[873] Languages, he held, were best learnt by rules of a simple nature,
comparison of the points of difference and resemblance between the known
and unknown language, and exercises on familiar subjects.
[874] _A compendious way of teaching Ancient and Modern Languages ..._,
2nd edition, London, 1723, pp. 45 _et seq._
[875] He would then learn Italian and Spanish on the same plan.
[876] _An Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen ..._,
1673.
[877] _Essay on Education_, 1711. The case of Queen Elizabeth, who is
said to have learnt only one or two Latin rules, is also quoted.
[878] _An Essay on the education of children in the first rudiments of
learning, together with a narrative of what knowledge Wm. Wotton, a
child of 6 years of age, had attained unto upon the Improvement of those
Rudiments in the Latin, Greek and Hebrew Tongues._ Reprinted, London,
1753, p. 38.
[879] _Diary_, July 6, 1679.
[880] _Ibid._, Jan. 27, 1688.
[881] For this purpose he wrote _The True and readie way to learne the
Latin Tongue, expressed in an answer to the Question whether the
ordinary way of teaching Latin by Rules of Grammar be best_, 1654.
CHAPTER V
THE TOUR IN FRANCE
And now methinks I see a youth advance
Ready prepared to make the tour of France.
_Satire against the French_, 1691.
When, in the middle of the seventeenth century, England was torn in
twain by civil war and party quarrels, even the Puritans willingly sent
their children to be brought up in France. It was at this period that
Thomas Grantham, a severe critic of the usual method of teaching Latin
in Grammar Schools,[882] wrote this significant passage: "Let a boy of
seven or eight years of age be sent out of England into France: he shall
learn in a twelvemonth or less to write and speak the French tongue
readily, although he keep much company with English, read many English
books, and write many English letters home, and all this with pleasure
and delight." The number of English children in France at this period
was considerable.[883] At St. Malo, for instance, when proceedings were
taken against the English in the town, the chief victims were the
"English boys sent to learn French."[884]
The memoirs of the Verney family afford a detailed picture of one of the
numerous families of royalist sympathies, cut off from English public
school and university life, and brought up in France. Sir Ralph Verney
had taken the side of Parliament in the long struggle, but in 1643 went
into voluntary exile in France rather than sign the Covenant. He
settled at Blois with his family, and procured French tutors for his
boys. Apparently he had some trouble at first, one of the tutors being
dismissed "for drinking, lying and seeking to proselytise." Finally the
education of the boys was entrusted to the Protestant pastor, M.
Testard, who received foreign pupils. The young students worked hard at
Latin and French under the minister's supervision. Testard reported of
Edmund, the elder, "Il fait merveille. . . . Je luy raconte une histoire
en français, il me la rend extempore en Latin."[885] And one day Mme.
Testard found the young John hard at work in bed in the early morning
with two books in French and Latin. The children wrote in French to
their mother when she was absent in England making valiant and finally
successful attempts to get the sequestration taken off Sir Ralph's
estate. And when, after her death, Sir Ralph sought to divert his mind
by travelling in Italy, Edmund,[886] then aged thirteen, wrote this
letter--which shows clearly the dangers of a purely oral method:
Plust à Dieu qu'il vous donnast la pensée de retourner à Blois. Les
jours me semblent des années tant il m'ennuye d'ettre icy comme
dans un desert de solitude; car quoy est cequi me peut desormais
plaire dans cette ville, comment est ceque cette lumiere de la vie,
et cette respiration de l'air me peuvent-elle estre agreeables,
puisqu'y ayant perdu cequi m'estoit le plus au Monde et qu'il
m'interesse plus q'une seule personne dont je suis privé de
l'honneur de sa presence, au reste, graces a Dieu, nous nous porte
fort bien et pourcequi et de moy je vous asseure que je ne
manqueray jamais à mon devoir, c'espourquoy finissant je demeure et
demeureray aternellement,
Votre tres humble et fidel fils,
EDMOND VERNEY.
Sir Ralph had also in his charge two girls, his young cousins, whom
their mother had entrusted to him: "Sweet nephew, I have after A long
debate with my selfe sent my tow gurles where I shall desier youre care
of them, that they may be tought what is fite for them as the reding of
the french tong, and to singe, and to dance and to right and to playe of
the gittar."[887]
Sir Ralph regarded France as "the fittest place to breed up youth."
[Header: SIR RALPH VERNEY'S VIEWS] "I wish peace in France for my
children's sake," he wrote to M. Du Val, a French tutor. After bringing
up his own family there, he would have liked to send his grandchildren
to France with a sober and discreet governor, rather than to any school
in England; but his son Edmund thought the advantage of learning to
speak French fluently did not compensate for the loss of English public
school life, which he himself had never enjoyed. Sir Ralph soon became a
versatile source of information to parents desiring details of the cost
of living and education in France. He considered £200 a year a proper
allowance for an English youth to be boarded in a good French family,
and that homes in which there were children were best, on account of the
continual prattle of the young inmates. The families of French pastors
were naturally preferred; and as the pastors were in the habit of taking
French pupils also,[888] no doubt the young English boys found suitable
companions.
The Protestant schools,[889] established wherever possible by the French
reformers in the vicinity of their churches, were also in favour with
English parents. These schools, in which the subjects usually taught
were reading, writing, arithmetic, and the catechism, were for obvious
reasons looked on with suspicion by the Government; one by one they were
dispersed, especially when the feeling against the Protestants became
more acute towards the middle of the seventeenth century. Thus the
schools of Rouen were closed in 1640; and shortly afterwards Sir Ralph
Verney wrote, in reply to an inquiry about a school, that Rouen is a
very unfit place, as no Protestant masters are allowed to keep school
there; moreover, living is dear in the town, and the accent of the
inhabitants bad. In some cases, when the schools had been closed or
converted into Jesuit establishments, the ejected schoolmasters gave
private lessons, or received a few _pensionnaires_ in their homes. Even
this was forbidden in 1683. And two years later the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes dealt the severest blow of all.
Regarding the Protestant Academies,[890] Sir Ralph sent the following
report to his friends in England: "There are divers Universities at
Sedan, Saumur, Geneva and other fine places, as I am told at noe
unreasonable rate, and not only Protestant schoolmasters, but whole
colleges of Protestants."[891] Many young Englishmen were sent to one or
other of these towns, either to attend lectures at the Academies, or,
more often, to study French and the "exercises" privately, in a
Protestant atmosphere. Sir Orlando Bridgman, a friend of Sir Ralph
Verney, after letting his son study with two other English boys under a
M. Cordell at Blois, intended to send him either to Saumur or Poitiers,
then to Paris, and so to the Inns of Court,[892] and Sir Thomas Cotton
sent his sons to Saumur to perfect themselves in French.[893] In the
middle of the seventeenth century, Sir Joseph Williamson, the future
statesman and diplomat of the reign of Charles II., was living at Saumur
with several young Englishmen in his care.[894] After graduating at
Oxford, he had left England in the capacity of tutor to a young man of
quality, possibly one of the sons of the Marquis of Ormonde. At Saumur,
Williamson kept a book of notes relating to the studies of his pupils
and containing the letters which he wrote to their parents in answer to
inquiries concerning their progress. He and his pupils lived _en
pension_ in a private house in the town, "with very civil company,"--"the
best way to get the language which is much desired." On the whole
Williamson's pupils do not seem to have made as rapid progress as either
he himself or their parents desired. One anxious father writes to ask
Williamson to let his son practise writing French daily; another exhorts
his son to devote himself seriously to learning French by reading good
authors and conversing. The Academies of Montauban and Sedan, though
they never attained a popularity equal to that of Saumur, were not
neglected, and attracted many foreign students. The Academy at Montauban
was moved to Puy Laurens in 1659, where it remained until its
suppression at the time of the Revocation. In 1678 Henry Savile, English
ambassador at Paris, informed his brother, Lord Halifax, that there are
only two Protestant Universities in France, at Saumur and Puy Laurens,
and that of these Saumur is beyond dispute the better.[895] [Header:
TRAVELLERS AT FRENCH UNIVERSITIES] From this we see that these two
Academies were then the best known;[896] no doubt the rest, which had
never been quite so popular, were much enfeebled by the hostile edicts
which preceded the Revocation. Lord Halifax at first intended to send
his sons to the College at Chastillon. Savile, however, stopped them
when they arrived at Paris, as he had heard that the only teaching given
at the College was reading, writing, and the catechism--the curriculum
of the Protestant schools. In the end the boys were sent with their
governor to the Academy at Geneva. On their return to England in 1681,
one of them went to complete his education at the University and the
other to the academy which was opened that year by the Frenchman M.
Foubert, who had set up as a teacher of the "exercises" in London.
Other travellers spent some time at one of the French Universities. The
University of Paris usually counted a considerable number of English
among its students, and Clarendon tells us that those who have been
there "mingle gracefully in all companies." The Universities of
Bordeaux, Poitiers, and Montpellier were also favourite resorts.
Montpellier particularly, with its "gentle salutiferous air," attracted
those suffering from the "national complaint."[897] When Will Allestry
was there in 1668, he spent the greater part of his time learning
French, and what leisure he had he employed in studying the
Institutions.[898] Orleans, famous for the study of law, was also much
patronised. The custom of studying in French Universities, however, did
not meet with general approval in England. Sir Balthazar Gerbier
pronounced it "no less than abusing the Universities of Oxford and
Cambridge and the famous free schools of this realme to withdraw from
them the sons of Noble families and those that are lovers of vertue."
The same opinion is voiced by Samuel Penton, Master of Exeter Hall,
Oxford, who did not omit even the Protestant Academies from his
condemnation. "The strangeness of New Faces, Language, Manners and
Studies may prove perhaps uneasie, and then their great want of
discipline to confine him to Prayers, Exercises and Meals is dangerous:
all he will have to do is to keep in touch with a Lecturer, and what is
learned from him, most young Gentlemen are so civil as to leave behind
them when they return."[899]
The governors who usually accompanied young travellers, especially those
of high birth, were not infrequently Frenchmen. We are told that it was
a rare sight to see a young English nobleman at a foreign court with a
governor of his own nation,[900] though some preferred an English
governor, and cautioned travellers against foreign tutors. Samuel Penton
warns us that if the young traveller is committed, for cheapness or
curiosity, to a foreigner instead of an English governor, "there are
some in the world who without a fee will tell you what that is like to
come to."[901] One of the English governors, J. Gailhard, who was tutor
abroad to several of the nobility and gentry, including the Earl of
Huntingdon, Lord Hastings, and Sir Thomas Grosvenor, lays down "a method
of travel" which is of special interest, as it is the one which he
followed with his own pupils.[902] His view was that, if possible, the
traveller should have some knowledge of French before setting out on his
travels. The first thing he should do on arriving at Paris is to go to
the famous Protestant temple at Charenton, and there give thanks for his
safe journey so far--whether he understand French or not. He will do
well to make but a short stay at Paris, where his progress will be
hindered by the great number of his countrymen there. The best places to
reside in are the towns along the valley of the Loire, where there are
plenty of good masters to be had. Perhaps Angers is the best. The
student is further urged to keep a diary, and talk as much as
possible--"with speaking we learn to speak." The masters for the riding
and fencing exercises, dancing and music, are to be looked upon as so
many additional language teachers. Although "of ten words he could not
speak two right, yet let him not be ashamed and discouraged at it: for
it is not to be expected he should be a Master before he hath been a
scholar." The language master should teach his pupil to read, write and
spell correctly, and to speak properly. [Header: GUIDE-BOOKS FOR
TRAVELLERS] The material for reading must be carefully chosen; romances,
such as those of Scudéry, are often dangerous; it is better to use books
which give instruction in such subjects as history, morality, and
politics. Every evening there should be a repetition of what has been
learnt during the day. Gailhard also draws attention to the necessity of
respecting and observing the customs of the places visited: "Here in
England, the manner is for the master of the House to go in before a
stranger, this would pass for a great incivility in France; so here the
Lady or Mistress of the House uses to sit at the upper end of the Table,
which in France is given to Strangers. So if we be many in a company we
make no scruple to drink all out of a glass, or a Tankard, which they
are not used to do, and if a servant would offer to give them a glass
before it was washed every time they drink, they would be angry at it.
Here when a man is sneezing we say nothing to him, but there they would
look upon't as a want of civility. Again, we in England upon a journey,
use to ask one another how we do, but in France they do no such
thing--amongst them that question would answer to this, 'what aileth you
that you look so ill?'"
The attitude of the French teachers in England towards the foreign tour
gradually changed. They no longer saw in it a rival institution,
depriving them of many of their pupils, but, on the contrary, a means of
giving the finishing touch to the results of their own efforts in
England. All strongly advise their pupils to go to France, and most of
them add directions for travel in their text-books.[903] Mauger's
dialogues include "most exact instructions for travel, very useful and
necessary for all gentlemen that intend to travel into France," and
Lainé's grammar is "enriched with choice dialogues useful for persons of
quality that intend to travel into France, leading them as by the hand
to the most noted and principal places of the kingdom."
