Barber, Poet, Philanthropistt

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"'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.

Footnotes 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.

CHAPTER IV.

JASMIN AND MARIETTE.

Jasmin was now a bright, vivid, and handsome fellow, a favourite
with men, women, and children. Of course, an attractive young
man, with a pleasant, comfortable home, could not long remain
single. At length love came to beautify his existence. "It was
for her sake," he says, "that I first tried to make verses in
the sweet patois which she spoke so well; verses in which I
asked her, in rather lofty phrases, to be my guardian angel for
life."

Mariette[1] was a pretty dark-eyed girl. She was an old
companion of Jasmin's, and as they began to know each other
better, the acquaintance gradually grew into affection,
and finally into mutual love. She was of his own class of life,
poor and hardworking. After the day's work was over, they had
many a pleasant walk together on the summer evenings, along the
banks of the Garonne, or up the ascending road toward the
Hermitage and the rocky heights above the town. There they
pledged their vows; like a poet, he promised to love her for
ever. She believed him, and loved him in return. The rest may
be left to the imagination.

Jasmin still went on dreaming and rhyming! Mariette was a lovely
subject for his rhymes. He read his verses to her; and she could
not but be pleased with his devotion, even though recited in
verse. He scribbled his rhymes upon his curl-papers; and when he
had read them to his sweetheart, he used them to curl the hair
of his fair customers. When too much soiled by being written on
both sides, he tore them up; for as yet, he had not the
slightest idea of publishing his verses.

When the minds of the young pair were finally made up, their
further courtship did not last very long. They were willing to
be united.

"Happy's the wooing that's not long a-doing."

The wedding-day at length arrived! Jasmin does not describe his
bride's dress. But he describes his own. "I might give you,"
he says in his Souvenirs, "a picture of our happy nuptial day.
I might tell you at length of my newly dyed hat, my dress coat
with blue facings, and my home-spun linen shirt with calico
front. But I forbear all details. My godfather and godmother
were at the wedding. You will see that the purse did not always
respond to the wishes of the heart."

It is true that Jasmin's wedding-garment was not very sumptuous,
nor was his bride's; but they did the best that they could,
and looked forward with hope. Jasmin took his wife home to the
pleasant house on the Gravier; and joy and happiness sat down
with them at their own fireside. There was no Charivari, because
their marriage was suitable. Both had been poor, and the wife
was ready and willing to share the lot of her young husband,
whether in joy or sorrow. Their home was small and cosy--
very different from the rat-haunted house of his lame mother and
humpbacked father.

Customers came, but not very quickly. The barber's shop was
somewhat removed from the more populous parts of the town.
But when the customers did come, Jasmin treated them playfully
and humorously. He was as lively as any Figaro; and he became
such a favourite, that when his customers were shaved or had
their hair dressed, they invariably returned, as well as
recommended others to patronize the new coiffeur.

His little shop, which was at first nearly empty, soon became
fuller and fuller of customers. People took pleasure in coming
to the hair-dresser's shop, and hearing him recite his verses.
He sang, he declaimed, while plying his razor or his scissors.
But the chins and tresses of his sitters were in no danger from
his skipping about, for he deftly used his hands as well as his
head. His razor glistened lightly over the stubbly beards,
and his scissors clipped neatly over the locks of his customers.

Except when so engaged, he went on rhyming. In a little town,
gossip flies about quickly, and even gets into the local papers.

One day Jasmin read in one of the Agen journals, "Pegasus is a
beast that often carries poets to the hospital." Were the words
intended for him? He roared with laughter. Some gossip had
bewitched the editor. Perhaps he was no poet. His rhymes would
certainly never carry him to the hospital. Jasmin's business was
becoming a little more lucrative.. It is true his house was not
yet fully furnished, but day by day he was adding to the
plenishing. At all events his humble home protected him and his
wife from wind and weather.

On one occasion M. Gontaud, an amiable young poet, in a chaffing
way, addressed Jasmin as "Apollo!" in former times regarded as
the god of poetry and music. The epistle appeared in a local
journal. Jasmin read it aloud to his family. Gontaud alleged in
his poem that Apollo had met Jasmin's mother on the banks of the
Garonne, and fell in love with her; and that Jasmin, because of
the merits of his poetry, was their son.

