Provençal poets may scarcely be said to continue any preceding school or
to be closely linked with any literary past. In its inception it was a
mere attempt to write pleasing, popular verse of a better kind in the
dialect of the fireside. But the movement developed rapidly into the
ambition to endow the whole region with a real literature, to awaken a
consciousness of _race_ in the men of the south; these aims have been
realized, and a change has come over the life of Provence and the land
of the _langue d'oc_ in general. The author believes and adduces
evidences to show that all this could not have come about had the seed
not fallen upon a soil that was ready.

The Félibrige dates from the year 1854, but the idea that lies at the
bottom of it must be traced back to the determination of Roumanille to
write in Provençal rather than in French. He produced his _Margarideto_
in 1847 and the _Sounjarello_ in 1851. In collaboration with Mistral and
Anselme Mathieu, he edited a collection of poems by living writers under
the title _Li Prouvençalo_. During these years, too, there were meetings
of Provençal writers for the purpose of discussing questions of grammar
and spelling. These meetings, including even the historic one of May 21,
1854, were, however, really little more than friendly, social
gatherings, where a number of enthusiastic friends sang songs and made
merry. They had none of the solemnity of a conclave, or the dignity of
literary assemblies. There was no formal organization. Those writers who
were zealously interested in the rehabilitation of the Provençal speech
and connected themselves with Mistral and his friends were the
Félibres. Not until 1876 was there a Félibrige with a formal
constitution and an elaborate organization.

The word _Félibre_ was furnished by Mistral, who had come upon it in an
old hymn wherein occurs the expression that the Virgin met Jesus in the