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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

Frédéric Mistral's house in Maillane is a 19th century bastide, classified as a historic monument since 1930 with its garden and outbuildings. This place was the last residence of the Provençal poet, where he lived from 1875 to his death in 1914, and where he composed much of his work, crowned by the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1904. The house, bequeathed to the commune, became a museum in 1944, preserving furniture, personal objects and archives.

Frédéric Mistral occupied three successive residences in Maillane: the Mas du Jérôme (family estate acquired in 1803), the Maison du Lézard (where he finished Mirèio and wrote Calendau), and finally this bastide, built in 1875 in front of the previous one. He received personalities such as Raymond Poincaré or the king of the Belgians, and installed there a Mediterranean garden of 1,000 m2 with 67 plant species, still visible today.

The museum preserves 60,000 letters, 1,200 works and memories of the poet, including the entrance door decorated with monograms inspired by his works (Mireio, Calendal). Classified with its furniture in 1931, the house was restored between 1992 and 1995 to preserve its original appearance. Mistral was buried there at the local cemetery, in a tomb inspired by Queen Jeanne des Baux' Pavilion of Love.

Mistral's will (1907) stipulated that his house, land, library and furniture were to become a municipal museum after his wife's death in 1943. The Frederi Mistral Museum was inaugurated in 1944, perpetuating the memory of the felibrige and Provencal culture.

The bastide illustrates the 19th century Provencal rural architecture, with its garden designed as a setting for its statues (including those of Achard) and its poetic allegories. Mistral's motto, "Lou souleu me fai canta" ("The sun makes me sing"), engraved on the lintel, sums up the spirit of the places, both intimate and universal.

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