“My friends,” said I, “in an old country legend I believe we shall find the predestined name.” And I proceeded: “His Reverence Saint-Anselme, reading and writing one day from the Holy Scriptures, was lifted up into the highest heaven. Seated near the Infant Christ he beheld the Holy Virgin. Having saluted the aged saint, the Blessed Virgin continued her discourse to her Infant Son, relating how she came to suffer for His sake seven bitter wounds.” Here I omitted the recital of the wounds until I came to the following passage: “The fourth wound that I suffered for Thee, O my precious Son, it was when I lost Thee, and seeking three days and three nights found Thee not until I entered the Temple, where Thou wast disputing with the scribes of the Law, with the seven ‘Félibres’ of the Law.” “The seven Félibres of the Law--but here we are!” cried they all in chorus: “Félibre is the name.” Then Glaup, filling up the seven glasses with a bottle of Châteauneuf which had been just seven years in the cellar, proposed the health of the Félibres. “And since we have begun baptizing,” he continued, “let us adopt all the vocabulary which can be legitimately derived from our new name. I suggest, therefore, that every branch of Félibres numbering not less than seven members shall be called a ‘Félibrerie,’ in memory, gentlemen, of the Pleiades of Avignon.” “And I,” said Roumanille, “beg to propose the pretty verb ‘félibriser,’ signifying to meet together as we are now doing.” “I wish to add,” said Mathieu, “the term ‘félibrée’ to signify a festivity of Provençal poets.” “And I,” struck in Tavan, “give the adjective ‘félibréen’ to all things descriptive of our movement.” “And to the ladies who shall sing in the tongue of Provence I dedicate the name of ‘Félibresse,’” said Aubanel. Upon which Brunet added promptly: “And the children of all Félibres I baptize ‘Félibrillons.’” “And let me conclude,” I cried, “with this national word, ‘Félibrige,’ which shall designate our work and association.” Then Glaup took up the speech again: “But this is not all, my friends--behold us, ‘the wise ones of the Law’--but how about the Law? Who is going to make it?” “I am,” I answered unhesitatingly, “even if I have to give twenty years of my life to it; I will undertake to show that our speech is a language, not a dialect, and I will reconstruct the laws on which it was once formed.” How strange it seems to look back on that scene--like some fairy-tale, and yet it was from that day of light-hearted festivity, of youthful ideals and enthusiasms, that sprang the gigantic task completed in the “Treasury of the Félibres,”[11] a [Illustration: MME. FRÉDÉRIC MISTRAL, 1ST QUEEN OF THE FÉLIBRES.] dictionary of the Provençal tongue, including every variety of derivation and idiom, a work to which I devoted twenty years of my life. In the _Provençal Almanac_ for 1855, Paul Giéra writes: