“His expression was straightforward, modest and gentle, with nothing in it of that proud tension of the features or of that vacancy of the eye which too often characterises those men of vanity rather than genius, styled popular poets. He had the comeliness of sincerity, he pleased, he interested, he touched; one recognised in his masculine beauty the son of one of those beautiful Arlesiennes, living statues of Greece, who still move in our south. “Mistral sat down without ceremony at my dinner-table in Paris, according to the laws of ancient hospitality, as I would have seated myself at the farm table of his mother at Maillane. The dinner was quiet, the conversation intimate and frank. The evening passed quickly and pleasantly in my little garden about the size of the kerchief of Mireille, to the song of blackbirds in the fresh cool night air. “The young man recited some verses in the sweet nervous idiom of Provence, which combines the Latin pronunciation with the grace of Attica and the serenity of Tuscany. My knowledge of the Latin dialects, which I spoke up to the age of twelve in the mountains of my country, made these fine idioms intelligible to me. The verses of Mistral were liquid and melodious, they pleased without intoxicating me. The genius of the young man was not there, the medium was too restricted for his soul; he needed, as did Jasmin, that other singer of indigenous growth, his epic poem in which to spread his wings. He returned to his village, there at his mother’s hearth and beside the flocks to find his last inspirations. On taking leave, he promised to send me the first printed copy of his _Mireille_.” After this memorable occasion I paid my farewell respects to Lamartine. He lived at that time on the ground floor in the Rue de la Ville-l’Evêque. It was evening. Burdened with his debts and somewhat forsaken, the great man drowsed on a sofa, smoking a cigar, while some visitors spoke in low voices around him. All at once a servant came to announce that a Spaniard, a harpist called Herrera, asked permission to play some of the music of his country before Monsieur de Lamartine. “Let him come in,” said the poet. When the harpist had played his tunes, Lamartine, in a whisper to his niece, Madame de Cessia, asked if there was any money in the drawers of his bureau. “There are still two louis,” she replied. “Give them to Herrera,” said the kind-hearted Lamartine. I returned to Provence to get my poem printed, and so soon as it issued from the printing office of Seguin at Avignon, I directed the first proof to Lamartine, who wrote to Reboul[17] the following letter: