Mistral went to Paris, where for a time he was the lion of the literary world.  The French Academy crowned his poem, and Gounod composed the opera Mireille, which was performed for the first time in 1864, in Paris.

The poet did not remain long in the capital.  He doubtless realized that he was not destined to join the galaxy of Parisian writers, and it is certain that if he had remained there his life and his influence would have been utterly different.  He returned home and immediately set to work upon a second epic; in another seven years he completed Calendau, published in Avignon in 1866.  The success of this poem was decidedly less than that of Mireio.

During these years he published many of the shorter poems that appeared in one volume in 1875, under the title of Lis Isclo d’Or (The Golden Islands).  Meanwhile the idea of the Felibrige made great progress.  The language of the Felibres had now a fixed orthography and definite grammatical form.  The appearance of a master-work had given a wonderful impulse.  The exuberance of the southern temperament responded quickly to the call for a manifestation of patriotic enthusiasm.  The Catalan poets joined their brothers beyond the Pyrenees.  The Floral games were founded.  The Felibrige passed westward beyond the Rhone and found adherents in all south France.  The centenary of Petrarch celebrated at Avignon in 1874 tended to emphasize the importance and the glory of the new literature.

The definite organization of the Felibrige into a great society with its hierarchy of officers took place in 1876, with Mistral as Capoulie (Chief or President).  In this same year also the poet married Mdlle.  Marie Riviere of Dijon, and this lady, who was named first Queen of the Felibrige by Albert de Quintana of Catalonia, the poet-laureate of the year 1878 at the great Floral Games held in Montpellier, has become at heart and in speech a Provencale.

A third poem, Nerto, appeared in 1884, and showed the poet in a new light; his admirers now compared him to Ariosto.  This same year he made a second journey to Paris, and was again the lion of the hour.  The Societe de la Cigale, which had been founded in 1876, as a Paris branch of the Felibrige, and which later became the Societe des Felibres de Paris, organized banquets and festivities in his honor, and celebrated the Floral Games at Sceaux to commemorate the four hundredth anniversary of the day when Provence became united, of her own free-will, with France.  Mistral was received with distinction by President Grevy and by the Count of Paris, and his numerous Parisian friends vied in bidding him welcome to the capital.  His new poem was crowned by the French Academy, receiving the Prix Vitet, the presentation address being delivered by Legouve.  Four years later, Lou Tresor dou Felibrige, a great dictionary of all the dialects of the langue d’oc, was completed, and in 1890 appeared his only dramatic work, La Reino Jano (Queen Joanna).  In 1897 he produced his last long poem, epic in form, Lou Pouemo dou Rose (the Poem of the Rhone).  At present he is engaged upon his Memoirs.