Our attention was attracted a few months ago by a review published in the
“Journal des Débats,” in which a new translation of Joinville’s “Histoire
de Saint Louis,” by M. Natalis de Wailly, a distinguished member of the
French Institute, was warmly recommended to the French public. After
pointing out the merits of M. de Wailly’s new rendering of Joinville’s
text, and the usefulness of such a book for enabling boys at school to
gain an insight into the hearts and minds of the Crusaders, and to form to
themselves a living conception of the manners and customs of the people of
the thirteenth century, the reviewer, whose name is well known in this
country as well as in France by his valuable contributions to the history
of medicine, dwelt chiefly on the fact that through the whole of
Joinville’s “Mémoires” there is no mention whatever of surgeons or
physicians. Nearly the whole French army is annihilated, the King and his
companions lie prostrate from wounds and disease, Joinville himself is
several times on the point of death; yet nowhere, according to the French
reviewer, does the chronicler refer to a medical staff attached to the
army or to the person of the King. Being somewhat startled at this remark,
we resolved to peruse once more the charming pages of Joinville’s History;
nor had we to read far before we found that one passage at least had been
overlooked, a passage which establishes beyond the possibility of doubt
the presence of surgeons and physicians in the camp of the French
Crusaders. On page 78 of M. de Wailly’s spirited translation, in the
account of the death of Gautier d’Autrèche, we read that when that brave
knight was carried back to his tent nearly dying, “several of the surgeons
and physicians of the camp came to see him, and not perceiving that he was
dangerously injured, they bled him on both his arms.” The result was what
might be expected: Gautier d’Autrèche soon breathed his last.
Having once opened the “Mémoires” of Joinville, we could not but go on to
the end, for there are few books that carry on the reader more pleasantly,
whether we read them in the quaint French of the fourteenth century, or in
the more modern French in which they have just been clothed by M. Natalis
de Wailly. So vividly does the easy gossip of the old soldier bring before
our eyes the days of St. Louis and Henry III., that we forget that we are
reading an old chronicle, and holding converse with the heroes of the
thirteenth century. The fates both of Joinville’s “Mémoires” and of
Joinville himself suggest in fact many reflections apart from mere
mediæval history; and a few of them may here be given in the hope of
reviving the impressions left on the minds of many by their first
acquaintance with the old Crusader, or of inviting others to the perusal
of a work which no one who takes an interest in man, whether past or
present, can read without real pleasure and real benefit.
It is interesting to watch the history of books, and to gain some kind of
insight into the various circumstances which contribute to form the
reputation of poets, philosophers, or historians. Joinville, whose name is
now familiar to the student of French history, as well as to the lover of
French literature, might fairly have expected that his memory would live
by his acts of prowess, and by his loyal devotion and sufferings when
following the King of France, St. Louis, on his unfortunate crusade. When,
previous to his departure for the Holy Land, the young Sénéchal de
Champagne, then about twenty-four years of age, had made his confession to
the Abbot of Cheminon; when, barefoot and in a white sheet, he was
performing his pilgrimages to Blehecourt (Blechicourt), St. Urbain, and
other sacred shrines in his neighborhood, and when on passing his own
domain he would not once turn his eyes back on the castle of Joinville,
“_pour ce que li cuers ne me attendrisist dou biau chastel que je lessoie
et de mes dous enfans_” (“that the heart might not make me pine after the
beautiful castle which I left behind, and after my two children”), he must
have felt that, happen what might to himself, the name of his family would
live, and his descendants would reside from century to century in those
strong towers where he left his young wife, Alix de Grandpré, and his son
and heir Jean, then but a few months old. After five years he returned
from his crusade, full of honors and full of wounds. He held one of the
highest positions that a French nobleman could hold. He was Sénéchal de
Champagne, as his ancestors had been before him. Several members of his
family had distinguished themselves in former crusades, and the services
of his uncle Geoffroi had been so highly appreciated by Richard Cœur de
Lion that he was allowed by that King to quarter the arms of England with
his own. Both at the court of the Comtes de Champagne, who were Kings of
Navarre, and at the court of Louis IX., King of France, Joinville was a
welcome guest. He witnessed the reigns of six kings,—of Louis VIII.,
1223-26; Louis IX., or St. Louis, 1226-70; Philip III., le Hardi, 1270-85
; Philip IV., le Bel, 1285-1314; Louis X., le Hutin, 1314-16 ; and Philip
V., le Long, 1316-22. Though later in life Joinville declined to follow
his beloved King on his last and fatal crusade in 1270, he tells us
himself how, on the day on which he took leave of him, he carried his
royal friend, then really on the brink of death, in his arms from the
residence of the Comte d’Auxerre to the house of the Cordeliers. In 1282
he was one of the principal witnesses when, previous to the canonization
of the King, an inquest was held to establish the purity of his life, the
sincerity of his religious professions, and the genuineness of his
self-sacrificing devotion in the cause of Christendom. When the daughter
of his own liege lord, the Comte de Champagne, Jeanne de Navarre, married
Philip le Bel, and became Queen of France, she made Joinville Governor of
Champagne, which she had brought as her dowry to the grandson of St.
