I have never seen mentioned in your periodical publications the _Revue
des Pyrénées_; and perhaps I should never have heard of the periodical
myself if I had not been in this interesting old city, and if my eye
had not chanced on the title of one of the articles of a recent number
advertised in a local journal. “Un Ariégeois sénateur des Etats-Unis
d’Amérique: Pierre Soulé” was the title that attracted my attention and
caused me to procure a copy, which I have found interesting in more ways
than one.
The publication is a well-printed quarterly of 150 pages, and has
completed some time since the second year of its existence. Its full
title is as follows: _Revue des Pyrénées et de la France meridionale,
Organe de l’Association Pyrénéenne et de l’union des Sociétés Savantes
du Midi_. The founders of the periodical are the late JULIEN SACAZE, a
savant much venerated in these parts, and DR. F. GARRIGOU, its present
editor.
The Association Pyrénéenne, of which, as we have just seen, the _Revue_
is the organ, is an active and significant organisation. Here are some
of its aims. While it recognises the greatness of the Capital, Paris,
it advocates decentralisation, by “showing that workers living in the
provinces are as capable as others, though enjoying less support and
funds, to aid in the building up of the great scientific edifice of
France.” The importance and boldness of this declaration can scarcely be
appreciated by those who have not breathed for some time the excessively
monopolistic atmosphere of the French capital, which has been so baneful
to so many national interests. The Association would also act as a
means of union between the various learned societies of the South, the
Midi, and thus render it possible to organise an annual Congress “for
the discussion and defense of the grand scientific, industrial, and
commercial questions which concern Southern France.”
Here we see brought out still more precisely that rivalry between the
South and North, characteristic of most nations, and which presents such
curious aspects in the past and present history of France.
I never weary of quietly noting, while in the South, the delightful
contempt which the _méridionaux_ show for their Parisian fellow
countrymen. The other day at dinner, for instance, I heard a learned
professor of one of the Southern Universities defending the Southern
accent and preferring it to “the Parisian accent,” as he put it. But I
would need pages of your space to develop this line of thought. Suffice
it to say here that the Association Pyrénéenne and its organ the _Revue
des Pyrénées_ intend to prove, and have succeeded in proving, if we may
judge by this number of the _Revue_ and by the account of the proceedings
of the first Congress of the Association, placed at the head of the
number, that there are creditable savants and sound learning outside of
the walls of Victor Hugo’s “Ville Lumière.”
Another object of the Association would be dear to Castelar’s heart.
I give it in full: “To remove morally the grand Pyreneean curtain and
to offer the hand of friendship to a nation justly proud of its past,
whose interests touch our own, and which has the right, because of
the illustrious sons of Catalonia, Aragon, and Navarre, to take part
in an intellectual and Pyreneean association based on science.” This
is a paraphrase of Louis XIV’s famous remark concerning the Pyrenees,
when he placed his grandson on the throne of Spain. Nor can one be
surprised at the strong affection which binds Southern France to the
Iberian peninsula. The grand mountains, the “Pyreneean curtain,” which
separate the two countries, are always in sight, their snow-capped peaks
glittering in the sun; the various _patois_, especially the dialect
of Pau, resemble the Spanish more than they do the French tongue;
Spanish money is foisted on you at the shops, and picturesque Spanish
mountaineers lend a peculiar charm to the country fairs, while the nation
is ever on the eve of a pronunciamento, destined to give to Spain the
republican institutions of France.
But to return to PIERRE SOULÉ who is the cause and starting point of this
letter. Commandant Trespaillé’s eulogistic biographical sketch is of
slight interest to American readers, who can find elsewhere a fuller and
more exact account of the brilliant but rather disappointing career of
the once famous Franco-Louisiana statesman. M. Trespaillé’s reference to
“Old Hickory” as “the immortal Jackson,” his statement that the American
people is full of prejudices against the French race, his metamorphosing
New Hampshire’s only President into Pierre Francklin, and some other
similar slips can be overlooked, for this essay offers a striking example
of the dominant idea of the _Revue_, the Association and patriotic
Southerners generally,—the glorification of the great men and great
actions of the sunny South, the “Midi ensoleillé.”
And I must admit, foreigner though I am, that I share much of this
enthusiasm for persons and things meridional, and especially for the
latter. What a land this is for historical and archæological study!
Take this number of the _Revue des Pyrénées_, for instance; it is full
of it. Here, for example, are the titles of three of the papers read
at the first Congress of the Association Pyrénéenne, to which Congress
I referred above: “The Domitian Road from Narbonne to Perpignan,” “The
Third Century School of Sculpture in Southern Gaul,” and “The Roman Road
from Narbonne to Carcassonne.” There are several articles in the _Revue_
about the University of Toulouse, which is stated to be the oldest in
France after that of Paris, having been founded in 1229, more than two
hundred and fifty years before the discovery of America. The law school
even antedates 1229 and its foundation is lost in the obscurity of
the early centuries of the Christian era. Another article begins the
publication of a list of the professors at the law school. The first
recorded name dates from 1251. When one finds such themes as these on
every hand, Rome, Gaul, the Middle Ages, and feudalism become almost
living realities. And how inexhaustibly rich Languedoc is in these
reminders of the distant past.
And the patois or dialects of this part of France are not the least
ancient and interesting subjects for study. Wonder is often expressed
that the English of America differs so slightly from the English of
England, with three thousand miles of ocean separating the two countries.
The wonder increases when you find that here in Languedoc the same patois
differs in some particulars from town to town. Let me first mention some
big differences and then touch upon some minor ones. If you take the
train which leaves Toulouse at about half past eleven in the morning,
you will arrive at Pau at half past four. During these five hours on a
pretty slow train you have passed from one patois to another. The lower
classes of Toulouse cannot understand the lower classes of Pau. And
if you continue in the same train, at about half past eight you reach
Mauléon, in the French Basque Provinces, where the populace of neither
Toulouse nor Pau could carry on a conversation with the populace of
Mauléon. Thus a nine hours’ ride of about 175 miles on an accommodation
train carries you through a region where French is the vernacular of the
educated classes and is the official language, but where the great mass
of the population is divided into three groups, each speaking a different
dialect.
The modifications which the same patois undergoes in neighboring
localities is not less curious though of course not so radical. Roughly
speaking it may be said that the same patois is spoken from Montpellier
to Bordeaux and from Toulouse well up into the centre of France, which
embraces the region where prevailed the Langue d’oc from which the
present patois is derived. But, while a peasant could make himself
understood throughout this wide territory, his ear would often be
perplexed by more than one strange word and phrase. I was once told on
the Riviera that the patois of Menton differed considerably from that of
Nice and that this was particularly the case before the construction of
the Corniche road and the railway, when a denizen of the former place
could reach the latter city only by doubling Cape Martin under sail. I
do not know how true this statement is, but I believe it to be correct,
after a superficial study on these same lines which I have just made in
the Department of the Tarn, one of the most isolated portions of Upper
Languedoc. I find that the patois of towns as near together, as are New
York, Newark, Patterson, Nyack and Tarrytown, for example, differs, not,
perhaps, in its construction but in its vocabulary. Let me give some
examples. Thus, potato, which is _truffet_ at Cordes, becomes _truffo_
at Castres. _Patano_, the word employed in the South East end of the
Department is also heard at Castres, but never at Cordes, which is in the
North West end of the Department, Castres being about in the centre. Dog
is _cagnot_ and _cô_ at Cordes, and _gous_ at Castres. (At Montpellier,
in a contiguous Department it is _tschi_, while at Pau they say _can_,
which approaches very near the Latin.) Pig is _pourcel_ at Castres and
_tessou_ at Cordes. Broom _engranicro_ at Castres and _balatso_ at
Cordes. I have also noted the following difference between the Tarn
patois and that of Pau. The _f_ of the former always becomes an aspirated
_h_ in the latter. Thus, _femo_, woman (Castres) is _henno_ at Pau;
_fourco_, pitchfork (Castres) _hourco_ (Pau); _foun_ fountain (Castres)
_houn_ (Pau).
A comparison of this patois with the French as regards the spelling of
geographical names reveals a fact that would somewhat dampen the ardor
of our friend Colonel Shephard, of New York, in his effort to force the
gazeteers to give geographical names as they are written in the countries
where they are found. One might have thought that such near neighbors as
the Langue d’oil and the Langue d’oc would have come to some rational
understanding on this point and that the Ile-de-France would have
accepted the spelling of Languedoc. But not so. The towns and rivers of
this part of France look as different in French and patois printed pages
and sound as differently when pronounced by educated and peasant mouths,
as do the towns and rivers of Italy when seen in Italian and English
books or when spoken by Americans and Italians. Thus Toulouso became
Toulouse; Castros, Castres; Dourgnos, Dourgne; Carcassouno, Carcassonne;
Narbouno, Narbonne; Billofranco, Villefranche; Labaou, Lavaur; Bibiers,
Viviers; Boou, Vour; Abrayrou, Aveyron; Cordos, Cordes, etc.
