PART FIRST

THE REVIVAL OF THE PROVENCAL LANGUAGE

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The present century has witnessed a remarkable literary phenomenon in the south of France, a remarkable rebirth of local patriotism.  A language has been born again, so to speak, and once more, after a sleep of many hundred years, the sunny land that was the cradle of modern literature, offers us a new efflorescence of poetry, embodied in the musical tongue that never has ceased to be spoken on the soil where the Troubadours sang of love.  Those who began this movement knew not whither they were tending.  From small beginnings, out of a kindly desire to give the humbler folk a simple, homely literature in the language of their firesides, there grew a higher ambition.  The Provencal language put forth claims to exist coequally with the French tongue on French soil.  Memories of the former glories of the southern regions of France began to stir within the hearts of the modern poets and leaders.  They began to chafe under the strong political and intellectual centralization that prevails in France, and to seek to bring about a change.  The movement has passed through numerous phases, has been frequently misinterpreted and misunderstood, and may now, after it has attained to tangible results, be defined as an aim, on the part of its leaders, to make the south intellectually independent of Paris.  It is an attempt to restore among the people of the Rhone region a love of their ancient customs, language, and traditions, an effort to raise a sort of dam against the flood of modern tendencies that threaten to overwhelm local life.  These men seek to avoid that dead level of uniformity to which the national life of France appears to them in danger of sinking.  In the earlier days, the leaders of this movement were often accused at Paris of a spirit of political separatism; they were actually mistrusted as secessionists, and certain it is that among them have been several champions of the idea of decentralization.  To-day there are found in their ranks a few who advocate the federal idea in the political organization of France.  However, there seems never to have been a time when the movement promised seriously to bring about practical political changes; and whatever political significance it may have to-day goes no farther than what may be contained in germ in the effort at an intense local life.

The land of the Troubadours is now the land of the Felibres; these modern singers do not forget, nor will they allow the people of the south to forget, that the union of France with Provence was that of an equal with an equal, not of a principal with a subordinate.  Patriots they are, however, ardent lovers of France, and proofs of their strong affection for their country are not wanting.  To-day, amid all their activity and demonstrations in behalf of what they often call “la petite patrie,” no enemies or doubters are found to question their loyalty to the greater fatherland.