It was a solemn and anxious moment for Jasmin when he appeared before
this select party of the most distinguished literary men in Paris: he
was no doubt placed at a considerable disadvantage, for his judges did
not even know his language. He had frequently recited to audiences who
did not know Gascon; and on such occasions he used, before commencing
his recitation, to give in French a short sketch of his poem, with, an
explanation of some of the more difficult Gascon words. This was all;
his mimic talent did the rest. His gestures were noble and well-marked.
His eyes were flashing, but they became languishing when he represented
tender sentiments. Then his utterance changed entirely, often suddenly,
following the expressions of grief and joy. There were now smiles, now
tears in his voice.
It was remarkable that Jasmin should first recite before the blind
historian The Blind Girl of Castel-Cuille. It may be that he thought it
his finest poem, within the compass of time allotted to him, and that it
might best please his audience. When he began to speak in Gascon he was
heard with interest. A laugh was, indeed, raised by a portion of his
youthful hearers, but Jasmin flashed his penetrating eye upon them; and
there was no more laughter. When he reached the tenderest part he gave
way to his emotion, and wept. Tears are as contagious as smiles; and
even the academicians, who may not have wept with Rachel, wept with
Jasmin. It was the echo of sorrow to sorrow; the words which blind
despair had evoked from the blind Margaret.
All eyes were turned to Thierry as Jasmin described the girl's
blindness. The poet omitted some of the more painful lines, which
might have occasioned sorrow to his kind entertainer. These lines, for
instance, in Gascon:
"Jour per aoutres, toutjour! et per jou, malhurouzo,
Toutjour ney! toutjour ney!
Que fay negre len d'el! Oh! que moun amo es tristo!
Oh! que souffri, moun Diou! Couro ben doun, Batisto!"
or, as translated by Longfellow:
"Day for the others ever, but for me
For ever night! for ever night!
When he is gone, 'tis dark! my soul is sad!
I suffer! O my God! come, make me glad."
When Jasmin omitted this verse, Thierry, who had listened with rapt
attention, interrupted him. "Poet," he said, "you have omitted a
passage; read the poem as you have written it." Jasmin paused, and then
added the omitted passage. "Can it be?" said the historian: "surely
you, who can describe so vividly the agony of those who cannot see, must
yourself have suffered blindness!" The words of Jasmin might have been
spoken by Thierry himself, who in his hours of sadness often said, "I
see nothing but darkness today."
At the end of his recital Jasmin was much applauded. Ampere, who had
followed him closely in the French translation of his poem, said:
"If Jasmin had never written verse, it would be worth going a hundred
leagues to listen to his prose." What charmed his auditors most was his
frankness. He would even ask them to listen to what he thought his best
verses. "This passage," he would say, "is very fine." Then he read it
afresh, and was applauded. He liked to be cheered. "Applaud! applaud!"
he said at the end of his reading, "the clapping of your hands will be
heard at Agen."
After the recitation an interesting conversation took place. Jasmin
was asked how it was that he first began to write poetry; for every one
likes to know the beginnings of self-culture. He thereupon entered
into a brief history of his life; how he had been born poor; how his
grandfather had died at the hospital; and how he had been brought up
by charity. He described his limited education and his admission to the
barber's shop; his reading of Florian; his determination to do something
of a similar kind; his first efforts, his progress, and eventually his
success. He said that his object was to rely upon nature and truth, and
to invest the whole with imagination and sensibility--that delicate
touch which vibrated through all the poems he had written. His auditors
were riveted by his sparkling and brilliant conversation.
This seance at M. Thierry's completed the triumph of Jasmin at Paris.
The doors of the most renowned salons were thrown open to him. The most
brilliant society in the capital listened to him and feted him. Madame
de Remusat sent him a present of a golden pen, with the words: "I admire
your beautiful poetry; I never forget you; accept this little gift as
a token of my sincere admiration." Lamartine described Jasmin, perhaps
with some exaggeration, as the truest and most original of modern poets.
Much of Jasmin's work was no doubt the result of intuition, for "the
poet is born, not made." He was not so much the poet of art as of
instinct. Yet M. Charles de Mazede said of him: "Left to himself,
without study, he carried art to perfection." His defect of literary
education perhaps helped him, by leaving him to his own natural
instincts. He himself said, with respect to the perusal of books: "I
constantly read Lafontaine, Victor Hugo, Lamartine and Beranger." It is
thus probable that he may have been influenced to a considerable extent
by his study of the works of others.
Before Jasmin left Paris he had the honour of being invited to visit the
royal family at the palace of Neuilly, a favourite residence of Louis
Philippe. The invitation was made through General de Rumigny, who came
to see the poet at his hotel for the purpose. Jasmin had already made
the acquaintance of the Duke and Duchess of Orleans, while at Agen a few
years before. His visit to Neuilly was made on the 24th of May, 1842. He
was graciously received by the royal family. The Duchess of Orleans
took her seat beside him. She read the verse in Gascon which had been
engraved on the pedestal of the statue at Nerac, erected to the
memory of Henry IV. The poet was surprised as well as charmed by her
condescension. "What, Madame," he exclaimed, "you speak the patois?"