As the tour in France increased in popularity, the directions furnished
by French teachers were supplemented by guide-books properly so called;
towards the end of the seventeenth century books such as _The Present
State of France_ and _The Description of Paris_ were to be had at every
bookseller's in London.[904] As early as 1604 Sir Robert Dallington had
written his _View of France_, in which he refers to a book called the
_French Guide_, which "undertaketh to resemble eche countrie to some
other thing, as Bretaigne to a horse-shoe, Picardy to a Neat's toung
etc., which are but idle and disproportioned comparisons." Peter Heylyn,
chaplain at the Courts of Charles I. and Charles II., was the author of
two popular books of this type: _France painted to the Life by a learned
and impartial Hand_,[905] and _A Full relation of two Journeys, the one
in the mainland of France, the other in some of the adjacent
Islands_.[906] Some of these guides are descriptions of the country,
others are relations of journeys made there; to the first category
belongs _A Description of France in its several governments by J. S.
Gent_ (1692), and to the second, _A Journey to Paris in the year 1698 by
Dr. Martin Lister_. Some include advice as to the course of study to be
followed. And as Italy was still frequently included in the tour,
travellers were sometimes supplied with information regarding that
country.[907]
So popular did the tour in France become in the seventeenth century that
guide-books for travellers were produced on the spot. The earliest
French books of this kind had not been specially designed for the use of
foreign visitors; they were as a rule descriptions of the towns and
their geographical positions, or notices on their history and
antiquities.[908] In time, however, they assumed a character more
particularly adapted to strangers.[909] [Header: ROUTES USUALLY
FOLLOWED] One of the best known and most popular was _Le Voyage de
France, dressé pour l'instruction et commodité tant des Français que des
étrangers_, first published in 1639. The author, C. de Varennes, gives
directions for the study of French. He thinks Oudin's Grammar the most
profitable, on account of the manner in which it deals with the chief
difficulties of foreigners, and Paris and Orleans the best towns for
study. For the rest, the help of a tutor should be enlisted, and the
student should converse as much as possible with children, and with
persons of learning and ability; he should also read widely, preferably
dialogues in familiar style and the latest novels; and write French, for
which exercise he will find much help in the _Secrétaire de la Cour_ and
the _Secrétaire à la mode_,[910] collections of letters and
"compliments," which, we may say incidentally, enjoyed a popularity
greatly exceeding their merit.
The short tour in France grew in popularity as the seventeenth century
advanced, and many were content to spend the whole of their sojourn
abroad there, without undertaking the longer continental tour. Others
went to France to prepare themselves for the longer tour. Naturally the
tour in France alone engaged the attention of French teachers. We are
told that the cost of a tour of three months need not be more than £50.
"If you take a friend with you 'twill make you miss a thousand
opportunities of following your end: you go to get French, and it would
be best if you could avoid making an acquaintance with any Englishman
there. To converse with their learned men will be beside your purpose
too, if you go for so short a time: they talk the worst for conversation
and you had rather be with the ladies."[911]
The chief routes which French masters in England advised their pupils to
take were those from Dover to Boulogne and from Rye to Dieppe, whence it
was usual to proceed through Rouen to Paris.[912] Locke, for instance,
landed at Boulogne when on his way to the South of France; thence he
made his way to Paris, chiefly on foot.[913] "If Paris be heaven (for
the French with their usual justice, extol it above all things on
earth)," he writes after a night spent at Poy, "Poy certainly is
purgatory on the way to it." His impressions of Tilliard were more
favourable: "Good mutton, and a good supper, clean linen of the country,
and a pretty girl to lay it (who was an angel compared with the fiends
of Poy) made us some amends for the past night's suffering." It was on
the same route to Paris that the Norman Claude du Val, afterwards
notorious on the English highways, first came into contact with the
English as he was journeying to Paris to try his fortune there. At Rouen
he met a band of young Englishmen on their way to Paris with their
governors, to learn the exercises and to "fit themselves to go a-wooing
at their return home; who were infinitely ambitious of his company, not
doubting but in those two days' travel (from Rouen to Paris) they should
pump many considerable things out of him, both as to the language and
customs of France: and upon that account they did willingly defray his
charges." When the young Englishmen arrived at Paris and settled in the
usual quarter, the Faubourg St. Germain, Du Val attached himself to
their service, and betook himself to England on the Restoration, which
drained Paris of many of its English inhabitants.[914]
Many travellers, however, agreed with the French teachers that Paris was
not a suitable place for serious study of French, both on account of the
many distractions it offered and of the great number of English people
resident there. It therefore became customary with the more
serious-minded to retire for a time to some quiet provincial town where
the accent was good. The French teacher Wodroeph tells us as much:
"Mais, Monsieur, je vois bien que vous estes estranger et vous allez à
la cour à Paris pour y apprendre nostre langue françoise. Mais mieux il
vous vaut d'aller à Orleans plustost que d'y aller pour hanter la cour
et baiser les Dames et Damoiselles. . . . Parquoy je vous conseille
mieux vous en esloigner et d'aller à Orleans là où vous apprendrez la
vraye methode de la langue vulgaire."[915] The towns in the valley of
the Loire were favourite resorts for purposes of study.[916] Orleans,
Blois, and Saumur seem to have been the most popular. [Header: LOIRE
TOWNS FAVOURED] For instance, James Howell, after spending some time in
Paris, where he lodged near the Bastille--"the part furthest off from
the quarters where the English resort," for he wished "to go on to get a
little language"[917] as soon as he could--went to Orleans to study
French; he describes it as "the most charming town on the Loire, and the
best to learn the language in the purity." The town was never without a
great abundance of strangers.[918] The fame of Blois and its teachers
was widespread; and Bourges, Tours, Angers, and Caen were noted for the
purity of their French. Saumur and other towns in which the Protestants
were powerful were also much frequented. John Malpet, afterwards
Principal of Gloucester Hall, Oxford, spent two years in France with his
pupil, Lord Falkland, visiting Orleans, Blois, and Saumur.[919] John
Evelyn visited Paris, Blois, Orleans, and Lyons, and finally settled at
Tours, where he engaged a French master and studied the language
diligently for nineteen weeks.
While studying in one or other of these towns, English travellers
usually lodged in hotels, _auberges_, or _pensions_,[920] and sometimes
with French families. One of their chief difficulties appears to have
been to avoid their fellow-countrymen in such places. Gabriel Du Grès
suggests that when English students are thus thrown together they should
come to an agreement that any one who spoke his native tongue should pay
a fine. A further though less serious impediment was the speaking of
Latin, still considered necessary to the traveller by scholars such as
John Brinsley.[921] For this reason travellers "for language" are
advised to frequent the company of women and children, and "polite"
society, rather than that of scholars. It is a great inconvenience,
observes Du Grès, if your landlord can speak Latin. The majority of
travellers, however, do not appear to have experienced any embarrassment
in this respect; on the contrary, those with little previous knowledge
of French found their Latin of use in their first French lessons if they
studied the language "grammatically" with a master. French teachers in
England usually recommended suitable _pensions_ to their students.
Gabriel Du Grès, for instance, gives a list of such lodgings at Saumur,
his native town; Mauger, of those of Blois, Orleans, and other towns in
the Loire valley.[922] In like manner they addressed their pupils to
recommendable academies for instruction in the polite accomplishments
and military exercises. However, for the most part they advised their
pupils to go to private masters, who would attend to their French as
well as the "exercises." The house of M. Doux, who had a riding school
at Blois, was considered a particularly appropriate residence for those
desiring to learn French, on account of his daughters, who spoke
"wondrously well," as was also that of a certain M. Dechaussé, who kept
an academy for teaching young gentlemen to ride.
What is more, French teachers in England, no longer regarding their
fellow-workers in France as rivals but rather as collaborators, as we
have seen, not infrequently entertained friendly relations with them,
and even went so far as to direct pupils to them. Claude Mauger, for
instance, sent as many of his pupils as possible to M. Gaudrey at Paris,
the author of verses in praise of Mauger's _Tableau du Jugement
Universel_. This change of attitude is probably explained by the fact
that in the seventeenth century French was studied more seriously in
England than in the sixteenth century; and students on their arrival in
France had often had preliminary instruction under the care of a French
tutor in England; Clarendon significantly states that in France "we
quickly _renew_ the acquaintance we have had with the language by the
practice and custom of speaking it." Students going abroad for purposes
of study are therefore addressed to M. Nicolas, an excellent master at
Paris, M. le Fèvre, an _avocat en parlement_ at Orleans, and others. We
are also informed that _abbés_ were fond of teaching their language to
strangers, especially the English.[923] Moreover, several French
teachers in England had previously exercised their profession in France.
The most popular of all, Claude Mauger, had spent seven years teaching
French at Blois. [Header: FRENCH GRAMMARS FOR TRAVELLERS] Many years
later, when he had made his reputation as a successful teacher of
French in London, he went for a time to Paris, where he settled in the
Faubourg St. Germain, and was busily occupied in teaching French to
travellers, among others to the Earl of Salisbury. He also tells us that
his books were very popular in France, and used by the great majority of
English students there.
Several of the French teachers in France wrote books for the use of
their pupils. Mauger himself quotes the authority of "all French
Grammarians that are Professors in France for the teaching of travellers
the language." Yet in the seventeenth century, when the French language
became one of the chief preoccupations of polite society as well as of
scholars, many grammars paid no attention to teaching the language to
foreigners. There were, however, several well-known teachers of
languages at Paris who wrote grammars specially for their use. Alcide de
St. Maurice, the author of the _Guide fidelle des estrangers dans le
voyage de France_ (1672), composed a grammar called _Remarques sur les
principales difficultez de la langue françoise_ (1674), which has little
value, and is compiled chiefly from Vaugelas and Ménage. His chief aim
was to overcome the usual difficulties--pronunciation and orthography.
Several years previously he had written a collection of short stories
inspired by the _Decameron_. The _Fleurs, Fleurettes et passetemps ou
les divers caractères de l'amour honneste_, as he called them, were
published at Paris in 1666, and were no doubt intended as reading matter
for his pupils.
A work called the _Nova Grammatica Gallica_, written in Latin and French
for the use of foreigners, appeared at Paris in 1678. It is mainly
compiled from Chiflet and other French grammarians. A certain M.
Mauconduy was responsible for the grammar, which was on much the same
lines as that of Maupas. The French theologian M. de Saint-Amour, of the
Sorbonne, addressed several foreigners to Mauconduy, who issued for
their use daily _feuillets volants_, containing remarks on the language.
His pupils made rapid progress, and usually knew French fairly well in
three months, we are told.
Another of these teachers, Denys Vairasse d'Allais,[924] lived, like
Mauger, in the Faubourg St. Germain, and like him taught English as well
as French. He had spent some time in England in his youth, and perhaps
taught French there. He also corresponded with Pepys, the famous
diarist. Vairasse had a particular affection for his English pupils,
and they appear to have been in the majority. He was a strong advocate
of the study of grammar, and condemned attempts to learn French "by
imitation" alone. His _Grammaire Méthodique contenant en abrégé les
principes de cet art et les regles les plus necessaires de la langue
françoise dans un ordre claire et naturelle_ appeared at Paris in
1682.[925] In it he criticizes severely all the French grammars for the
use of strangers produced either in France or in foreign countries.
Shortly afterwards the grammar was abridged and translated into English
as _A Short and Methodical Introduction to the French Tongue composed
for the particular benefit of the English_, printed at Paris in 1683.
This French grammar published in English at Paris is a striking
testimony to the importance of the English as students of French.
René Milleran, like Vairasse d'Allais, taught English as well as French.
He was a native of Saumur, but spent most of his life at Paris teaching
languages, and for a time acted as interpreter to the king. He composed
for the use of his pupils a French grammar entitled _La Nouvelle
Grammaire Françoise, avec le Latin à coté des exemples devisée en deux
parties_ (Marseilles, 1692), which is no doubt a first edition of his
_Les deux Gramaires Fransaizes_ (Marseilles, 1694), in which he expounds
his new system of orthography. His collection of letters, _Lettres
Familieres Galantes et autres sur toutes sortes de sujets, avec leurs
responses_, of which the third edition appeared in 1700, enjoyed a great
popularity, like most similar collections at this time: successive
editions appeared right into the eighteenth century. This, he says, was
the first work which won for him the favour of so many foreign noblemen.
His method was to give the students copies of the letters in either
Latin or their own language, and to let them translate them into French.
He announced an edition of the letters with English, German, and Latin
translations for the use of his pupils, but it does not appear to have
been published. Like most writers connected with the Court, Milleran
calls attention to the purity of his style, and announces that no other
books give such exact rules for the language of the Court. A special
feature of his work was the selection of letters by members of the
French Academy. [Header: HOWELL'S ADVICE TO TRAVELLERS] Nor was the
more familiar side neglected: there are numerous letters to and from
students of French, reporting on their progress in the language, with
mutual congratulations on improvement in style, etc. It is said of
Milleran's compositions that their chief merit is their scarcity, and
few will agree with De Linière, the satirist and enemy of Boileau, who
wrote in praise of Milleran:
Cet homme en sa Grammaire étale
Autant de sçavoir que Varron,
Et dans ses Lettres il égale
Balzac, Voiture et Cicéron.