Louis. Surely, then, when the old Crusader, the friend and counselor of
many kings, closed his earthly career, at the good age of ninety-five, he
might have looked forward to an honored grave in the Church of St.
Laurent, and to an eminent place in the annals of his country, which were
then being written in more or less elegant Latin by the monks of St.
Denis.
But what has happened? The monkish chroniclers, no doubt, have assigned
him his proper place in their tedious volumes, and there his memory would
have lived with that kind of life which belongs to the memory of Geoffroi,
his illustrious uncle, the friend of Philip Augustus, the companion of
Richard Cœur de Lion, whose arms were to be seen in the Church of St.
Laurent, at Joinville, quartered with the royal arms of England. Such
parchment or hatchment glory might have been his, and many a knight, as
good as he, has received no better, no more lasting reward for his loyalty
and bravery. His family became extinct in his grandson. Henri de
Joinville, his grandson, had no sons; and his daughter, being a wealthy
heiress, was married to one of the Dukes of Lorraine. The Dukes of
Lorraine were buried for centuries in the same Church of St. Laurent where
Joinville reposed, and where he had founded a chapel dedicated to his
companion in arms, Louis IX., the Royal Saint of France; and when, at the
time of the French Revolution, the tombs of St. Denis were broken open by
an infuriated people, and their ashes scattered abroad, the vaults of the
church at Joinville, too, shared the same fate, and the remains of the
brave Crusader suffered the same indignity as the remains of his sainted
King. It is true that there were some sparks of loyalty and self-respect
left in the hearts of the citizens of Joinville. They had the bones of the
old warrior and of the Dukes of Lorraine reinterred in the public
cemetery; and there they now rest, mingled with the dust of their faithful
lieges and subjects. But the Church of St. Laurent, with its tombs and
tombstones, is gone. The property of the Joinvilles descended from the
Dukes of Lorraine to the Dukes of Guise, and, lastly, to the family of
Orleans. The famous Duke of Orleans, Egalité, sold Joinville in 1790, and
stipulated that the old castle should be demolished. Poplars and fir-trees
now cover the ground of the ancient castle, and the name of Joinville is
borne by a royal prince, the son of a dethroned king, the grandson of
Louis Egalité, who died on the guillotine.
Neither his noble birth, nor his noble deeds, nor the friendship of kings
and princes, would have saved Joinville from that inevitable oblivion
which has blotted from the memory of living men the names of his more
eminent companions,—Robert, Count of Artois; Alphonse, Count of Poitiers;
Charles, Count of Anjou; Hugue, Duke of Burgundy; William, Count of
Flanders, and many more. A little book which the old warrior wrote or
dictated,—for it is very doubtful whether he could have written it
himself,—a book which for many years attracted nobody’s attention, and
which even now we do not possess in the original language of the
thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth centuries—has secured to the
name of Jean de Joinville a living immortality, and a fame that will last
long after the bronze statue which was erected in his native place in 1853
shall have shared the fate of his castle, of his church, and of his tomb.
