Barber, Poet, Philanthropistt
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Samuel Smiles >> Barber, Poet, Philanthropistt
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Footnotes to Chapter X.
[1] Journal de Toulouse, 4th July, 1840.
[2] The Society of the Jeux-Floraux derives its origin from the
ancient Troubadours. It claims to be the oldest society of the
kind in Europe. It is said to have been founded in the
fourteenth century by Clemence Isaure, a Toulousian lady,
to commemorate the "Gay Science." A meeting of the society is
held every year, when prizes are distributed to the authors of
the best compositions in prose and verse. It somewhat resembles
the annual meeting of the Eisteddfod, held for awarding prizes to
the bards and composers of Wales.
[3] The following was his impromptu to the savants of Toulouse,
4th July, 1840:--
"Oh, bon Dieu! que de gloire! Oh, bon Dieu! que d'honneurs!
Messieurs, ce jour pour ma Muse est bien doux;
Mais maintenant, d'etre quitte j'ai perdu l'esperance:
Car je viens, plus fier que jamais,
Vous payer ma reconnaissance,
Et je m'endette que plus!"
[4] This is the impromptu, given on the 5th July, 1840:
"Toulouse m'a donne un beau bouquet d'honneur;
Votre festin, amis, en est une belle fleur;
Aussi, clans les plaisirs de cette longue fete,
Quand je veux remercier de cela,
Je poursuis mon esprit pour ne pas etre en reste
Ici, l'esprit me nait et tombe de mon coeur!"
[5] 'Causeries du Lundi,' iv. 240 (edit. 1852).
[6] "La politesse du coeur," a French expression which can
scarcely be translated into English; just as "gentleman" has no
precise equivalent in French.
CHAPTER XI.
JASMIN'S VISIT TO PARIS.
Jasmin had been so often advised to visit Paris and test his
powers there, that at length he determined to proceed to the
capital of France. It is true, he had been eulogized in the
criticisms of Sainte-Beuve, Leonce de Lavergne, Charles Nodier,
and Charles de Mazade; but he desired to make the personal
acquaintance of some of these illustrious persons, as well as to
see his son, who was then settled in Paris. It was therefore in
some respects a visit of paternal affection as well as literary
reputation. He set out for Paris in the month of May 1842.
Jasmin was a boy in his heart and feelings, then as always.
Indeed, he never ceased to be a boy--in his manners,
his gaiety, his artlessness, and his enjoyment of new pleasures.
What a succession of wonders to him was Paris--its streets,
its boulevards, its Tuileries, its Louvre, its Arc de Triomphe
--reminding him of the Revolution and the wars of the first
Napoleon.
Accompanied by his son Edouard, he spent about a week in
visiting the most striking memorials of the capital.
They visited together the Place de la Concorde, the Hotel de
Ville, Notre Dame, the Madeleine, the Champs Elysees, and most of
the other sights. At the Colonne Vendome, Jasmin raised his
head, looked up, and stood erect, proud of the glories of France.
He saw all these things for the first time, but they had long
been associated with his recollections of the past.
There are "country cousins" in Paris as well as in London.
They are known by their dress, their manners, their amazement
at all they see. When Jasmin stood before the Vendome Column,
he extended his hand as if he were about to recite one of his
poems. "Oh, my son," he exclaimed, "such glories as these are
truly magnificent!" The son, who was familiar with the glories,
was rather disposed to laugh. He desired, for decorum's sake,
to repress his father's exclamations. He saw the people standing
about to hear his father's words. "Come," said the young man,
"let us go to the Madeleine, and see that famous church."
"Ah, Edouard," said Jasmin, "I can see well enough that you are
not a poet; not you indeed!"
During his visit, Jasmin wrote regularly to his wife and friends
at Agen, giving them his impressions of Paris. His letters were
full of his usual simplicity, brightness, boyishness, and
enthusiasm. "What wonderful things I have already seen," he said
in one of his letters, "and how many more have I to see to-morrow
and the following days. M. Dumon, Minister of Public Works"
(Jasmin's compatriot and associate at the Academy of Agen),
"has given me letters of admission to Versailles, Saint-Cloud,
Meudon in fact, to all the public places that I have for so long
a time been burning to see and admire."
