When the gods parceled out their gifts, to Alphonse Daudet fell a rich
endowment: a poet’s imaginative nature, yet withal a clear vision for
realities which is often denied the disciple of poesy; a sure dramatic
instinct, too, with a contrasting power of repression which checked
his slightest tendency toward the florid and the melodramatic; and,
coloring all, a native sense of humor so tenderly sympathetic that it
prevented his satire from biting with that acid sharpness of which his
wit was capable. An all-round, well-poised literary genius was he,
efficient in many fields, and preëminent in more than one.
There is one word of all the happy many which, in the opinion of all
his critics, fitly characterizes Daudet--he possessed charm, charm of
manner personally and charm of literary style. I wish his portrait were
before us here, that we might trace in that striking countenance the
record of those fascinating qualities of mind and heart which are so
patent in his life and work.
As for his person, from boyhood his hair grew in that untamed profusion
which we so often associate with strong individuality, and even in
later life he wore his locks long and full. His beard was silky, and
unrestrained rather than unkempt. Near-sighted eyes, peering from
behind the inevitable black-rimmed _pince nez_, or at times a
monocle, seemed curious and inquiring, typifying perfectly the spirit
of naïve interest with which he looked out on life to observe its
myriad moods and forms. In this look there was something reflective,
too, as though he had just noticed a matter of unusual interest, and
was inwardly speculating upon its further meanings. The nose was
pleasure-loving, though robust, dignified, and individual--counteracted
upon by the satirical mouth, whose sarcasm, in turn, was gently toned
by twinkling furrows that flanked his eyes. In later days the sharpness
of Daudet’s expression of mouth had been almost lost, and a gentle
detachment, betokening a just but sympathetic critical spirit, marked
his countenance and made it less keen than lovable. Yet it was in those
later years that his cherished hatred for the French Academy led to the
bitter satirical outburst against that institution in his novel, _The
Immortal_ (1888). But that was only one phase temporarily dominant
in the man whom everyone loved and who himself loved all.
Alphonse Daudet was--especially in youth--the exponent of the south,
the south as typified by his native Provence. His was the rich,
effusive, impressionable southland nature--abundantly moved upon by
all the southern charm and vivacity and naïveté and life, as well as
richly gifted in the ability to reproduce those impressions in the
pages of his writings. Then what more natural than that he should both
personally and in his fiction embody the vivid life of the carefree
land? When, in 1869, his first important volume of collected stories
appeared, it was seen that into _Letters from My Mill_--which
included “The Pope’s Mule”--Daudet had poured not only the young
unspoiled richness of his own buoyancy, but also the fulness of his
feeling for local landscapes, traditions, and characters of town and
country. And again and again, even in his later work, Daudet reverts
to the scenes of his boyhood life, and gives us pictures--now jocund
as the wine of the country, now sad as a poet’s wail--whose tone and
spirit are of the Provençal life, all delicately set in the atmosphere
of that sunny clime.
In the _History of My Books_, which forms an integral part of the
author’s _Thirty Years in Paris_, he takes us by the hand in his
dear, intimate way and shows us the great white house, the ancient and
unique manor of Montauban. Near by, its shattered wings swaying in
the wind on the summit of a little pine-clad mountain, stands _Mon
Moulin_--the windmill about whose dusty portals for centuries had
gathered the quaint characters of the district, and where, now that
its traffic was forever departed, the young Alphonse first began to
distinguish man from man in the stories told him by the ancients of the
province.
“Excellent people, blessed house!” he writes. “How often have I
repaired thither in the winter to recuperate in the embrace of nature,
to heal myself of Paris and its fevers in the wholesome emanations of
our little Provençal hills.”
The greetings of old friends at an end, he would whistle to Miracle, a
venerable spaniel some fisherman had once found on a bit of wreckage at
sea, and climb up to his mill, there to browse and dream and wander in
fancy whithersoever the spirits of the place should beckon.