Not a few English travellers dispensed with the services of a tutor in
France. Among these was James Howell, who studied French at Paris,
Orleans, and Poissy, where he endangered his health by too close
application; he acted for a time as travelling tutor to the son of Baron
Altham. He put his knowledge of French to the test by translating his
own first literary production, _Dodona's Grove_. This, he says, he
submitted to the new _Académie des beaux esprits_, founded by Richelieu,
which gave it a public expression of approbation.[926] The translation
was printed at Paris in 1641 under the title of _Dendrologie ou la Forêt
de Dodone_. Howell left instructions for travellers, based on his own
experience of study abroad, and typical of the theories current at the
time. He advises[927] the student who has settled in some quiet town to
choose a room looking on to the street, "to take in the common cry and
language"; to keep a diary during the day, and in the evening to write
an essay from this material, "for the penne maketh the deepest furrowes,
and doth fertilize and enrich the memory more than anything else." He
should avoid the company of his countrymen, "the greatest bane of
English Gentlemen abroad," and frequent cafés and ordinaries,[928] and
engage a French page-boy "to parley and chide withal, whereof he shall
have occasion enough."[929] Howell strongly felt the necessity of
travelling in France at an early age in order to gain a good
pronunciation, "hardly overcome by one who has past the minority ...
the French tongue by reason of the huge difference betwixt their writing
and speaking will put one often into fits of despair and passion." He
draws a grotesque picture of "some of the riper plants" who "overact
themselves, for while they labour to _trencher le mot_, to cut the word
as they say, and speake like naturall Frenchmen, and to get the true
genuine tone ... they fall a lisping and mincing, and so distort and
strain their mouths and voyce so that they render themselves fantastique
and ridiculous: let it be sufficient for one of riper years to speak
French intelligibly, roundly, and congruously, without such forced
affectation." It is equally important to avoid bashfulness in speaking:
"whatsoever it is, let it come forth confidently whether true or false
sintaxis; for a bold vivacious spirit hath a very great advantage in
attaining the French, or indeed any other language."
The student will also do well to repair sometimes "to the Courts of
pleading and to the Publique Schools. For in France they presently fall
from the Latine to dispute in the vulgar tongue." He should also combine
the study of grammar--that of Maupas is the best--with his practical
exercises, and begin a course of reading, making notes as he goes on.
The most suitable books are those dealing with the history of France,
such as Serres and D'Aubigné. Much judgment is needed in the choice of
books on other subjects, "especially when there is such a confusion of
them as in France, which, as Africk, produceth always something new, for
I never knew week pass in Paris, but it brought forth some new kinds of
authors: but let him take heed of tumultuary and disjointed Authors, as
well as of the frivolous and pedantique." However, "there be some French
poets will affoord excellent entertainment specially Du Bartas, and
'twere not amisse to give a slight salute to Ronsard and Desportes, and
the late Théophile.[930] And touching poets, they must be used like
flowers, some must only be smelt into, but some are good to be thrown
into a limbique to be Distilled."
The student is likewise admonished to make a collection of French
proverbs, and translate from English into French--the most difficult
task in learning the language, "for to translate another tongue into
English is not hard or profitable." [Header: USUAL COURSE] Finally, "for
Sundayes and Holydayes, there bee many Treasuries of Devotion in the
French Tongue, full of patheticall ejaculations, and Heavenly raptures,
and his closet must not be without some of these.... Peter du Moulin
hath many fine pieces to this purpose, du Plessis, Allencour and others.
And let him be conversant with such bookes only on Sundayes and not
mingle humane studies with them. His closet must be his Rendez-vous
whensoever hee is surprized with any fit of perverseness, as thoughts of
Country or Kindred will often affect one."
Having acquired some knowledge of French in this retirement, "hee may
then adventure upon Paris, and the Court, and visit Ambassadours," and
go in the train of some young nobleman. In addition he should enter into
the life of the town, read the weekly gazettes and newspapers, "and it
were not amisse for him to spend some time in the New Academy, erected
lately by the French Cardinall Richelieu, where all the sciences are
read in the French tongue which is done of purpose to refine and enrich
the Language." He may also frequent one of the divers Academies in
Paris, for private gentlemen and cadets.
It was also customary to make either the _Grand_ or the _Petit Tour_ of
France, after the period of studious retirement. The _Grand Tour_
included Lyons, Marseilles, Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Paris; the _Petit
Tour_, Paris, Tours, and Poitiers.[931] Paris, we can guess, was the
chief attraction to most young Englishmen of family and fortune. Dryden
thus describes the education of a young gentleman of fashion:[932] "Your
father sent you into France at twelve years old, bred you up at Paris,
first at a college and then at an Academy." Much importance was attached
to a course of study at the University there, and many recognized the
advantages gained therefrom. But on the other hand there were not a few
complaints of the dangers of lack of discipline and the company of
dissolute scholars, and still more, of the neglect of all serious study.
Clarendon[933] assures us that many English travellers never saw the
University nor knew in what part of Paris it stood; but "dedicate all
that precious season only to Dancing and other exercises, which is
horribly to misspend it"; with the result that when such a traveller
returns to England, all his learning consists in wearing his clothes
well, and he has at least one French fellow to wait upon him and comb
his periwig. He is a "most accomplish'd Harlequin:"[934]
Drest in a tawdrey suit, at Paris made,
For which he more than twice the value paid.
French his attendants, French alone his mouth
Can speak, his native language is uncouth.
If to the ladies he doth make advance,
His very looks must have the air of France.
Such being the case, Admiral Penn thought well to send his son William
to France[935] in the hope that the brilliant life there would make him
forget the Quaker sympathies formed at Oxford.[936] The plan succeeded
for the time being; Penn returned "a most modish person, a fine
Gentleman, with all the latest French fashions," and Pepys[937] reports
that he perceived "something of learning he hath got, but a great deale,
if not too much of the vanity of the French garbe and affected manner of
speech and gait. I fear all real profit he hath made of his travel will
signify little."
No doubt many "raw young travellers" did "waste their time abroad in
gallantry, ignorant for the most part of foreign languages, and no
recommendation to their own country."[938] Costeker in _The Compleat
Education of a Young Nobleman_ pictures what the young traveller abroad
often is, and what he might be. To begin with, "the utmost of his
thoughts and ideas are confined to the more fashionable part of dress."
Then, "according to custom, our Beau is designed to Travel; the Tour
proposed is to France, Italy and Spain. Were I to act the part of an
impartial Inquisitor I would ask for what? Why, most undoubtedly, I
might expect to be answered, to see the World again and perfect his
Studies, and by that means compleat the fine Gentleman. Thus equiped
with a fine Estate, little Learning, and less Sense, and intirely
ignorant of all Languages but his own, he launches into a foreign
Nation, without the least knowledge of his own, where the sharpers will
find him out, discover his Intellects, and make the most of him; they
besiege him with fulsome Adulation, against which his feminine refined
Understanding is too weak to resist. [Header: SIR JOHN RERESBY IN
FRANCE] I will not dwell long upon the subject of his stay there,
supposing he has made his Tour, and seen all the most remarkable and
wondrous curiosities of those Nations, he returns a little better than
he went, except for smattering a little of the tongues, and can give us
but as bad and imperfect an Account of their nation as he was capable of
giving them of ours; all the Advantage he brings from thence is their
Modes and Vices ... the incommoding a French Peruke unmans the Bow at
once."[939] And next to himself he "loves best anyone who will call him
a _Bel Esprit_." How different a picture from that of the traveller
which is painted as a model to young Englishmen: at the age of twenty he
goes abroad for two years, after having acquired a true knowledge of his
own nation and made himself master of French and Latin. He is capable of
learning more in a month than another ignorant of languages can in
twelve. "I am confident were all our young Noblemen educated in this
manner the French Court would no longer bee esteem'd the Residence of
Politeness and Belles Lettres but must then yield to the British one in
many degrees, by reason our young Gentlemen would not only be perfect
Masters in their exterior but intellectual Perfections, and England will
then be fam'd for the Excellency of Manners and Politeness as it is now
for the incomparable Beauty of the Ladies."[940]
Sir John Reresby's account of how he spent his time abroad may be given
as a fairly typical example.[941] He went to France, in company with Mr.
Leech, his governor, in 1654. They travelled from Rye to Dieppe, and
thence to Paris, passing through Rouen. Their stay at Paris was very
short, as Reresby found the great resort of his countrymen there a great
"prevention" to learning the language. "I stayed no longer in Paris," he
tells us, "than to get my clothes, and to receive my bills of exchange,
and so went to live in a pension or boarding house at Blois.... I
employed my time here in learning the language, the guitar and dancing,
till July, and then, there having been some likelihood of a quarrel
between me and a Dutch gentleman in the same house, my governour
prevailed with me to go and live at Saumur[942].... At Saumur in
addition to the exercises I learnt at Blois, I learned to fence, and to
play of the lute. Besides that I studied philosophy and the
mathematicks, with my governor, who read lectures of each to me every
other day. After eight months' stay I had got so much of the language to
be able to converse with some ladies of the town, especially the
daughters of one M. du Plessis.... In the month of April I began to make
the little tour or circuit of France, and returned to Saumur after some
six weeks' absence. In July, I went (desirous to avoid much English
company resident at Saumur) to Le Mans, the capital town of Mayence,
with the two Mr. Leeches and one Mr. Butler. We lodged, and were in
pension at the parson's or minister's house; there were there no
strangers. There were several French persons of quality that lived there
at that time, as the Marquis de Cogne's widow, the Marquis de Verdun,
and several others, who made us partakers of the pastimes and diversions
of the place. All that winter few weeks did pass, that there were not
balls three times at the least, and we had the freer access by reason
that the women were more numerous than the men. I stayed there till
April 1656, and then returned to Saumur with my Governor alone." After
staying there for some time, Reresby dismissed his governor and made a
tour in Italy.
FOOTNOTES:
[882] _Discourse in derision of the Teaching in Free Schools_, 1644.
[883] One John Gifford, for instance, obtained permission to spend seven
years in France in order to educate his family there (_Cal. State
Papers, Dom., 1623-25_, p. 282). Mr. Storey sent his grandson Starky to
France to learn the language (_ibid., 1649-50_, p. 535).
[884] _Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1654_, p. 427. Care was taken to prevent
English students abroad from going to Roman Catholics; in 1661 Francis
Cottington made a successful application for the remission of a
forfeiture he incurred by going to Paris without a licence and living
three months in the house of a Papist (_Cal. State Papers, Dom.,
1661-62_, p. 566).
[885] _Memoirs of the Verney Family_, i. pp. 477, 497.
[886] Among the books he read were Monluc's _Commentaires_, the
_Secrétaire à la mode_, and the _Secrétaire de la cour_ (_Memoirs of the
Verney Family_, iii. p. 80).
[887] _Memoirs_, iii. p. 66.
[888] An Edict of 1683 restricted the number of such pupils allowed to
French pastors to two.
[889] An account of the schools of the French Protestants is given by M.
Nicolas in the _Bulletin de l'Histoire du Protestantisme français_, vol.
iv. pp. 497 _et seq._
[890] Cp. pp. 233 _sqq._, _supra_. The names of many famous families are
found in the registers of Geneva University--the Pembrokes, Montagus,
Cavendishes, Cecils, etc. Borgeaud, _L'Académie de Genève_, p. 442.
[891] _Memoirs_, i. p. 358.
[892] _Verney Memoirs_, vol. i. p. 358.
[893] _Cal. of State Papers, Dom., 1661-62_, p. 283.
[894] _Ibid., 1656-56_, pp. 182, 188, 281, 288, 316.
[895] _Savile Correspondence_, Camden Society, 1858, pp. 80, 71 _sqq._,
228.
[896] When the Academy of Saumur was suppressed in 1684, the town lost
about two-thirds of its inhabitants.
[897] Locke was one of those who went to the South of France "carrying a
cough with him"; cp. his Journal in King, _Life of Locke ... with
Extracts from his ... Journal_, 1830, i. pp. 86 _sqq._, Nov. 1675-March
1679.
[898] _Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1667-68_, p. 69.
[899] _New Instructions to the Guardian_, 1694, p. 101.
[900] Cooper, _Annals of Cambridge_, iv. 184.
[901] _New Instructions to the Guardian_, 1694, p. 101.
[902] _The Compleat Gentleman or Directions for the Education of Youth
as to their breeding at home and Travelling Abroad_, 1687, pp. 33 _sqq._
[903] Eliote seems to have been the first to have described the Grand
Tour--in his grammar, _Ortho-Epia Gallica_ (1593). Sherwood followed his
example in 1625. After the middle of the century such dialogues assume a
more educational and guide-like and less descriptive form.
