ich he
improvised at a banquet given to the non-commissioned officers of the
14th Chasseurs. Of course, the improvisation was carefully prepared;
and it was composed in French, as the non-commissioned officers did not
understand the Gascon dialect.

Jasmin extolled the valour of the French, and especially of the Gascons.
The last lines of his eulogy ran as follows:--

"O Liberty! mother of victory,
Thy flag always brings us success!
Though as Gascons we sing of thy glory,
We chastise our foes with the French!"

In the same year Jasmin addressed the poet Beranger in a pleasant
poetical letter written in classical French. Beranger replied in prose;
his answer was dated the 12th of July, 1832. He thanked Jasmin for his
fervent eulogy. While he thought that the Gascon poet's praise of his
works was exaggerated, he believed in his sincerity.

"I hasten," said Beranger, "to express my thanks for the kindness of
your address. Believe in my sincerity, as I believe in your praises.
Your exaggeration of my poetical merits makes me repeat the first words
of your address, in which you assume the title of a Gascon{2} poet. It
would please me much better if you would be a French poet, as you prove
by your epistle, which is written with taste and harmony. The sympathy
of our sentiments has inspired you to praise me in a manner which I am
far from meriting, Nevertheless, sir, I am proud of your sympathy.

"You have been born and brought up in the same condition as myself.
Like me, you appear to have triumphed over the absence of scholastic
instruction, and, like me too, you love your country. You reproach me,
sir, with the silence which I have for some time preserved. At the end
of this year I intend to publish my last volume; I will then take my
leave of the public. I am now fifty-two years old. I am tired of the
world. My little mission is fulfilled, and the public has had enough of
me. I am therefore making arrangements for retiring. Without the desire
for living longer, I have broken silence too soon. At least you must
pardon the silence of one who has never demanded anything of his
country. I care nothing about power, and have now merely the ambition of
a morsel of bread and repose.

"I ask your pardon for submitting to you these personal details. But
your epistle makes it my duty. I thank you again for the pleasure you
have given me. I do not understand the language of Languedoc, but, if
you speak this language as you