Nothing could have been further from the mind of the old nobleman when, at
the age of eighty-five, he began the history of his royal comrade, St.
Louis, than the hope of literary fame. He would have scouted it. That kind
of fame might have been good enough for monks and abbots, but it would
never at that time have roused the ambition of a man of Joinville’s stamp.
How the book came to be written he tells us himself in his dedication,
dated in the year 1309, and addressed to Louis le Hutin, then only King of
Navarre and Count of Champagne, but afterwards King of France. His mother,
Jeanne of Navarre, the daughter of Joinville’s former liege lord, the last
of the Counts of Champagne, who was married to Philip le Bel, the grandson
of St. Louis, had asked him “to have a book made for her, containing the
sacred words and good actions of our King, St. Looys.” She died before the
book was finished, and Joinville, therefore, sent it to her son. How it
was received by him we do not know; nor is there any reason to suppose
that there were more than a few copies made of a work which was intended
chiefly for members of the royal family of France and of his own family.
It is never quoted by historical writers of that time; and the first
historian who refers to it is said to be Pierre le Baud, who, toward the
end of the fifteenth century, wrote his “Histoire de Bretagne.” It has
been proved that for a long time no mention of the dedication copy occurs
in the inventories of the private libraries of the Kings of France. At the
death of Louis le Hutin his library consisted of twenty-nine volumes, and
among them the History of St. Louis does not occur. There is, indeed, one
entry, “Quatre caiers de Saint Looys;” but this could not be meant for the
work of Joinville, which was in one volume. These four _cahiers_ or quires
of paper were more likely manuscript notes of St. Louis himself. His
confessor, Geoffroy de Beaulieu, relates that the King, before his last
illness, wrote down with his own hand some salutary counsels in French, of
which he, the confessor, procured a copy before the King’s death, and
which he translated from French into Latin.
Again, the widow of Louis X. left at her death a collection of forty-one
volumes, and the widow of Charles le Bel a collection of twenty volumes;
but in neither of them is there any mention of Joinville’s History.
It is not till we come to the reign of Charles V. (1364-80) that
Joinville’s book occurs in the inventory of the royal library, drawn up in
1373 by the King’s valet de chambre, Gilles Mallet. It is entered as “La
vie de Saint Loys, et les fais de son voyage d’outre mer;” and in the
margin of the catalogue there is a note, “Le Roy l’a par devers soy,”—“The
King has it by him.” At the time of his death the volume had not yet been
returned to its proper place in the first hall of the Louvre; but in the
inventory drawn up in 1411 it appears again, with the following
description:(30)—
“Une grant partie de la vie et des fais de Monseigneur Saint Loys
que fist faire le Seigneur de Joinville; très-bien escript et
historié. Convert de cuir rouge, à empreintes, à deux fermoirs
d’argent. Escript de lettres de forme en françois à deux
coulombes; commençant au deuxième folio ‘et porceque,’ et au
derrenier ‘en tele maniere.’ ”
This means, “A great portion of the life and actions of St. Louis which
the Seigneur de Joinville had made, very well written and illuminated.
Bound in red leather, tooled, with two silver clasps. Written in formal
letters in French, in two columns, beginning on the second folio with the
words ‘_et porceque_,’ and on the last with ‘_en tele maniere_.’ ”
During the Middle Ages and before the discovery of printing, the task of
having a literary work published, or rather of having it copied, rested
chiefly with the author; and as Joinville himself, at his time of life,
and in the position which he occupied, had no interest in what we should
call “pushing” his book, this alone is quite sufficient to explain its
almost total neglect. But other causes, too, have been assigned by M.
Paulin Paris and others for what seems at first sight so very strange,—the
entire neglect of Joinville’s work. From the beginning of the twelfth
century the monks of St. Denis were the recognized historians of France.