"El jou tabe" (and I also), said Louis Philippe, who came and joined the
Princess and the poet. Never was Jasmin more pleased than when he heard
the words of the King at such a moment.
Jasmin was placed quite at his ease by this gracious reception. The King
and the Duchess united in desiring him to recite some of his poetry.
He at once complied with their request, and recited his Caritat
and L'Abuglo ('The Blind Girl'). After this the party engaged in
conversation. Jasmin, by no means a courtier, spoke of the past, of
Henry IV., and especially of Napoleon--"L'Ampereur," as he described
him. Jasmin had, in the first volume of his 'Papillotos,' written some
satirical pieces on the court and ministers of Louis Philippe. His
friends wished him to omit these pieces from the new edition of his
works, which was about to be published; but he would not consent to do
so. "I must give my works," he said, "just as they were composed; their
suppression would be a negation of myself, and an act of adulation
unworthy of any true-minded man." Accordingly they remained in the
'Papillotos.'
Before he left the royal party, the Duchess of Orleans presented Jasmin
with a golden pin, ornamented with pearls and diamonds; and the
King afterwards sent him, as a souvenir of his visit to the Court, a
beautiful gold watch, ornamented with diamonds. Notwithstanding the
pleasure of this visit, Jasmin, as with a prophetic eye, saw the marks
of sorrow upon the countenance of the King, who was already experiencing
the emptiness of human glory. Scarcely had Jasmin left the palace when
he wrote to his friend Madame de Virens, at Agen: "On that noble face
I could see, beneath the smile, the expression of sadness; so that from
to-day I can no longer say: 'Happy as a King.'"
Another entertainment, quite in contrast with his visit to the King, was
the banquet which Jasmin received from the barbers and hair-dressers of
Paris. He there recited the verses which he had written in their honour.
M. Boisjoslin{1} says that half the barbers of Paris are Iberiens. For
the last three centuries, in all the legends and anecdotes, the barber
is always a Gascon. The actor, the singer, often came from Provence, but
much oftener from Gascony: that is the country of la parole.
During Jasmin's month at Paris he had been unable to visit many of
the leading literary men; but he was especially anxious to see M.
Chateaubriand, the father of modern French literature. Jasmin was
fortunate in finding Chateaubriand at home, at 112 Rue du Bac. He
received Jasmin with cordiality. "I know you intimately already," said
the author of the 'Genius of Christianity;' "my friends Ampere and
Fauriel have often spoken of you. They understand you, they love and
admire you. They acknowledge your great talent,' though they have long
since bade their adieu to poetry; you know poets are very wayward," he
added, with a sly smile. "You have a happy privilege, my dear sir:
when our age turns prosy, you have but to take your lyre, in the sweet
country of the south, and resuscitate the glory of the Troubadours. They
tell me, that in one of your recent journeys you evoked enthusiastic
applause, and entered many towns carpeted with flowers. Ah, mon Dieu, we
can never do that with our prose!"
"Ah, dear sir," said Jasmin, "you have achieved much more glory than I.
Without mentioning the profound respect with which all France regards
you, posterity and the world will glorify you."
"Glory, indeed," replied Chateaubriand, with a sad smile. "What is that
but a flower that fades and dies; but speak to me of your sweet south;
it is beautiful. I think of it, as of Italy; indeed it sometimes seems
to me better than that glorious country!"
Notwithstanding his triumphant career at Paris, Jasmin often thought
of Agen, and of his friends and relations at home. "Oh, my wife, my
children, my guitar, my workshop, my papillotos, my pleasant Gravier, my
dear good friends, with what pleasure I shall again see you." That was
his frequent remark in his letters to Agen. He was not buoyed up by the
praises he had received. He remained, as usual, perfectly simple in his
thoughts, ways, and habits; and when the month had elapsed, he returned
joyfully to his daily work at Agen.
Jasmin afterwards described the recollections of his visit in his
'Voyage to Paris' (Moun Bouyatage a Paris). It was a happy piece of
poetry; full of recollections of the towns and departments through which
he journeyed, and finally of his arrival in Paris. Then the wonders of
the capital, the crowds in the streets, the soldiers, the palaces, the
statues and columns, the Tuileries where the Emperor had lived.
"I pass, and repass, not a soul I know,
Not one Agenais in this hurrying crowd;
No one salutes or shakes me by the hand."
And yet, he says, what a grand world it is! how tasteful! how
fashionable! There seem to be no poor. They are all ladies and
gentlemen. Each day is a Sabbath; and under the trees the children
play about the fountains. So different from Agen! He then speaks of
his interview with Louis Philippe and the royal family, his recital
of L'Abuglo before "great ladies, great writers, lords, ministers, and
great savants;" and he concludes his poem with the words: "Paris makes
me proud, but Agen makes me happy."
The poem is full of the impressions of his mind at the time--simple,
clear, naive. It is not a connected narrative, nor a description of what
he saw, but it was full of admiration of Paris, the centre of France,
and, as Frenchmen think, of civilisation. It is the simple wonder of the
country cousin who sees Paris for the first time--the city that had so
long been associated with his recollections of the past. And perhaps he
seized its more striking points more vividly than any regular denizen of
the capital.
Endnotes for Chapter XII.
{1} 'Les Peuples de la France: Ethnographie Nationale.' (Didier.)