These recollections, in fact, constitute Jasmin's autobiography, and we are indebted to them for the description we have already given of the poet's early life.
Many years later Jasmin wrote his Mous noubels Soubenis--'My New Recollections'; but in that work he returned to the trials and the enjoyments of his youth, and described few of the events of his later life.

"What a pity," says M.Rodiere, "that Jasmin did not continue to write his impressions until the end of his life! What trouble he would have saved his biographers! For how can one speak when Jasmin ceases to sing ?" It is unnecessary to return to the autobiography and repeat the confessions of Jasmin's youth.

His joys and sorrows are all described there--his birth in the poverty-stricken dwelling in the Rue Fon de Rache, his love for his parents, his sports with his playfellows on the banks of the Garonne, his blowing the horn in his father's Charivaris, his enjoyment of the tit-bits which old Boe brought home from his begging-tours, the decay of the old man, and his conveyance to the hospital, "where all the Jasmins die;" then his education at the Academy, his toying with the house-maid, his stealing the preserves, his expulsion from the seminary, and the sale of his mother's wedding-ring to buy bread for her family.
While composing the first two cantos of the Souvenirs he seemed half ashamed of the homeliness of the tale he had undertaken to relate.
Should he soften and brighten it?
Should he dress it up with false lights and colours?
For there are times when falsehood in silk and gold are acceptable, and the naked new-born truth is unwelcome.

But he repudiated the thought, and added:-- "Myself, nor less, nor more, I'll draw for you, And if not bright, the likeness shall be true." The third canto of the poem was composed at intervals.

It took him two more years to finish it.