These patois, these dialects of the old Langue d’oc, are awakening just
now increasing interest in the literary circles of the Midi, for it is
only within recent years that the French has appeared to threaten their
extinction. The spread of the railroad system and especially the wide
development of the primary school since the advent of the Third Republic,
are dealing deadly blows at these popular dialects. But they are still
far from moribund. I have frequently been told that even to-day one
stumbles now and then on old peasants living up in the isolated Black
Mountain, a spur of the Cévennes, and which divides Upper from Lower
Languedoc, who cling to _oc_, although _obe_ or _ope_, or the French
_oui_ and _si_, are the common affirmative particles of the patois.
It has often happened to me when taking a constitutional to ask my way
and discover that I am addressing a person who neither understands
nor speaks French, though, as a rule, all peasants understand French
and the vast majority can speak the language too, but after a rather
sorry fashion. A foreigner finds at least one comfort in all this: in
Languedoc he uses the national tongue more correctly than thousands of
native born Frenchmen! Nor is the knowledge of patois confined to the
peasantry or the working classes of the towns. The _bourgeoisie_, with
exceedingly rare exceptions, are quite at home in it, and the children
of the nobility often prattle with their peasant nurse more easily in
patois than in the polished speech of their parents. During a political
campaign, it is a very common thing for a would-be deputy to address
country voters in their familiar dialect, thereby gaining the favor not
alone of the _félibres_; while, during this same period of electoral
excitement, the local papers publish almost daily editorials written in
patois. In hundreds of rural churches the short sermon after early mass
is preached in patois, and many a time I have found myself turning with
surprise when I heard French spoken in the streets of Languedocian towns
of considerable size.
There was a time when the government and the ruling classes of Languedoc
itself strove to eradicate these dialects and to substitute French
for them. The aim was a patriotic one; greater national unity, it was
believed, would thus be secured. But that period has gone by, and at
present there is a strong tendency to preserve from destruction these
linguistic souvenirs of a rapidly fading past. What the enthusiastic
_félibres_ would do for Provençal, they and their disciples and imitators
in Languedoc would do for the dialects of South Western France. At the
Congrès d’Etudes Languedociennes, held recently at Montpellier, one of
the members proposed that the French language should be taught in the
primary schools through the medium of the langue d’oc. The suggestion
is not so chimerical as it appears to be at first blush, for one of the
greatest and never-ending difficulties of the country schoolmaster in
this part of France is to teach his scholars the three R’s by means of
the French, which is a foreign tongue to ninety-nine out of a hundred
of them. One is not surprised, therefore, to find that one of the
resolutions passed by this same Congress takes up the plan proposed in
the paper just referred to, and declares in favor of “the utilisation of
the langue d’oc for teaching French in the primary schools.”
At a recent sitting of the General Council of the Bordeaux University a
resolution was passed calling for the creation of a chair of “Southern
languages.” In explanation of this term, the _Gironde_, the leading
Bordeaux newspaper, says: “Besides giving instruction in Spanish, one of
the labors of the professor would be to teach our South Western dialects
in which the most important historical documents of this part of the
country were drawn up during several centuries.” The editor then goes on
to say: “If the State does not feel able to found this chair, will not
some private individual come forward and imitate the example of James E.
Clark, who recently established at Worcester, Mass., a university endowed
with a capital of $12,500,000?”
Speaking of primary schools reminds me of a curious fact which has
frequently attracted my attention in Languedoc this winter. In no other
part of France perhaps was it so common for a town to grow up around a
castle; for this region was terribly harried by the Wars of Religion,
and the poor peasants were forced to seek the protection of some lord.
In order to render them more impregnable, these castles were generally
built on some high hill. So now one sees on every hand decaying hamlets
surrounding ruined castles left almost deserted on the very crown of some
pyramidal mount, while the busy town of to-day has descended to the more
accessible base of the hill. But since the advent of the Third Republic
and the grand impetus given to primary instruction, these abandoned
castles have taken a new lease of life, and been converted into school
buildings. The other day during an hour’s drive in Upper Languedoc I saw
two of these old useless feudal piles consecrated to popular nineteenth
century education. What a train of reflections is thus suggested! Within
the very same walls where some proud ignorant seignior once lorded it
over his humble vassals, the descendants of these serfs, still speaking
the tongue of their oppressed ancestors, but enjoying all the liberties
then usurped by their masters, are now being instructed in branches of
knowledge of which the feudal knight had scarcely an inkling. What a
revolution was that of ’89!