“The mill was a ruin,” he says; “a crumbling mass of stone, iron, and
ancient boards which had not turned in the wind for many years, and
which lay, with broken limbs, as useless as a poet, while all around
on the hillside the miller’s trade prospered and ground and ground
with all its wings. Strange affinities subsist between ourselves and
inanimate objects. From the first day, that cast-off structure was
dear to my heart; I loved it for its desolation, its road overgrown
with weeds, those little grayish, fragrant mountain weeds with which
Père Gaucher compounded his elixir; for its little worn platform where
it was so pleasant to loiter, sheltered from the wind, while a rabbit
hurried by, or a long snake, rustling among the leaves with crafty
detours, hunted the field mice with which the ruin swarmed. With the
creaking of the old building shaken by the north wind, the flapping of
its wings like the rigging of a ship at sea, the mill stirred in my
poor, restless, nomadic brain memories of journeys by sea, of landings
at lighthouses and far-off islands; and the shivering swell all about
completed the illusion. I know not whence I derived this taste for wild
and desert places which has characterized me from my childhood, and
which seems so inconsistent with the exuberance of my nature, unless
it be at the same time the physical need of repairing by a fast from
words, by abstinence from outcries and gestures, the terrible waste
which the southerner makes of his whole being. Be that as it may, I
owe a great deal to those places of refuge for the mind; and no one of
them has been more salutary in its effect upon me than that old mill in
Provence.”
Here, both in boyhood and in young manhood’s revisitations, Daudet
found the “grasshopper’s library,” and in its secret alcoves discovered
such delightful stories as “The Elixir of the Reverend Father
Gaucher,” “The Three Low Masses,” “The Goat of Monsieur Seguin,”
“Master Cornille’s Secret,” and “The Old Folks,” all abounding in naïve
character and told with his own delicate charm. Here, too, he learned
to take a delight in his craft which waned not with the years; and to
find joy in pleasing “the people,” who were ever the subjects of his
finest delineations.
Born at Nîmes in 1840, and as a mere lad leaving home for the city
of Lyons, Daudet’s public career began with his journey to Paris in
November, 1857. The boy of seventeen and a half came possessed of a
slender collection of poems which, though the product of so youthful
a rhymester, met with no little favor. In manner common to those who
must win their way along the precarious paths of letters, he pressed
on, until in 1859--he being not yet twenty--Daudet published his first
volume of poems, _Les Amoureuses_, which won high praise from
the critics, but is now sought chiefly by collectors. Thus he began
to gain confidence, and others of his works followed almost yearly.
The pages of _Le Figaro_ were now freely opened to him, and that
public by whom he never ceased to be loved began to scan its columns
for his fantastic chronicles of Provençal life. In that same journal
he began in 1866 to publish his _Letters from My Mill_, which
were collected in volume form in 1869, and constituted his first real
popular triumph.
The third period in our author’s life is marked by the sad experiences
of the Siege of Paris, in 1870. Just as his life in the south inspired
the _Letters_, so did the grave impressions made by those terrible
days in the French capital during the Franco-Prussian War move him to
write the little masterpieces which, in part, appeared in the volume
entitled _Monday Tales_, published in 1873. Who that has read them
can forget the “piercing pathos” of “The Last Class” and “The Siege of
Berlin”? Not only are these human episodes of singularly tender appeal,
but they are masterpieces of form, unsurpassed among short-stories of
any language. As Daudet’s best work, they deserve further notice here.
At the close of the Franco-Prussian War, Alsace and Lorraine were ceded
to Germany by France. One of the edicts issued by the conquerors, with
a view to nationalizing the acquired territory, was that the French
language should no longer be taught in their public schools. And this
furnishes the _motif_ for Daudet’s “The Last Class.”
The story is simply told in the first person by Frantz, a little
Alsatian. Frantz recalls that historic day when he set off for school
a little late. Hoping that he might perhaps escape the teacher’s
ferrule, he cuts across the public square without even stopping to find
out the meaning of the knot of perturbed villagers who are discussing
an announcement upon the bulletin board in front of the mayor’s
office. As he slips into his seat, hoping to escape observation, he
is impressed by the unnatural quiet in the school-room, and also by
the presence of a number of the town notables, all solemnly garbed in
holiday dress.
The lad marvels that he is not even chided for his lateness, and is
more than ever mystified as the schoolmaster proceeds with one lesson
and another, all under stress of deep emotion.
By and by the schoolmaster tells his pupils of the cruel edict, and
Frantz begins to realize that the worthy master will no longer rule
in his accustomed place. He becomes conscious of neglected work, and
a whole tide of better resolutions surges in his breast. Finally the
master has heard the last class and arising seeks utterance for his
farewells. At first he is able to give his pupils some sound advice,
but at length no words will come, and with such quiverings of lip
as even Daudet tries not to depict, he chokes, swiftly turns to the
blackboard, takes a piece of chalk, and, bearing with all his might,
dashes off his final expression of patriotic protest and personal
sorrow: