Barber, Poet, Philanthropistt
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Samuel Smiles >> Barber, Poet, Philanthropistt
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Besides studying Gascon, Jasmin had some military duties to
perform. He was corporal of the third company of the National
Guard of Agen; and in 1830 he addressed his comrades in a series
of verses. One of these was a song entitled 'The Flag of
Liberty' (Lou Drapeou de la Libertat); another, 'The Good
All-merciful God!' (Lou Boun Diou liberal); and the third was Lou
Seromen.
Two years later, in 1832, Jasmin composed The Gascons, which he
improvised at a banquet given to the non-commissioned officers
of the 14th Chasseurs. Of course, the improvisation was
carefully prepared; and it was composed in French, as the
non-commissioned officers did not understand the Gascon dialect.
Jasmin extolled the valour of the French, and especially of the
Gascons. The last lines of his eulogy ran as follows:--
"O Liberty! mother of victory,
Thy flag always brings us success!
Though as Gascons we sing of thy glory,
We chastise our foes with the French!"
In the same year Jasmin addressed the poet Beranger in a
pleasant poetical letter written in classical French. Beranger
replied in prose; his answer was dated the 12th of July, 1832.
He thanked Jasmin for his fervent eulogy. While he thought that
the Gascon poet's praise of his works was exaggerated, he
believed in his sincerity.
"I hasten," said Beranger, "to express my thanks for the
kindness of your address. Believe in my sincerity, as I believe
in your praises. Your exaggeration of my poetical merits makes
me repeat the first words of your address, in which you assume
the title of a Gascon[2] poet. It would please me much better
if you would be a French poet, as you prove by your epistle,
which is written with taste and harmony. The sympathy of our
sentiments has inspired you to praise me in a manner which I am
far from meriting, Nevertheless, sir, I am proud of your
sympathy.
"You have been born and brought up in the same condition as
myself. Like me, you appear to have triumphed over the absence
of scholastic instruction, and, like me too, you love your
country. You reproach me, sir, with the silence which I have for
some time preserved. At the end of this year I intend to publish
my last volume; I will then take my leave of the public.
I am now fifty-two years old. I am tired of the world.
My little mission is fulfilled, and the public has had enough of
me. I am therefore making arrangements for retiring. Without
the desire for living longer, I have broken silence too soon.
At least you must pardon the silence of one who has never
demanded anything of his country. I care nothing about power,
and have now merely the ambition of a morsel of bread and repose.
"I ask your pardon for submitting to you these personal details.
But your epistle makes it my duty. I thank you again for the
pleasure you have given me. I do not understand the language of
Languedoc, but, if you speak this language as you write French,
I dare to prophecy a true success in the further publication of
your works.--BERANGER."[3]
Notwithstanding this advice of Beranger and other critics,
Jasmin continued to write his poems in the Gascon dialect.
He had very little time to spare for the study of classical
French; he was occupied with the trade by which he earned his
living, and his business was increasing. His customers were
always happy to hear him recite his poetry while he shaved their
beards or dressed their hair.
He was equally unfortunate with M. Minier of Bordeaux.
Jasmin addressed him in a Gascon letter full of bright poetry,
not unlike Burns's Vision, when he dreamt of becoming a
song-writer. The only consolation that Jasmin received from M.
Minier was a poetical letter, in which the poet was implored to
retain his position and not to frequent the society of
distinguished persons.
Perhaps the finest work which Jasmin composed at this period of
his life was that which he entitled Mous Soubenis, or
'My Recollections.' In none of his poems did he display more of
the characteristic qualities of his mind, his candour, his
pathos, and his humour, than in these verses. He used the rustic
dialect, from which he never afterwards departed. He showed that
the Gascon was not yet a dead language; and he lifted it to the
level of the most serious themes. His verses have all the
greater charm because of their artless gaiety, their delicate
taste, and the sweetness of their cadence.
Jasmin began to compose his 'Recollections' in 1830, but the
two first cantos were not completed until two years later.
The third canto was added in 1835, when the poem was published
in the first volume of his 'Curl-Papers' (Papillotes). These
recollections, in fact, constitute Jasmin's autobiography,
and we are indebted to them for the description we have already
given of the poet's early life.
Many years later Jasmin wrote his Mous noubels Soubenis--
'My New Recollections'; but in that work he returned to the
trials and the enjoyments of his youth, and described few of the
events of his later life. "What a pity," says M. Rodiere, "that
Jasmin did not continue to write his impressions until the end of
his life! What trouble he would have saved his biographers!
