"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}
Endnotes 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