Jasmin was sixteen years old when he was apprenticed to a barber and
hairdresser at Agen. The barber's shop was near the Prefecture--the
ancient palace of the Bishop. It was situated at the corner of Lamoureux
Street and the alley of the Prefecture. There Jasmin learnt the art of
cutting, curling, and dressing hair, and of deftly using the comb and
the razor. The master gave him instructions in the trade, and watched
him while at work. Jasmin was willing and active, and was soon able to
curl and shave with any apprentice in Agen.
After the day's work was over, the apprentice retired to his garret
under the tiles. There he spent his evenings, and there he slept at
night. Though the garret was infested by rats, he thought nothing of
them; he had known them familiarly at home.
They did him no harm, and they even learnt to know him. His garret
became his paradise, for there he renewed his love of reading. The
solitariness of his life did him good, by throwing his mind in upon
himself, and showing the mental stuff of which he was made. All the
greatest and weightiest things have been done in solitude.
The first books he read were for the most part borrowed. Customers
who came to the shop to be shaved or have their hair dressed, took an
interest in the conversation of the bright, cheerful, dark-eyed lad, and
some of them lent him books to read. What joy possessed him when he took
refuge in his garret with a new book! Opening the book was like
opening the door of a new world. What enchantment! What mystery! What a
wonderful universe about us!
In reading a new book Jasmin forgot his impoverished boyhood, his
grandfather Boe and his death in the hospital, his expulsion from the
Seminary, and his mother's sale of her wedding-ring to buy bread for
her children. He had now left the past behind, and a new world lay
entrancingly before him. He read, and thought, and dreamed, until far on
in the morning.
The first books he read were of comparatively little importance, though
they furnished an opening into literature. 'The Children's Magazine'{1}
held him in raptures for a time. Some of his friendly customers lent him
the 'Fables of Florian,' and afterwards Florian's pastoral romance of
'Estelle'--perhaps his best work. The singer of the Gardon entirely
bewitched Jasmin. 'Estelle' allured him into the rosy-fingered regions
of bliss and happiness. Then Jasmin himself began to rhyme. Florian's
works encouraged him to write his first verses in the harmonious Gascon
patois, to which he afterwards gave such wonderful brilliancy.
In his after life Jasmin was often asked how and when he first began to
feel himself a poet. Some think that the poetical gift begins at some
fixed hour, just as one becomes a barrister, a doctor, or a professor.
But Jasmin could not give an answer.
"I have often searched into my past life," he said, "but I have never
yet found the day when I began my career of rhyming."{2}
There are certain gifts which men can never acquire by will and work, if
God has not put the seed of them into their souls at birth; and poetry
is one of those gifts.
When such a seed has been planted, its divine origin is shown by
its power of growth and expansion; and in a noble soul, apparently
insurmountable difficulties and obstacles cannot arrest its development.
The life and career of Jasmin amply illustrates this truth. Here was a
young man born in the depths of poverty. In his early life he suffered
the most cruel needs of existence. When he became a barber's apprentice,
he touched the lowest rung of the ladder of reputation; but he had at
least learned the beginnings of knowledge.
He knew how to read, and when we know the twenty-four letters of the
alphabet, we may learn almost everything that we wish to know. From that
slight beginning most men may raise themselves to the heights of
moral and intellectual worth by a persevering will and the faithful
performance of duty.
At the same time it must be confessed that it is altogether different
with poetical genius. It is not possible to tell what unforeseen and
forgotten circumstances may have given the initial impulse to a poetic
nature. It is not the result of any fortuitous impression, and still
less of any act of the will.
It is possible that Jasmin may have obtained his first insight into
poetic art during his solitary evening walks along the banks of the
Garonne, or from the nightingales singing overhead, or from his chanting
in the choir when a child. Perhaps the 'Fables of Florian' kindled the
poetic fire within him; at all events they may have acted as the first
stimulus to his art of rhyming. They opened his mind to the love
of nature, to the pleasures of country life, and the joys of social
intercourse.
There is nothing in the occupation of a barber incompatible with the
cultivation of poetry. Folez, the old German poet, was a barber, as well
as the still more celebrated Burchiello, of Florence, whose sonnets
are still admired because of the purity of their style. Our own Allan
Ramsay, author of 'The Gentle Shepherd,' spent some of his early years
in the same occupation.
In southern and Oriental life the barber plays an important part. In the
Arabian tales he is generally a shrewd, meddling, inquisitive fellow. In
Spain and Italy the barber is often the one brilliant man in his town;
his shop is the place where gossip circulates, and where many a pretty
intrigue is contrived.
Men of culture are often the friends of barbers. Buffon trusted to
his barber for all the news of Montbard. Moliere spent many long and
pleasant hours with the barber of Pezenas. Figaro, the famous barber of
Seville, was one of the most perfect prototypes of his trade. Jasmin was
of the same calling as Gil Bias, inspired with the same spirit, and full
of the same talent. He was a Frenchman of the South, of the same race as
Villon and Marot.
Even in the prim and formal society of the eighteenth century, the
barber occupied no unimportant part. He and the sculptor, of all
working men, were allowed to wear the sword--that distinctive badge
of gentility. In short, the barber was regarded as an artist. Besides,
barbers were in ancient times surgeons; they were the only persons who
could scientifically "let blood." The Barber-Surgeons of London still
represent the class. They possess a cup presented to the Guild by
Charles II., in commemoration of his escape while taking refuge in the
oak-tree at Boscobel.{3}
But to return to the adventures of Jasmin's early life. He describes
with great zest his first visit to a theatre. It was situated near at
hand, by the ancient palace of the Bishop. After his day's work was
over--his shaving, curling, and hairdressing--he went across the square,
and pressed in with the rest of the crowd. He took his seat.
"'Heavens!' said he, 'where am I?' The curtain rises! 'Oh, this is
lovely! It is a new world; how beautifully they sing; and how sweetly
and tenderly they speak!' I had eyes for nothing else: I was quite
beside myself with joy. 'It is Cinderella,' I cried aloud in my
excitement. 'Be quiet,' said my neighbour. 'Oh, sir! why quiet? Where
are we? What is this?' 'You gaping idiot,' he replied, 'this is the
Comedy!'
"Jasmin now remained quiet; but he saw and heard with all his eyes and
ears. 'What love! what poetry!' he thought: 'it is more than a dream!
It's magic. O Cinderella, Cinderella! thou art my guardian angel!'
And from this time, from day to day, I thought of being an actor!"
Jasmin entered his garret late at night; and he slept so soundly, that
next morning his master went up to rouse him. "Where were you last
night? Answer, knave; you were not back till midnight?" "I was at the
Comedy," answered Jasmin sleepily; "it was so beautiful!" "You have been
there then, and lost your head. During the day you make such an uproar,
singing and declaiming. You, who have worn the cassock, should blush.
But I give you up; you will come to no good. Change, indeed! You will
give up the comb and razor, and become an actor! Unfortunate boy, you
must be blind. Do you want to die in the hospital?"
"This terrible word," says Jasmin, "fell like lead upon my heart, and
threw me into consternation. Cinderella was forthwith dethroned in my
foolish mind; and my master's threat completely calmed me. I went on
faithfully with my work. I curled, and plaited hair in my little room.
As the saying goes, S'il ne pleut, il bruine (If it does not rain, it
drizzles). When I suffered least, time passed all the quicker. It was
then that, dreaming and happy, I found two lives within me--one in my
daily work, another in my garret. I was like a bird; I warbled and sang.
What happiness I enjoyed in my little bed under the tiles! I listened
to the warbling of birds. Lo! the angel came, and in her sweetest voice
sang to me. Then I tried to make verses in the language of the shepherd
swain. Bright thoughts came to me; great secrets were discovered. What
hours! What lessons! What pleasures I found under the tiles!"
