"O Provence, des pleurs s'échappent de mes yeux Quand vibre sur mon luth ton nom mélodieux.... O région d'amour, de parfum, de lumière, Il me serait bien doux de t'appeler ma mère.... Autour d'Aix, la romaine, il n'est pas de ravines, Pas de rochers perdus au penchant des collines, Dans la vallée en fleur pas de lointains sentiers, Où, l'on ne puisse voir l'empreinte de mes pieds.... Écolier échappé de la docte prison, Et jetant aux échos son rire et sa chanson, Adolescent rêveur poursuivant sous tes saules La nymphe dont il croit voir blanchir les épaules, Jusqu'aux derniers taillis j'ai couru tes forêts, O Provence, et foulé tes lieux les plus secrets. Mes lèvres nommeraient chacune de tes pierres, Chacun de tes buissons perdus dans tes clairières. J'ai joué si longtemps sur tes coteaux fleuris, Que brins d'herbe et graviers me sont de vieux amis."[18] Those rambles undoubtedly helped to rouse a sense of poetry in Zola and his companions. Besides providing themselves with provisions,--at times a small joint of raw mutton and some salad plants, which they cooked or dressed in the wilds,--they carried books, volumes of the poets, in their pockets or their bags. One year, 1856, Victor Hugo reigned over them like an absolute monarch. They were conquered by the majesty of his compositions, enraptured by his powerful rhetoric. His dramas haunted them like splendid visions. After being chilled by the classic monologues which they were compelled to learn by heart at the college, they felt warmed, transported into an orgy of quivering ecstacy, when they lodged passages of "Hernani" and "Ruy Blas" in their minds. Many a time, on the river-bank, after bathing, they acted some scenes together.[19] Indeed, they knew entire plays, and on the way home, in the twilight, they would adapt their steps to the rhythm of those lines which were sonorous like trumpet-blasts. But a day came when one of them produced a volume of Alfred de Musset's poems, the perusal of which set their hearts quivering. From that hour their worship for Hugo received a great blow, his lines fled from their memories, and Musset alone reigned over them. He became their constant companion in the hollows, the grottoes, the little village inns where they rested; and, again and again, they read "Rolla" or the "Nights," aloud.[20]