Lou Siégé dé Cadarôussa - Le Siège de Caderousse - Jean-Baptiste FABRE

Lou Siégé dé Cadarôussa - The Siege of Caderousse - Jean-Baptiste Fabre

Poëma héroîqua én trés chants. Languedocian poem by the abbot Fabre.

Masterpiece of Languedoc literature composed by Father J.-B. Fabre (1727-1783), one of the most important Occitan authors of the 18th century. Published for the first time in 1797, the Siege of Caderousse, a burlesque epic of about five thousand verses, divided into three songs, recounts the adventures of twenty soldiers of the pope sent from Avignon to the town of Caderousse in order to be supplied with food. Revolted against the envoys of the vice-legate, the Caderoussans charge them and they flee while reciting their rosaries. The first poem is followed by the Treasure of Substantiun, a comedy in one act, in occitan language, by the same author.

In Cadarôussa one finds, as in any self-respecting epic, even if it is a counter-epic or an anti-epic, pieces of bravery, which the commentators of the poem have not failed to note as undeniable successes.

A feast of words which is also an unbridled and yet mastered celebration of language. One could say that the dialect, for Fabre, is the place of truth, his own, and that which crosses the world which surrounds him. One must recall here a formula that he used in a poem of circumstance:

"Aïci lou patois m’escapa ;
Monségneur, excusas lou ;
dès qué soûi de bonna himou
aquella fouliê m’arrâpa."

Philippe Gardy

Edition in conformity with the manuscript text.
Foreword : Philippe Gardy, French translation : Édouard Cuq.
Illustrated biography, documents on the history of the "Siege".

To the asard Bautezar!

The author:

Jean-Baptiste Fabre (1727 - 1783) was a clergyman and writer of the langue d'oc and author of the burlesque and philosophical tale Istòria de Joan-l'an-pres.
Abbé Fabre was born in Sommières (Gard). He was vicar of Aubais, parish priest of Vic-la-Gardiole, near Montpellier, of Castelnau-le-Lez, Crès, Saint-Michel de Montels, Cournonterral and prior of Celleneuve where he died in 1783.