During the winter evenings, when night comes on quickly, Jasmin's small
savings went to the oil merchant. He trimmed his little lamp, and went
on till late, reading and rhyming. His poetical efforts, first written
in French, were to a certain extent successful. While shaving his
customers, he often recited to them his verses. They were amazed at
the boy's cleverness, and expressed their delight. He had already
a remarkable talent for recitation; and in course of time he became
eloquent. It was some time, however, before his powers became generally
known. The ladies whose hair he dressed, sometimes complained that their
curl papers were scrawled over with writing, and, when opened out, they
were found covered with verses.
The men whom he shaved spread his praises abroad. In so small a town
a reputation for verse-making soon becomes known. "You can see me," he
said to a customer, "with a comb in my hand, and a verse in my head. I
give you always a gentle hand with my razor of velvet. My mouth recites
while my hand works."
When Jasmin desired to display his oratorical powers, he went in the
evenings to the quarter of the Augustins, where the spinning-women
assembled, surrounded by their boys and girls. There he related to them
his pleasant narratives, and recited his numerous verses.
Indeed, he even began to be patronized. His master addressed him as
"Moussu,"--the master who had threatened him with ending his days in the
hospital!
Thus far, everything had gone well with him. What with shaving,
hairdressing, and rhyming, two years soon passed away. Jasmin was
now eighteen, and proposed to start business on his own account.
This required very little capital; and he had already secured many
acquaintances who offered to patronize him. M. Boyer d'Agen, who has
recently published the works of Jasmin, with a short preface and a
bibliography,{4} says that he first began business as a hairdresser in
the Cour Saint-Antoine, now the Cour Voltaire. When the author of this
memoir was at Agen in the autumn of 1888, the proprietor of the Hotel du
Petit St. Jean informed him that a little apartment had been placed
at Jasmin's disposal, separated from the Hotel by the entrance to the
courtyard, and that Jasmin had for a time carried on his business there.
But desiring to have a tenement of his own, he shortly after took a
small house alongside the Promenade du Gravier; and he removed and
carried on his trade there for about forty years. The little shop is
still in existence, with Jasmin's signboard over the entrance door:
"Jasmin, coiffeur des Jeunes Gens," with the barber's sud-dish
hanging from a pendant in front. The shop is very small, with a little
sitting-room behind, and several bedrooms above. When I entered the
shop during my visit to Agen, I found a customer sitting before a
looking-glass, wrapped in a sheet, the lower part of his face covered
with lather, and a young fellow shaving his beard.
Jasmin's little saloon was not merely a shaving and a curling shop.
Eventually it became known as the sanctuary of the Muses. It was
visited by some of the most distinguished people in France, and became
celebrated throughout Europe. But this part of the work is reserved for
future chapters.
Endnotes to Chapter III.
{1} Magasin des Enfants.
{2} Mes Nouveaux Souvenirs.
{3} In England, some barbers, and barber's sons, have eventually
occupied the highest positions. Arkwright, the founder of the cotton
manufacture, was originally a barber. Tenterden, Lord Chief Justice,
was a barber's son, intended for a chorister in Canterbury Cathedral.
Sugden, afterwards Lord Chancellor, was opposed by a noble lord while
engaged in a parliamentary contest. Replying to the allegation that he
was only the son of a country barber, Sugden said: "His Lordship has
told you that I am nothing but the son of a country barber; but he has
not told you all, for I have been a barber myself, and worked in my
father's shop,--and all I wish to say about that is, that had his
Lordship been born the son of a country barber, he would have been a
barber still!"
{4} OEUVRES COMPLETES DE JACQUES JASMIN: Preface de l'Edition,, Essai
d'orthographe gasconne d'apres les langues Romane et d'Oc, et collation
de la traduction litterale. Par Boyer d'Agen. 1889. Quatre volumes.