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Franconnette, like The Blind Girl of Castel-Cuille, is a story of rivalry in love; but, though more full of adventure, it ends more happily. Franconnette was a village beauty. Her brilliant eyes, her rosy complexion, her cherry lips, her lithe and handsome figure, brought all the young fellows of the neighbourhood to her feet.
It took him a long time to clothe his poetical thoughts in words. Nearly five years had elapsed since he recited The Blind Girl of Castel-Cuille to the citizens of Bordeaux; since then he had written a few poetical themes, but he was mainly thinking and dreaming, and at times writing down his new epic Franconnette. It was completed in 1840, when he dedicated the poem to the city of Toulouse.
Besides, he did not compose with rapidity; he elaborated his poems by degrees; he arranged the plot of his story, and then he clothed it with poetical words and images. While he walked and journeyed from place to place, he was dreaming and thinking of his next dramatic poem his Franconnette, which many of his critics regard as his masterpiece.
Then the gallant soldier dispelled the gloom which had overshadowed the union of the loving pair. "I can do no more," he said; "your mother has conquered me. Franconnette is good, and pure, and true. I loved the maid, Pascal, and would have shed my blood for her, but she loved you instead of me. "Know that she is not sold to the Evil One.
Indeed, Gascon was not a written language, and Jasmin had to collect his lexicon, grammar, and speech mostly from the peasants who lived in the neighbourhood of Agen. Dante virtually created the Italian language, while Jasmin merely resuscitated for a time the Gascon dialect. Jasmin was not deterred by the expostulations of Dumon, but again wrote his new epic of Franconnette in Gascon.
Deep emotion was produced by the introduction, in the midst of this beautiful music, of some popular airs from the romance of Franconnette and Me Cal Mouri, Jasmin's first work. The entire ceremony was touching, and moved many to tears.
"I must inform you, in all humility, that I often cannot compose more than two or three lines a day. My five poems, L'Aveugle, Mes Souvenirs, Franconnette, Martha the Innocent, and Les Deux Jumeaux, have cost me ten years' work, and they only contain in all but 2,400 verses!... I cannot write poetry by command. I cannot be a prisoner while I compose.
M. Villemain proceeded to comment upon the poetical works of Jasmin especially his Blind Girl of Castel-Cuille, his Franconnette, and the noble works he had done for the poor and the suffering; his self-sacrificing labours for the building of schools, orphanages, and churches.
"If I were only well," said he, "and you would give me the pleasure of your company for some time, I would kill you with weeping: I would make you die with distress for my poor Margarido, my pretty Franconnette." He then took up two copies of his Las Papillotos, handed one to Miss Costello, where the translation was given in French, and read from the other in Gascon.
Franconnette was there, as well as Marcel and Pascal, her special admirers. Dancing began to the music of the fife; but Pascal, the handsomest of the young men, seemed to avoid the village beauty. Franconnette was indignant at his neglect, but was anxious to secure his attention and devotion. She danced away, sliding, whirling, and pirouetting.
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