Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1907-09-12
WINEGROWERS' REVOLT
IN FRENCH PROVINCES
Disturbance Was Merely New Expression of Revolt
That Has Been Evident in Turbulent His
tory of That Section.
tory of That Section

France has survived crisis, and
the winegrowers' strike is checked.
Checked, not ended, is the proper
word, for even the most hopeful view
of the situation does not warrant the
statement that by promising to have
laws passed that will ameliorate the
condition of those who work in the
vineyards, Premier Clemenceau has
done anything more than delay the
final issue.
But should the promise be disre-
garded, should Clemenceau, having
tricked one threatened revolution into
quietude, scorn to make good his pro-
gram of reform, another storm is sure
to break out that he may not be able
to quell.
Revolution and poverty alike are in
the air in the two towns that saw
most of the trouble. Montpelier is in
the department of the Herault, and
Narbonne is in the Aube. The two
provinces are on the shores OF the
Gulf of Lyons and form part of the
ancient country of Languedoc, which
lay between Gascony on the west and
Provence on the east.
Strife has marked the entire history
of the two provinces. In the early
Middle Ages their cities retained a
large measure of the independence
which they had inherited from the Ro-
man dominion. In the early part of
the thirteenth century the people Of
Languedoc and Provence seeded
from the Church of Rome, and after
the pope had issued a bull against
them for heresy they were subjected
to the most ferocious religious perse-
cution. To this day there is a large
sprinKling Of Professionalism through
out this section of France, generation
after generation having stubbornly
adhered to the faith for which their
fathers suffered.
Two of the most famous heretics
that France has given the world were
residents of LanguedOc.
When the winegrowers followed
Marcellin Albert in their battle for
justice, it was not the first time they
picked a peasant for leader. Mistraa
is a peasant, King Rene boosted of be-
ing both poet and peasant and at
Aries he surrounded himself with a
court of noted men of letters, includ-
ing especially poets and philosophers.
Gascony produced the wonderful
"D'Artagnan" and the hardly less re-
markable "Cyrano de Bergerac, - while
near Avignon, in the town OF Taras-
con, Daudet got the idea for his in
comparable 'Tartarin." In fact the
Town of Narbonne bristles with i'm
tortant history. 1t suffered severely
Turing the suppression of the AL
gigenses, and it was the birthplace Of
three Roman emperors, one martyr
and at least two famous troubadours
A certain poetry has even been in
fused into the business of wine grow
ing. Peasants, whose families for half
a dozen generations had been engaged
i'm the manufacture of wine, We're
proud of their product. They kney
no other calling, wanted none. The
joy of working in the open in the vine
yards and of turning out the national
beverage seemed a poetic and popular
way to make a livelihood. They had
pride in keeping the output up TO
the standard But the vineyards were
too prolific. The soil grew too freely
of that which makes the bottled JOY