THE POETRY AND PROSE OE FRENCH FORESTS 



745 



Charles Doumier likens trees to "faithful guardians of 

 the threshold," or "shepherds clothed in a green mantle." 

 Gerard d'Houville confesses that when young he used to 

 throw his arms about certain trees and press his cheeks 

 against the bark, imagining that he could hear the beat- 

 ing of their hearts. Chateaubriand exclaims : 



"Forests, stir gently in the breezes; 

 To whose eyes can you ever be so dear!" 



Leon Dierx also seeks their company : 



"It is to hear your music that I have fled the world, 

 O woods melodious, singing in the wind. 

 Never do I hearken to your sighs profound 

 But what my glowing heart is touched with holy awe." 



Jean Richepin affirms that "trees are living person- 

 ages." Camille Lemonnier, addressing an ancient oak, 

 exclaims: "Ancestral tree, august Father, accept our 

 veneration! For a thousand years you have greeted 

 Phoebus as his chariot appeared in the east. You are 

 a brother of the rivers, the mountains, and the plains." 

 Brizeux, who desired to be buried beneath an oak, asso- 

 ciates such trees with the Druids of old and the modern 

 Bretons : 



"Dream of the ancient gods, dream of the ancient priests, 

 Under the sacred oaks lie couched our great forefathers; 

 Open the hardy bark and you shall see again 

 A lovely Druid fair with golden sickle. 



An oak a century old with splendid foliage, 

 A Breton hoary-haired in ripe old age 

 These are twins, knotted, gnarled and hardy, 

 Two brothers both in pith and vigor rich." 



Michelet, for whom trees are "monarchs of sorrow," 

 declares that "in days of trouble we should seek consola- 

 tion from the oaks, since they inspire fortitude." In 

 certain regions of Northern France, says Paul Sebillot, 

 trees standing near a house in which a death has occurred 

 are regarded as having suffered a personal loss, and are 

 draped in black. One of the most touching situations 

 depicted by Henry Bordeaux is the scene in which M. 

 Roquevillard, in grief, seeks consolation among the trees 

 of his ancestors, leaning against an oak as "a brother of 

 sorrows." And behold, the silent sylvan creatures, "a 

 moment before so many anonymous units stood forth 

 like personages" ! Similarly, Francois de Curel, who 

 regards the trees of his forest as loving confidants, likens 

 to supermen those that tower above the others majestic- 

 ally. Analogous is the conception of Barbey d'Aurevilly, 

 who speaks of such trees as "that final aristocracy des- 

 tined like the human nobility to suffer destruction, and 

 for the same reason." Anatole Le Braz, in lyric strains, 

 interprets as if at the request of the oaks of Brittany 

 their sentiments and aspirations. "Our hearts are sound," 

 they say; "our faces uplifted, our foreheads proud." 



Many French writers have been impressed by arboreal 

 language and music. Verlaine declares with fervor : 



"The white moon 

 Shines in the woods, 

 And from every branch 

 There sounds a voice." 



Paul Fort delights to hear "that divine chanting in the 

 branches of the oaks sounding in sonorous cadence their 

 nuptials with the stars." Guillaume Apollinaire avers that 



"The pines, sweet musicians, 

 Sing of ancient Yule-tides 

 To the autumnal evening winds, 

 Or, grown more grave, they chant 

 Incantations to the thundering heavens." 



The music of the forest is vaunted by Charles Fremine 

 in glowing epithets like "orchestre vegetal," "un chant 

 large et pacifique," "la verte symphonie," and "les chenes 

 sonores qui font passer comme un frisson dArmures." 

 Well known are the words of Alfred de Vigny: 



"Observe that ancient trunk with roots immense; 

 Once it could speak in words divine." 



Such has been the romantic apotheosis of the forests, 

 especially during the past century. But are the poets 

 alone in their appreciation ? By no means ! The utility 

 of the forests has been demonstrated in peace and in war. 

 In peace the pestilential marshlands of Gascony and 

 Sologne have been converted at small cost into healthful 

 prosperity ; and in the Pyrenees and the Alps forestation 

 has been observed to check erosion, to calm torrents, to 

 prevent inundations, and to maintain the flow of springs. 

 What the French did not fully understand was the 

 strategic and industrial role of forests in war a fact 

 now brilliantly established. Competent judges hold that 

 France was saved by her forests; since these, besides 

 affording to her armies a defensive screen during the 

 crucial days of the first invasion, enabled them to con- 

 centrate unobserved and to hurl the enemy back at the 

 Marne, both in 1914 and in 1918. When the submarine 

 checked importations of wood for military and industrial 

 purposes, had it not been for the extensive timber 

 reserves of France the husbandings of half a century 

 the Allied armies might have been fatally handicapped. 

 Little wonder that the eminent critic J. Demorlaine 

 should declare that the forests of France played in the 

 war a part as important as her canon. 



But at what appalling cost was disaster averted ! Her 

 sylvan legions are mutilated or destroyed. It will take 

 decades to make good her loss of twenty-five billion 

 board feet. For the next forty years at least France 

 must draw largely upon the forest domains of her colo- 

 nies, and, as Henry S. Graves, our chief forester, has 

 pointed out, her wood industries, affording employment 

 to seven hundred thousand, must long suffer. Never, . 

 therefore, have sylviculture and reforestation been so 

 necessary. Now is the time for lovers of trees to do 

 their bit. Certainly, the fine spirit we have noted among 

 writers of poetry and prose augurs well for the work. 

 The admirable custom of planting trees along the high- 

 ways, dating chiefly from the time of Henri Quatre and 

 Sully, should be revived and extended. 



Edmond Pilon, writing in L' Opinion for January 14, 

 1920, says that the recently founded OEuvre des Chenes 

 Celebres (Society for the Culture of Celebrated Oaks) 

 purposes, as one of its works, to plant trees in memory 



