Jasmin's first efforts at verse-making were necessarily imperfect. He
tried to imitate the works of others, rather than create poetical images
of his own. His verses consisted mostly of imitations of the French
poems which he had read. He was overshadowed by the works of Boileau,
Gresset, Rousseau, and especially by Beranger, who, like himself, was
the son of a tailor.
The recollections of their poetry pervaded all his earlier verses. His
efforts in classical French were by no means successful. It was only
when he had raised himself above the influence of authors who had
preceded him, that he soared into originality, and was proclaimed the
Poet of the South.
Jasmin did not at first write in Gascon. In fact, he had not yet
mastered a perfect knowledge of this dialect. Though familiarly used in
ancient times, it did not exist in any written form. It was the speech
of the common people; and though the Gascons spoke the idiom, it had
lost much of its originality. It had become mixed, more or less, with
the ordinary French language, and the old Gascon words were becoming
gradually forgotten.
Yet the common people, after all, remain the depositories of old idioms
and old traditions, as well as of the inheritances of the past. They are
the most conservative element in society. They love their old speech,
their old dress, their old manners and customs, and have an instinctive
worship of ancient memories.
Their old idioms are long preserved. Their old dialect continues the
language of the fireside, of daily toil, of daily needs, and of domestic
joys and sorrows. It hovers in the air about them, and has been sucked
in with their mothers' milk. Yet, when a primitive race such as the
Gascons mix much with the people of the adjoining departments, the local
dialect gradually dies out, and they learn to speak the language of
their neighbours.
The Gascon was disappearing as a speech, and very few of its written
elements survived. Was it possible for Jasmin to revive the dialect,
and embody it in a written language? He knew much of the patois, from
hearing it spoken at home. But now, desiring to know it more thoroughly,
he set to work and studied it. He was almost as assiduous as Sir Walter
Scott in learning obscure Lowland words, while writing the Waverley
Novels. Jasmin went into the market-places, where the peasants from the
country sold their produce; and there he picked up many new words and
expressions. He made excursions into the country round Agen, where many
of the old farmers and labourers spoke nothing but Gascon. He conversed
with illiterate people, and especially with old women at their
spinning-wheels, and eagerly listened to their ancient tales and
legends.
He thus gathered together many a golden relic, which he afterwards made
use of in his poetical works. He studied Gascon like a pioneer. He made
his own lexicon, and eventually formed a written dialect, which he wove
into poems, to the delight of the people in the South of France. For the
Gascon dialect--such is its richness and beauty--expresses many shades
of meaning which are entirely lost in the modern French.
When Jasmin first read his poems in Gascon to his townspeople at Agen,
he usually introduced his readings by describing the difficulties he
had encountered in prosecuting his enquiries. His hearers, who knew more
French than Gascon, detected in his poems many comparatively unknown
words,--not indeed of his own creation, but merely the result of his
patient and long-continued investigation of the Gascon dialect. Yet they
found the language, as written and spoken by him, full of harmony--rich,
mellifluous, and sonorous. Gascon resembles the Spanish, to which it
is strongly allied, more than the Provencal, the language of the
Troubadours, which is more allied to the Latin or Italian.
Hallam, in his 'History of the Middle Ages,' regards the sudden outburst
of Troubadour poetry as one symptom of the rapid impulse which the human
mind received in the twelfth century, contemporaneous with the improved
studies that began at the Universities. It was also encouraged by the
prosperity of Southern France, which was comparatively undisturbed by
internal warfare, and it continued until the tremendous storm that fell
upon Languedoc during the crusade against the Albigenses, which shook
off the flowers of Provencal literature.{1}
The language of the South-West of France, including the Gascon, was then
called Langue d'Oc; while that of the south-east of France, including
the Provencal, was called Langue d'Oil. M. Littre, in the Preface to his
Dictionary of the French language, says that he was induced to begin the
study of the subject by his desire to know something more of the Langue
d'Oil--the old French language.{2}
In speaking of the languages of Western Europe, M. Littre says that the
German is the oldest, beginning in the fourth century; that the French
is the next, beginning in the ninth century; and that the English is
the last, beginning in the fourteenth century. It must be remembered,
however, that Plat Deutsch preceded the German, and was spoken by the
Frisians, Angles, and Saxons, who lived by the shores of the North Sea.
