Frédéric Mistral, although having embraced the culture of our region, did not marry a Provençal woman. He found the woman of his life in Dijon. Her name was Marie-Louise Rivière. He married this Dijonnaise on September 27, 1876. He was forty-six years old, she was nineteen. She was the daughter of a wine merchant and – as might be expected in Dijon – the granddaughter of mustard makers. The wedding invitation was written in French and Provençal.
Mistral had already published “Mireille” and was famous. He had just been appointed first president of Félibrige, this association which had been formed to promote the language of Oc.
With his wife, he settled in Maillane (Bouche-du-Rhône).
When he traveled, he sent her letters. These have just been published at the initiative of Pierre Fabre, who was president of Félibrige from 1992 to 2006.
We extract from this work letters which were written in Nice and Saint-Raphaël…
“Nice, boring city”
Frédéric Mistral arrived in Nice on February 22, 1889 and stayed at the Hôtel Gilles, which was located at the start of today's avenue Jean Médecin.
“ Beautiful friend, I arrived in a small old hotel haunted by good traveling bourgeois. That's where you can write to me, because, my goodness, it's better to stay there than elsewhere… Nice has become the ugliest and most boring city I know with its chessboard streets and its hotels. like Paris, and its population of rastaquouères who get annoyed by yawning in front of the storefronts and its exploitation of the foreigner in all its forms, and its sea shore appropriated to the banal ideas of regularity and well-being. We immediately begin to miss the good countryside of Maillane with its rural aspects and its horizons stripped of black clothes and widows of spitting and coughing chests.”
At that time, Nice attracted, in fact, a lot of people with breast cancer… We also met celebrities there:
“ Sarah Bernhardt has arrived in Nice. She will play Fedora this evening, Tosca tomorrow, Frou-frou on Sunday and Lady of the Camellias on Tuesday. I did not want to write to him in the midst of his concerns about arrival and preparations. Besides, I needed to rest today… Tomorrow or Sunday, I will ask him for an audience and, this evening, if there is room, I will try to go and hear him at the Municipal Casino. But I'm afraid all the places will be taken. When I see Sarah, whether things go well or badly, I don't think I will have the patience to wait for Lord Carnaval to arrive because the weather lasts much longer here than in Maillane… I kiss you, dear Marie, with the deep conviction that true happiness is only with you in our nest of calm and silence. Your Frédéric.”
With the engraver Roty in Valescure
We will not know if Mistral had tickets at the Municipal Casino of Nice (which was located on Place Masséna at the time) nor if he was able to meet the great Sarah.
On the other hand, we know that he found the famous engraver Oscar Roty in Valescure, near Saint-Raphaël. It is to this engraver that we owe the famous Semeuse, which appeared for more than a century on coins and postal stamps.
Mistral went to find him in 1903 so that he could create a medal bearing his image. He tells his wife this:
Sunday February 22, 1903: “Beautiful wife, here I am in Valescure with Roty. It's a lovely stay, but I think I'll quickly have enough because nothing beats the freedom of Maillane. Roty is well disposed. By making my medal, he wants to 'on one side put my portrait and on the other a Mireille… “
Monday February 23: “Everything is getting better and better: the great medalist is very enthusiastic. I am photographed from all angles: it is for the preparation of the work. Then Roty will come to Arles, one day, for the type of Arlesian that 'he wants to put on the back. I will leave on Thursday with a happy heart…'
Mistral speaks during a meeting with Princess Bonaparte, widow of Prince Pierre Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon, famous assassin of journalist Victor Noir.
Tuesday February 24: “At noon I am going to have lunch with Princess Marie Bonaparte, widow of the famous Pierre Bonaparte and mother of Prince Roland. Roty, I repeat, is well disposed and has me pose in front of the camera to get all the necessary clues from me. Just think that we paid him 20,000 francs for ordering a medal.”
No doubt the distance from his wife weighed on him. Two days later, Mistral returned to Maillane.
Know+
“In the privacy of Frédéric Mistral”.
Éditions des Offray. 440 pages. 40 euros.
“In the privacy of Frédéric Mistral”
More than four hundred pages of letters from Frédéric Mistral to his wife: Pierre Fabre's book which has just been published by Editions des Offray is a source of knowledge and enchantment. It is the result of a long compilation and classification work carried out by Pierre Fabre, fourteenth “capoulié” (president) of Félibrige, from 1992 to 2006, successor to Frédéric Mistral.
Pierre Fabre had in his hands no less than four hundred and fifty letters from the writer. The moral question of revealing the artist's personal and intimate words was of course raised. He also questioned the specific interest of these letters which concern, most often, anecdotal subjects. He concluded – and we approve – that these letters constituted a considerable contribution to the knowledge of the life and work of the writer. Hence the interest in their publication.