After a week's tramping about, and seeing the most attractive
sights of the capital, Jasmin bethought him of his literary
friends and critics. The first person he called upon was
Sainte-Beuve, at the Mazarin Library, of which he was director.
"He received me like a brother," said Jasmin, "and embraced me.
He said the most flattering things about my Franconnette,
and considered it an improvement upon L'Aveugle. 'Continue,'
he said, 'my good friend' and you will take a place in the
brightest poetry of our epoch.' In showing me over the shelves
in the Library containing the works of the old poets, which are
still read and admired, he said, 'Like them, you will never
die.'"
Jasmin next called upon Charles Nodier and Jules Janin.
Nodier was delighted to see his old friend, and after a long
conversation, Jasmin said that "he left him with tears in his
eyes." Janin complimented him upon his works, especially upon
his masterly use of the Gascon language. "Go on," he said,
"and write your poetry in the patois which always appears to me
so delicious. You possess the talent necessary for the purpose;
it is so genuine and rare."
The Parisian journals mentioned Jasmin's appearance in the
capital; the most distinguished critics had highly approved of
his works; and before long he became the hero of the day.
The modest hotel in which he stayed during his visit, was crowded
with visitors. Peers, ministers, deputies, journalists,
members of the French Academy, came to salute the author of the
'Papillotos.'
The proprietor of the hotel began to think that he was
entertaining some prince in disguise--that he must have come
from some foreign court to negotiate secretly some lofty
questions of state. But when he was entertained at a banquet by
the barbers and hair-dressers of Paris, the opinions of
"mine host" underwent a sudden alteration. He informed Jasmin's
son that he could scarcely believe that ministers of state would
bother themselves with a country peruke-maker! The son laughed;
he told the maitre d'hotel that his bill would be paid, and that
was all he need to care for.
Jasmin was not, however, without his detractors. Even in his own
country, many who had laughed heartily and wept bitterly while
listening to his voice, feared lest they might have given vent
to their emotions against the legitimate rules of poetry.
Some of the Parisian critics were of opinion that he was
immensely overrated. They attributed the success of the Gascon
poet to the liveliness of the southerners, who were excited by
the merest trifles; and they suspected that Jasmin, instead of
being a poet, was but a clever gasconader, differing only from
the rest of his class by speaking in verse instead of prose.
Now that Jasmin was in the capital, his real friends, who knew
his poetical powers, desired him to put an end to these
prejudices by reciting before a competent tribunal some of his
most admired verses. He would have had no difficulty in
obtaining a reception at the Tuileries. He had already received
several kind favours from the Duke and Duchess of Orleans while
visiting Agen. The Duke had presented him with a ring set in
brilliants, and the Duchess had given him a gold pin in the
shape of a flower, with a fine pearl surrounded by diamonds,
in memory of their visit. It was this circumstance which induced
him to compose his poem 'La Bago et L'Esplingo' (La Bague et
L'Epingle) which he dedicated to the Duchess of Orleans.
But Jasmin aimed higher than the Royal family. His principal
desire was to attend the French Academy; but as the Academy did
not permit strangers to address their meetings, Jasmin was under
the necessity of adopting another method. The Salons were open.
M. Leonce de Lavergne said to him: "You are now classed among
our French poets; give us a recitation in Gascon." Jasmin
explained that he could not give his reading before the members
of the Academy. "That difficulty," said his friend, "can soon
be got over: I will arrange for a meeting at the salon of one of
our most distinguished members."
It was accordingly arranged that Jasmin should give a reading at
the house of M. Augustin Thierry, one of the greatest of living
historians. The elite of Parisian society were present on the
occasion, including Ampere, Nizard, Burnouf, Ballanche,
Villemain, and many distinguished personages of literary
celebrity.
A word as to Jasmin's distinguished entertainer, M. Augustin
Thierry. He had written the 'History of the Conquest of England
by the Normans'--an original work of great value, though since
overshadowed by the more minute 'History of the Norman
Conquest,' by Professor Freeman. Yet Thierry's work is still of
great interest, displaying gifts of the highest and rarest kind
in felicitous combination. It shows the careful plodding of the
antiquary, the keen vision of the man of the world, the
passionate fervour of the politician, the calm dignity of the
philosophic thinker, and the grandeur of the epic poet. Thierry
succeeded in exhuming the dry bones of history, clothing them
for us anew, and presenting almost visibly the "age and body of
the times" long since passed away.
