of the subject, comprising long lists of works that have been written in the dialect or that have appeared in France and in other countries concerning the Felibres, a copy of the constitution of the society and of various statutes relating to it.  It not only contains all the material that is necessary for the study of the Felibrige, but it is worthy of the highest praise for the spirit in which it is written.  It is an honest attempt to explain the Felibrige, and to present fairly and fully all the problems that so remarkable a movement has created.  A perusal of the book makes it evident that the author believes in future political consequences, and while well aware that it is unsafe to prophesy, he has a chapter on the future of the movement.

His history endeavors to show that the Felibrean renaissance was not a spontaneous springing into existence.  On the purely literary side, however, it certainly bears the character of a creation; as writers, the Provencal 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 Felibrige 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 Provencal 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 Prouvencalo.  During these years, too, there were meetings of Provencal 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 Provencal speech and connected themselves with Mistral and his friends were the Felibres.  Not until 1876 was there a Felibrige with a formal constitution and an elaborate organization.