The Gaelic or Celtic, and Kymriac languages, were spoken in the middle
and north-west of France; but these, except in Brittany, have been
superseded by the modern French language, which is founded mainly on
Latin, German, and Celtic, but mostly on Latin. The English language
consists mostly of Saxon, Norse, and Norman-French with a mixture of
Welsh or Ancient British. That language is, however, no test of the
genealogy of a people, is illustrated by the history of France itself.
In the fourth and fifth centuries, the Franks, a powerful German race,
from the banks of the Rhine, invaded and conquered the people north of
the Somme, and eventually gave the name of France to the entire country.
The Burgundians and Visigoths, also a German race, invaded France, and
settled themselves in the south-east. In the year 464, Childeric the
Frank took Paris.
The whole history of the occupation of France is told by Augustin
Thierry, in his 'Narratives of the Merovingian Times.' "There are
Franks," he says in his Preface, "who remained pure Germans in Gaul;
Gallo-Romans, irritated and disgusted by the barbarian rule; Franks more
or less influenced by the manners and customs of civilised life; and
'Romans more or less barbarian in mind and manners.' The contrast may
be followed in all its shades through the sixth century, and into the
middle of the seventh; later, the Germanic and Gallo-Roman stamp seemed
effaced and lost in a semi-barbarism clothed in theocratic forms."
The Franks, when they had completed the conquest of the entire country,
gave it the name of Franken-ric--the Franks' kingdom. Eventually,
Charles the Great, or Charlemagne, descended from Childeric the Frank,
was in 800 crowned Emperor of the West. Towards the end of his reign,
the Norsemen began to devastate the northern coast of Franken-ric.
Aix-la-Chapelle was Charlemagne's capital, and there he died and was
buried. At his death, the Empire was divided among his sons. The Norse
Vikingers continued their invasions; and to purchase repose, Charles the
Simple ceded to Duke Rollo a large territory in the northwest of France,
which in deference to their origin, was known by the name of Normandy.
There Norman-French was for a long time spoken. Though the Franks had
supplanted the Romans, the Roman language continued to be spoken. In 996
Paris was made the capital of France; and from that time, the language
of Paris became, with various modifications, the language of France; and
not only of France, but the Roman or Latin tongue became the foundation
of the languages of Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
Thus, Gaulish, Frankish, and Norman disappeared to give place to the
Latin-French. The Kymriac language was preserved only in Brittany, where
it still lingers. And in the south-west of France, where the population
was furthest removed from the invasions of the Gauls, Ostrogoths,
and Visigoths, the Basques continued to preserve their language,--the
Basques, who are supposed by Canon Isaac Taylor to be the direct
descendants of the Etruscans.
The descendants of the Gauls, however, constitute the mass of the people
in Central France. The Gauls, or Galatians, are supposed to have come
from the central district of Asia Minor. They were always a warlike
people. In their wanderings westward, they passed through the north
of Italy and entered France, where they settled in large numbers. Dr.
Smith, in his Dictionary of the Bible, says that "Galatai is the same
word as Keltici," which indicates that the Gauls were Kelts. It is
supposed that St. Paul wrote his Epistle to the Galatians soon after his
visit to the country of their origin. "Its abruptness and severity, and
the sadness of its tone, are caused by their sudden perversion from the
doctrine which the Apostle had taught them, and which at first they had
received so willingly. It is no fancy, if we see in this fickleness a
specimen of that 'esprit impretueux, ouvert a toutes les impressions,'
and that 'mobilite extreme,' which Thierry marks as characteristic of
the Gaulish race." At all events, the language of the Gauls disappeared
in Central France to make way for the language or the Capital--the
modern French, founded on the Latin. The Gaulish race, nevertheless,
preserved their characteristics--quickness, lightness, mobility, and
elasticity--qualities which enabled them quickly to conceive new ideas,
and at the same time to quickly abandon them. The Franks had given
the country the name it now bears--that of France. But they were long
regarded as enemies by the Central and Southern Gauls. In Gascony, the
foreigner was called Low Franciman, and was regarded with suspicion and
dislike.
"This term of Franciman," says Miss Costello, who travelled through the
country and studied the subject, "evidently belongs to a period of the
English occupation of Aquitaine, when a Frenchman was another word for
an enemy."{3} But the word has probably a more remote origin. When the
Franks, of German origin, burst into Gaul, and settled in the country
north of the Loire, and afterwards carried their conquests to the
Pyrenees, the Franks were regarded as enemies in the south of France.
