Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist Part 6

"Who, fluttering softly from on high, Raised on his wing and bore me far, Where fields of balmiest ether are; There, in the shepherd la.s.sie'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 pa.s.ses 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 pa.s.sage 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 G.o.ddess, 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 pa.s.sion! 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 pa.s.sion to reach the n.o.blest 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 cla.s.sical 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 cla.s.s; and contrasts him with Reboul, the baker of Nimes, who writes in cla.s.sical 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 cla.s.sed 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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.sages. 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 a.s.semble. 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 pa.s.s 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."

Endnotes 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, n.o.ble in conception, elaborated with care, and impressive by the dignity of simple natural pa.s.sion.

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 amba.s.sador 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--