l'Innoucento." "Crazy Martha" (as she would be called in England) was a poor woman, who for thirty years lived in Agen on public charity, only leaving her forlorn abode when driven forth by hunger. Often, in their cruel thoughtlessness, children would call out, "Martha! a soldier!" and she fled in terrorwherefore, we learn from her veritable history, as told by the poet with more fulness of delicate detail than we have quote. We give the main features of the story. space to In a cottage almost hidden among the trees, on the banks kissed by the clear waters of the Lot, a young girl thought, or prayed, or moved restlessly about the room; for, in the village near, the conscription was going on, and the drawing of the lots would decide her own fate as well as that of another. Her friend Annette, who was in the same case as herself, came in. Alarmed at Martha's paleness, she tried to cheer her, and advised her to take the matter easily, quoting herself as an example: "If Joseph goes, I may shed a few tears; but I shall wait for him without dying." To pass the time, the two girls, "L'Aimant et la Légère," draw cards, to learn the fate of their lovers. The game is well described. At the moment the fatal Queen of Clubs turns up, the sound of drums and fifes announces the joyous return of the youths who have escaped conscription. Amongst them Annette sees Joseph. Jacques is not there. A fortnight later, Annette and Joseph are married, and the weeping Jacques takes leave of Martha. Without father or mother, he has no one in the world to love but her, and he promises, if spared by war, to return and make her his own for life. This brings the poem to its first "pause." The second part opens with the return. of May-"Es tournat lou més de May"—which is described with all the ardent love of Nature inherent in the poets of the South. Amid the songs of gladness and the general joy one voice alone is as plaintive as it is sweet-the voice of the mourning Martha. Las hiroundèlos soun tournàdos, Nou las an pas desseparados Amb'elos coumo nous-aou dus! "The swallows are come back," she sings, "I see my two there in their nest above. No one has parted them, as we two are parted! Ah! they fly down, shining and beautiful, and with the ribbon Jacques tied round their necks upon my fête last year, when from our joined hands they pecked the golden flies we caught for them. . . . Stay with me, little birds so dear to Jacques ;-my room looks sunwards;-stay with me; for oh, I long so much to speak of him!" But day by day she fades away, and before long the priest asks the prayers of the faithful for the dying girl. A kind old uncle, divining the cause of her wasting fever, whispers in her ear a few words which inspire her with new life and courage. She recovers. He sells his little vineyard, and with the sum it brings, Marthe works long and bravely until she has saved almost enough to buy her lover's discharge. Her uncle dies. She sells the house. The sum is complete, and she hastens with it to the Curé, begging him to write to Jacques and tell him that he is free, but not to say to whom he owes his freedom -"that he will surely guess." The third part of the poem begins with a loving description of the country priest. Jacques had to be found. It was no easy matter during the great wars of Napoleon to discover, in the midst of an army, a soldier without a name, and who had not been heard of for three years. However, the good Curé, resolved as he was to leave no stone unturned, was sure to succeed. Meantime, Marthe, happy and hopeful, worked on, "in order that, having already given her all, she might still have more to give." Her generous deed, hidden until now, began to be whispered abroad from meadow to meadow, and the folk of all the country round fell in love with the steadfast maiden. She was serenaded at night; in the morning she found her door hung with garlands, and in the day young girls came, with friendly eyes, bringing presents to the faithful fiancée. One Sunday, after Mass, she sees the Curé coming to her with a letter. Jacques is found; the letter is from him. He does not guess who is his deliverer, but imagines (for he is a foundling) that his mother has declared herself, and obtained his discharge. Thus, he will have surprise upon surprise when he knows all, in eight days' time;-for on Sunday he will come. The long week of waiting passes away at last. Then, after Mass, all the people leave the church, only to assemble at the turn of the high road, and there await his arrival as if he were some great lord. Marthe, happy and beautiful, stands by the aged priest; and both are smiling. There is nothing in the middle, nothing at the end of the long straight road, except only the shadows torn in pieces by the sun. But we will quote the French translation as being closer to the original : Rien au milieu, rien au fond de ce sillon plat, Rien que de l'ombre déchirée à morceaux par le soleil. Tout d'un coup un point noir á grossi: il se remue. Deux hommes.... deux soldats. . . . le plus grand, c'est lui! . . . Et ils s'avancent tous deux. . . . L'autre, quel est celui-là ? Il a l'air d'une femme. . . . Eh! c'en est une, étrangère; Qu'elle est belle; gracieuse! Elle est mise en cantinière. EE Marthe a les yeux sur eux, triste comme une morte. Tout frémit, tout est muet, eux deux s'avancent davantage.. Mais qu'est-ce maintenant? Jacques a l'air en peine. Il a vu Marthe.... tremblant, honteux, il s'est arrêté. . . . "Jacques, quelle est cette femme ?" Je suis marié." Et comme un criminel, Jacques baissait la tête : "Ma fille, du courage! Ici-bas il faut