Journey into the remarkable life of Jasmin, the Occitan poet of Agen

For many, the word jasmine only evokes a flower. In Agen and the Agenais region, perhaps more than anywhere else, people think of the Occitan poet Jacques Boé, known as Jasmin, to whom his native town has dedicated a square. The 16th arrondissement of Paris also has a Jasmin metro station station, a Jasmin square and a Jasmin street, although Parisians do not necessarily know that it refers to a poet. But among those who do know, few are able to quote some of his verses or have a vague idea of his life and times. It is true that he wrote his poetry in the "Gascon" language, as it was called in the 19th century, in Occitan as it is called today, a language whose inevitable death is announced to us over and over again, sometimes with a hypocritical tear in the corner of the eye.

Three events are contributing this year to evoking the memory of the poet in his homeland and, although it is much less certain, to promoting his language, Occitan, the original language of the Agenais, whose speakers are becoming rarer.

First of all, there is the recent publication of Jacques Clouché's book of more than 700 pages: Jasmin l'enchanteur  (Jasmin, the magician) on the life of the poet more than on his work, but much more than a biography. I will come back to it even if it will be impossible for me to give a faithful account of its incredible richness, so full of details, none of which is insignificant.

Then there is the release on ÒCtele, FR3 Aquitaine and in cinemas of the docu-drama: Jasmin, le troubadour de la charité  (Jasmin, the troubadour of  charity) by director Yves Fromonot and the same author, Jacques Clouché. It will be screened at the Plaza cinema in Marmande on Thursday 13 October at 6 pm and at the Salle des Illustres of the Agen town hall on Saturday 22 October at 5 pm.

Finally, on Wednesday 24 August in Agen, the renovated Place Jasmin and the statue of the poet, slightly moved aside and carefully rejuvenated, will be inaugurated by the mayor and the personalities welcomed with music (Occitan!) by the group Viratge. This will be followed by a concert by the same group and the duo Zubeldia, and to finish, an Occitan ball hosted by Vachementbal.

To return to Jacques Clouché, a unanimously and rightly recognized specialist of Jasmin, he had already offered us, fruit of his Jasminian passion, Jasmin vrai ou itinéraire d'un Homme de Bien  (the true Jasmin or the journey of a good man) in 1994 and Jasmin dictionnaire intime i (Jasmin, an intimate dictionary) in 2014 and undoubtedly Jasmin l'enchanteur will be his ultimate opus.

I have just finished this magnificent book. Magnificent it is indeed by its very artistic presentation and especially by its richly illustrated content of historical iconographic documents. Although it is more than 700 pages long, which may put some people off at a time when traditional reading in print edition is not in fashion, I found it fascinating and devoured it in a few days.

Welcome to the 19th century, a century with no telephone, radio, television or internet and social media, where people travel little and when they do it is by stagecoach or steamer on the Garonne (it takes several days to go to Paris) and soon by train (1857), where few people go to school, where French has not yet supplanted Occitan, the language of the workers and peasants, but also of the bourgeoisie when addressing servants and animals. There was no NHS and the poor who lived in misery, like Jasmin's family, could only rely on the charity of the rich. Today charity has become a dirty word, but at the time it was the only antidote to the widespread misery.

This is a fascinating insight into the life of a man and his environment, which seems completely exotic to the rootless "anywhere". Yet you can be from somewhere and be open to the world.

How did Jasmin, who came from such a humble background and had only attended but briefly school and seminary, thanks to the generosity of a cousin, become an adulated poet, a prophet in his own country to disprove the proverbial point, in Paris, in the rest of France and even abroad, where he won the admiration of the American poet Longfellow by writing and declaiming before enthusiastic crowds of people poems chiseled in a language often unknown to his listeners?

Jacques Clouché's book answers all these questions and many others. He describes the genesis of his encounters, in particular that of Charles Nodier, which was decisive in bringing the humble wigmaker from Agen out of his condition and introducing him to the French literary intelligentsia of the time (Lamartine, Sainte Beuve, Béranger, Chateaubriand) and to the luminaries of the State, King Louis Philippe and then Napoleon III.

