GRAS, Felix, Provencal writer: b. Male mont, near Avignon, 3 May 1844; d. Avignon, 4 March 1901. His education ceased at 17, when he returned to his father's farm, from which he was sent, in 1864, to Avignon and articled to Jules Gieia, a man of letters as well as a lawyer, and a membet of Filibrige, a Provencal literary club of which Frederic Mis tral (q.v.) was a member. Amid such sur roundings he accepted law as his profession but resolved on literature as his vocation. In 1876 he published his first important work, an epic poem in 12 cantos, (Li Carbounie,> which won for him the first place among Provencal writ ers of the younger generation. (Toloza,) an epic recounting the crusade of Simon de Mont fort against the Albigenses, followed in 1882. He proved himself second only to Mistral among Meridionals by a collection of his shorter poems to which he gave the title (Lou Roumancers Prouvencal) (1887). In his col
lections of prose stories, (La Papalmo> (1891), he fancifully describes, in vivid, racy style, the loves and hates, sensuality and °superstition' of the papal court at Avignon. His greatest popular success,