"Then all the countries," says Thierry, "united by force to the empire
of the Franks, and over which in consequence of this union, the name of
France had extended itself, made unheard-of efforts to reconquer their
ancient names and places. Of all the Gallic provinces, none but the
southern ones succeeded in this great enterprise; and after the wars of
insurrection, which, under the sons of Charlemagne, succeeded the wars
of conquest, Aquitaine and Provence became distinct states. Among the
South Eastern provinces reappeared even the ancient name of Gaul, which
had for ever perished north of the Loire. The chiefs of the new Kingdom
of Aries, which extended from the Jura to the Alps, took the title of
Gaul in opposition to the Kings of France."{4}
It is probable that this was the cause of the name of "Franciman" being
regarded as an hereditary term of reproach in the Gaulish country south
of the Loire. Gascon and Provencal were the principal dialects which
remained in the South, though Littre classes them together as the
language of the Troubadours.
They were both well understood in the South; and Jasmin's recitations
were received with as much enthusiasm at Nimes, Aries, and Marseilles,
as at Toulouse, Agen, and Bordeaux.
Mezzofanti, a very Tower of Babel in dialects and languages, said of
the Provencal, that it was the only patois of the Middle Ages, with its
numerous derivations from the Greek, the Arabic, and the Latin, which
has survived the various revolutions of language. The others have been
altered and modified. They have suffered from the caprices of victory or
of fortune. Of all the dialects of the Roman tongue, this patois
alone preserves its purity and life. It still remains the sonorous and
harmonious language of the Troubadours. The patois has the suppleness
of the Italian, the sombre majesty of the Spanish, the energy and
preciseness of the Latin, with the "Molle atque facetum, le dolce
de, l'Ionic;" which still lives among the Phoceens of Marseilles. The
imagination and genius of Gascony have preserved the copious richness of
the language.
M. de Lavergne, in his notice of Jasmin's works, frankly admits the
local jealousy which existed between the Troubadours of Gascony and
Provence. There seemed, he said, to be nothing disingenuous in the
silence of the Provencals as to Jasmin's poems. They did not allow that
he borrowed from them, any more than that they borrowed from him. These
men of Southern France are born in the land of poetry. It breathes in
their native air. It echoes round them in its varied measures. Nay, the
rhymes which are its distinguishing features, pervade their daily talk.
The seeds lie dormant in their native soil, and when trodden under foot,
they burst through the ground and evolve their odour in the open air.
Gascon and Provencal alike preserve the same relation to the classic
romance--that lovely but short-lived eldest daughter of the Latin--the
language of the Troubadours.
We have said that the Gascon dialect was gradually expiring when Jasmin
undertook its revival. His success in recovering and restoring it,
and presenting it in a written form, was the result of laborious
investigation. He did not at first realize the perfect comprehension of
the idiom, but he eventually succeeded by patient perseverance, When
we read his poems, we are enabled to follow, step by step, his
lexicological progress.
At first, he clung to the measures most approved in French poetry,
especially to Alexandrines and Iambic tetrameters, and to their
irregular association in a sort of ballad metre, which in England has
been best handled by Robert Browning in his fine ballad of 'Harve;
Riel.'
Jasmin's first rhymes were written upon curl papers, and then used on
the heads of his lady customers. When the spirit of original poetry
within him awoke, his style changed. Genius brought sweet music from his
heart and mind. Imagination spiritualised his nature, lifted his soul
above the cares of ordinary life, and awakened the consciousness of his
affinity with what is pure and noble. Jasmin sang as a bird sings; at
first in weak notes, then in louder, until at length his voice filled
the skies. Near the end of his life he was styled the Saint Vincent de
Paul of poetry.
Jasmin might be classed among the Uneducated Poets. But what poet is not
uneducated at the beginning of his career? The essential education of
the poet is not taught in the schools.
The lowly man, against whom the asperities of his lot have closed the
doors of worldly academies, may nevertheless have some special vocation
for the poetic life. Academies cannot shut him out from the odour of the
violet or the song of the nightingale. He hears the lark's song filling
the heavens, as the happy bird fans the milk-white cloud with its wings.
He listens to the purling of the brook, the bleating of the lamb, the
song of the milkmaid, and the joyous cry of the reaper. Thus his mind
is daily fed with the choicest influences of nature. He cannot but
appreciate the joy, the glory, the unconscious delight of living. "The
beautiful is master of a star." This feeling of beauty is the nurse of
civilisation and true refinement. Have we not our Burns, who
"in glory and in joy
Followed his plough along the mountain side;"
Clare, the peasant boy; Bloomfield, the farmer's lad; Tannahill, the
weaver; Allan Ramsay, the peruke-maker; Cooper, the shoemaker; and
Critchley Prince, the factory-worker; but greater than these was
Shakespeare,--though all were of humble origin.
