention takes the indicative (faites attention qu'il est là).