For how can one speak when Jasmin ceases to sing?"
It is unnecessary to return to the autobiography and repeat the
confessions of Jasmin's youth. His joys and sorrows are all
described there--his birth in the poverty-stricken dwelling in
the Rue Fon de Rache, his love for his parents, his sports with
his playfellows on the banks of the Garonne, his blowing the
horn in his father's Charivaris, his enjoyment of the tit-bits
which old Boe brought home from his begging-tours, the decay of
the old man, and his conveyance to the hospital, "where all the
Jasmins die;" then his education at the Academy, his toying with
the house-maid, his stealing the preserves, his expulsion from
the seminary, and the sale of his mother's wedding-ring to buy
bread for her family.
While composing the first two cantos of the Souvenirs he seemed
half ashamed of the homeliness of the tale he had undertaken to
relate. Should he soften and brighten it? Should he dress it
up with false lights and colours? For there are times when
falsehood in silk and gold are acceptable, and the naked
new-born truth is unwelcome. But he repudiated the thought,
and added:-
"Myself, nor less, nor more, I'll draw for you,
And if not bright, the likeness shall be true."
The third canto of the poem was composed at intervals. It took
him two more years to finish it. It commences with his
apprenticeship to the barber; describes his first visit to the
theatre, his reading of Florian's romances and poems, his
solitary meditations, and the birth and growth of his
imagination. Then he falls in love, and a new era opens in his
life. He writes verses and sings them. He opens a barber's shop
of his own, marries, and brings his young bride home.
"Two angels," he says, "took up their abode with me."
His newly-wedded wife was one, and the other was his rustic
Muse--the angel of homely pastoral poetry:
"Who, fluttering softly from on high,
Raised on his wing and bore me far,
Where fields of balmiest ether are;
There, in the shepherd lassie's speech
I sang a song, or shaped a rhyme;
There learned I stronger love than I can teach.
Oh, mystic lessons! Happy time!
And fond farewells I said, when at the close of day,
Silent she led my spirit back whence it was borne away!"
He then speaks of the happiness of his wedded life; he shaves
and sings most joyfully. A little rivulet of silver passes into
the barber's shop, and, in a fit of poetic ardour, he breaks
into pieces and burns the wretched arm-chair in which his
ancestors were borne to the hospital to die. His wife no longer
troubles him with her doubts as to his verses interfering with
his business. She supplies him with pen, paper, ink, and a
comfortable desk; and, in course of time, he buys the house in
which he lives, and becomes a man of importance in Agen.
He ends the third canto with a sort of hurrah--
"Thus, reader, have I told my tale in cantos three:
Though still I sing, I hazard no great risk;
For should Pegasus rear and fling me, it is clear,
However ruffled all my fancies fair,
I waste my time, 'tis true; though verses I may lose,
The paper still will serve for curling hair."[4]
Robert Nicoll, the Scotch poet, said of his works:
"I have written my heart in my poems; and rude, unfinished,
and hasty as they are, it can be read there." Jasmin might have
used the same words. "With all my faults," he said, "I desired
to write the truth, and I have described it as I saw it."
In his 'Recollections' he showed without reserve his whole heart.
Jasmin dedicated his 'Recollections,' when finished,
to M. Florimond de Saint-Amand, one of the first gentlemen who
recognised his poetical talents. This was unquestionably the
first poem in which Jasmin exhibited the true bent of his
genius. He avoided entirely the French models which he had
before endeavoured to imitate; and he now gave full flight to
the artless gaiety and humour of his Gascon muse. It is
unfortunate that the poem cannot be translated into English.
It was translated into French; but even in that kindred language
it lost much of its beauty and pathos. The more exquisite the
poetry that is contained in one language, the more difficulty
there is in translating it into another.
M. Charles Nodier said of Lou Tres de May that it contains
poetic thoughts conveyed in exquisite words; but it is
impossible to render it into any language but its own. In the
case of the Charivari he shrinks from attempting to translate it.
There is one passage containing a superb description of the
rising of the sun in winter; but two of the lines quite puzzled
him. In Gascon they are
"Quand l'Auroro, fourrado en raoubo de sati,
Desparrouillo, san brut, las portos del mati.'
Some of the words translated into French might seem vulgar,
though in Gascon they are beautiful. In English they might be
rendered:
"When Aurora, enfurred in her robe of satin,
Unbars, without noise, the doors of the morning."