Up flamed the old pair! "What, Catherine?" cried the old man,"
is it true that you have been a coquette? How! have I been only
the foster-father of thy little poet?" "No! No!" replied the
enraged mother; "he is all thine own! Console thyself, poor
John; thou alone hast been my mate. And who is this 'Pollo, the
humbug who has deceived thee so? Yes, I am lame, but when I was
washing my linen, if any coxcomb had approached me, I would have
hit him on the mouth with a stroke of my mallet!" "Mother,"
exclaimed the daughter, "'Pollo is only a fool, not worth
talking about; where does he live, Jacques?" Jasmin relished the
chaff, and explained that he only lived in the old mythology,
and had no part in human affairs. And thus was Apollo,
the ancient god of poetry and music, sent about his business.

Years passed on, the married pair settled down quietly,
and their life of happiness went on pleasantly. The honeymoon
had long since passed. Jasmin had married at twenty, and
Mariette was a year younger.

When a couple live together for a time, they begin to detect
some little differences of opinion. It is well if they do not
allow those little differences to end in a quarrel. This is
always a sad beginning of a married life.

There was one thing about her husband that Mariette did not like.
That was his verse-making. It was all very well in
courtship, but was it worth while in business? She saw him
scribbling upon curl-papers instead of attending to his
periwigs. She sometimes interrupted him while he was writing;
and on one occasion, while Jasmin was absent on business,
she went so far as to burn his pens and throw his ink into the
fire!

Jasmin was a good-natured man, but he did not like this
treatment. It was not likely to end in a quiet domestic life.
He expostulated, but it was of little use. He would not give up
his hobby. He went on rhyming, and in order to write down his
verses he bought new pens and a new bottle of ink. Perhaps he
felt the germs of poetic thought moving within him. His wife
resented his conduct. Why could he not attend to the shaving and
hair-dressing, which brought in money, instead of wasting his
time in scribbling verses on his curl-papers?

M. Charles Nodier, member of the French Academy, paid a visit to
Agen in 1832. Jasmin was then thirty-four years old. He had
been married fourteen years, but his name was quite unknown, save
to the people of Agen. It was well known in the town that he had
a talent for versification, for he was accustomed to recite and
chaunt his verses to his customers.

One quiet morning M. Nodier was taking a leisurely walk along
the promenade of the Gravier, when he was attracted by a loud
altercation going on between a man and a woman in the barber's
shop. The woman was declaiming with the fury of a Xantippe,
while the man was answering her with Homeric laughter. Nodier
entered the shop, and found himself in the presence of Jasmin
and his wife. He politely bowed to the pair, and said that he
had taken the liberty of entering to see whether he could not
establish some domestic concord between them.

"Is that all you came for?" asked the wife, at the same time
somewhat calmed by the entrance of a stranger. Jasmin
interposed--

"Yes, my dear--certainly; but---" "Your wife is right, sir,"
said Nodier, thinking that the quarrel was about some debts he
had incurred.

"Truly, sir," rejoined Jasmin; "if you were a lover of poetry,
you would not find it so easy to renounce it."

"Poetry?" said Nodier; "I know a little about that myself."

"What!" replied Jasmin, "so much the better. You will be able to
help me out of my difficulties."

"You must not expect any help from me, for I presume you are
oppressed with debts."

"Ha, ha!" cried Jasmin, "it isn't debts, it's verses, Sir."

"Yes, indeed," said the wife, "it's verses, always verses!
Isn't it horrible?"

"Will you let me see what you have written?" asked Nodier,
turning to Jasmin.

"By all means, sir. Here is a specimen." The verses began:

"Femme ou demon, ange ou sylphide,
Oh! par pitie, fuis, laisse-moi!
Doux miel d'amour n'est que poison perfide,
Mon coeur a trop souffert, il dort, eloigne-toi.

"Je te l'ai dit, mon coeur sommeille;
Laisse-le, de ses maux a peine il est gueri,
Et j'ai peur que ta voix si douce a mon oreille
Par un chant d'amour ne l'eveille,
Lui, que l'amour a taut meurtri!"

