PART FIRST


THE REVIVAL OF THE PROVENÇAL LANGUAGE




CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION


The present century has witnessed a remarkable literary phenomenon in
the south of France, a remarkable rebirth of local patriotism. A
language has been born again, so to speak, and once more, after a sleep
of many hundred years, the sunny land that was the cradle of modern
literature, offers us a new efflorescence of poetry, embodied in the
musical tongue that never has ceased to be spoken on the soil where the
Troubadours sang of love. Those who began this movement knew not whither
they were tending. From small beginnings, out of a kindly desire to give
the humbler folk a simple, homely literature in the language of their
firesides, there grew a higher ambition. The Provençal language put
forth claims to exist coequally with the French tongue on French soil.
Memories of the former glories of the southern regions of France began
to stir within the hearts of the modern poets and leaders. They began to
chafe under the strong political and intellectual centralization that
prevails in France, and to seek to bring about a change. The movement
has passed through numerous phases, has been frequently misinterpreted