[904] Lister, _A Journey to Paris in the year 1698_, p. 2. Lister had
previously visited France in about 1668. In 1698 he visited the aged
Mlle. de Scudéry and the Daciers, and frequented the French theatres.
[905] Second edition, 1657.
[906] London, 1656. Another edition appeared in 1673, entitled _The
Voyage of France, or a compleat Journey through France_.
[907] As in _A Tour in France and Italy made by an English Gentleman_
(J. Clenchy), 1675 and 1676, reprinted in _A Collection of Voyages_,
1745, vol. i.; and _Remarks on the Grand Tour of France and Italy lately
performed by a person of quality_ (W. Bromley), 1692 and 1693 (when it
was entitled _Remarks made in Travels through France and Italy with many
public inscriptions. Lately undertaken by a Person of Quality_). Cp. pp.
220 _sqq._, supra.
[908] For instance: _Le Guide des chemins pour aller et venir par tous
les pays et contrées du Royaume de France . . . par C. Estienne_, Paris,
1552, 1553; Lyons, 1556. _Les Antiquitez et Recherches des Villes,
chasteaux, et places plus remarquables de toute la France_, 6e éd.,
1631. L. Coulon, _Le fidèle conducteur pour le voyage de France montrant
exactement les Routes et choses remarquables qui se trouvent en chaque
ville, et les distances d'icelles avec un dénombrement des Batailles qui
s'y sont données_, Paris, 1654.
[909] As _Le Guide Fidelle des étrangers dans le voyage de France_,
Paris, 1672 (by Aloide de St. Maurice); _Les Délices de la France ou
description des provinces et villes capitales d'icelles_, Leyde, 1685;
_Le Gentilhomme étranger voyageant en France, par le baron G.D.N._,
1699--borrowed, without acknowledgement, from _Le Guide Fidelle_ of
1672. Cp. A. Babeau, _Les Voyageurs en France depuis la Renaissance
jusqu'à la Révolution_, Paris, 1885, chapter v.
[910] By La Serre. The former, which first appeared in 1625, went
through fifty editions.
[911] Lockier, in Spense's _Anecdotes_, 1820, p. 75.
[912] _Journal_, p. 89.
[913] Riding on horseback was the more usual mode of travelling, the
horses being hired from town to town; cp. Locke's _Journal_, p. 149.
Wherever possible, travellers went from one town to another by water--as
from one of the Loire towns to another.
[914] _The Memoirs of M. du Val ... intended as a severe reflexion on
the too great fondness of English ladies towards French valets which at
that time was a common complaint_, London, 1670, Harleian Miscellany,
iii. p. 308.
[915] _Spared Houres of a Souldier_, 1623.
[916] Moryson mentions Orleans as a good town; Edward Leigh, Blois and
Orleans (_Foelix Consortium_, 1663); Evelyn, Blois and Bourges; Lookier,
Orleans and Caen.
[917] _Epistolae Ho-Elianae_, 9th ed., 1726, p. 38.
[918] Heylyn, _Voyage of France_, 1673, p. 294.
[919] He kept a diary in Latin (1648-50); cf. Wood, _Athenae Oxon._
(Bliss), iii. 901.
[920] Gailhard, _The Compleat Gentleman_, 1678.
[921] Who, in his _Ludus Literarius_, urges boys to practise speaking
Latin "to fit them if they shall go beyond the seas, as Gentlemen who go
to travel, Factors for merchants, and the like."
[922] He tells us that at Rouen the English usually went to an inn kept
by a certain Mr. Madde; at Dieppe, Madame Godard's house was very
popular; at Paris, the best hotel was the "Ville de Venize." At Orleans,
good lodging was found at the "Croix Blanche," kept by one M. Richard,
and at the house of M. Marishall Laisné.
[923] J. Rutledge, _Mémoire sur le caractère, et les moeurs des Français
comparés à ceux des Anglais_, 1776, p. 55.
[924] Vairasse was born _c._ 1630, probably at Allais.
[925] Another grammar of similar intent was that of Ruau, _La vraie
methode d'enseigner la langue françoise aux estrangers expliquée en
Latin_, Paris, 1687.
[926] _Epistolae Ho-Elianae_, 9th ed., 1726, p. 283.
[927] _Instructions for forreine travel_, 1642, ed. Arber, 1869, pp. 19
_sqq._
[928] Bacon had many years before advised the traveller to keep a diary:
and further "let him sequester himself from the company of his
countrymen, and diet in such places where there is a good company of the
nation where he travaileth" (_Essay on Travel_).
[929] A Huguenot boy of about sixteen was considered a suitable valet
(Lainé, _French Grammar_, 1650).
[930] _I.e._ Théophile de Viau.
[931] St. Maurice, _Guide Fidelle_, 1672.
[932] _Limberman or the Kind Keeper_, Act I. Sc. 1.
[933] _On Education._ Miscellaneous Works, 1751, pp. 322-3.
[934] _Satire against the French_, 1691.
[935] Webb, _The Penns and Penningtons of the Seventeenth Century in
their Domestic and Religious Life_, 1867, p. 154.
[936] Gibbon, on the contrary, was sent to the house of a pastor of
Lausanne, in the hope that he would abjure the doctrines of Roman
Catholicism, which he had affected at the same University.
[937] _Diary_, August 26 and 27, 1664; August 30, 1664.
[938] D. Fordyce, _Dialogues on Education_, 1745, i. p. 417.
[939] _The Compleat Education of a Young Nobleman_, 1723, pp. 13 and 14.
[940] Costeker, _op. cit._ pp. 50-51.
[941] _Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, 1634-1689_, London, 1875, pp. 26
_sqq._, and _Memoirs and Travels of Sir John Reresby_, London, 1904, p.
21.
[942] Travelling by boat on the Loire, as was usual, and passing by
Tours. They were accompanied by a band of French men and women who, says
Reresby, tried to make the journey more pleasant by singing, and made it
less so.
CHAPTER VI
GALLOMANIA AFTER THE RESTORATION
The French teachers of London at the time of the Restoration, chief
amongst whom were Claude Mauger, Paul Festeau, Pierre Lainé, and
Guillaume Herbert, all urged students to travel in France as a means of
completing the knowledge of French acquired in England; yet at the same
time they naturally and in their own interests lay emphasis on the
facilities for learning the language in England, especially after the
Restoration, when, to use Mauger's words, there was a little France in
London, as well as a little England in Paris; "there being so great a
correspondence between the two Courts of England and France that we see
here continually the Lords of the latter, as they see at Paris persons
of quality of the former, besides an infinity of others going and coming
from thence." This indeed was the period in which Francomania reached
its height in England. During the Commonwealth the English Court and
many of the nobility and gentry had sojourned in France, and returned
thence imbued with admiration for everything French. This admiration was
intensified by the universal popularity of the French language and
French fashions. Gentlemen from all parts of Europe repaired to France
to learn the language and "frenchify" their manners. France was the
country to which English gentlemen resorted "to get their breeding"; and
the Chancellor Clarendon held that their manners were much improved by
the contact. On the other hand, French men and women of the same class
came to the English Court in larger numbers than ever before. Some
returned with their English friends at the Restoration. Others followed
later, for the English Court offered more attractions to
pleasure-seekers than did the French Court, now under the influence of
Madame de Maintenon.
The indignation and dismay aroused in France by the execution of
Charles I.[943] made the welcome offered to the royalist emigrants all
the warmer in the first instance. We are told that Paris, and indeed all
France, was full of loyal fugitives.[944] The exiled English Court was
sheltered at the Louvre and the Palais Royal in turn.[945] The queen
arrived in her native land in 1644, and shortly afterwards came Prince
Charles, then about sixteen years old, and James, the young Duke of
York. Mlle. de Montpensier, the grand-daughter of Henry IV., remarks on
the French of the two young princes. James, she thought, spoke the
language with ease, and very well indeed, and Mademoiselle was no
lenient critic.[946] But Charles had not drawn as much profit from the
lessons received in England.[947] He found the pronunciation an almost
insuperable difficulty, stammered and hesitated, and during the early
part of his stay remained almost mute for want of words. Mademoiselle
says he could not utter one intelligible sentence in French, though he
understood all she said to him. Charles, however, soon felt the benefit
of his sojourn abroad. When he returned to France from Holland in 1648,
he had already made much progress and answered the French king readily
in French, when that monarch inquired about the horses and dogs of the
Prince of Orange. He was ready enough to talk of hunting in French, but
when the queen wished to know about the progress of his affairs, and to
talk of serious matters, he excused himself, declaring he could not
speak French.[948] He would also sit silent for long periods in Mlle. de
Montpensier's presence, and only ventured to convey his compliments to
her through Lord Jermyn, one of the chief counsellors of Charles I., who
remained in the service of the queen during her exile in France.
[Header: THE ENGLISH COURT IN FRANCE] But the princess was delighted to
see a great improvement in his speaking of the language at the time of
his return from the expedition into Scotland, and the fatal battle of
Worcester. He forgot his shyness and spoke French well, relating to her
the thrilling story of his escape, and how he was "furieusement ennuyé"
in Scotland, where they think it a sin to listen to a violin. He was
also able to make the princess very pretty compliments in French, and on
these occasions, she remarks, he spoke the language particularly
well.[949]
Charles is even said to have gone incognito to several French reformed
churches during his stay in France. The presence of Cromwell's
ambassador prevented his going to the famous church of Charenton, but he
went to others. On one occasion he listened to the sermon in the
Protestant church of La Rochelle, in company with the Duke of Ormond,
and expressed his satisfaction to one or two of the congregation to whom
he revealed his identity.[950]
Many other Englishmen improved their French during their enforced stay
on the Continent. Most of the high officials of the Court of Charles I.,
the courtiers, nobles, and gentlemen round the king, spent the greater
part of the interregnum in Paris, although some of them were disturbed
by the French understanding with Cromwell in 1656. John Evelyn[951]
enumerates most of the distinguished Englishmen he met in France,[952]
and remarks on the number of French courtiers who paid their respects to
the king (Charles II.); he himself kissed His Majesty's hand at St.
Germain's. French courtiers had free intercourse with the English at
concerts, festivals, and other entertainments.[953] They also met at the
Academies so fashionable at the time. On the 13th March 1650, for
instance, Evelyn witnessed a "triumph" in Mr. Del Campo's Academy, where
"divers of the French and English noblesse, especially my Lord of
Ossory, and Richard, sons to the Marquis of Ormond (afterwards Duke),
did their exercises on horseback in noble equipage before a world of
spectators and great persons, men and ladies." And again, on the 24th of
May, he writes, "we were invited by the Noble Academies to a running,
where were many brave horses, gallants and ladies, my Lord Stanhope
entertaining us with a collation." The king's brother, the young Duke of
Gloucester, set the example by daily attending one of these academies.
Sir John Reresby, that time-serving politician, has also left an account
of his journey in France during the Commonwealth. On his arrival at
Paris in 1654 he saw the king, the Duke of York, and Prince Rupert
playing at billiards in the Palais Royal; "but was incognito, it being
crime sufficient the waiting upon His Majesty to have caused the
sequestration of his estates."[954] Reresby was again in France in 1659,
and was well received by Henrietta Maria. Almost alone of the English
exiles, Sir Edward Hyde, the Chancellor, who found the discomforts of
the exiled Court very great, failed to become a fluent speaker of
French, chiefly because he was unable to overcome the difficulties of
the pronunciation. After the Restoration he was the one high official of
the English Court who did not speak the language with fluency. It was
not till the time of his exile in France, after his disgrace in 1668,
that he mastered the language sufficiently to read its literature; but
he still found "many inconveniences" in speaking it.[955]
Men of letters formed a considerable section of the English colony in
France. Waller, Denham, Cowley, Davenant, Hobbes, Killigrew, Shirley,
Fanshawe, Crashaw, etc., and later Roscommon, Rochester, Buckingham,
Wycherley, Vanbrugh, and others lived in France, and some mixed freely
in French literary circles, then centring round the Hôtel de
Rambouillet, and such names as those of Malherbe, Vaugelas, Corneille,
Bossuet, Scudéry, La Calprenède. English literature of the Restoration
gives ample proof of their familiarity with both the language and
literature of their hosts.[956] Waller, for instance, after spending
some time at Rouen, moved to Paris, where he lived "in great splendour
and hospitality."[957] [Header: ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS IN FRANCE]
Cowley, who had followed the queen to Paris, became secretary to Lord
Jermyn, afterwards Earl of St. Albans, and deciphered the letters which
passed between the king and queen of England. The dramatist Davenant was
twice in France, where he remained several years on his second visit.
Hobbes, who for many years acted as a travelling tutor, made his mark in
the philosophic circles of Paris, and knew Mersenne, Sorbière, and
Gassendi. He fled to Paris during the civil wars, and for a time was
engaged in teaching arithmetic to the Prince of Wales.[958]
Among the many children sent to France for education during the Civil
War and Commonwealth were several future literary men. Both Vanbrugh and
Wycherley were brought up in this way. At the age of fifteen Wycherley
was "sent for education to the Western parts of France, either to
Saintonges or the Angoumois. His abode there was either upon the Banks
of the Charente, or very little remov'd from it. And he had there the
Happiness to be in the neighbourhood of one of the most accomplish'd
Ladies of the Court of France, Mme. de Montausier, whom Voiture has made
famous by several very ingenious letters, the most of which were writ to
her when she was a Maid, and call'd Mlle. de Rambouillet. I have heard
Mr. Wycherley say he was often admitted to the Conversation of that
lady, who us'd to call him the Little Hugenot: and that young as he was,
he was equally pleased with the Beauty of her Mind, and with the Graces
of her person."[959]
One of the young royalists who received his education in France during
the Commonwealth so completely mastered the French language that he
gained an important place among French men of letters: the famous
Anthony Hamilton, the author of short stories in French[960]--masterpieces
in the light vein[961]--and of the well-known life of his
gallant brother-in-law, the Comte de Grammont, which gives a
vivid picture of the life at the Court of Charles II. Hamilton has
been placed second only to Voltaire as a representative of the _esprit
français_.[962]
At the Restoration, Hamilton returned to England with the rest of the
English emigrants, together with a considerable number of Frenchmen who
had attached themselves to the English Court. He was followed two years
later by the hero of his _Mémoires_,[963] the Comte de Grammont, who
pronounced the English Court so like that of France in manners and
conversation that he could hardly realize he was in another
country.[964] French was the language freely used by the English
emigrants on their return to London, and by others in imitation of them.
"French is the most in use," wrote William Higford in the year of the
Restoration, "a most sweet tongue called the Woman's tongue, and as I
think for the address from the servant to the mistress, and from the
servant to the soveraigne, there is no sweeter nor more civil."[965] The
use of the French language was spreading all over Europe, but nowhere
was it so popular as in England: "indeed it is most alamode and best
pleases the ladies and we cannot deny but Messieurs of France are
excellent wits."[966]
The presence of so many of these _messieurs_ in London intensified the
already strong French atmosphere. Several famous names occur in the list
of French ladies and gentlemen who took up their abode in England at
this time. Shortly before De Grammont, St. Evremond had arrived in
England, where he spent over thirty years, and died in 1703. Both played
important parts in the social life of the time. De Grammont especially
was very popular. [Header: FRENCH COURTIERS IN LONDON] He received a
warm welcome at Court, where he met many old friends and was overwhelmed
with hospitality; to make an engagement with him it was necessary to see
him a fortnight beforehand. He himself added to the Court festivities by
giving French entertainments in the Parisian style.
At the numerous festivities held in honour of De Grammont, St.
Evremond[967] was almost invariably one of the guests. He soon became
the centre of a _coterie_, half English and half French, including his
literary companion the Dutchman Vossius, Canon of Windsor, the French
doctor Le Fèvre, professor of chemistry to Charles II.,[968] and the
learned Huguenot Henri Justel, who had charge of the royal library at
St. James's. What contributed most to reconcile St. Evremond to his life
in England, however, was the arrival of Hortense Mancini, Duchesse de
Mazarin, niece of the cardinal. The French ambassador Courtin said
England was the refuge of French wives who had quarrelled with their
husbands, and the Duchesse was one of these.[969] In her _salon_ St.
Evremond met the most distinguished Englishmen and foreign ministers of
the day. He saw her daily, and she inspired much of his best work.
There, too, met French Catholics, Huguenots, and Englishmen, free from
all religious prejudice, and talked of the subjects which interested
them most. Another of Mazarin's nieces, the Duchesse de Bouillon,[970]
was also in London for a time, and received in her _salon_ Waller, St.
Evremond, and others; at one time there was a possibility of La Fontaine
joining her circle. La Fontaine seems to have felt some interest in
England and the English, who, he says,
pensent profondément;
Leur esprit, en cela, suit leur tempérament,
Creusant dans les sujets, et forts d'expériences,
Ils étendent partout l'empire des sciences.
To Mrs. Harvey, sister of Lord Montagu and friend of the Duchess of
Mazarin, he dedicated his fable _Le Renard Anglais_.
Both St. Evremond and the Duchess of Mazarin ended their days in
England.[971] St. Evremond enjoyed the favour of three English kings.
Charles II. gave him a pension, and when William III. dined with one of
his courtiers, he is said to have always stipulated that the French
writer should be of the party, as he took great delight in his
conversation. Though St. Evremond received permission in 1689 to return
to his native land, he did not avail himself of the offer, preferring to
remain in the midst of his English friends, who were accustomed to his
ways and manners and his peculiarities.[972] But during the whole of his
thirty years' stay in England he made no attempt to speak English.
French was the language in which he and the rest of his countrymen
carried on their daily intercourse with their hosts.
Pepys also refers frequently to the Frenchmen he met in London.[973] On
one occasion at the Cockpit his attention was diverted from the stage by
a group of loquacious Frenchmen in a box, who, not understanding
English, were amusing themselves by asking a pretty lady, who knew both
languages, what the actors said. "Lord! what sport they made!" says
Pepys. On another occasion at Whitehall he met a very communicative
Frenchman with one eye, who shared a coach with him, and told him the
history of his own life "without asking."
Covent Garden, we are told, was the favourite resort of the French
residents, "nearer the Court, than the Exchange."[974] Their presence,
however, was not confined to Court circles; for the French were
beginning to take an interest in England and to visit the country,[975]
although, as yet, their curiosity had not extended to the language. In a
few cases English was studied. Mauger even tells us that several of his
contemporaries learnt it in France. It is certain that some employed the
services of the French teachers of London, who were willing to teach
their newly acquired language to their countrymen; for this purpose the
practice of attaching English grammars to French ones--a combination
first instituted by Mauger, who urged the French and English to avail
themselves of this opportunity of exchanging lessons--became more and
more common as the seventeenth century drew to its close. [Header:
FRENCH VALETS AND "FEMMES DE CHAMBRE"] In the meanwhile guide-books[976]
and relations of travel in England appeared. The writer of one of these,
M. Payen,[977] remarks on the great number of strangers, especially
Frenchmen, in London.[978] At the time of the Restoration, however, the
chief significance of their presence lies in the need they created for
the English to speak French.
The great demand for everything French, including the language, offered
an opening for many Frenchmen in London; for all the men and women of
fashion were not in the position of De Grammont, who sent his valet,
Thermes, to France every week to bring back the latest fashions from
Paris. "Nothing will go down with the town now," writes a contemporary
author, "but French fashions, French dancing, French songs, French
servants, French wines, French kickshaws, and now and then French sawce
come in among them, and so no doubt but French doctors may be in esteem
too."[979] In almost every book written at the time there is some
reference to the mania for French fashions. And some time later the Abbé
Le Blanc relates how, on one occasion in England, a self-satisfied
Englishman taunted him thus: "Il faut que votre pays soit bien pauvre,
puisque tant de gens sont obligés de le quitter pour chercher à vivre en
celui-ci. C'est vous qui nous fournissez de Maîtres à danser, de
Perruquiers, de Tailleurs, et de Valets de chambre: et nous vous devons
cette justice, pour la Frisure ou pour le Menuet, les François
l'emportent sur toutes les autres Nations. Je ne comprens pas comment on
aime si fort la Danse dans un Pays où l'on a si peu sujet de rire.
N'est-il pas triste, par exemple, de ne cultiver vos Vignes que pour
nous?"[980]
Regarding the French _valets_ and _femmes de chambre_ in London, the
Abbé writes: "Il n'est pas étonnant que l'on trouve en Angleterre tant
de Domestiques François. A Londres on se plaît à parler notre Langue, on
copie nos usages, on imite nos moeurs: ils entretiennent du moins dans
nos manières ceux qui les aiment: et les Anglois les payent à
proportion de l'utilité qu'ils en retirent."[981] We are told that the
French lackey was "as mischievous all the year as a London apprentice on
Shrove Tuesday";[982] yet he was indispensable:
His Lordship's Valet must be bred in France,
Or else he is a clown without Pretence:
The English Blockheads are in dress so coarse,
They're fit for nothing but to rub a horse.
Her Ladyship's ill manner'd or ill bred,
Whose Woman Confident or Chamber Maid,
Did not in France suck in her first breath'd Air,
Or did not gain her education there.[983]
French cooks were also in great demand, and it was a point of gentility
to dine at one of the French ordinaries. Thus Briske, in Shadwell's
_Humourists_, is condemned as "a fellow that never wore a noble or
polite garniture, or a white periwig, one that has not a bit of interest
at Chatelin's, or ever ate a good fricacy, sup, or ragoust in his life";
for now, "like the French we dress, like Frenchmen eat." "Substantial
beef" is "boil'd in vain," and "our boards are profaned with
fricassee":[984]
Our cooks in dressing have no skill at all,
French cooks are only of the modish stamp.
Pepys did not care for the new French restaurants. At the most popular,
Chatelin's,[985] he says, they serve a "damned base dinner at the charge
of 8s. 6d." He preferred the old English ordinaries where English food
was given a French name. Yet he admits that at the French houses the
table is covered and the glasses clean, all in the French manner; and
when he dined with his patrons of the Admiralty, he usually was given a
"fine French dinner."[986]
[Header: THE FRENCH TAILOR]
As to the French dancing-master, he is a "very Paladin of France when
he comes into England once, where he has the Regimen of the Ladies leges
and is the sole Pedagoge of their feet, teaching them the French
Language, as well as the French Pace."[987] French music was also the
vogue. We are told that during the reign of Charles II. "all musick
affected by the beau mond ran in the ffrench way."[988] John Bannester,
the first violin to the king, is said to have lost his post[989] for
having upheld, within the hearing of His Majesty, that the English
musicians were superior to the French. Soon after the Restoration,
Charles on one occasion gave great umbrage to the English musicians by
making them stop their performance and bidding the French music play
instead.
In the same way the French tailor is "the King of Fashions and Emperor
of the Mode, not onely in France, but most of its Neighboring Nations,
and his Laws are received where the King of France's will not
pass";[990] and thus the French
Now give us laws for pantalons,
The length of breeches and the gathers,
Port-cannons, periwigs and feathers.[991]
There was a French peddling woman at Court, Mlle. Le Boord, who "us'd to
bring peticoates, and fanns and baubles out of France to the
Ladys,"[992] and whose opinion had great weight. De Grammont won the
favour of the English ladies by having French trinkets sent them from
France. "Let the fashion be French, 'tis no matter what the cloth
be."[993] Travellers from France were beset with questions as to the
latest mode. Some devotees were said to receive weekly letters from
France providing information on this subject.[994] At one moment
Charles protested against the rage for French fashions by adopting a
simple garment after the Persian style, which was first worn at Court on
the 18th October 1666. Divers gentlemen went so far as to wager that His
Majesty would not persist in this change; and when Louis XIV. retorted
by ordering his pages to be attired in the same Persian garb, Charles
withdrew. "It was a comely and manly attire," writes Evelyn, "too good
to hold, it being impossible for us in good earnest to leave the
Monsieurs' vanities long."[995]
Francomania indeed was carried to extremes:
And as some pupils have been known
In time to put their tutors down,
So ours are often found t'ave got
More tricks than ever they were taught.[996]
We are told of an "English captain that threw up his commission because
his company would not exercise after the French Discipline."[997] Dryden
even accuses the French of influencing the course of English
politics:[998]
The Holy League
Begot our Cov'nant; Guisards got Whig,
Whate'er our hot-brain'd sheriffs did advance,
Was like our fashions, first produced in France,
And when worn out, well scourg'd and bannish'd there.
Sent over, like their godly Beggars, here.
A French patent was said to authorize any crime.[999] "Now what a Devil
'tis should make us so dote on these French," says Flecknoe,[1000] and
another writer adds:[1001]
Our native speech we must forget e'er long
To learn the French that much more modish Tongue.
Their language smoother is, hath pretty Aires,
But ours is Gothick if compar'd with theirs.
The French by arts of smooth insinuation
Are now become the Darlings of the Nation.
[Header: FRENCH SPOKEN AT COURT]
The example was set at Court, where French was commonly in use, and
where to be able to speak it well was a necessity and proof of good
breeding. "Mark then, I makes 'em both speak French to show their
breeding," says the author Boyes of his two kings in Buckingham's
_Rehearsal_.[1002] Sir John Reresby first attracted notice at Court by
his fluent French. "It was this summer," he writes in 1661, "that the
Duke of York first took any particular notice of me. I happened to be in
discourse with the French Ambassador and some other gentlemen of his
nation, in the presence at Whitehall, and the Duke joined us, he being a
great lover of the French tongue and kind to those who spoke it. The
next night he talked with me a long while as he was at supper with the
king."[1003] And Reresby, with a keen eye for his own advancement, took
advantage of this to secure the patronage of the Duke. He also tells us
that the King, Duke, and French ambassador were very often merry and
intimate together at Louise de Kerouaille's (now Duchess of Portsmouth)
lodgings,[1004] where French alone would be used, for it was an unknown
thing for a French ambassador to speak English. There was not a
courtier[1005] who did not speak French with ease, Clarendon alone
excepted.
