On the fifth,Friday,Hilaire,now cured,leaves his house at mid-day."But fatal Friday,God has made thee for sorrow!"The father goes to the place where the masons are at work.
Though the hour for luncheon has not arrived,yet no one is seen on the platforms above;and O bon Dieu!what a crowd of people is seen at the foot of the building!Master,workmen,neighbours --all are there,in haste and tumult.A workman has fallen from the scaffold.It is poor little Abel.Hilaire pressed forward to see his beloved boy lie bleeding on the ground!Abel is dying,but before he expires,he whispers,"Master,I have not been able to finish the work,but for my poor mother's sake do not dismiss my father because there is one day short!"The boy died,and was carried home by his sorrowful parent.The place was preserved for Hilaire,and his wages were even doubled.But it was too late.One morning death closed his eyelids;and the good father went to take another place in the tomb by the side of his son.
Jasmin dedicated this poem to Lamartine,who answered his dedication as follows:--"Paris,28th April,1849.
"My dear brother,--I am proud to read my name in the language which you have made classic;more proud still of the beautiful verses in which you embalm the recollection of our three months of struggle with the demagogues against our true republic.Poets entertain living presentiments of posterity.I accept your omen.
Your poem has made us weep.You are the only epic writer of our time,the sensible and pathetic Homer of the people (proletaires).
Others sing,but you feel.I have seen your son,who has three times sheltered me with his bayonet--in March and April.
He appears to me worthy of your name.--LAMARTINE."Besides the above poems,Jasmin composed Le Pretre sans Eglise (The Priest without a Church),which forms the subject of the next chapter.These poems,with other songs and impromptus,were published in 1851,forming the third volume of his Papillotos.
After Jasmin had completed his masterpieces,he again devoted himself to the cause of charity.Before,he had merely walked;now he soared aloft.What he accomplished will be ascertained in the following pages.
Footnotes for Chapter XV.
[1]The elder Scaliger had been banished from Verona,settled near Agen,and gave the villa its name.The tomb of the Scaliger family in Verona is one of the finest mausoleums ever erected.
[2]Journal de Toulouse,4th July,1840.
[3]In the preface to the poem,which was published in 1845,the editor observes:--"This little drama begins in 1798,at Laffitte,a pretty market-town on the banks of the Lot,near Clairac,and ends in 1802.When Martha became an idiot,she ran away from the town to which she belonged,and went to Agen.When seen in the streets of that town she became an object of commiseration to many,but the children pursued her,calling out,'Martha,a soldier!'Sometimes she disappeared for two weeks at a time,and the people would then observe,'Martha has hidden herself;she must now be very hungry!'More than once Jasmin,in his childhood,pursued Martha with the usual cry of 'A soldier.'He little thought that at a future time he should make some compensation for his sarcasms,by writing the touching poem of Martha the Innocent;but this merely revealed the goodness of his heart and his exquisite sensibility.
Martha died at Agen in 1834."
[4]'Causeries du Lundi,'iv.241,edit.1852.