"Know that she is not sold to the Evil One.In my despair Ihired the sorcerer to frighten you with his mischievous tale,and chance did the rest.When we both demanded her,she confessed her love for you.It was more than I could bear,and I resolved that we should both die.
"But your mother has disarmed me;she reminds me of my own.
Live,Pascal,for your wife and your mother!You need have no more fear of me.It is better that I should die the death of a soldier than with a crime upon my conscience."Thus saying,he vanished from the crowd,who burst into cheers.
The happy lovers fell into each other's arms."And now,"said Jasmin,in concluding his poem,"I must lay aside my pencil.
I had colours for sorrow;I have none for such happiness as theirs!"Footnotes to Chapter IX.
[1]The whole of Jasmin's answer to M.Dumon will be found in the Appendix at the end of this volume.
[2]'Gascogne et Languedoc,'par Paul Joanne,p.95(edit.1883).
[3]The dance still exists in the neighbourhood of Agen.
When there a few years ago,I was drawn by the sound of a fife and a drum to the spot where a dance of this sort was going on.
It was beyond the suspension bridge over the Garonne,a little to the south of Agen.A number of men and women of the working-class were assembled on the grassy sward,and were dancing,whirling,and pirouetting to their hearts'content.
Sometimes the girls bounded from the circle,were followed by their sweethearts,and kissed.It reminded one of the dance so vigorously depicted by Jasmin in Franconnette.
[4]Miss Harriet Preston,of Boston,U.S.published part of a translation of Franconnette in the 'Atlantic Monthly'for February,1876,and adds the following note:"The buscou,or busking,was a kind of bee,at which the young people assembled,bringing the thread of their late spinning,which was divided into skeins of the proper size by a broad and thin plate of steel or whalebone called a busc.The same thing,under precisely the same name,figured in the toilets of our grandmothers,and hence,probably,the Scotch use of the verb to busk,or attire."
[5]Miss Louisa Stuart Costello in 'Bearn and the Pyrenees.'
[6]A custom which then existed in certain parts of France.
It was taken by the French emigrants to Canada,where it existed not long ago.The crown of the sacramental bread used to be reserved for the family of the seigneur or other communicants of distinction.
[7]A church in the suburbs of Agen,celebrated for its legends and miracles,to which numerous pilgrimages are made in the month of May.
[8]A long time ago the inhabitants of the town of Agen communicated with the other side of the Garonne by means of little boats.The first wooden bridge was commenced when Aquitaine was governed by the English,in the reign of Richard Coeur-de-lion,at the end of the twelfth century.The bridge was destroyed and repaired many times,and one of the piles on which the bridge was built is still to be seen.It is attributed to Napoleon I.that he caused the first bridge of stone to be erected,for the purpose of facilitating the passage of his troops to Spain.The work was,however,abandoned during his reign,and it was not until the Restoration that the bridge was completed.Since that time other bridges,especially the suspension bridge,have been erected,to enable the inhabitants of the towns on the Garonne to communicate freely with each other.