The ladies of the Court were equally well versed in the language. When
De Grammont, who had made the acquaintance of most of the courtiers in
France, came to make that of the ladies, he needed no interpreter, for
all knew French--"assez pour s'expliquer et toutes entendaient le
françois assez bien pour ce qu'on avait à leur dire."[1006] Amongst them
was Miss Hamilton, Anthony's sister, who became De Grammont's
wife,[1007] and was much admired at the Court of Louis XIV. The
accomplishments of Miss Stuart may be quoted as typical of the rest:
"elle avoit de la grâce, dansoit bien, parloit françois mieux que sa
langue naturelle: elle étoit polie, possédoit cet air de parure après
lequel on court et qu'on n'attrappe guères à moins de l'avoir pris en
France dès sa jeunesse."[1008] The least gifted lady of the Court was
Miss Blake, who "n'entendoit presque point le françois." When the
Countess of Berkshire recommended one of her near relatives as one of
the queen's dressers, the fact that she had been twelve years in France,
and could speak French exceedingly well, was mentioned as her chief
qualification.[1009] The Portuguese queen[1010] was indeed out of place
in her Frenchified Court. She could not speak French, and Spanish was
her means of intercourse with Charles II. and the Duke of York, who both
spoke this language fairly well, and were able to act as interpreters
between their French mother and the young queen. Catherine's Portuguese
attire was the subject of much amusement, and her efforts to induce the
ladies of the Court to adopt it were of no avail. James II., when he was
an exile in France for the second time, told the nuns of Chaillot that
she had endeavoured to prevail on King Charles to use his influence with
them: "but the ladies dressed in the French fashions and would not hear
of any other, constantly sending artificers and dressmakers to Paris to
import the newest modes, as they do to this very day."[1011] The country
ladies caught the fashion as it was going out in London.[1012]
In many cases the passion for all things French became a mania with the
ladies, as is frequently pictured in the drama of the time.[1013] A
Frenchified lady would have a French maid, "born and bred in France, who
could speak English but brokenly," with whom she would talk a mixture of
broken French and English; while many a one like Melantha of Dryden's
_Marriage à-la-mode_,[1014] doted on any new French word: "as fast as
any bullion comes out of France, she coins it into English, and runs
mad in new French words."[1015] [Header: THE FRENCHIFIED LADY] She
importunes those returned from the tour in France, or who have
correspondence with Parisians, to know the latest words used in Paris.
Her maid supplies her daily with a store of French words:
_Melantha._ ... You _sot_ you, come produce your Morning's work....
O, my Venus! 14 or 15 words to serve me a whole day! Let me die, at
this rate I cannot last till night! Come read your words....
_Philotis._ _Sottises._
_Melantha._ _Sottises, bon._ That's an excellent word to begin withal:
as for example, he or she said a thousand _sottises_ to me. Proceed.
_Philotis._ _Figure_: as what a _Figure_ of a man is there! _Naïve_
and _Naïveté_.
_Melantha._ _Naïve!_ as how?
_Philotis._ Speaking of a thing that was naturally said: it was so
_naïve_. Or such an innocent piece of simplicity: 'twas such a
_Naïveté_.
And as Melantha becomes excited with her new acquisitions, she bestows
gifts on her maid at each new word.
A new catechism[1016] for the ladies was invented on these lines:
--Of what Nation are you?
--English by birth: my education _à la mode de France_.
--Who confirms you?
--Mademoiselle the French Mantua maker.
We are told that the Frenchified lady was educated in a French
boarding-school, by a French dancing master, a French singing master,
and a French waiting woman. "Before I could speak English plain," she
tells us, "I was taught to jabber French: and learnt to dance before I
could go: in short I danced French dances at 8, sang French at 10, spoke
it at 13, and before 15 could talk nothing else."
Among the gentlemen _à la mode_, "to speak French like a magpie" was
also the fashion:
We shortly must our native speech forget
And every man appear a French coquett.
Upon the Tongue our English sounds not well,
But--oh, monsieur, la langue françoise est belle;[1017]
wrote a satirist of the time. And so the Francomaniacs, designated as
_beaux_ or English _monsieurs_, became the subject for satire and
ridicule. Their French was often not of a very high standard. Pepys met
one of the _monsieurs_, "full of his French," and pronounced it "not
very good." Many, no doubt, had to be content "t' adorn their English
with French scraps."
And while they idly think t' enrich,
Adulterate their native speech:
For, though to smatter ends of Greek
Or Latin be the rhetorique
Of pedants counted and vainglorious,
To smatter French is meritorious,
And to forget their mother tongue
Or purposely to speak it wrong.[1018]
Butler says that "'tis as ill breeding now to speak good Englis, as to
wrote good Englis,[1019] good sense or a good hand," and "not to be able
to swear a French oath, nor use the polite French word in conversation,"
debarred one from polite society. The town spark or _beau garzion_ is
frequently introduced in the comedies of the time. Not being master of
his own language, he intermingles it with scraps of French that the
ladies may take him for a man of parts and a true linguist.[1020] Such
is Sir Foppington, who walks with one eye hidden under his hat, with a
toothpick in prominence, and a cane dangling at his button;[1021] and
Sir Novelty Fashion, who prefers the title of _Beau_ to that of Right
Honourable;[1022] and the _Monsieur_ of Paris of Wycherley's _Gentleman
Dancing Master_, "mightily affected with French Language and Fashions,"
preferring the company of a French valet to that of an English squire,
and talking "agreeable ill Englis." Etherege's Sir Fopling Flutter[1023]
presents us with a telling picture of what was considered good breeding
and wit at the Court of Charles II. [Header: THE ENGLISH "MONSIEUR"] Sir
Fopling is "a fine undertaking French fop, arrived piping hot from
Paris," bent on imitating the people of quality in France and on
speaking a mixture of French and English. "His head stands for the most
part on one side, and his looks are more languishing than a lady's when
she lolls at stretch in her coach, or leans her head carelessly against
the side of a box in the playhouse." He judges everything according to
what is done at Paris, and English music and dancing make him shudder.
And as it was _à la mode_ to be
Attended by a young petit garçon
Who from his cradle was an arch Fripon,[1024]
he walks about with a train of French valets. Mr. Frenchlove of James
Howard's "English Monsieur" (1674) is likewise "a Frenchman in his
second nature, that is in his fashion, discourse and clothes"; he cannot
discover a _divertissement_ in the whole of London, but finds "some
comfort that in this vast beef-eating city, a French house may be found
to eat at."
The French ordinaries held an important place in the daily round of the
_beau_. His toilet occupied the whole of the early part of the day. He
would then go to the French ordinary,[1025] where he boasts of his
travels to the untravelled company, and if they receive this well, plies
them with "more such stuff, as how he, simple fellow as he seems to be,
had interpreted between the French King and the Emperor." Or, if his
accomplishments will not stand this strain, "flings some fragments of
French or small parcels of Italian about the table."[1026] He may then
take the promenade or _Tour à la Mode_, where he salutes with _bon
meen_, and has a hundred _jolly rancounters_ on the way.[1027] He
usually ended his day at the play.
And here again he would find the desired French atmosphere. Many
translations or adaptations of French plays were acted,[1028] and the
English drama of the period is so full of French words and phrases that
it is hardly intelligible to any one without a good knowledge of
French.[1029] The Frenchified Gallants and Ladies, the French Valets,
and other French characters introduced so freely into the plays, offered
ample opportunity for the use of French words.[1030] Dryden, alone, is
responsible for the introduction of more than a hundred such
words.[1031] As literature was fashionable at the time, most of the
dramatic authors were themselves gentlemen _à la mode_ with strong
French tastes. Sedley, for instance, had a great reputation in the world
of fashion. Wycherley and Vanbrugh had both been educated in France.
Etherege had probably resided many years in Paris. Cibber, who always
played the part of the fop in his own plays, went twice to France
specially to study the airs and graces of the French _petit-maître_,--at
no better place, however, than a _table d'Auberge_, the Abbé Le Blanc
tells us:[1032] "Il faut lui pardonner ses erreurs sur ses modèles, il
n'étoit à portée d'en voir d'autres: si même il n'a pas aussi bien imité
ceux-ci que les Anglois se le sont persuadé, je n'en suis pas surpris:
il m'a avoué de bonne foi qu'il n'entend pas assez notre langue pour
suivre la conversation." It is unlikely, however, that Cibber's French
was as scanty as the _abbé_ reports. At any rate his daughter Charlotte,
afterwards Mrs. Clarke, tells us that she understood the alphabet in
French before she was able to speak English.[1033]
The prologues and epilogues of the Restoration plays are frequently
addressed to the gallants, and often in a language which would appeal to
them; for instance, a French Marquis speaks the epilogue in Farquhar's
_Constant Couple_:
... Vat have you English, dat you call your own,
Vat have you of grand plaisir in dis towne,
Vidout it come from France, dat will go down?
Picquet, basset: your vin, your dress, your dance,
'Tis all, you zee, tout à-la-mode de France.
[Header: FRENCH PLAYS IN LONDON]
The Francomaniacs of the time would find still more to their taste at
the French play. During nearly twenty years after the Restoration,
London was hardly ever without a company of French players. The beaux
and gallants flocked to see "a troop of frisking monsieurs," and cry
"Ben" and "keep time to the cadence of the French verses":[1034]
Old English authors vanish and give place
To these new conquerors of the Norman race,
wrote Dryden, protesting against the caprice of the town for the French
comedians; and he adds elsewhere:[1035]
A brisk French troop is grown your dear delight,
Who with broad bloody bills, call you each day,
To laugh and break your buttons at their play.
There was a great rush to the French plays, both tragedies and comedies.
Valets went hours in advance to reserve a place for their masters. There
is no need, says Dryden, to seek far for the reason of their
popularity,--they are French, and that is enough. People go to show
their breeding and try to laugh at the right moment. The English
dramatist insinuates that the comedians let in their own countrymen free
of charge that they might lead the applause, and give the cue to the
ladies.
The English Court and its followers had evidently acquired a taste for
French plays during their sojourn abroad. Immediately after the
Restoration a French company settled in London, and the king became
their special patron and protector. In 1661 he made a grant of £300 to
Jean Channoveau to be distributed among the French comedians,[1036] and
in 1663 they obtained permission to bring from France their stage
decorations and scenery. It seems to have always been the king's
"pleasure" that "the clothes, vestments, scenes, and other ornaments
proper for and directly designed for their own use about the stage
should be imported customs free."[1037] The earliest troupe of French
actors, under Jean Channoveau, acted at the Cockpit in Drury Lane; and
there, on the 30th August 1661, Pepys took his wife to see a French
comedy. He carried away a very bad impression of the play, describing
it as "ill done, the scenes and company and everything else so nasty and
out of order and poor, that (he) was sick all the while in (his) mind to
be there." He vented his ill humour on a friend of Mrs. Pepys whom she
had met in France; and "that done, there being nothing pleasant but the
foolery of the farce, we went home."
French comedies were also acted at Court. Evelyn, who went very little
to the theatre, witnessed one of these on the 16th December 1662, but
makes no observation on it. In the _Playhouse to be let_ of Davenant,
who directed the Duke's company playing at Dorset Gardens,[1038] figures
a Frenchman who has brought over a troupe of his countrymen to act a
farce. The French actor Bellerose is said to have made a fortune by
playing in London.[1039] Another of these actors who ventured to London
was Henri Pitel, sieur de Longchamp, who came in 1676 with his wife and
two daughters.[1040] He stayed nearly two years in England, and shone at
the Court of Charles II. Charles himself is said not to have missed one
of the French plays,[1041] at which his mistress, Louise de Kerouaille,
Duchess of Portsmouth, Mme. Mazarin, the French ambassador, and many
courtiers were always present. In 1684 the "Prince's French players"
were again expected in England,[1042] no doubt the same troupe, directed
by Pitel and known as _Les comédiens de son Altesse sérénissime M. le
Prince_.
FOOTNOTES:
[943] Expressed in the _Lettres_ of Guy Patin, and numerous pamphlets
published at the time.
[944] Evelyn, _Diary_, Sept. 1, 1650.
[945] In the _Journal de voyage de deux jeunes Hollandais à Paris,
1656-58_ (ed. A. P. Faugère, 2nd ed., Paris, 1899), there is some
information concerning the exiled Court. The teacher Lainé mentions a
lady in the suite of the exiled queen in his _Dialogues_.
[946] _Mémoires_, 4 vols., Paris, 1859, i. pp. 102, 137, 225, etc.
