poorer neighbours. He had no desire to be rich; and he was now more than comfortable in his position of life.

When the news arrived at Agen that Jasmin had been made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, his salon was crowded with sympathetic admirers. In the evening, a serenade was performed before his door on the Gravier by the Philharmonic Society of Agen. Indeed, the whole town was filled with joy at the acknowledged celebrity of their poet.

A few years later Pope Pius IX. conferred upon Jasmin the honour of Chevalier of the Order of St. Gregory the Great. The insignia of the Order was handed to the poet by Monseigneur de Vezins, Bishop of Agen, in Sept. 1850. Who could have thought that the barber-poet would have been so honoured by his King, and by the Head of his Church?

Jasmin's next important poem, after the production of Franconnette was Martha the Innocent.--[In Gascon, Maltro l'Innoucento; French Marthe la, Folle]. It is like The Blind Girl, a touching story of disappointment in love. Martha was an orphan living at Laffitte, on the banks of the Lot. She was betrothed to a young fellow, but the conscription forbade their union. The conscript was sent to the wars of the first Napoleon, which were then raging. The orphan sold her little cottage in the hope of buying him off, or providing him with a substitute. But it was all in vain. He was compelled to follow his regiment.

She was a good and pious girl, beloved by all. She was also beautiful,--tall, fair, and handsome, with eyes of blue-- "the blue of heaven," according to Jasmin:

"With grace so fine, and air so sweet,
She was a lady amongst peasants."

The war came to an end for a time. The soldier was discharged, and returned home.

Martha went out to meet him; but alas! like many other fickle men, he had met and married another. It was his wife who accompanied him homewards. Martha could not bear the terrible calamity of her blighted love. She became crazy--almost an idiot.

She ran away from her home at Laffitte, and wandered about the country. Jasmin, when a boy, had often seen the crazy woman wandering about the streets of Agen with a basket on her arm, begging for bread. Even in her rags she had the remains of beauty. The children ran after her, and cried, "Martha, a soldier!" then she ran off, and concealed herself.

Like other children of his age Jasmin teased her; and now, after more than thirty years, he proposed to atone for his childish folly by converting her sad story into a still sadder poem.

Martha the Innocent is a charming poem, full of grace, harmony, and beauty. Jasmin often recited it, and drew tears from many eyes. In the introduction he related his own part in her history. "It all came back upon him," he said," and now he recited the story of this martyr of love."³

After the completion of Martha, new triumphs awaited Jasmin in the South of France. In 1846 he again went to Toulouse on a labour of love. He recited his new poem in the Room of the Illustrious at the Capitol. A brilliant assembly was present. Flowers perfumed the air. The entire audience rose and applauded the poet. The ladies smiled and wept by turns. Jasmin seemed to possess an electric influence. His clear, harmonious, and flexible voice, gave emphasis by its rich sympathetic tones to the artistic elements of his story.

The man who thus evoked such rapture from his audience was not arrayed in gorgeous costume. He was a little dark-eyed man of the working class, clothed in a quiet suit of black.

At the close of the recitation, the assembly, ravished with his performance, threw him a wreath of flowers and laurels--more modest, though not less precious than the golden branch which they had previously