s are held, at which prizes are
distributed; every year, on the feast of St. Estelle, a general meeting
of the Felibrige takes place. Each Maintenance must meet once a year.

At the Floral Games he who is crowned poet-laureate chooses the Queen,
and she crowns him with a wreath of olive leaves.

To-day there are three Maintenances within the limits of French soil,
Provence, Languedoc, Aquitaine.

Among other facts that should doubtless be reported here is, the list of
Capoulies. They have been Mistral (1876-1888), Roumanille (1888-1891),
and Felix Gras; the Queens have been Madame Mistral, Mlle. Therese
Roumanille, Mlle. Marie Girard, and the Comtesse Marie-Therese de
Chevigne, who is descended upon her mother's side from Laura de Sade,
generally believed to be Petrarch's Laura.

Since the organization went into effect the Felibrige has expanded in
many ways, its influence has continually grown, new questions have
arisen. Among these last have been burning questions of religion and
politics, for although discussions of them are banished from Felibrean
meetings, opinions of the most various kind exist among the Felibres,
have found expression, and have well-nigh resulted in difficulties.
Until 1876 these questions slept. Mistral is a Catholic, but has managed
to hold more or less aloof from political matters. Aubanel was a zealous
Catholic, and had the title by inheritance of Printer to his Holiness.
Roumanille was a Catholic, and an ardent Royalist. When the Felibrige
came to extend its limits over into Languedoc, the poet Auguste Foures
and his fellows proclaimed a different doctrine, and called up memories
of the past with a different view. They affirmed their adherence to the
_Renaissance meridionale_, and claimed equal rights for the Languedocian
dialect. They asserted, however, that the true tradition was republican,
and protested vigorously against the clerical and monarchical parties,
which, in their opinion, had always been for Languedoc a cause of
disaster, servitude, and misery. The memory of the terrible crusade in
the thirteenth century inspired fiery poems among them. Hatred of Simon
de Montfort and of the invaders who followed him, free-thought, and
federalism found vigorous expression in all their productions. In
Provence, too, there have been opinions differing widely from those of
the original founders, and the third Capoulie, Felix Gras, was a
Protestant. Of him M. Jourdanne writes:--

"Finally, i