[947] _Supra_, pp. 262 _sqq._
[948] After the Restoration he would also try to get out of a difficult
situation on the same plea. He talked French freely to Mlle. de
Kerouaille. However, when the French Ambassador, Courtin, wished to
discuss with him the negotiations with the Dutch, he excused himself on
the ground that he had forgotten nearly all his French since his return
to England, and asked for delay to reflect on anything proposed in that
language. He offered the same excuse for his Council, but Courtin
retorted that many of them spoke French as well as English. Cp. J. J.
Jusserand, _A French Ambassador at the Court of Charles II._, London,
1892, p. 143.
[949] "Il me disoit des douceurs, à ce que m'ont dit les gens qui nous
écoutoient et parloit si bien françois, en tenant ces propos-là, qu'il
n'y a personne qui ne doive convenir que l'Amour étoit plutôt françois
que de toute autre nation. Car, quand le roi parloit sa langue (la
langue de l'amour) il oublioit la sienne et n'en perdoit l'accent
qu'avec moi: car les autres ne l'entendirent pas si bien" (_Mémoires_,
_ed. cit._ i. p. 322).
[950] _Lettre de M. de L'Angle à un de ses amis touchant la religion du
sérénissime roy d'Angleterre_, Geneva?, 1660, p. 18.
[951] Evelyn was in France in 1643, on his way to study anatomy at
Padua, and again in 1646-7 on his return, and yet again in 1649.
[952] Lord High Treasurer Cottington, Sir Ed. Hyde, etc.; cp. _Diary_,
Aug. 1 and 18, Sept. 7, 12, 13, Oct. 2, 7, 1649, etc.
[953] Thus the King invited the Prince of Condé to supper at St. Cloud
... "where I saw a famous (tennis) match betwixt Mons. Saumaurs and
Colonel Cooke, and so returned to Paris." Evelyn, _Diary_, Sept. 13,
1649.
[954] _Memoirs of Sir John Reresby of Thribergh, Bart., M.P. for York,
etc., 1634-1689_, ed. J. J. Cartwright, London, 1875, pp. 26, 42 (cp.
pp. 359 _sqq._, supra).
[955] Sir Henry Craike, _Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon_, 1911, ii.
pp. 321 _sqq._
[956] W. Harvey-Jellie, _Les Sources du Théâtre anglais à l'époque de la
Restauration_, Paris, 1906, pp. 37 _sqq._
[957] Evelyn visited Waller several times.
[958] Evelyn met Hobbes at Paris in September 1650.
[959] Dennis, _Original Letters, familiar, moral and critical_, London,
1723, i. p. 215. At a later date he was again in France for reasons of
health. The king gave him £500 to pay the expenses of a journey to the
South of France. He was at Montpellier from the winter of 1678 to the
spring of 1679.
[960] ". . . cette langue dont il savait toutes les plus délicates
ressources en grâce, en malice plaisante et en ironie." Cf. Sayous,
_Histoire de la littérature française à l'étranger_.
[961] "Hamilton dans le conte (says Sayous, _op. cit._) l'emporte sur
Voltaire qui eut été le premier, si au lieu de se jeter dans les
allégories philosophiques il s'était abandonné, comme notre Écossais, au
plaisir plus innocent de laisser courir son imagination et sa plume."
[962] The Scotch Chevalier de Ramsay (1686-1743), the friend of Fénelon,
also wrote French with remarkable purity. His best known work is _Les
Voyages de Cyrus avec un discours sur la mythologie_ (Paris, 1727;
London, 1730). At a later date Thomas Hales (1740?-1780), known as
d'Hèle, d'Hell, or Dell, a French dramatist of English birth, also made
himself a name in French literature (Sylvain van de Weyer, _Les Anglais
qui ont écrit en français_, Miscellanies, Philobiblon Soc., 1854, vol.
i.).
[963] Hamilton, _Mémoires du Comte de Grammont. Histoire amoureuse de
la Cour de Charles II_, ed. B. Pifteau, Paris, 1876, Preface. Voltaire
often quoted the beginning of _Le Bélier_ as a model of style.
[964] "Il trouvoit si peu de différence aux manières et à la
conversation de ceux qu'il voyoit le plus souvent, qu'il ne lui
paroissoit pas qu'il eut changé de pais. Tout ce qui peut occuper un
homme de son humeur s'offroit partout aux divers penchans qui
l'entrainoient, come si les plaisirs de la cour de France l'eussent
quitté pour l'accompagner dans son exil" (_Mémoires_, _ed. cit._ p. 83).
Grammont had been banished from the French Court on account of a
presumptuous love affair.
[965] _Institution of a Gentleman_, London, 1660, p. 88. The book first
appeared as _Institutions, or Advice to his Grandson_, in 1658.
[966] J. Smith, _Grammatica Quadralinguis_, 1674.
[967] Sayous, _op. cit._ ii. ch. iv.
[968] Evelyn once accompanied His Majesty "to M. Favre to see his
preparation for the composition of Sir Walter Raleigh's rare cordial,"
when the chemist made a learned discourse in French on the nature of
each ingredient.
[969] _Revue Historique_, xxix., Sept.-Oct. 1885, p. 25.
[970] J. J. Jusserand, _Shakespeare in France_, London, 1899, pp. 132,
135, 136. Mme. d'Aulnoy, the fairy-tale writer and authoress of the
_Mémoires de la cour d'Angleterre_, was also among the French ladies in
London at this time.
[971] St. Evremond was buried at Westminster at the age of ninety-one.
The Duchess died at Chelsea in 1699.
[972] In a letter to Justel he spoke of the Thames as "nostre Thamise."
[973] Evelyn's Diary, likewise, is full of mentions of meetings with
Frenchmen.
[974] Sorbière, _Relation d'un voyage en Angleterre . . ._, Paris, 1664,
p. 32.
[975] Cp. Ch. Bastide, _Anglais et Français du 17e siècle_, Paris, 1912.
[976] Jusserand, _Shakespeare in France_, p. 136, note 2.
[977] _Les Voyages de M. Payen_, Paris, 1667.
[978] Mauger calls London "une des merveilles du monde. On y vient de
tous côtez, pour admirer sa magnificence."
[979] _The Ladies' Catechism_, 1703.
[980] J. B. Le Blanc, _Lettres d'un Français_, à La Haye, 1745, iii. p.
67.
[981] _Ibid._ i. p. 145. Mrs. Pepys assisted Lady Sandwich to find a
French maid (_Diary_, Nov. 15, 1660), and was herself very desirous of
one.
The prejudiced Rutledge writes nearly a century later: "As the lower
classes of the French are so completely qualified for Domestics, it is
not surprising that such numerous colonies of French _valets de
chambre_, cooks and footmen are planted all over Europe: and that the
nobility and fashionable people of so many countries shew an avowed
Propensity to Prefer them even to their fellow natives" (_Account of the
Character and Manners of the French_, 1770, pt. ii. p. 172).
[982] Flecknoe, _Characters ..._ (1665), London, 1673, p. 8. "They (the
French) have gained so much influence over the English Fops that they
furnish them with their French Puppydogs for _Valets de Chambre_"
(_French Conjuror_, 1678). Addison (_Spectator_, No. 45) says he
remembers the time when some well-bred Englishwomen kept a _valet de
chambre_ "because, forsooth, they were more handy than one of their own
sex."
[983] _Satire on the French_, 1691. Reprinted as the _Baboon à la Mode_,
1701.
[984] _Satirical Reflections_, 1707, 3rd pt.
[985] Cp. Wycherley, _Country Wife_, Act I. Sc. 1.
[986] _Diary_, Oct 19, 1663; May 30, 1665; May 12, 1667; Feb. 18, March
13 and 26, 1668.
[987] Flecknoe, _Characters_, p. 12. Pepys describes a French dance at
Court (_Diary_, Nov. 15, 1666), which was "not extraordinarily
pleasing." He much admired the dancing of the young Princess Mary,
taught by a Frenchman (_Diary_, March 2, 1669). The _maîtres d'armes_
were often Italians and Spaniards. There were protests against the
French and Italian singing and dancing "taught by the dregs of Italy and
France" (_Satirical Reflections_, 1707).
[988] Pepys's _Diary_, ed. H. B. Wheatley, v. p. 332, note, and vi. p.
187.
[989] A Frenchman was appointed in his place; cp. _Cal. of State Papers,
1660-61_, p. 7; _1663-64_, pp. 214, 607. Children were sent to France to
learn music. Pepys did not like the "French airs" (_Diary_, July 27,
1661; June 18, 1666).
[990] Flecknoe, _Characters_, p. 48. French gardeners (_Cal. State
Papers, 1661-62_, pp. 175, 294) and French barbers were also in favour.
Pepys went to the French pewterer's (March 13, 1667-8).
[991] S. Butler, _Hudibras_.
[992] Evelyn, _Diary_, March 1671.
[993] Vincent, _Young Gallants' Academy_, 1674.
[994] Cp. Sedley, _Mulberry Garden_ (Sir J. Everyoung: "Which is the
most à la mode right revered spark? points or laces? girdle or shoulder
belts? What say your letters out of France?"). There is hardly a comedy
of the time without some such references to French fashions; cp.
Etherege, _Sir Fopling Flutter_; Shadwell, _Humours of the Army_, etc.
[995] Evelyn, _Diary_, Oct. 18, 1666. Evelyn had himself written a
pamphlet called _Tyrannus or the Mode_, an invective against "our
overmuch affecting of French fashion," in which he praised the
comeliness and usefulness of the Persian style of clothing. This he had
presented to the king: "I do not impute to this discourse the change
whiche soone happen'd, but it was an identity that I could not but take
notice of" (_Diary_, Oct. 18 and 30, 1666).
[996] Butler, _Satire on our ridiculous imitation of the French_; "A
l'étranger on prend plaisir à enchérir sur toutes les Nouveautez qui
leur viennent de France. . . ." Muralt (_Lettres_, 1725).
[997] _French Conjuror_, 1678.
[998] _Duc de Guise_, Prologue; cp. Prologue to _Albion and Albanius_:
"Then 'tis the mode of France without whose Rules
None must presume to set up here as fools."
[999] French money was said to be most successful in bribes. Farquhar,
_Constant Couple_, iv. 2.
[1000] Flecknoe, _Characters_, p. 12.
[1001] _Satire against the French_, 1691.
[1002] Acted 1671; Act II. Sc. 2.
[1003] _Mémoires_, _ed. cit._ pp. 51-52.
[1004] _Ibid._ p. 143.
[1005] Lord Rutherford, for instance, begs pardon for his English, being
more accustomed to the French tongue (_Cal. of State Papers, 1661-62_,
p. 4).
[1006] Hamilton, _op. cit._ p. 82.
[1007] The story goes that Grammont was leaving England without marrying
Miss Hamilton, when her brother overtook him and told him he had
forgotten something, whereat he realized his oversight and returned to
repair it. It is said that this incident supplied Molière with the
subject of his _Mariage forcé_.
[1008] Hamilton, _op. cit._ p. 82.
[1009] _Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1661-62_, p. 28.
[1010] Two grammars for teaching Portuguese greeted the new queen. One
was a _Portuguese Grammar_ in French and English by Mr. La Mollière, a
French gentleman, 1662 (_Register of the Company of Stationers_, ii.
307); and the other, J. Howell's _Grammar for the Spanish or Castilian
tongue with some special remarks on the Portuguese Dialect_, with a
description of Spain and Portugal by way of guide. It was dedicated to
the queen.
[1011] Fragment of the Journal of the Convent of Chaillot, in the secret
archives of France, Hôtel de Soubise. Quoted by Strickland in _Lives of
the Queens_, 1888, iv. p. 383.
[1012] Cp. Sedley, _Mulberry Garden_.
[1013] Such as Lady Lurewell of Farquhar's _Constant Couple_; Lady
Fanciful in Vanbrugh's _Provoked Wife_; Brome's _Damoiselle_ (1653); or
Mrs. Rich in _The Beau Defeated_ (1700?).
[1014] _The Frenchified Lady never in Paris_ was the name given her by
Henry Dell in his play, based on Dryden's and printed 1757 and 1761.
[1015] There is a book called _The Art of Affectation_ teaching ladies
to speak "in a silly soft tone of voice and use all the foolish French
words which will infallibly make your person and conversation charming"
(Etherege, _Sir Fopling Flutter_).
[1016] _The Ladies' Catechism_, 1703?
[1017] _Satire against the French_, 1691, p. 14.
[1018] _Satire on our ridiculous imitation of the French_; Chalmers,
_English Poets_, viii. p. 206.
[1019] Cp. Swift, _Poem written in a Lady's Ivory Table Book_ (1698):
"Here you may read,
Here in beau-spelling--tru tel deth."
[1020] _Character of the Beau_, 1696.
[1021] Cibber, _Careless Husband_, Act I. Sc. 1.
