people; and though the Gascons spoke the idiom, it had
lost much of its originality. It had become mixed, more or less, with
the ordinary French language, and the old Gascon words were becoming
gradually forgotten.

Yet the common people, after all, remain the depositories of old idioms
and old traditions, as well as of the inheritances of the past. They are
the most conservative element in society. They love their old speech,
their old dress, their old manners and customs, and have an instinctive
worship of ancient memories.

Their old idioms are long preserved. Their old dialect continues the
language of the fireside, of daily toil, of daily needs, and of domestic
joys and sorrows. It hovers in the air about them, and has been sucked
in with their mothers' milk. Yet, when a primitive race such as the
Gascons mix much with the people of the adjoining departments, the local
dialect gradually dies out, and they learn to speak the language of
their neighbours.

The Gascon was disappearing as a speech, and very few of its written
elements survived. Was it possible for Jasmin to revive the dialect,
and embody it in a written language? He knew much of the patois, from
hearing it spoken at home. But now, desiring to know it more thoroughly,
he set to work and studied it. He was almost as assiduous as Sir Walter
Scott in learning obscure Lowland words, while writing the Waverley
Novels. Jasmin went into the market-places, where the peasants from the
country sold their produce; and there he picked up many new words and
expressions. He made excursions into the country round Agen, where many
of the old farmers and labourers spoke nothing but Gascon. He conversed
with illiterate people, and especially with old women at their
spinning-wheels, and eagerly listened to their ancient tales and
legends.

He thus gathered together many a golden relic, which he afterwards made
use of in his poetical works. He studied Gascon like a pioneer. He made
his own lexicon, and eventually formed a written dialect, which he wove
into poems, to the delight of the people in the South of France. For the
Gascon dialect--such is its richness and beauty--expresses many shades
of meaning which are entirely lost in the modern French.

When Jasmin first read his poems in Gascon to his townspeople at Agen,
he usually introduced his readings by describing the difficulties he
had encountered in prosecuting his enquiries. His hearers, who knew more
French