Frédéric Mistral

Mistral.... like the name of the wind « the most fol and the most magisterial of the band to Eole » *...one of the most famous characters of all Occitanie ... and the beloved poet of Passadoc!
He was born in Maillane – a small village in Bouches-du-Rhône, of which he will be a municipal councillor and which now has some 2,700 inhabitants – in a family of peasants that are said to be wealthy; A village he won't leave... He lived there, worked there, received his friends, died there in 1814; He's 84.

* G. Brassens

Mai éu restavo dins Maiano,
E lis ancian dóu terradou
Ian vist treva nòstis andano...

But he stayed in Maillane,
and local elders
They saw our paths...

Moun Toumbéu – Poem of Mistral – 1907

His family would like him to be a lawyer; Mistral studied at the University of Aix and then at the University of Marseille. In 1851, he obtained a law degree. He is already 46 years old when he marries Marie Rivière, Dijonnaise barely 20 years old, she will always remain in the shadow of her husband. They won't have children.

Mistral will never be a lawyer, he will be a writer and will sing Provence and, more precisely, the language of doc.
He is the author of some 15 publications, including Mireille – Mirèio – (1859), a drama: Mireille and Vincent, a poor vannier, lovingly loving and wanting to marry; The parents oppose it... Desperate, Mireille will pray to the Holy Marys of the Mer; Unfortunately, the too hot sun kills her: victim of an insolation, she dies in Vincent's arms and before the eyes of her grieving parents.

It is immediately a great success, a story that Mistral dedicates to Lamartine:
I consecrate Mireille: it is my heart and my soul;
It is the flower of my years;
It's a Crau grape that's with all its leaves
T^.

Lamartine is conquered: A great epic poet was born! The perfume of your book will not evaporate in a thousand years!

Charles Gounod, also seduced by the story and story of the writer, composes an opera; The work was created at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris in 1864.

In 1904, Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to Mistral for Mirèio Rewards a work in Provencal, « minority language in Europe and is therefore an exception ».

Next Calendal – Calendou (1857) that Mistral would refine for seven years. Disception: the work has no success... Georges Bizet was interested in time but gave up quickly.

Aquelo nesco s
Din un cumbo arebro et sourno
Wind pee a mill that roco subran
I'm not saying that.
Talking to you about redhead wax
Neither cat nor cabro nor satire
In accordance with Article 3 of Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71,
F. Mistral
Centenari de Calendau
1866-1966

This Nesque sinks
In a dark grave
And then comes a moment when the rock suddenly
Enlargement above in an amazing way
I'm talking about the Rock of the Cire,
No cat, no goat, no satire
Never will climb it.

[English: André Abbe]

Alone, his friend Daudet is relatively enthusiastic:

I tenese on notebook of the Calendal between my hands, and I was reading it, full of emotion...
[…] As Mistral told me his verses in this beautiful Provençal language, more than three quarters Latin, that the queens once spoke and that now our fathers alone understand, I admired this man within me, and, thinking of the state of ruin where he found his mother tongue and what he did with it *...

What did he do with it? The Folibrig he created with six friends, poets like him: Joseph Roumanille, Théodore Aubanel, Paul Giéra, Alphonse Tavan, Jean Brunet, Anselme Mathieu.

Another remarkable work, magisterial itself: Lou tresor from where Feliberge, a dictionary of speakers (gascon, Provençal, Limousin, Languedoc,...) More than 2,000 pages of information (lex, dialects, grammar, ethnography).

* The poet Mistral – Letters from my mill.

Between the two men, a long, very long friendship tarnished when Daudet published Numa RoumestanA caricature of a southern man who pains Mistral.