souffrir!" ... On la regarde. Ils avaient peur qu'elle n'allat en mourir. Puis, tout à coup elle rit: elle rit convulsivement. La pauvre fille était folle ! Jasmin was never so happy as when utilizing his talents for any good and charitable work; never so pathetic as when depicting the sufferings of the poor. Far, however, from encouraging the latter in those feelings of envy and discontent flattered by modern socialism, he sang to them of courage and hope. "See! The rich grow better! It is for us to defend the châteaux our fathers wished to demolish! It is the glory of a nation to shield its choicest and best." On the other hand, he did not fail to remind the rich of their duties. "He who would have honey, must protect the bee;" and, "He who digs around the roots shall make the tree-tops blossom." The general aim of Jasmin in his poems was to paint the manners and the people of the South, and he does so with the hand of a master. His subjects are well chosen, treated with breadth, and at the same time with wonderful delicacy of touch. His sympathies are invariably given to worthy and noble objects, to all that is generous and holy and true; and though he never wastes a line on fancied miseries, or a tear on worthless woes, his tender compassion is prompt for real suffering and sorrow. His sensitiveness on behalf of the indigent, for instance, appears in his "Carital," written and recited for the poor of Tonneins, and in which he says: N'es pas prou, per tia la mizéro, Al paoure espeilloundrat que bado di talen (&c.). Ce n'est pas assez, pour tuer la misère, Ils jettent deux sous dans la rue Au pauvre déguenillé qui ouvre la bouche de faim. Qu'ils s'en aillent l'hiver quand il gèle; qu'il grésille, "Ah! pauvrets, que le temps est dur!" Autant qu'il est doux de la donner ! Jasmin wrote a series of poems for charitable purposes. He was called upon ou all sides, until, like a Troubadour of the Middle Ages, he spent much of his life on pilgrimage from place to place. Everywhere he was received with the greatest enthusiasm,-deputations, triumphal arches, or, as at Damazan, by a procession of maidens strewing the road with flowers while they sang the chorus, adapted for the occasion, Las carrèros diouyon flouri, In 1842, he visited Paris, where the modest hotel at which he stayed was so besieged by visitors of distinction that the hotelkeeper charged Jasmin's son with having deceived him, his father being "plainly some prince in disguise." At Court, he was welcomed by the Duchess of Orleans with a quotation from one of his own poems : Brabes Gascons, Ey plazé di bous beyre. But amid the applause he everywhere received at Paris, he longed for his simple life at home, and would not be persuaded to remain long in the capital. On his second visit, some years later, the Archbishop of Paris, during a soirée at the house of the Marquis de Barthélémy, presented him with a golden branch, inscribed, "A Jasmin le plus grand des Troubadours." His works were crowned by the Académie Française: he was made Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur at the same time as Balzac, Soulié, and Alfred de Musset;† and the Order of St. *"Brave Gascon, it gives me pleasure to see you here. Draw near!" The Minister of Public Instruction wrote to him:-" Your deeds equal your talents. You build churches; you succour the indigent; Gregory the Great was conferred on him by Pope Pius the Ninth. It was for the ruined Church of Vergt, near Périgord, that he recited one of his happiest compositions, "La Gleyzo Descapelado" -the unroofed church. I was naked; and never can I forget how, in my boyhood, the Church many a time clothed me. Now, in my manhood, I find her bare, and I would cover her in my turn. O give, then, give, all of you, that I may have the joy of doing once for her what she has so often done for me! * The tower of the Church of Vergt is called "le clocher de Jasmin," and his name is carved upon it. The last acts of Jasmin, whom Lamartine called, "the truest of modern poets," were for the poor and suffering, and his last poem, an Act of Faith. After his holy death, Cardinal Donnet, of Bordeaux, spoke of him as the "St. Vincent de Paul of Poesy;" and the comparison has a peculiar fitness. The poems of Jasmin reveal in their author the soul of a child, the heart of a woman, and the strong and sober intellect of a man. Their most sparkling gaiety is always pure, and their seriousness never degenerates into morbid gloom. The stream, whether in sunshine, or shade, flows on, fresh, full, and clear, into the boundless sea. ART. V.-ARCHBISHOP LANFRANC AND HIS PROPOSE to weave a few discursive pages, which shall relate, directly or indirectly, to Archbishop Lanfranc, a character whom it has, of late years, been rather the fashion to decry; and I address myself to the task, not as his apologist, not as his admirer, not as his votary, but as hoping to show how very materially our estimate of men who lived in a very different age and under very different circumstances from our own may be modified by the labor improbus which busies itself with minutia that lie along the paths of historical inquiry. The net result of the generally received accounts of Lanfranc is pretty much as follows:-That, despite the advantages of noble birth and polite education, an education which set him secure from the worst dangers peculiar to court and camp, he had so far you have made your gifts a beneficent power; and your muse is a Sister of Charity." In fact, between 1825 and 1854, Jasmin gave no less than twelve thousand "Readings" for benevolent purposes. *He died in 1854. |