ks of art
inspired by the Felibrean movement. He has survived many of his
distinguished friends. Roumanille, Mathieu, Aubanel, Daudet, and Paul
Arene have all passed away; a new generation is about him. But his
activity knows no rest. The Felibrean festivities continue, the numerous
publications in the Provencal tongue still have in him a constant
contributor. In 1899 the Museon Arlaten (the Museum of Aries) was
inaugurated, and is another proof of the constant energy and enthusiasm
of the poet. He is to-day the greatest man in the south of France,
universally beloved and revered.

His life after all has been less a literary life than one of direct and
unceasing personal action upon the population about him. The
resurrection of the language, the publication of poems, magazines, and
newspapers, are only part of a programme tending to raise the people of
the south to a conception of their individuality as a race. He has
striven untiringly to communicate to them his own glowing enthusiasm for
the past glories of Provence, to fire them with his dream of a great
rebirth of the Latin races, to lay the foundation of a great ideal Latin
union. Wonderful is his optimism. Some of the Felibres about him are
somewhat discouraged, many of them have never set their aspirations as
high as he has done, and some look upon his dreams as Utopian. Whatever
be the future of the movement he has founded, Mistral's life in its
simple oneness, and in its astonishing success, is indeed most
remarkable. Provence, the land that first gave the world a literature
after the decay of the classic tongues, has awakened again under his
magic touch to an active mental life. A second literature is in active
being on the soil of France, a second literary language is there a
reality. Whether permanent or evanescent, this glorification of poetry,
this ardent love of the beautiful and the ideal, is a noble and
inspiring spectacle amid the turmoil and strife of this age of material
progress.

[Footnote 1: The word _mas_, which is kin with the English _manse_ and
_mansion_, signifies the home in the country with numerous outbuildings
grouped closely about it.]

CHAPTER II

THE FELIBRIGE

The history of the Felibrige, from its beginning, in 1854, down to the
year 1896, has been admirably written by G. Jourdanne.[2] The work is
quite exhaustive, containing, in addition to the excellently written
narrative, an engraving of the famous cup, portraits o