"Dream if you like," says Nodier, "of the Aurora of winter, and
tell me if Homer could have better robed it in words. The Aurora
of Jasmin is quite his own; 'unbars the doors of the morning';
it is done without noise, like a goddess, patient and silent,
who announces herself to mortals only by her brightness of
light. It is this finished felicity of expression which
distinguishes great writers. The vulgar cannot accomplish it."
Again Nodier says of the 'Recollections': "They are an ingenuous
marvel of gaiety, sensibility, and passion! I use," he says,
"this expression of enthusiasm; and I regret that I cannot be
more lavish in my praises. There is almost nothing in modem
literature, and scarcely anything in ancient, which has moved me
more profoundly than the Souvenirs of Jasmin.
Happy and lovely children of Guienne and Languedoc, read and
re-read the Souvenirs of Jasmin; they will give you painful
recollections of public schools, and perhaps give you hope of
better things to come. You will learn by heart what you will
never forget. You will know from this poetry all that you ought
to treasure."
Jasmin added several other poems to his collection before his
second volume appeared in 1835. Amongst these were his lines on
the Polish nation--Aux debris de la Nation Polonaise, and Les
Oiseaux Voyageurs, ou Les Polonais en France--both written in
Gascon. Saint-beuve thinks the latter one of Jasmin's best
works. "It is full of pathos," he says, "and rises to the
sublime through its very simplicity. It is indeed difficult to
exaggerate the poetic instinct and the unaffected artlessness of
this amiable bard. At the same time," he said," Jasmin still
wanted the fire of passion to reach the noblest poetic work.
Yet he had the art of style. If Agen was renowned as 'the eye of
Guienne,' Jasmin was certainly the greatest poet who had ever
written in the pure patois of Agen."
Sainte-Beuve also said of Jasmin that he was "invariably sober."
And Jasmin said of himself, "I have learned that in moments of
heat and emotion we are all eloquent and laconic, alike in
speech and action--unconscious poets in fact; and I have also
learned that it is possible for a muse to become all this
willingly, and by dint of patient toil."
Another of his supplementary poems consisted of a dialogue
between Ramoun, a soldier of the Old Guard, and Mathiou,
a peasant. It is of a political cast, and Jasmin did not shine
in politics. He was, however, always a patriot, whether under
the Empire, the Monarchy, or the Republic. He loved France above
all things, while he entertained the warmest affection for his
native province. If Jasmin had published his volume in classical
French he might have been lost amidst a crowd of rhymers; but as
he published the work in his native dialect, he became forthwith
distinguished in his neighbourhood, and was ever after known as
the Gascon poet.
Nor did he long remain unknown beyond the district in which he
lived. When his second volume appeared in 1835, with a preface
by M. Baze, an advocate of the Royal Court of Agen, it created
considerable excitement, not only at Bordeaux and Toulouse,
but also at Paris, the centre of the literature, science, and
fine arts of France. There, men of the highest distinction
welcomed the work with enthusiasm.
M. Baze, in his preface, was very eulogistic. "We have the
pleasure," he said, "of seeing united in one collection the
sweet Romanic tongue which the South of France has adopted,
like the privileged children of her lovely sky and voluptuous
climate; and her lyrical songs, whose masculine vigour and
energetic sentiments have more than once excited patriotic
transports and awakened popular enthusiasm. For Jasmin is above
all a poet of the people. He is not ashamed of his origin.
He was born in the midst of them, and though a poet, still
belongs to them. For genius is of all stations and ranks of
life. He is but a hairdresser at Agen, and more than that, he
wishes to remain so. His ambition is to unite the razor to the
poet's pen."
At Paris the work was welcomed with applause, first by his
poetic sponsor, Charles Nodier, in the Temps, where he
congratulated Jasmin on using the Gascon patois, though still
under the ban of literature. "It is a veritable Saint
Bartholomew of innocent and beautiful idioms, which can scarcely
be employed even in the hours of recreation." He pronounced
Jasmin to be a Gascon Beranger, and quoted several of his lines
from the Charivari, but apologised for their translation into
French, fearing that they might lose much of their rustic
artlessness and soft harmony.
What was a still greater honour, Jasmin was reviewed by the
first critic of France--Sainte-Beuve in the leading critical
journal, the Revue des deux Mondes. The article was afterwards
republished in his Contemporary Portraits.[5] He there gives a
general account of his poems; compares him with the English and
Scotch poets of the working class; and contrasts him with
Reboul, the baker of Nimes, who writes in classical French,
after the manner of the 'Meditations of Lamartine.' He proceeds
to give a brief account of Jasmin's life, taken from the
Souvenirs, which he regards as a beautiful work, written with
much artlessness and simplicity.