They at first collected the most important historical works of former
centuries, such as Gregory of Tours, Eginhard, the so-called Archbishop
Turpin, Nithard, and William of Jumièges. But beginning with the first
year of Philip I., 1060-1108, the monks became themselves the chroniclers
of passing events. The famous Abbot Suger, the contemporary of Abelard and
St. Bernard, wrote the life of Louis le Gros; Rigord and Guillaume de
Nangis followed with the history of his successors. Thus the official
history of St. Louis had been written by Guillaume de Nangis long before
Joinville thought of dictating his personal recollections of the King.
Besides the work of Guillaume de Nangis, there was the “History of the
Crusades,” including that of St. Louis, written by Guillaume, Archbishop
of Tyre, and translated into French, so that even the ground which
Joinville had more especially selected as his own was preoccupied by a
popular and authoritative writer. Lastly, when Joinville’s History
appeared, the chivalrous King, whose sayings and doings his old brother in
arms undertook to describe in his homely and truthful style, had ceased to
be an ordinary mortal. He had become a saint, and what people were anxious
to know of him were legends rather than history. With all the sincere
admiration which Joinville entertained for his King, he could not compete
with such writers as Geoffroy de Beaulieu (Gaufridus de Belloloco), the
confessor of St. Louis, Guillaume de Chartres (Guillelmus Carnotensis),
his chaplain, or the confessor of his daughter Blanche, each of whom had
written a life of the royal saint. Their works were copied over and over
again, and numerous MSS. have been preserved of them in public and private
libraries. Of Joinville one early MS. only was saved, and even that not
altogether a faithful copy of the original.
The first edition of Joinville was printed at Poitiers in 1547, and
dedicated to François I. The editor, Pierre Antoine de Rieux, tells us
that when, in 1542, he examined some old documents at Beaufort en Valée,
in Anjou, he found among the MSS. the Chronicle of King Louis, written by
a Seigneur de Joinville, Sénéchal de Champagne, who lived at that time,
and had accompanied the said St. Louis in all his wars. But because it was
badly arranged or written in a very rude language, he had it polished and
put in better order, a proceeding of which he is evidently very proud, as
we may gather from a remark of his friend Guillaume de Perrière, that “it
is no smaller praise to polish a diamond than to find it quite raw”
(_toute brute_).
This text, which could hardly be called Joinville’s, remained for a time
the received text. It was reproduced in 1595, in 1596, and in 1609.
In 1617 a new edition was published by Claude Menard. He states that he
found at Laval a heap of old papers, which had escaped the ravages
committed by the Protestants in some of the monasteries at Anjou. When he
compared the MS. of Joinville with the edition of Pierre Antoine de Rieux,
he found that the ancient style of Joinville had been greatly changed. He
therefore undertook a new edition, more faithful to the original.
Unfortunately, however, his original MS. was but a modern copy, and his
edition, though an improvement on that of 1547, was still very far from
the style and language of the beginning of the fourteenth century.
The learned Du Cange searched in vain for more trustworthy materials for
restoring the text of Joinville. Invaluable as are the dissertations which
he wrote on Joinville, his own text of the History, published in 1668,
could only be based on the two editions that had preceded his own.
It was not till 1761 that real progress was made in restoring the text of
Joinville. An ancient MS. had been brought from Brussels by the Maréchal
Maurice de Saxe. It was carefully edited by M. Capperonnier, and it has
served, with few exceptions, as the foundation of all later editions. It
is now in the Imperial Library. The editors of the “Recueil des Historiens
de France” express their belief that the MS. might actually be the
original. At the end of it are the words, “Ce fu escript en l’an de grâce
mil CCC et IX, on moys d’octovre.” This, however, is no real proof of the
date of the MS. Transcribers of MSS., it is well known, were in the habit
of mechanically copying all they saw in the original, and hence we find
very commonly the date of an old MS. repeated over and over again in
modern copies.