This was only about a fourth part of the verses which Jasmin had
composed.[2] Nodier confessed that he was greatly pleased with
them. Turning round to the wife he said, "Madame, poetry knocks
at your door; open it. That which inspires it is usually a noble
heart and a distinguished spirit, incapable of mean actions.
Let your husband make his verses; it may bring you good luck
and happiness."

Then, turning to the poet, and holding out his hand, he asked,
"What is your name, my friend?"

"Jacques Jasmin," he timidly replied. "A good name," said
Nodier. "At the same time, while you give fair play to your
genius, don't give up the manufacture of periwigs, for this is
an honest trade, while verse-making might prove only a frivolous
distraction."

Nodier then took his leave, but from that time forward Jasmin
and he continued the best of friends. A few years later, when
the first volume of the Papillotos appeared, Nodier published
his account of the above interview in Le Temps. He afterwards
announced in the Quotidienne the outburst of a new poet on the
banks of the Garonne--a poet full of piquant charm, of
inspired harmony--a Lamartine, a Victor Hugo, a Gascon Beranger!

After Nodier's departure, Madame Jasmin took a more favourable
view of the versification of her husband. She no longer chided
him. The shop became more crowded with customers. Ladies came
to have their hair dressed by the poet: it was so original!
He delighted them with singing or chanting his verses. He had a
sympathetic, perhaps a mesmeric voice, which touched the souls
of his hearers, and threw them into the sweetest of dreams.

Besides attending to his shop, he was accustomed to go out in
the afternoons to dress the hair of four or five ladies.
This occupied him for about two hours, and when he found the
ladies at home, he returned with four or five francs in his
purse. But often they were not at home, and he came home
francless. Eventually he gave up this part of his trade. The
receipts at the shop were more remunerative. Madame encouraged
this economical eform; she was accustomed to call it Jasmin's
coup d'etat.

The evenings passed pleasantly. Jasmin took his guitar and sang
to his wife and children; or, in the summer evenings they would
walk under the beautiful elms in front of the Gravier, where
Jasmin was ready for business at any moment. Such prudence, such
iligence, could not but have its effect. When Jasmin's first
volume of the Papillotos was published, it was received with
enthusiasm.

"The songs, the curl-papers," said Jasmin, "brought in such a
rivulet of silver, that, in my poetic joy, I broke into morsels
and burnt in the fire that dreaded arm-chair in which my
ancestors had been carried to the hospital to die."

Madame Jasmin now became quite enthusiastic. Instead of breaking
the poet's pens and throwing his ink into the fire, she bought
the best pens and the best ink. She even supplied him with a
comfortable desk, on which he might write his verses. "Courage,
courage!" she would say. "Each verse that you write is another
tile to the roof and a rafter to the dwelling; therefore make
verses, make verses!"

The rivulet of silver increased so rapidly, that in the course
of a short time Jasmin was enabled to buy the house in which he
lived--tiles, rafters, and all. Instead of Pegasus carrying
him to the hospital, it carried him to the office of the Notary,
who enrolled him in the list of collectors of taxes. He was now
a man of substance, a man to be trusted. The notary was also
employed to convey the tenement to the prosperous Jasmin.
He ends the first part of his Souvenirs with these words:

"When Pegasus kicks with a fling of his feet,
He sends me to curl on my hobby horse fleet;
I lose all my time, true, not paper nor notes,
I write all my verse on my papillotes."[3]

Footnotes to chapter IV.

[1] In Gascon Magnounet; her pet name Marie, or in French
Mariette. Madame Jasmin called herself Marie Barrere.

[2] The remaining verses are to be found in the collected
edition of his works--the fourth volume of Las Papillotos,
new edition, pp. 247-9, entitled A une jeune Voyayeuse.

[3] Papillotes, as we have said, are curl-papers.
Jasmin's words, in Gascon, are these:

"Quand Pegazo reguiuno, et que d'un cot de pe
Memboyo friza mas marotos,
Perdi moun ten, es bray, mais noun pas moun pape,
Boti mous beis en papillotos!"

CHAPTER V.

JASMIN AND GASCON.--FIRST VOLUME OF "PAPILLOTES."

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. is
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]

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