his beloved Provence, its past and present, and its future, too, in a magnifying mirror that embellishes all it reflects with splendid, glowing colors, and exalts little figures to colossal proportions.  The reader falls easily under the spell of this exuberant enthusiasm and is charmed by the poetic power evinced.  The wealth of words, the beauty of the imagery with which, for example, the humble, well-nigh unknown little port of Cassis and its fishing industry are described, carry us along and hold us in momentary illusion.  We see them in the poet’s magic mirror for the time.  To the traveller or the sober historian all these things appear very, very different.

With the Felibres the success of the poem was much greater; it is a kind of patriotic hymn, a glorification of the past of Provence, and a song of hope for its future.  Its allegory, its learned literary allusions, its delving into obscure historic events, preclude any hope of popular success.

Like Mireio, the poem is divided into twelve cantos, and the form of stanza employed is the same.  The heroic tone of the poem might be thought to have required verse of greater stateliness; the recurrence of the three feminine rhymes in the shorter verses often seems too pretty.  Like Mireio, the poem has the outward marks of an epic.  Unlike Mireio, it reminds us frequently of the Chansons de geste, and we see that the author has been living in the world of the Old Provencal poets.  This is apparent not merely in the constant allusions, in the reproductions of episodes, but in the manner in which the narrative moves along.  Lamartine would not have been reminded of the ancient Greek poets had Calendau preceded Mireio.  The conception of courtly love, the guiding, elevating inspiration of Beatrice, leading Dante on to greater, higher, more spiritual things, are the sources of the chief ideas contained in Calendau.  Vincen and Mireio remain throughout the simple youth and maiden they were, but Calendau, “the simple fisherman of Cassis,” develops into a great hero, performing Herculean tasks, like a knight of the days of chivalry, and rises higher and higher until he wins “the empire of pure love”—­his lady’s hand.

Very beautiful is the invocation addressed to the “soul of his country that radiates, manifest in its language and in its history—­that through the greatness of its memories saves hope for him.”  It is the spirit that inspired the sweet Troubadours, and set the voice of Mirabeau thundering like the mistral.  The poet proclaims his belief in his race.  “For the waves of the ages and their storms and horrors mingle the nations and wipe out frontiers in vain.  Mother Earth, Nature, ever feeds her sons with the same milk, her hard breast will ever give the fine oil to the olive; Spirit, ever springing into life, joyous, proud, and living spirit that neighest in the noise of the Rhone and in the wind thereof! spirit of the harmonious woods, and of the sunny bays, pious soul of the fatherland, I call thee! be incarnate in my Provencal verse!”