The arguments by which in 1839 M. Paulin Paris proved that this, the
oldest MS. of Joinville, belongs not to the beginning, but to the end of
the fourteenth century, seem unanswerable, though they failed to convince
M. Daunou, who, in the twentieth volume of the “Historiens de France,”
published in 1840, still looks upon this MS. as written in 1309, or at
least during Joinville’s life-time. M. Paulin Paris establishes, first of
all, that this MS. cannot be the same as that which was so carefully
described in the catalogue of Charles V. What became of that MS. once
belonging to the private library of the Kings of France, no one knows, but
there is no reason, even now, why it should not still be recovered. The
MS. of Joinville, which now belongs to the Imperial Library, is written by
the same scribe who wrote another MS. of “La Vie et les Miracles de Saint
Louis.” Now, this MS. of “La Vie et les Miracles” is a copy of an older
MS., which likewise exists at Paris. This more ancient MS., probably the
original, and written, therefore, in the beginning of the fourteenth
century, had been carefully revised before it served as the model for the
later copy, executed by the same scribe who, as we saw, wrote the old MS.
of Joinville. A number of letters were scratched out, words erased, and
sometimes whole sentences altered or suppressed, a red line being drawn
across the words which had to be omitted. It looks, in fact, like a
manuscript prepared for the printer. Now, if the same copyist who copied
this MS. copied likewise the MS. of Joinville, it follows that he was
separated from the original of Joinville by the same interval which
separates the corrected MSS. of “La Vie et les Miracles” from their
original, or from the beginning of the fourteenth century. This line of
argument seems to establish satisfactorily the approximate date of the
oldest MS. of Joinville as belonging to the end of the fourteenth century.
Another MS. was discovered at Lucca. As it had belonged to the Dukes of
Guise, great expectations were at one time entertained of its value. It
was bought by the Royal Library at Paris in 1741 for 360 livres, but it
was soon proved not to be older than about 1500, representing the language
of the time of François I. rather than of St. Louis, but nevertheless
preserving occasionally a more ancient spelling than the other MS. which
was copied two hundred years before. This MS. bears the arms of the
Princess Antoinette de Bourbon and of her husband, Claude de Lorraine, who
was “Duc de Guise, Comte d’Aumale, Marquis de Mayence et d’Elbeuf, and
Baron de Joinville.” Their marriage took place in 1513; he died in 1550,
she in 1583.
There is a third MS. which has lately been discovered. It belonged to M.
Brissart-Binet of Rheims, became known to M. Paulin Paris, and was lent to
M. de Wailly for his new edition of Joinville. It seems to be a copy of
the so-called MS. of Lucca, the MS. belonging to the Princess Antoinette
de Bourbon, and it is most likely the very copy which that Princess
ordered to be made for Louis Lasséré, canon of St. Martin of Tours who
published an abridgment of it in 1541. By a most fortunate accident it
supplies the passages from page 88 to 112, and from page 126 to 139, which
are wanting in the MS. of Lucca.
It must be admitted, therefore, that for an accurate study of the
historical growth of the French language, the work of Joinville is of less
importance than it would have been if it had been preserved in its
original orthography, and with all the grammatical peculiarities which
mark the French of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth
century. There may be no more than a distance of not quite a hundred years
between the original of Joinville and the earliest MS. which we possess.
But in those hundred years the French language did not remain stationary.
Even as late as the time of Montaigne, when French has assumed a far
greater literary steadiness, that writer complains of its constant change.
“I wrote my book,” he says in a memorable passage (“Essais,” liv. 3, c.
9)—
“For few people and for a few years. If it had been a subject that
ought to last, it should have been committed to a more stable
language (_Latin_). After the continual variation which has
followed our speech to the present day, who can hope that its
present form will be used fifty years hence? It glides from our
hands every day, and since I have lived it has been half changed.
We say that at present it is perfect, but every century says the
same of its own. I do not wish to hold it back, if it will fly
away and go on deteriorating as it does. It belongs to good and
useful writers to nail the language to themselves” (_de le clouer
à eux_).
