The expression certainly leaves much to be desired in these poems, but they are not lacking in eloquence. We had already had something of this kind, though, written by a poet who was not a bricklayer.
He, too, had asked the rich the question following:
_Dans vos fetes d'hiver, riches, heureux du monde, Quand le bal tournoyant de ses feux vous inonde. . .
Songez-vous qu'il est la, sous le givre et la neige, Ce pere sans travail que la famine assiege?_He advises them to practise charity, the sister of prayer.
_Donnez afin qu'un jour, a votre derniere heure, Contre tous vos peches vous ayez la Priere D'un mendiant puissant au ciel_."We cannot, certainly, expect Poncy to be a Victor Hugo. But as we had Victor Hugo's verses, of what use was it for them to be rewritten by Poncy? My reason for quoting a few of the fine lines from _Feuilles d'automne_ is that I felt an urgent need of clearing away all these platitudes. Poncy was not the only working-man poet.
Other trades produced their poets too. The first poem in _Marines_is addressed to Durand, a poet carpenter, who introduces himself as "_Enfant de la foret qui ceint Fontainebleau_."This man handled the plane and the lyre, just as Poncy did the trowel and the lyre.
This poetry of the working-classes was to give its admirers plenty of disappointment. George Sand advised Poncy to treat the things connected with his trade, in his poetry. "Do not try to put on other men's clothes, but let us see you in literature with the plaster on your hands which is natural to you and which interests us,"she said to him.
Proud of his success with the ladies of Paris, Poncy wanted to wash his hands, put on a coat, and go into society. It was all in vain that George Sand beseeched Poncy to remain the poet of humanity.
She exposed to him the dogma of impersonality in such fine terms, that more than one _bourgeois_ poet might profit by what she said.
"An individual," she said, "who poses as a poet, as a pure artist, as a god like most of our great men do, whether they be _bourgeois_or aristocrats, soon tires us with his personality. . . . Men are only interested in a man when that man is interested in humanity."This was all of no use, though, for Poncy was most anxious to treat other subjects rather more lively and--slightly libertine.
His literary godmother admonished him.
"You are dedicating to _Juana l'Espagnole_ and to various other fantastical beauties verses that I do not approve. Are you a _bourgeois_ poet or a poet of the people? If the former, you can sing in honour of all the voluptuousness and all the sirens of the universe, without ever having known either. You can sup with the most delicious houris or with all the street-walkers, in your poems, without ever leaving your fireside or having seen any greater beauty than the nose of your hall-porter. These gentlemen write their poetry in this way, and their rhyming is none the worse for it.
But if you are a child of the people and the poet of the people, you ought not to leave the chaste breast of Desiree, in order to run about after dancing-girls and sing about their voluptuous arms."[38]
[38] See the letters addressed to Charles Poncy in the _Correspondance._It is to be hoped that Poncy returned to the chaste Desiree.
But why should he not read to the young woman the works of Pierre Leroux? We need a little gaiety in our life. In George Sand's published _Correspondance_, we only have a few of her letters to Charles Poncy. They are all in excellent taste. There is an immense correspondence which M. Rocheblave will publish later on.
This will be a treat for us, and it will no doubt prove that there was a depth of immense candour in the celebrated authoress.
It does not seem to me that the writings of the working-men poets have greatly enriched French literature. Fortunately George Sand's sympathy with the people found its way into literature in another way, and this time in a singularly interesting way.
She did not get the books written by the people themselves, but she put the people into books. This was the plan announced by George Sand in her preface to the _Compagnon du tour de France_.
There is an entirely fresh literature to create, she writes, "with the habits and customs of the people, as these are so little known by the other classes." The _Compagnon du tour de France_was the first attempt at this new literature of the people.
George Sand had obtained her documents for this book from a little work which had greatly struck her, entitled _Livre du compagnonnage_, written by Agricol Perdiguier, surnamed Avignonnais-la-Vertu, who was a _compagnon_ carpenter. Agricol Perdiguier informs us that the _Compagnons_ were divided into three chief categories: the _Gavots_, the _Devorants_ and the _Drilles_, or the _Enfants de Salomon_, the _Enlants de Maitre Jacques_ and the _Enfants du_ _Pere Soubise_. He then describes the rites of this order.