Celebrations of this kind have become a regular institution in southern France.  Since the day in 1862 when the town of Apt received the Felibres officially, organizing Floral Games, in which prizes were offered for the best poems in Provencal, the people have become accustomed to the sight of these triumphal entries of the poets into their cities.  Reports of these brilliant festivities have gone abroad into all lands.  If the love of noise and show that characterizes the southern temperament has caused these reunions to be somewhat unfavorably criticised as theatrical, on the other hand the enthusiasm has been genuine, and the results real and lasting.  The Felibrees, so they are called, have not all taken place in France.  In 1868, Mistral, Rournieux, Bonaparte-Wyse, and Paul Meyer went to Barcelona, where they were received with great pomp and ceremony.  Men eminent in literary and philological circles in Paris have often accepted invitations to these festivities.  In 1876, a Felibrean club, “La Cigale,” was founded in the capital; its first president was Henri de Bornier, author of La Fille de Roland.  Professors and students of literature and philology in France and in other countries began to interest themselves in the Felibres, and the Felibrige to-day counts among its members men of science as well as men of letters.

In 1874 one of the most remarkable of the celebrations, due to the initiative of M. de Berluc-Perussis, was held at Vaucluse to celebrate the fifth centenary of the death of Petrarch.  At this Felibree the Italians first became affiliated to the idea, and the Italian ambassador, Nigra, the president of the Accademia della Crusca, Signor Conti, and Professor Minich, from the University of Padua, were the delegates.  The Institute of France was represented for the first time.  This celebration was highly important and significant, and the scenes of Petrarch’s inspirations and the memories of the founder of the Renaissance must have awakened responsive echoes in the hearts of the poets who aimed at a second rebirth of poetry and learning in the same region.

The following year the Societe des langues romanes at Montpellier offered prizes for philological as well as purely literary works, and for the first time other dialects than the Provencal proper were admitted in the competitions.  The Languedocian, the Gascon, the Limousin, the Bearnais, and the Catalan dialects were thus included.  The members of the jury were men of the greatest note, Gaston Paris, Michel Breal, Mila y Fontanals, being of their number.

Finally, in 1876, on the 21st of May, the statutes of the Felibrige were adopted.  From them we quote the following:—­

“The Felibrige is established to bring together and encourage all those who, by their works, preserve the language of the land of oc, as well as the men of science and the artists who study and work in the interest of this country.”