On the other hand, we must guard against forming an exaggerated notion of
the changes that could have taken place in the French language within the
space of less than a century. They refer chiefly to the spelling of words,
to the use of some antiquated words and expressions, and to the less
careful observation of the rules by which in ancient French the nominative
is distinguished from the oblique cases, both in the singular and the
plural. That the changes do not amount to more than this can be proved by
a comparison of other documents which clearly preserve the actual language
of Joinville. There is a letter of his which is preserved at the Imperial
Library at Paris, addressed to Louis X. in 1315. It was first published by
Du Cange, afterwards by M. Daunou, in the twentieth volume of the
“Historiens de France,” and again by M. de Wailly. There are, likewise,
some charters of Joinville, written in his _chancellerie_, and in some
cases with additions from his own hand. Lastly, there is Joinville’s
“Credo,” containing his notes on the Apostolic Creed, preserved in a
manuscript of the thirteenth century. This was published in the
“Collection des Bibliophiles Français,” unfortunately printed in
twenty-five copies only. The MS. of the “Credo,” which formerly belonged
to the public library of Paris, disappeared from it about twenty years
ago; and it now forms No. 75 of a collection of MSS. bought in 1849 by
Lord Ashburnham from M. Barrois. By comparing the language of these
thirteenth century documents with that of the earliest MS. of Joinville’s
History, it is easy to see that although we have lost something, we have
not lost very much, and that, at all events, we need not suspect in the
earliest MS. any changes that could in any way affect the historical
authenticity of Joinville’s work.(31)
To the historian of the French language, the language of Joinville, even
though it gives us only a picture of the French spoken at the time of
Charles V. or contemporaneously with Froissart, is still full of interest.
That language is separated from the French of the present day by nearly
five centuries, and we may be allowed to give a few instances to show the
curious changes both of form and meaning which many words have undergone
during that interval.
Instead of _sœur_, sister, Joinville still uses _sereur_, which was the
right form of the oblique case, but was afterwards replaced by the
nominative _suer_ or _sœur_. Thus, p. 424 E, we read, _quant nous menames
la serour le roy_, _i.e._ _quand nous menâmes la sœur du roi_; but p. 466
A, _l’abbaïe que sa suer fonda_, _i.e._ _l’abbaïe que sa sœur fonda_.
Instead of _ange_, angel, he has both _angle_ and _angre_, where the _r_
stands for the final _l_ of _angele_, the more ancient French form of
_angelus_. The same transition of final _l_ into _r_ may be observed in
_apôtre_ for _apostolus_, _chapitre_ for _capitulum_, _chartre_ for
_cartula_, _esclandre_ for _scandalum_. Instead of _vieux_, old, Joinville
uses _veil_ or _veel_ (p. 132 C, _le veil le fil au veil_, _i.e._ _le
vieux fils du vieux_); but in the nom. sing., _viex_, which is the Latin
_vetulus_ (p. 302 A, _li Viex de __ la Montaingne_, _i.e._ _le Vieux de la
Montagne_; but p. 304 A, _li messaige le Vieil_, _i.e._ _les messagers du
Vieux_.) Instead of _coude_, m., elbow, we find _coute_, which is nearer
to the Latin _cubitus_, cubit. The Latin _t_ in words like _cubitus_ was
generally softened in old French, and was afterwards dropped altogether.
As in _coude_, the _d_ is preserved in _aider_ for _adjutare_, in _fade_
for _fatuus_. In other words, such as _chaîne_ for _catena_, _roue_ for
_rota_, _épée_ for _spatha_, _aimêe_ for _amata_, it has disappeared
altogether. _True_ is _voir_, the regular modification of _verum_, like
_soir_ of _serum_, instead of the modern French _vrai_; _e.g._, p. 524 B,
_et sachiez que voirs estait_, _i.e._ _et sachez que c’était vrai_. We
still find _ester_, to stand (“_Et ne pooit ester sur ses pieds_,” “He
could not stand on his legs”). At present the French have no single word
for “standing,” which has often been pointed out as a real defect of the
language. “To stand” is _ester_, in Joinville; “to be” is _estre_.
