, brightness, boyishness, and enthusiasm. "What
wonderful things I have already seen," he said in one of his letters,
"and how many more have I to see to-morrow and the following days. M.
Dumon, Minister of Public Works" (Jasmin's compatriot and associate at
the Academy of Agen), "has given me letters of admission to Versailles,
Saint-Cloud, Meudon in fact, to all the public places that I have for so
long a time been burning to see and admire."

After a week's tramping about, and seeing the most attractive sights of
the capital, Jasmin bethought him of his literary friends and critics.
The first person he called upon was Sainte-Beuve, at the Mazarin
Library, of which he was director. "He received me like a brother," said
Jasmin, "and embraced me. He said the most flattering things about
my Franconnette, and considered it an improvement upon L'Aveugle.
'Continue,' he said, 'my good friend' and you will take a place in the
brightest poetry of our epoch.' In showing me over the shelves in the
Library containing the works of the old poets, which are still read and
admired, he said, 'Like them, you will never die.'"

Jasmin next called upon Charles Nodier and Jules Janin. Nodier was
delighted to see his old friend, and after a long conversation, Jasmin
said that "he left him with tears in his eyes." Janin complimented him
upon his works, especially upon his masterly use of the Gascon language.
"Go on," he said, "and write your poetry in the patois which always
appears to me so delicious. You possess the talent necessary for the
purpose; it is so genuine and rare."

The Parisian journals mentioned Jasmin's appearance in the capital; the
most distinguished critics had highly approved of his works; and before
long he became the hero of the day. The modest hotel in which he stayed
during his visit, was crowded with visitors. Peers, ministers, deputies,
journalists, members of the French Academy, came to salute the author of
the 'Papillotos.'

The proprietor of the hotel began to think that he was entertaining some
prince in disguise--that he must have come from some foreign court
to negotiate secretly some lofty questions of state. But when he was
entertained at a banquet by the barbers and hair-dressers of Paris,
the opinions of "mine host" underwent a sudden alteration. He informed
Jasmin's son that he could scarcely believe that ministers of state
would bother themselves with a country peruke-maker! The son laughed; he
to