Jasmin's appearance at Bergerac was a great event.Bergerac is a town of considerable importance,containing about fourteen thousand inhabitants,situated on the right or north bank of the river Dordogne.But during that terrible winter the poor people of Bergerac were in great distress,and Jasmin was summoned to their help.The place was at too great a distance from Agen for him to walk thither,and accordingly he was obliged to take a conveyance.He was as usual met by a multitude of people,who escorted him into the town.
The magistrates could not find a place sufficiently large to give accommodation to the large number of persons who desired to hear him.At length they found a large building which had been used as a barn;and there they raised a platform for the poet.
The place was at once filled,and those who could not get admission crowded about the entrance.Some of the people raised ladders against the walls of the building,and clambered in at the windows.Groups of auditors were seen at every place where they could find a footing.Unfortunately the weather was rainy,and a crowd of women filled the surrounding meadow,sheltered by their umbrellas.
More than five hundred persons had not been able to find admission,and it was therefore necessary for Jasmin to give several more readings to satisfy the general enthusiasm.All the receipts were given over by Jasmin for the benefit of the poor,and the poet hurried home at once to his shaving and hair-dressing.
On another occasion,at Gontaud,the weather was more satisfactory.The day was fine and sunny,and the ground was covered with flowers.About the time that Jasmin was expected,an open carriage,festooned with flowers,and drawn by four horses,was sent to the gate of the town,escorted by the municipal council,to wait for the poet.When he arrived on foot for the place was at no great distance from Agen twelve young girls,clothed in white,offered him a bouquet of flowers,and presented him with an address.He then entered the carriage and proceeded to the place where he was to give his recitation.All went well and happily,and a large offering was collected and distributed amongst the poor.
Then at Damazan,where he gave another reading for the same purpose,after he had entered the carriage which was to convey him to the place of entertainment,a number of girls preceded the carriage in which the poet sat,and scattered flowers in his way,singing a refrain of the country adapted to the occasion.
It resembled the refrain sung before the bride in The Blind Girl of Castel-Cuille:
"The paths with flowers bestrew,So great a poet comes this way;For all should flower and bloom anew,So great a poet comes to-day."[2]
These are only specimens of the way in which Jasmin was received during his missions of philanthropy.He went from north to south,from east to west,by river and by road,sleeping where he could,but always happy and cheerful,doing his noble work with a full and joyous heart.He chirruped and sang from time to time as if his mouth was full of nightingales.And he was never without enthusiastic multitudes to listen to his recitals,and to share their means with the poor and afflicted.
We might fill this little story with a detailed account of his journeyings;but a summary account is all that is at present necessary.We shall afterwards return to the subject.
Footnotes to Chapter VIII.
[1]Mr.George Dolby,in his work 'Charles Dickens as I knew him,'tells "the story of the famous 'reading tours,'the most brilliantly successful enterprises that were ever undertaken."Chappell and Co.paid him 1500sterling for thirty readings in London and the provinces,by which they realised 5000sterling.Arthur Smith and Mr.Headland were his next managers,and finally Mr.George Dolby.The latter says that Mr.Dickens computed the money he netted under the Smith and Headland management at about 12,000sterling;and under Dolby's management "he cleared nearly 33,000sterling."
[2]In Gascon:
"Las carreros diouyon fleuri,Tan gran poete bay sourti;Diouyon fleuri,diouyon graua,Tan gran poete bay passa."