We become aware of the different facets of Agen's personality: the hairdresser, a profession he could have given up but never wanted to despite his fame and his change in social status, the poet, the actor (he was a showman to speak like today), the man who was faithful in friendship, such as the one he felt for Abbé Masson of Vergt, whose church tower he financed, for Thérèse Roaldés, whose family he wanted to help, and Jean-Didier Baze, for whom he interceded with Napoleon III, a freemason and charity activist. He could have been enriched by all his peregrinations punctuated by poetic sessions. Jacques Clouché has counted 500 of them, but there were surely more in the space of 40 years. Jasmin chose to give almost all the money he collected during his recitations to the poor, of whom he was the spokesman, in order to remain faithful to his original environment and to his native town, which he never wanted to leave in order to go up to Paris, as so many Occitans have done.

At the most, he offered himself two luxuries: the addition of a floor to his modest shop financed with the prize of the French Academy and the purchase of his little vineyard in the Verona valley. Otherwise, his lifestyle was modest.

It is true that he was interested in politics, although he was a supporter of the established order, a July monarchist and then a republican, and later an admirer of Napoleon III. But like Frédéric Mistral, he refused to enter the fray when he was approached by the feminist and socialist Flora Tristan and then by a delegation that came to meet him to encourage him to run for the deputation and was politely turned down. This did not prevent him from supporting the cause of freedom for the Poles and Spaniards with his poems and also, as a deeply religious man, from defending religion by denouncing Renan's blasphemous (in his opinion) Life of Jesus in a pamphlet which, at his request, accompanied him to the grave.

He was a defender of the language in his own way, and in a very beautiful way, when he replied to his friend from Agen and minister, Sylvain Dumont, who considered that Occitan was condemned as a language of the past. Even if in his reply he said: "the people faithful to their mother will always be Gascon and never French", one should not make an anachronism and tax him with separatism. He had a vague awareness of his language as part of a larger whole, Occitania, even if he did not call it that, but he declared himself to be French and proud to be so.

 He believed in the possible coexistence of Occitan, the language of the home, without fuss, and French, the more solemn Sunday language. We have since known that this was an illusion.

The nascent Félibrige, recognising his merits, held out its arms to him but Jasmin was far too individualistic and proud. He disdainfully refused these advances and it is perhaps a pity. Mistral did not hold a grudge against him, for when he came to Agen on 12 May 1870 for the inauguration of the poet's statue, he declaimed a famous ode in which he declared 'Jasmin, tu nous a vengés' (Jasmin, you have avenged us), avenged for the contempt in which their common language had been held.

He is nevertheless a precursor of Romanticism and the Occitan revival of the 19th century. His originality comes paradoxically from his lack of literary culture. Having no models, he happily drew his inspiration from the world around him. He is a troubadour insofar as he is inventive. 

We certainly do not learn everything about Jasmin's life by reading this book, although the mostly positive judgements of his contemporaries on his charitable actions and his work shed new light on the subject, and no doubt there is still a lot to discover, but Jacques Clouché must be praised for having allowed us to immerse ourselves in Jasmin's life, even in his family intimacy with his parents, Magnounet, his wife, and his son Édouard, and to truly measure the extent of his popularity in the upper echelons of society as well as among the humblest. His quasi-national funeral only gives us a small idea.

To come back to today, keeping Jasmin and his language alive is a fight that some of us are waging, and the fine speeches of our elected officials are coming up against the harsh reality of the moment: linguistic democracy has to be built in this country. It is advocated by France in international bodies but it does not apply it at home. It consists first of all in offering the teaching of Occitan at all levels in Occitania, from nursery school to university, instead of striving to eliminate it. No doubt Jacques Clouché will find me excessive, too demanding, but for me (and fortunately I'm not the only one) it's much more than a cultural fight, it's an eminently political fight, and by that I mean politics in the noble sense of the term, the life of the city. In leading it, I remain faithful to our Occitan heritage since the troubadours.

To you, elected representatives and powerful people, I say: go beyond the fine speeches that are quickly forgotten and take concrete action for the promotion and socialisation of Occitan and above all do not content yourselves with praising this book. If you have not already done so, read and meditate on Jasmin, l'enchanteur.

Thanks to Jacques Clouché and André Bianchi, president of Éditions d'Albret and a worthy defender of our language, for offering us this sumptuous gift, and thanks to the city of Agen and the Conseil départemental of Lot-et-Garonne for having contributed financially to its publication. And I apologise for this incomplete report.

Jean-Pierre Hilaire

Journey into the remarkable life of Jasmin, the Occitan poet of Agen