In the grammatical system of the language of Joinville we find the
connecting link between the case terminations of the classical Latin and
the prepositions and articles of modern French. It is generally supposed
that the terminations of the Latin declension were lost in French, and
that the relations of the cases were expressed by prepositions, while the
_s_ as the sign of the plural was explained by the _s_ in the nom. plur.
of nouns of the third declension. But languages do not thus advance _per
saltum_. They change slowly and gradually, and we can generally discover
in what is, some traces of what has been.
Now the fact is that in ancient French, and likewise in Provençal, there
is still a system of declension more or less independent of prepositions.
There are, so to say, three declensions in old French, of which the second
is the most important and the most interesting. If we take a Latin word
like _annus_, we find in old French two forms in the singular, and two in
the plural. We find sing. _an-s_, _an_, plur. _an_, _ans_. If _an_ occurs
in the nom. sing. or as the subject, it is always _ans_; if it occur as a
gen., dat., or acc., it is always _an_. In the plural, on the contrary, we
find in the nom. _an_, and in all the oblique cases _ans_. The origin of
this system is clear enough, and it is extraordinary that attempts should
have been made to derive it from German or even from Celtic, when the
explanation could be found so much nearer home. The nom. sing. has the
_s_, because it was there in Latin; the nom. plur. has no _s_, because
there was no _s_ there in Latin. The oblique cases in the singular have no
_s_, because the accusative in Latin, and likewise the gen., dat., and
abl., ended either in vowels, which became mute, or in _m_, which was
dropped. The oblique cases in the plural had the _s_, because it was there
in the acc. plur., which became the general oblique case, and likewise in
the dat. and abl. By means of these fragments of the Latin declension, it
was possible to express many things without prepositions which in modern
French can no longer be thus expressed. _Le fils Roi_ was clearly the son
of the King; _il fil Roi_, the sons of the King. Again we find _li roys_,
the King, but _au roy_, to the King. Pierre Sarrasin begins his letter on
the crusade of St. Louis by _A seigneur Nicolas Arode, Jehan-s Sarrasin,
chambrelen-s le roy de France, salut et bonne amour_.
But if we apply the same principle to nouns of the first declension, we
shall see at once that they could not have lent themselves to the same
contrivance. Words like _corona_ have no _s_ in the nom. sing., nor in any
of the oblique cases; it would therefore be in French _corone_ throughout.
In the plural indeed there might have been a distinction between the nom.
and the acc. The nom. ought to have been without an _s_, and the acc. with
an _s_. But with the exception of some doubtful passages, where a nom.
plur. is supposed to occur in old French documents without an _s_, we find
throughout, both in the nom. and the other cases, the _s_ of the
accusative as the sign of the plural.
Nearly the same applies to certain words of the third declension. Here we
find indeed a distinction between the nom. and the oblique cases of the
singular, such as _flor-s_, the flower, with _flor_, of the flower; but
the plural is _flor-s_ throughout. This form is chiefly confined to
feminine nouns of the third declension.
There is another very curious contrivance by which the ancient French
distinguished the nom. from the acc. sing., and which shows us again how
the consciousness of the Latin grammar was by no means entirely lost in
the formation of modern French. There are many words in Latin which change
their accent in the oblique cases from what it was in the nominative. For
instance, _cantátor_, a singer, becomes _cantatórem_, in the accusative.
Now in ancient French the nom., corresponding to _cantator_, is
_chántere_, but the gen. _chanteór_, and thus again a distinction is
established of great importance for grammatical purposes. Most of these
words followed the analogy of the second declension, and added an _s_ in
the nom. sing., dropped it in the nom. plur., and added it again in the
oblique cases of the plural. Thus we get—
SINGULAR. PLURAL.
Nom. Oblique Cases. Nom. Oblique Cases.
_chántere_ _chanteór_ _chanteór_ _chanteórs_
From _baro, _baron_ _baron_ _barons_
baronis_
(O. Fr. _ber_)
_latro, _larron_ _larron_ _larrons_
latronis_
(O. Fr.
_lierre_)
_senior, _seignor_ _seignor_ _seignors_
senioris_
(O. Fr.
_sendre_)
(sire)