[1022] Cibber, _Love's last shift or the Fool in fashion_. Sedley's Sir
Charles Everyoung, Ned Estridge, and Harry Modish are all "most
accomplished monsieurs," as are Clodis in Cibber's _Love Makes a Man or
the Fop's Fortune_; Sir Harry Wildair in Farquhar's play of that name;
Lord Foppington of Vanbrugh's _Relapse or Virtue in Danger_; Bull Junior
in Dennis's _A Plot and no Plot_; Clencher, senior, the Prentice turned
Beau in Farquhar's _Constant Couple_; Mrs. Behn's _Sir Timothy Tawdry_;
Crowne's _Sir Courtly Nice_, etc. In 1697 appeared a work called _The
Compleat Beau_.
[1023] _Sir Fopling Flutter or the Man of Mode_, 1676. Supposed to be a
portrait of the then notorious Beau Hewitt.
[1024] _Satire against the French_, 1691.
[1025] _Character of the Beau_, 1691. Most of the accomplished
"monsieurs" frequented the French houses (Sedley, _Mulberry Garden_).
Act II. Sc. 2 of Wycherley's _Love in a Wood_, and Act II. Sc. 2 of his
_Gentleman Dancing Master_, both take place in a French house. Cp.
_Character of the Town Gallant_, 1675.
[1026] Vincent, _Young Gallants' Academy_, 1674, p. 44.
[1027] Flecknoe, _Characters_, 1673. The 1665 edition of his
_Aenigmatical Characters ..._, 1665, contains a description in French of
the _Tour à la Mode_: ". . . C'est une bataille bien rangée où l'on ne
tire que des coups d'Oeillades, et où les premiers ayant fait leur
descharge, ilz s'en vont pour donner place aux autres" . . ., etc. (p.
21).
[1028] Charles II. openly avowed his preference for the French drama.
Dryden wrote his _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_, "to vindicate the Honour of
our English writers from the censure of those who unjustly prefer the
French before them." Pepys saw many of the French plays acted in
English. Cp. H. McAfee, _Pepys on the Restoration Stage ..._, Yale Univ.
Press, 1916.
[1029] A. Beljame, _Le Public et les hommes de lettres au 18e siècle_,
Paris, 1897, p. 139.
[1030] As in Etherege's _Comical Revenge or Love in a Tub_, _Sir Fopling
Flutter_, and the plays of Cibber, Vanbrugh, Mrs. Behn, Shadwell,
Farquhar, Wycherley, etc.; _The French Conjuror_, 1678; _The Beau
Defeated_, 1700?, etc.
[1031] A. Beljame, _Quae e Gallicis verbis in Anglicam linguam Johannes
Dryden introduxerit_, Paris, 1881. On French influence in Restoration
Drama, see Charlanne, _L'Influence française en Angleterre_, pp. 64
_sqq._
[1032] _Lettre à M. de la Chaussée_: _Lettres_, 1745, ii. p. 240.
[1033] _Narrative of her Life, written by Herself_, pub. in series of
Autobiographies, London, 1826, vol. vii. p. 12. Most of the writers of
the time were able to write some French. Flecknoe, for instance, wrote
some of his _Characters_ in the language, and wrote a French dedication
of his Poems (1652), "à la plus excellente de son sexe."
[1034] Dryden, "Prologue spoken at the opening of the new house, 26
March, 1674," _Works_, ed. Scott and Saintsbury, x. p. 320.
[1035] "Prologue to Arviragus and Phihera by L. Carlell, revival,"
_Works_, x. 405.
[1036] Shaw, _Calendar of Treasury Books, 1660-67_, p. 311.
[1037] _Ibid., 1672-75_, pp. 14, 24, 29, etc.; _1677-78_ (vol. v.), pp.
692, 803; _1684_ (vol. vii.), p. 1444.
[1038] Charles had granted two privileges: one to Henry Killigrew, who
directed the King's company acting at Drury Lane, and the other to Sir
William Davenant, who directed the Duke's company. The rival companies
united in 1682.
[1039] Chardon, _La troupe du roman comique dévoilée et les comédiens de
la campagne au 17e siècle_, Le Mans, 1876, p. 47.
[1040] Chardon, _op. cit._ p. 98.
[1041] _Revue Historique_, xxix., Sept.-Oct. 1858, p. 23.
[1042] _Historical MSS. Commission Reports_, v. p. 186. French dancers
and singers also attracted the English from the performances of their
own actors; cp. Cibber, Epilogue to _The Careless Husband_, and
Farquhar, Preface to _The Inconstant_.
CHAPTER VII
THE TEACHING OF FRENCH AND ITS POPULARITY AFTER THE RESTORATION
In the meantime French grammars were being published in England in
considerable numbers.[1043] So plentiful were they that there was
"scarce anything to be seen anywhere but French grammars." The manuals
of Mauger and Festeau were still in vogue, and that of Mauger was
frequently reedited. Among new grammarians figures the tutor to the
children of the Duke of York (James II.), Pierre de Lainé, who may
possibly have been identical with the Pierre Lainé who published a
grammar in 1655.[1044] His French grammar, written in the first place
for the Lady Mary (afterwards Mary II.), was published in 1667,[1045]
when the princess was about five years old. It was subsequently placed
at the service of the Lady Anne, afterwards queen, and a second edition
appeared in 1677, with the title: _The Princely Way to the French Tongue
as it was first compiled for the use of her Highness the Lady Mary and
since taught her royal sister the Lady Anne etc. by P. D. L. Tutor for
the French to both their Highnesses_.[1046]
"Before you begin anything of Letters or rules," says Lainé, "you may
Learn how to call in French these few things following.
Ma Tête, say maw tate my Head
Mes Cheveuz, say maysheveu my Hair,"
and so on for the parts of the body, the numbers, days, and months, with
similar guides to pronunciation. He then proceeds to treat of the
sounds of letters and syllables, based on comparison with English. These
rules occupy less than a fifth of the book; the remainder contains
practical exercises. First come familiar phrases and dialogues, strongly
religious in tone, including prayers, the catechism, commandments, etc.,
and conversation specially suited to royal princesses. A chronological
abridgement of the sacred scriptures by way of dialogue is followed by
rules of grammar, likewise in dialogue form. Lastly come the _Fables_ of
Aesop put into "burlesque French" for the use of her Highness the Lady
Mary when a child, and models of letters suitable for children, and
accompanied by answers.
In later years Lainé spent some time at Paris as secretary[1047] to Sir
Henry Savile, the English envoy at the French Court, who did so much to
prepare a favourable reception in England for the refugees at the time
of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.[1048] Lainé was the first
teacher to receive a grant of letters of denization under the Order in
Council of the 28th July 1681.[1049] Shortly afterwards the same
privilege was bestowed on Francis Cheneau, whose _French Grammar,
enrich'd with a compendious and easie way to learne the French tongue in
a short time_, was licensed for printing in 1684.[1050] For many years
Cheneau continued to teach French, and in time added Latin, English, and
Italian to his repertory. He describes himself as a native of Paris,
"formerly slave and Governor of the Isles of Nacsia and Paros in the
Archipelago." At the time of the appearance of his second work on the
French language, in 1716, he was "living in his House in Old Fish St.
next door to the Faulcon in London," where could be seen his short
grammars for Latin, Italian, and English.
The most versatile compiler of French manuals at this period was Guy
Miège, a native of Lausanne, who came to England at the time of the
Restoration. For two years he was employed in the household of Lord
Elgin, and was then appointed under-secretary to the Earl of Carlisle,
ambassador extraordinary to Russia, Sweden, and Denmark. After spending
three years abroad with the embassy, he travelled in France on his own
account from 1665 till 1668, preparing a _Relation of the Three
Embassies_ in which he had taken part. [Header: THE DICTIONARIES OF GUY
MIÈGE] His book was published in 1669, on his return to London. He then
settled in England as a teacher of French and geography, and wrote many
works for teaching the language. The first was _A New Dictionary French
and English and English and French_ (1677), dedicated to Charles Lennox,
Duke of Richmond. As usual, this French-English Dictionary is based on a
French-Latin one--in this case that of Pomey. Miège was also closely
acquainted with Howell's edition of Cotgrave's dictionary, last
published in 1670; but he held it very defective in retaining so many
obsolete words, and in not being adapted to the "present use and modern
orthography--which indeed is highly pretended to in the last edition
thereof, but so performed that the title runs away with all the credit
of it." He looked upon Cotgrave "as a good help indeed for reading of
old French books (a thing which few people mind)." For his own part, his
design was to teach the latest Court French, and he made a point of
omitting all the provincial and obsolete words Cotgrave had searched out
so carefully, words "that offend the eyes and grate the ears, but the
Rubbish of the French Tongue." To "season the naturall dulness of the
work" he included many proverbs, descriptions, and observations in both
the English and French parts.
Considering that "the way to understand the bottom of a language is to
learn how the derivatives are formed from their primitives and the
compounds from their simples,"[1051] he arranged all the derivatives
after their respective primitives; that nothing might be wanting,
however, he placed them in their alphabetic order also, with a reference
to the necessary primitive.
Miège's innovation in excluding all obsolete terms from his dictionary
raised such a storm at its first appearance[1052] that he felt himself
bound to yield to public opinion by making a separate collection of such
words, which he called _A Dictionary of barbarous French or A
Collection, by way of Alphabet, of Obsolete, Provincial, misspelt, and
Made Words in French, taken out of Cotgrave's dictionary with some
additions_. It was, he said, "performed for the satisfaction of such as
read old French." By the time of its publication in 1679, however, the
storm raised by his first work had died away.
Miège continued his lexicographical labours. In 1684 appeared _A Short
French Dictionary English and French, with another in French and
English_, a work of no ambitious aims, containing a list of words pure
and simple, with no descriptions or observations, intended for
beginners, travellers, and those who could not afford the price of the
larger one, and, above all, for foreigners reading English. The English
were too eager and advanced in the study of French to find much help in
so slight a work, but foreigners evidently adopted the dictionary;
editions appeared at the Hague in 1691, 1701 (the fifth), and
1703;[1053] another was issued at Rotterdam as late as 1728.
For the use of English students and those desiring to study either
language more thoroughly, Miège prepared, during many years of hard
work, an enlarged edition of his first French dictionary of 1677, which,
he tells us, was compiled under great disadvantages; "the Publick was in
haste for a French Dictionary, and they had it accordingly, hurried from
the design to the composition, and from under my pen to the press." The
new work, on a much larger scale, was known as _The Great French
Dictionary, in two parts_, and published in 1688, eleven years after the
appearance of its nucleus, the _New French Dictionary_ (1677). It gives
words according to both their old and modern orthography, "by which
means the reader is fitted for any sort of French book," and, writes
Miège, "although I am not fond of obsolete and barbarous words, yet I
thought fit to intersperse the most remarkable of them, lest they should
be missed by such as read old Books." Each word is accompanied by
explanations, proverbs, phrases, "and as the first part does, here and
there, give a prospect into the constitution of the kingdom of France,
so the second does afford to foreiners what they have hitherto very much
wanted, to wit, an Insight into the Constitution of England...." In the
_Great Dictionary_ Miège abandoned his plan of arranging the derivatives
under their primitives, because it had made his former work "swarm with
uneasy references"; he followed the alphabetical order strictly, "but in
such a manner that, where a derivative is remote from its primitive, I
show its extraction within a Parenthesis." [Header: MIÈGE'S FRENCH
GRAMMARS] Each of the two sections of the _Great Dictionary_ is preceded
by a grammar of the language concerned. First comes the _Grounds of the
French Tongue_, before the French-English Dictionary, and then a
_Méthode abrégée pour apprendre l'Anglois_. This French grammar was a
reprint of one of those which Miège had compiled while working at his
dictionaries.
In 1684 Miège tells us that he had "put forth two French grammars, both
of them well approved by all unprejudiced persons. The one is short and
concise, fitted for all sorts of learners, but especially new beginners;
the other is a large and complete piece, giving a curious and full
account of the French Tongue. To this is annexed a copious vocabulary
and a long Train of useful Dialogues." The more advanced of these
grammars was the first to appear, being published in 1678 under the
title of _A New French Grammar, or a New Method for learning the French
Tongue_. After dealing with pronunciation, he passes to the accidence
and syntax, with special attention to his favourite theory of the
importance of a knowledge of primitives and derivatives. He is much
indebted to the grammars of Vaugelas and Chiflet, especially in his
observations on letter-writing, on repetition of words, and on style.
The second half of the book contains a vocabulary, arranged under the
usual headings, and familiar dialogues, without which he dare not offer
the work to a public "so well convinced of their Usefulness, as to the
speaking part of a Language"; therefore, "though it were something
against the grain," he included such exercises, "exceeding even Mr.
Mauger's in number." The one hundred and fifteen familiar dialogues are
followed by four more advanced ones in French alone, "for proficient
learners to turn into English." The first deals with the education of
children, and the others with geography, a subject Miège taught in
either French or English "as might be most convenient."
The elementary grammar had been issued about 1682[1054] as _A short and
easie French Grammar fitted for all sorts of learners; according to the
present use and modern orthography of the French with some Reflections
on the ancient use thereof_. In 1682 the vocabulary and dialogues of the
earlier grammar were, each of them, issued separately, probably to
facilitate their use with this second grammar.