Various other reviews of Jasmin's poems appeared, in Agen,
Bordeaux, Toulouse, and Paris, by men of literary mark--by
Leonce de Lavergne, and De Mazude in the Revue des deux Mondes
--by Charles Labitte, M. Ducuing, and M. de Pontmartin.
The latter classed Jasmin with Theocritus, Horace, and La
Fontaine, and paid him the singular tribute, "that he had made
Goodness as attractive as other French writers had made Badness."
Such criticisms as these made Jasmin popular, not only in his
own district, but throughout France.
We cannot withhold the interesting statement of Paul de Musset
as to his interview with Jasmin in 1836, after the publication
of his second volume of poems. Paul de Musset was the author of
several novels, as well as of Lui et Elle, apropos of his
brother's connection with George Sand. Paul de Musset thus
describes his visit to the poet at Agen.[6]
"Let no one return northward by the direct road from Toulouse.
Nothing can be more dreary than the Lot, the Limousin, and the
interminable Dordogne; but make for Bordeaux by the plains of
Gascony, and do not forget the steamboat from Marmande. You will
then find yourself on the Garonne, in the midst of a beautiful
country, where the air is vigorous and healthy. The roads are
bordered with vines, arranged in arches, lovely to the eyes of
travellers. The poets, who delight in making the union of the
vine with the trees which support it an emblem of marriage, can
verify their comparisons only in Gascony or Italy. It is usually
pear trees that are used to support them....
"Thanks to M. Charles Nodier, who had discovered a man of modest
talent buried in this province, I knew a little of the verses of
the Gascon poet Jasmin. Early one morning, at about seven, the
diligence stopped in the middle of a Place, where I read this
inscription over a shop-door, 'Jasmin, Coiffeur des jeunes
gens.' We were at Agen. I descended, swallowed my cup of coffee
as fast as I could, and entered the shop of the most lettered of
peruke-makers. On a table was a mass of pamphlets and some of
the journals of the South.
"'Monsieur Jasmin?' said I on entering. 'Here I am, sir, at your
service,' replied a handsome brown-haired fellow, with a
cheerful expression, who seemed to me about thirty years of age.
"'Will you shave me?' I asked. 'Willingly, sir,' he replied,
I sat down and we entered into conversation. 'I have read your
verses, sir,' said I, while he was covering my chin with lather.
'Monsieur then comprehends the patois?' 'A little,' I said; 'one
of my friends has explained to me the difficult passages.
But tell me, Monsieur Jasmin, why is it that you, who appear to
know French perfectly, write in a language that is not spoken in
any chief town or capital.'
"'Ah, sir, how could a poor rhymer like me appear amongst the
great celebrities of Paris? I have sold eighteen hundred copies
of my little pieces of poetry (in pamphlet form), and certainly
all who speak Gascon know them well. Remember that there are at
least six millions of people in Languedoc.'
"My mouth was covered with soap-suds, and I could not answer him
for some time. Then I said, 'But a hundred thousand persons at
most know how to read, and twenty thousand of them can scarcely
be able to enjoy your works.'
"'Well, sir, I am content with that amount. Perhaps you have at
Paris more than one writer who possesses his twenty thousand
readers. My little reputation would soon carry me astray if I
ventured to address all Europe. The voice that appears sonorous
in a little place is not heard in the midst of a vast plain.
And then, my readers are confined within a radius of forty
leagues, and the result is of real advantage to an author.'
"'Ah! And why do you not abandon your razor?' I enquired of
this singular poet. 'What would you have?' he said. 'The Muses
are most capricious; to-day they give gold, to-morrow they refuse
bread. The razor secures me soup, and perhaps a bottle of
Bordeaux. Besides, my salon is a little literary circle, where
all the young people of the town assemble. When I come from one
of the academies of which I am a member, I find myself among the
tools which I can manage better than my pen; and most of the
members of the circle usually pass through my hands.'
"It is a fact that M. Jasmin shaves more skilfully than any
other poet. After a long conversation with this simple-minded
man, I experienced a certain confusion in depositing upon his
table the amount of fifty centimes which I owed him on this
occasion, more for his talent than for his razor; and I
remounted the diligence more than charmed with the modesty of
his character and demeanour."
Footnotes for Chapter VI.
