The unanimity of votes accorded to _Mireille_[20] by the members of the French Academy set the seal of sanction to the Provençal Renaissance, and reinforced Mistral himself with faith and resolution to carry out his mission. Up till that time he had said truly, as in the opening strophe of _Mireille_, that he “sang only for the shepherds and people of the soil!”--“What will they say at Arles?” was his one thought as he wrote _Mireille_. But before the completion of his epic his ambition for his native tongue had widened. The notes in the Appendix and the French translation published with the Provençal testify to this fact. Already he was beginning to realise the leading part he was about to play in the society founded at Font-Ségugne. The school of Roumanille, of which, in virtue of _Mireille_, Mistral was now chief, added to its members daily. The rules of the language were now fixed, the language of the Félibres, and thanks to _L’Armana_ (an annual publication initiated and edited by Roumanille) were little by little adopted by the people. This classic vulgate--with which Mistral, by pruning and enriching his native dialect, had, like another Dante, dowered his country--had become immortal, having given birth to a masterpiece. It now remained to give a national tendency to the movement. It was by raising the ambitions of a race, and annexing the sympathy of the “Félibres” among them, by showing them their ancestry from remotest times, and bringing to light their inalienable rights, that Mistral evolved out of a literary renaissance a great patriotic cause. With his _Ode aux Catalans_ (1859) and his _Chant de la Coupe_, Mistral sealed the alliance between the Provençals and the Catalans, their brethren both of race and tongue. This was ratified when in 1868 Mistral, together with Roumieux, Paul Meyer, and Bonaparte Wyse, met at the Barcelona fête in response to the call of the Catalonians. SONG OF THE CUP.[21] Men of Provence, this Cup has come to us Pledge of our Catalonian brothers’ troth, Then let us each in turn drain from it thus The pure wine of our native vineyard’s growth. O sacred cup Filled brimming up! Pour out to overflowing Enthusiasms glowing, The energy pour out that doth belong Of right unto the strong. Of an ancestral people proud and free Perchance we are the end, we faithful few: And should the “Félibres” fall, it well may be The end and downfall of our nation too. O sacred cup, &c. Yet, in a race that germinates again We are perchance the first-fruits of our earth, We are perchance the pillars that maintain, The knights that lead, the country of our birth. O sacred cup, &c. Pour out for us the golden hopes once more, The visions that our youth was wont to see, And, with remembrance of the days of yore, Faith in the days that are about to be.