France too has had its uneducated poets. Though the ancient song-writers
of France were noble; Henry IV., author of Charmante Gabrielle;
Thibault, Count of Champagne; Lusignan, Count de la Marche; Raval,
Blondel, and Basselin de la Vive, whose songs were as joyous as the
juice of his grapes; yet some of the best French poets of modem times
have been of humble origin--Marmontel, Moliere, Rousseau, and Beranger.
There were also Reboul, the baker; Hibley, the working-tailor; Gonzetta,
the shoemaker; Durand, the joiner; Marchand, the lacemaker; Voileau, the
sail-maker;
Magu, the weaver; Poucy, the mason; Germiny, the cooper;{5} and finally,
Jasmin the barber and hair dresser, who was not the least of the
Uneducated Poets.
The first poem which Jasmin composed in the Gascon dialect was written
in 1822, when he was only twenty-four years old. It was entitled La
fidelitat Agenoso, which he subsequently altered to Me cal Mouri (Il me
fait mourir), or "Let me die." It is a languishing romantic poem, after
the manner of Florian, Jasmin's first master in poetry. It was printed
at Agen in a quarto form, and sold for a franc. Jasmin did not attach
his name to the poem, but only his initials.
Sainte-Beuve, in his notice of the poem, says, "It is a pretty,
sentimental romance, showing that Jasmin possessed the brightness and
sensibility of the Troubadours. As one may say, he had not yet quitted
the guitar for the flageolet; and Marot, who spoke of his flageolet,
had not, in the midst of his playful spirit, those tender accents which
contrasted so well with his previous compositions. And did not Henry
IV., in the midst of his Gascon gaieties and sallies, compose his sweet
song of Charmante Gabrielle? Jasmin indeed is the poet who is nearest
the region of Henry IV."{6} Me cal Mouri was set to music by Fourgons,
and obtained great popularity in the south. It was known by heart, and
sung everywhere; in Agen, Toulouse, and throughout Provence. It was not
until the publication of the first volume of his poems that it was known
to be the work of Jasmin.
Miss Louisa Stuart Costello, when making her pilgrimage in the South of
France, relates that, in the course of her journey," A friend repeated
to me two charming ballads picked up in Languedoc, where there is a
variety in the patois. I cannot resist giving them here, that my readers
may compare the difference of dialect. I wrote them clown, however,
merely by ear, and am not aware that they have ever been printed. The
mixture of French, Spanish, and Italian is very curious."{7}
As the words of Jasmin's romance were written down by Miss Costello from
memory, they are not quite accurate; but her translation into English
sufficiently renders the poet's meaning. The following is the first
verse of Jasmin's poem in Gascon--
"Deja la ney encrumis la naturo,
Tout es tranquille et tout cargo lou dol;
Dins lou clouche la brezago murmuro,
Et lou tuquet succedo al rossignol:
Del mal, helas! bebi jusq'a la ligo,
Moun co gemis sans espouer de gari;
Plus de bounhur, ey perdut moun amigo,
Me cal mouri! me cal mouri!"
Which Miss Costello thus translates into English:
"Already sullen night comes sadly on,
And nature's form is clothed with mournful weeds;
Around the tower is heard the breeze's moan,
And to the nightingale the bat succeeds.
Oh! I have drained the cup of misery,
My fainting heart has now no hope in store.
Ah! wretched me! what have I but to die?
For I have lost my love for evermore!"
There are four verses in the poem, but the second verse may also be
given
"Fair, tender Phoebe, hasten on thy course,
My woes revive while I behold thee shine,
For of my hope thou art no more the source,
And of my happiness no more the sign.
Oh! I have drained the cup of misery,
My fainting heart has now no bliss in store.
Ah! wretched me! what have I but to die?
Since I have lost my love for evermore!"
The whole of the poem was afterwards translated into modem French, and,
though somewhat artificial, it became as popular in the north as in the
south.
Jasmin's success in his native town, and his growing popularity,
encouraged him to proceed with the making of verses. His poems were
occasionally inserted in the local journals; but the editors did not
approve of his use of the expiring Gascon dialect. They were of opinion
that his works might be better appreciated if they appeared in modern
French. Gascon was to a large extent a foreign language, and greatly
interfered with Jasmin's national reputation as a poet.
Nevertheless he held on his way, and continued to write his verses in
Gascon. They contained many personal lyrics, tributes, dedications,
hymns for festivals, and impromptus, scarcely worthy of being collected
and printed. Jasmin said of the last description of verse: "One can only
pay a poetical debt by means of impromptus, and though they may be good
money of the heart, they are almost always bad money of the head."
Jasmin's next poem was The Charivari (Lou Charibari), also written in
Gascon. It was composed in 1825, when he was twenty-seven years old; and
dedicated to M. Duprount, the Advocate, who was himself a poetaster. The
dedication contained some fine passages of genuine beauty and graceful
versification. It was in some respects an imitation of the Lutrin of
Boileau. It was very different from the doggerel in which he had taken
part with his humpbacked father so long ago. Then he had blown the
cow-horn, now he spoke with the tongue of a trumpet. The hero of
Jasmin's Charivari was one Aduber, an old widower, who dreamt of
remarrying. It reminded one of the strains of Beranger; in other
passages of the mock-heroic poem of Boileau.
Though the poem when published was read with much interest, it was not
nearly so popular as Me cal Mouri. This last-mentioned poem, his
first published work, touched the harp of sadness; while his Charivari
displayed the playfulness of joy. Thus, at the beginning of his career,
Jasmin revealed himself as a poet in two very different styles; in one,
touching the springs of grief, and in the other exhibiting brightness
and happiness. At the end of the same year he sounded his third and
deepest note in his poem On the Death of General Foy--one of France's
truest patriots. Now his lyre was complete; it had its three strings--of
sadness, joy, and sorrow.
These three poems--Me cal Mouri, the Charivari, and the ode On the Death
of General Foy, with some other verses--were published in 1825. What was
to be the title of the volume? As Adam, the carpenter-poet of Nevers,
had entitled his volume of poetry 'Shavings,' so Jasmin decided to name
his collection 'The Curl-papers of Jasmin, Coiffeur of Agen.' The title
was a good one, and the subsequent volumes of his works were known as
La Papillotos (the Curl-papers) of Jasmin. The publication of this first
volume served to make Jasmin's name popular beyond the town in which
they had been composed and published. His friend M. Gaze said of him,
that during the year 1825 he had been marrying his razor with the swan's
quill; and that his hand of velvet in shaving was even surpassed by his
skill in verse-making.
Charles Nodier, his old friend, who had entered the barber's shop
some years before to intercede between the poet and his wife, sounded
Jasmin's praises in the Paris journals. He confessed that he had been
greatly struck with the Charivari, and boldly declared that the language
of the Troubadours, which everyone supposed to be dead, was still in
full life in France; that it not only lived, but that at that very
moment a poor barber at Agen, without any instruction beyond that given
by the fields, the woods, and the heavens, had written a serio-comic
poem which, at the risk of being thought crazy by his colleagues of the
Academy, he considered to be better composed than the Lutrin of Boileau,
and even better than one of Pope's masterpieces, the Rape of the Lock.
The first volume of the Papillotes sold very well; and the receipts
from its sale not only increased Jasmin's income, but also increased
his national reputation. Jasmin was not, however, elated by success. He
remained simple, frugal, honest, and hard-working. He was not carried
off his feet by eclat. Though many illustrious strangers, when passing
through Agen, called upon and interviewed the poetical coiffeur, he
quietly went back to his razors, his combs, and his periwigs, and
cheerfully pursued the business that he could always depend upon in his
time of need.
Endnotes to Chapter V.
{1}Hallam's 'Middle Ages,' iii. 434. 12th edit. (Murray.)
{2} His words are these: "La conception m'en fut suggeree par mes etudes
sur la vieille langue francaise ou langue d'oil. Je fus si frappe des
liens qui unissent le francais moderne au francais ancien, j'apercus
tant de cas ou les sens et des locutions du jour ne s'expliquent que par
les sens et les locutions d'autrefois, tant d'exemples ou la forme des
mots n'est pas intelligible sans les formes qui ont precede, qu'il me
sembla que la doctrine et meme l'usage de la langue restent mal assis
s'ils ne reposent sur leur base antique." (Preface, ii.)
{3} 'Bearn and the Pyrenees,' i. 348.
{4} THIERRY--'Historical Essays,' No. XXIV.
{5} Les Poetes du Peuple an xix. Siecle. Par Alphonse Viollet. Paris,
1846.
{6} Portraits contemporains, ii. 61 (ed. 1847).
{7} 'Pilgrimage to Auvergne,' ii. 210.