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Nevertheless it is a charming trifle, and has survived many of Gounod's more pretentious works. 'La Reine de Saba' and 'La Colombe' are now forgotten, but 'Mireille' , one of the composer's most delightful works, still enjoys a high degree of popularity. The story, which is founded upon Mistral's Provençal romance 'Miréio, is transparently simple.
Mistral's name has long been European, and other English writers have charmingly described the Feux Floraux of the olden time and the society of Lou Felibrige with its revival of Provencal literature. But forty years ago, and twenty years before his masterpiece had found a translator here, he was known and highly esteemed by a great Englishman.
You can look in without being noticed, and see the walls, which are painted with pictures from Mistral's works. Also there's something else of interest, but I won't tell you what it is. I want to see if you can discover it for yourself." I peeped, and found the pictures charming.
Mistral but that we drink a glass of a cordial which is made by "Elise" from Mistral's own recipe; and as we raised the tiny glasses of the innocent liqueur in our hands, Mistral drank "A l'Amérique!"
We all talked together of the exquisite Venus of Arles, agreeing that it was wicked to have transplanted her to the Louvre; and Mistral's eyes rested upon me with something like interest for a moment as I said that I had seen and loved her there. I felt flattered and happy, forgetting that I was only a servant, who ought scarcely to have dared speak in the presence of this great genius.
Now it was the young Mistral's dream, as a school-boy in the old convent school of Saint Michael de Frigolet, at Avignon, to restore his native tongue to its former high estate, to make it once more a literary language, and it chanced that one of his masters, Joseph Roumanille, was secretly cherishing the same dream.
At lunch we had talked of a poem of Mistral's, which a friend of Mr. Dane's had put into French a poem all about a legendary duel. And it was down there, in that far-stretching field, that the duel was fought. As I looked I realized that the clouds boiling up from some vast cauldron behind the world were choking the horizon with their purple folds.
Remy than the sensational Nostradamus himself; and there was no trouble of that sort for me in lunching at the pleasant, quiet hotel. Mr. Dane had bought a French translation of Mistral's "Memoires," and as we ate, he and I alone together, he read me the incident of the child-poet and his three wettings in quest of the adored water-flowers.
Of course, we talked too of the "félibrige," and it was beautiful to see how M. Mistral's face softened at the mention of his friend Joseph Roumanille, and with what generosity he attributed the origin of the great movement to his dead friend. "But you must by all means call on Mme.
But, excellent as are the other poets which the school has produced and one need only glance through a recent Anthologie du Félibrige to realize what a wealth of true poetry the word "félibrige" now stands for there can be no question that its greatest asset still remains Mistral's own work, as it was his first great poem, Mirèio, which first drew the eyes of literary Paris, more than inclined to be contemptuous, to the Provençal renaissance.
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