tion
that tends to destroy all initiative and originality--such were the
higher aims toward which they now bent their efforts. The attention of
Paris was turned in their direction. Jasmin had already shown the
Parisians that real poetry of a high order could be written in a patois.
Lamartine and Villemain welcomed the new literature most cordially, and
the latter declared that "France is rich enough to have two
literatures."

But the student of this history must not lose sight of the fact that the
Provencal poets are not first of all litterateurs; they are not men
devoting themselves to literature for a livelihood, or even primarily
for fame. They are patriots before they are poets. The choice of
subjects and the intense love of their native land that breathes through
all their writings, are ample proof of this. They meet to sing songs and
to speak; it is always of Provence that they sing and speak. Almost all
of them are men who ply some trade, hardly one lives by his pen alone.
This fact gives a very special character to their whole production. The
Felibrean movement is more than an astonishing literary phenomenon.

The idea from this time on acquired more and more adherents. Scores of
writers appeared, and volumes whose titles filled many pages swelled the
output of Provencal verse. These new aims were due to the success of
_Mireio_; but it must not be forgotten that Mistral himself, in that
poem and in the shorter poems of the same period, gave distinct
expression to the new order of ideas, so that we are constantly led back
to him, in all our study of the matter, as the creator, the continuer,
and the ever present inspirer of the Felibrige. Whatever it is, it is
through him primarily. Roumanille must be classed as one of those
precursors who are unconscious of what they do. To him the Felibres owe
two things: first of all, the idea of writing in the dialect works of
literary merit; and, secondly, the discovery of Frederic Mistral.

Among these new ideas, one that dominates henceforth in the story of the
Felibrige, is the idea of race. Mistral is well aware that there is no
Latin race, in the sense of blood relationship, of physical descent; he
knows that the so-called Latin race has, for the base of its unity, a
common history, a common tradition, a common religion, a common
language.

But he believes that there is a _race meridionale_ that has been
developed into a kind of unity out of the various elements tha