Thierry had also written his 'Narratives of the Merovingian
Times,' and revived almost a lost epoch in the early history of
France. In writing out these and other works--the results of
immense labour and research--he partly lost his eyesight. He
travelled into Switzerland and the South of France in the company
of M. Fauriel. He could read no more, and towards the end of
the year the remains of his sight entirely disappeared.
He had now to read with the eyes of others, and to dictate
instead of writing. In his works he was assisted by the
friendship of M. Armand Carrel, and the affection and judgment
of his loving young wife.
He proceeded with courage, and was able to complete the
fundamental basis of the two Frankish dynasties. He was about to
follow his investigations into the history of the Goths, Huns,
and Vandals, and other races which had taken part in the
dismemberment of the empire. "However extended these labours,"
he says,[1] "my complete blindness could not have prevented my
going through them; I was resigned as much as a courageous man
can be: I had made a friendship with darkness. But other trials
came: acute sufferings and the decline of my health announced a
nervous disease of the most serious kind. I was obliged to
confess myself conquered, and to save, if it was still time,
the last remains of my health."
The last words of Thierry's Autobiographical Preface are most
touching. "If, as I delight in thinking, the interest of science
is counted in the number of great national interests, I have
given my country all that the soldier mutilated on the field of
battle gives her. Whatever may be the fate of my labours, this
example I hope will not be lost. I would wish it to serve to
combat the species of moral weakness which is the disease of the
present generation; to bring back into the straight road of life
some of those enervated souls that complain of wanting faith,
that know not what to do, and seek everywhere, without finding
it, an object of worship and admiration. Why say, with so much
bitterness, that in this world, constituted as it is, there is
no air for all lungs, no employment for all minds? Is there not
opportunity for calm and serious study? and is not that a
refuge, a hope, a field within the reach of all of us? With it,
evil days are passed over without their weight being felt; every
one can make his own destiny; every one can employ his life
nobly. This is what I have done, and would do again if I had to
recommence my career: I would choose that which has brought me
to where I am. Blind, and suffering without hope, and almost
without intermission, I may give this testimony, which from me
will not appear suspicious; there is something in this world
better than sensual enjoyments, better than fortune, better than
health itself: it is devotion to science."
Footnotes for Chapter XI.
[1] Autobiographical Preface to the 'Narratives of the
Merovingian Times.'
CHAPTER XII.
JASMIN'S RECITATIONS IN PARIS.
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.
Footnotes for Chapter XII.
[1] 'Les Peuples de la France: Ethnographie Nationale.' (Didier.)
CHAPTER XIII.
JASMIN AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS.
Jasmin's visit to Paris in 1842 made his works more extensively
known, both at home and abroad. His name was frequently
mentioned in the Parisian journals, and Frenchmen north of the
Loire began to pride themselves on their Gascon poet. His Blind
Girl had been translated into English, Spanish, and Italian.
The principal English literary journal, the Athenaeum, called
attention to his works a few months after his appearance in
Paris.[1] The editor introduced the subject in the following
words:
"On the banks of the Garonne, in the picturesque and ancient
town of Agen, there exists at this moment a man of genius of the
first order--a rustic Beranger, a Victor Hugo, a Lamartine--
a poet full of fire, originality, and feeling--an actor
superior to any now in France, excepting Rachel, whom he
resembles both in his powers of declamation and his fortunes.
He is not unknown--he is no mute inglorious Milton; for the first
poets, statesmen, and men of letters in France have been to
visit him. His parlour chimney-piece, behind his barber's shop,
is covered with offerings to his genius from royalty and rank.
His smiling, dark-eyed wife, exhibits to the curious the tokens
of her husband's acknowledged merit; and gold and jewels shine
in the eyes of the astonished stranger, who, having heard his
name, is led to stroll carelessly into the shop, attracted by a
gorgeous blue cloth hung outside, on which he may have read the
words, Jasmin, Coiffeur."
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