CHAPTER VII THREE EARLY FELIBRES Like the cats who continually move their young ones from place to place, at the opening of the next school year my mother took me off to Monsieur Dupuy, a native of Carpentras, who kept a school in Avignon near the Pont-Troué. And here, in furtherance of my ambitions as a budding Provençalist, I had indeed my “nozzle in the hay.” Monsieur Dupuy was the brother of Charles Dupuy, a former Deputy of La Drôme, and author of “Petit Papillons,” a delicate morsel of our modern Provençal. Our Dupuy also tried his hand at Provençal poetry, but he did not boast about it, and therein showed wisdom. Shortly after my arrival, there came to the school a young professor with a fine black beard, a native of Saint-Rémy, whose name was Joseph Roumanille. As we were neighbours--Maillane and Saint-Rémy being in the same canton--and our families, both of the farming class, had known each other for years past, we were soon friends. Before long I found another bond which drew us still closer, namely, that the young professor was also interested in writing verses in the language of Provence. On Sundays we went to Mass and vespers at the Carmelite church. Our places were behind the High Altar, in the choir-stalls, and there our young voices mingled with those of the choristers, among whom was Denis Cassan, another Provençal poet, and one of the most popular at the carousals of the students’ quarter. We saw him, however, clad in a surplice, with a foolish phlegmatic air, as he intoned the responses and psalms. The street where he lived now bears his name. One Sunday during vespers, the idea came into my head to render in Provençal verse the penitential psalms, so in the half-opened book I began furtively to scribble down my version in pencil. But Monsieur Roumanille, who was in charge, came behind me, and seizing the paper I was writing, read it and then showed it to the headmaster, Monsieur Dupuy. The latter, it seems, viewed the matter leniently; so after vespers, during our walk round the ramparts, Roumanille called me to him. “So, my little Mistral, you amuse yourself by writing verses in Provençal?” “Sometimes,” I admitted. “Would you like me to repeat you some verses. Listen!” And then in his deep sympathetic voice he recited to me one after another of his own poems--“Les Deux Agneux,” “Le Petit Joseph,” “Paulon,” “Madeleine et Louisette,” a veritable outburst of April flowers and meadow blooms, heralds of the Félibrean spring time. Filled with delight, I listened, feeling that here was the dawn for which my soul had been waiting to awake to the light.