[1] M. Duvigneau thus translated the words into French:
he begins his verses by announcing the birth of Henry IV.:-
"A son aspect, mille cris d'allegresse
Ebranlent le palais et montent jusqu'au ciel:
Le voila beau comme dans sa jeunesse,
Alors qu'il recevait le baiser maternel.
A ce peuple charme qui des yeux le devore
Le bon Roi semble dire encore:
'Braves Gascons, accourez tous;
A mon amour pour vous vous devez croire;
Je met a vous revoir mon bonheur et ma gloire,
Venez, venez, approchez-vous!'"
[2] Gascon or Gasconade is often used as implying boasting or
gasconading.
[3] This letter was written before Jasmin had decided to
publish the second volume of his Papillotes, which appeared in
1835.
[4] The following are the lines in Gascon:--
"Atai boudroy dan bous fini ma triplo paouzo;
Mais anfin, ey cantat, n'hazardi pas gran caouzo:
Quand Pegazo reguinno, et que d'un cot de pe
M'emboyo friza mas marotos,
Perdi moun ten, es bray, mais noun pas moun pape;
Boti mous bers en papillotos!"
[5] 'Portraits Contemporains,' ii. 50. Par C. A. Sainte-Beuve,
Membre de l'Academie Francaise. 1847.
[6] 'Perpignan, l'Ariege et le poete Jasmin' (Journal politique
et litteraire de Lot-et-Garonne).
CHAPTER VII.
'THE BLIND GIRL OF CASTEL-CUILLE.'
Jasmin was now thirty-six years old. He was virtually in the
prime of life. He had been dreaming, he had been thinking,
for many years, of composing some poems of a higher order than
his Souvenirs. He desired to embody in his work some romantic
tales in verse, founded upon local legends, noble in conception,
elaborated with care, and impressive by the dignity of simple
natural passion.
In these new lyrical poems his intention was to aim high,
and he succeeded to a marvellous extent. He was enabled to show
the depth and strength of his dramatic powers, his fidelity in
the description of romantic and picturesque incidents, his
shrewdness in reading character and his skill in representing it,
all of which he did in perfect innocence of all established
canons in the composition of dramatic poetry.
The first of Jasmin's poetical legends was 'The Blind Girl of
Castel-Cuille' (L'Abuglo). It was translated into English,
a few years after its appearance, by Lady Georgiana Fullerton,
daughter of the British ambassador at Paris,[1] and afterwards
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the American poet. Longfellow
follows the rhythm of the original, and on the whole his
translation of the poem is more correct, so that his version is
to be preferred. He begins his version with these words--
"Only the Lowland tongue of Scotland might
Rehearse this little tragedy aright;
Let me attempt it with an English quill,
And take, O reader, for the deed the will."
At the end of his translation Longfellow adds:-- Jasmin, the
author of this beautiful poem, is to the South of France what
Burns is to the South of Scotland, the representative of the
heart of the people,--one of those happy bards who are born
with their mouths full of birds (la bouco pleno d'auuvelous).
He has written his own biography in a poetic form, and the simple
narrative of his poverty, his struggles, and his triumphs, is
very touching. He still lives at Agen, on the Garonne, and long
may he live there to delight his native land with native songs!"
It is unnecessary to quote the poem, which is so well-known by
the numerous readers of Longfellow's poems, but a compressed
narrative of the story may be given.
The legend is founded on a popular tradition. Castel-Cuille
stands upon a bluff rock in the pretty valley of Saint-Amans,
about a league from Agen. The castle was of considerable
importance many centuries ago, while the English occupied
Guienne; but it is now in ruins, though the village near it
still exists. In a cottage, at the foot of the rock, lived the
girl Marguerite, a soldier's daughter, with her brother Paul.
The girl had been betrothed to her lover Baptiste; but during
his absence she was attacked by virulent small-pox and lost her
eyesight. Though her beauty had disappeared, her love remained.
She waited long for her beloved Baptiste, but he never returned.
He forsook his betrothed Marguerite, and plighted his troth to
the fairer and richer Angele. It was, after all, only the old
story.
Marguerite heard at night the song of their espousals on the eve
of the marriage. She was in despair, but suppressed her grief.
Wednesday morning arrived, the eve of St. Joseph. The bridal
procession passed along the village towards the church of
Saint-Amans, singing the bridal song. The fair and fertile
valley was bedecked with the blossoms of the apple, the plum,
and the almond, which whitened the country round. Nothing could
have seemed more propitious. Then came the chorus, which was no
invention of the poet, but a refrain always sung at rustic
weddings, in accordance with the custom of strewing the bridal
path with flowers:
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