of the Provencals themselves has been overcome. There is undoubtedly a
new intellectual life in the Rhone valley, and the fame of the Felibres
and their great work has gone abroad into distant lands.

The purpose, then, of the present dissertation, will be to give an
account of the language of the Felibres, and to examine critically the
literary work of their acknowledged chief and guiding spirit, Frederic
Mistral.

The story of his life he himself has told most admirably in the preface
to the first edition of _Lis Isclo d'Or_, published at Avignon in 1874.
He was born in 1830, on the 8th day of September, at Maillane. Maillane
is a village, near Saint-Remy, situated in the centre of a broad plain
that lies at the foot of the Alpilles, the westernmost rocky heights of
the Alps. Here the poet is still living, and here he has passed his life
almost uninterruptedly. His father's home was a little way out of the
village, and the boy was brought up at the _mas_,[1] amid farm-hands and
shepherds. His father had married a second time at the age of
fifty-five, and our poet was the only child of this second marriage.

The story of the first meeting of his parents is thus told by the
poet:--

"One year, on St. John's day, Maitre Francois Mistral was in the midst
of his wheat, which a company of harvesters were reaping. A throng of
young girls, gleaning, followed the reapers and raked up the ears that
fell. Maitre Francois (Meste Frances in Provencal), my father, noticed a
beautiful girl that remained behind as if she were ashamed to glean like
the others. He drew near and said to her:--

"'My child, whose daughter are you? What is your name?'

"The young girl replied, 'I am the daughter of Etienne Poulinet, Maire
of Maillane. My name is Delaide.'

"'What! the daughter of the Maire of Maillane gleaning!'

"'Maitre,' she replied, 'our family is large, six girls and two boys,
and although our father is pretty well to do, as you know, when we ask
him for money to dress with, he answers, "Girls, if you want finery,
earn it!" And that is why I came to glean.'

"Six months after this meeting, which reminds one of the ancient scene
of Ruth and Boaz, Maitre Francois asked Maitre Poulinet for the hand of
Delaide, and I was born of that marriage."

His father's lands were extensive, and a great number of men were
required to work them. The poem, _Mireio_, is filled with pictures of
the sort of life led in the country of Maillan