Slang.--Les Jeunes Gens de Paris.--La Jeune
France.--Rococo.--Décousu.
I suppose that, among all people and at all times, a certain portion
of what we call slang will insinuate itself into familiar colloquial
intercourse, and sometimes even dare to make its unsanctioned accents
heard from the tribune and the stage. It appears to me, I confess,
that France is at present taking considerable liberties with her
mother-tongue. But this is a subject which requires for its grave
discussion a native critic, and a learned one too. I therefore can
only venture distantly and doubtingly to allude to it, as one of the
points at which it appears to me that innovation is visibly and
audibly at work.
I know it may be said that every additional word, whether fabricated
or borrowed, adds something to the riches of the language; and no
doubt it does so. But there is a polished grace, a finished elegance
in the language of France, as registered in the writings of her
Augustan age, which may well atone for the want of greater
copiousness, with which it has been sometimes reproached. To increase
its strength, by giving it coarseness, would be like exchanging a
high-mettled racer for a dray-horse. A brewer would tell you, that you
gained in power what you lost in grace: it may be so; but there are
many, I think, even in this age of operatives and utilitarians, who
would regret the change.
This is a theme, however, as I have said before, on which I should not
feel myself justified in saying much. None should pretend to examine,
or at any rate to discuss critically, the niceties of idiom in a
language that is not native to them. But, distinct from any such
presumptuous examination, there are words and phrases lawfully within
the reach of foreign observation, which strike me as remarkable at the
present day, either from their frequent recurrence, or for something
of unusual emphasis in the manner in which they are employed.
_Les jeunes gens de Paris_ appears to me to be one of these. Translate
it, and you find nothing but "the young men of Paris;" which should
seem to have no more imposing meaning than "the young men of London,"
or of any other metropolis. But hear it spoken at Paris--Mercy on me!
it sounds like a thunderbolt. It is not only loud and blustering,
however; you feel that there is something awful--nay, mystical,
implied by the phrase. It appears solemnly to typify the power, the
authority, the learning--ay, and the wisdom too, of the whole nation.
_La Jeune France_ is another of these cabalistic forms of speech, by
which everybody seems expected to understand something great,
terrible, volcanic, and sublime. At present, I confess that both of
these, pronounced as they always are with a sort of mysterious
emphasis, which seems to say that "more is meant than meets the ear,"
produce rather a paralysing effect upon me. I am conscious that I do
not clearly comprehend all the meaning with which they are pregnant,
and yet I am afraid to ask, lest the explanation should prove either
more unintelligible or more alarming than even the words themselves. I
hope, however, that ere long I shall grow more intelligent or less
timid; and whenever this happens, and I conceive that I fully
comprehend their occult meaning, I will not fail to transmit it
faithfully to you.
Besides these phrases, and some others that I may perhaps mention
hereafter as difficult to understand, I have learned a word quite new
to me, and which I suspect has but very recently been introduced into
the French language; at least, it is not to be found in the
dictionaries, and I therefore presume it to be one of those happy
inventions which are permitted from time to time to enrich the power
of expression. How the Academy of former days might have treated it, I
know not; but it seems to me to express a great deal, and might at
this time, I think, be introduced very conveniently into our own
language: at any rate, it may often help me, I think, as a very
useful adjective. This new-born word is "_rococo_," and appears to me
to be applied by the young and innovating to everything which bears
the stamp of the taste, principles, or feelings of time past. That
part of the French population to whom the epithet of _rococo_ is thus
applied, may be understood to contain all varieties of old-fashionism,
from the gentle advocate for laced coats and diamond sword-knots, up
to the high-minded venerable loyalist, who only loves his rightful
king the better because he has no means left to requite his love. Such
is the interpretation of _rococo_ in the mouth of a doctrinaire: but
if a republican speaks it, he means that it should include also every
gradation of orderly obedience, even to the powers that be; and, in
fact, whatever else may be considered as essentially connected either
with law or gospel.
There is another adjective which appears also to recur so frequently
as fully to merit, in the same manner, the distinction of being
considered as fashionable. It is, however, a good old legitimate word,
admirably expressive too, and at present of more than ordinary
utility. This is "_décousu_;" and it seems to be the epithet now given
by the sober-minded to all that smacks of the rambling nonsense of the
new school of literature, and of all those fragments of opinions which
hang so loosely about the minds of the young men who discourse
fashionably of philosophy at Paris.
Were the whole population to be classed under two great divisions, I
doubt if they could be more expressively designated than by these two
appellations, the _décousu_ and the _rococo_. I have already stated
who it is that form the _rococo_ class: the _décousu_ division may be
considered as embracing the whole of the ultra-romantic school of
authors, be they novelists, dramatists, or poets; all shades of
republicans, from the avowed eulogists of the "spirited Robespierre"
to the gentler disciples of Lamennais; most of the schoolboys, and all
the _poissardes_ of Paris.