Part 2 (1/2)
[31] Sorbiere, _Relation d'un voyage en Angleterre_, 1664.
[32] _Guide_, pp. 156-58.
[33] _Ibid._ p. 293.
[34] Jusserand, _op. cit._
CHAPTER II
DID FRENCHMEN LEARN ENGLISH IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY?
It is generally supposed that no Frenchman before Voltaire's time ever took the trouble to learn English. Much evidence has been adduced in support of this opinion. In one of Florio's Anglo-Italian dialogues, an Italian traveller called upon to say what he thinks of English, answers that it is worthless beyond Dover.[35] In 1579, Jean Bernard, ”English Secretary” to Henri III. of France, deplored the fact that English historians wrote in their mother-tongue, because no one understood them on the Continent.[36]
Not one contributor to the _Journal des Savans_, then the best French literary paper, could read in 1665 the _Transactions_ of the Royal Society.
”It is a pity,” wrote Ancillon in 1698, ”that English writers write only in English, because foreigners are unable to make use of their works.”[37]
Misson, a French traveller, said: ”The English think their language the finest in the world, though it is spoken only in their isle.”[38] ”I know by experience,” wrote Dennis the critic in 1701, ”that a man may travel over most of the western parts of Europe without meeting there foreigners who have any tolerable knowledge of English.”[39] As late as 1718, Le Clerc regretted that only a very small number of Continental scholars knew English.[40] Those who had learned to speak it out of necessity, soon forgot it when they went back to France.[41]
To Frenchmen, English appeared a barbarous dialect, most difficult to master. ”Few foreigners, above all Frenchmen,” said Harrison, ”are able to p.r.o.nounce English well.”[42] A hundred years later, Le Clerc declared it ”as difficult to p.r.o.nounce English well as it is easy to read an English book; one must hear Englishmen speak, otherwise one is unable to master the sound of certain letters and especially of the _th_, which is sometimes a sound approaching _z_ and sometimes _d_, without being either.”
So, while the English not only watched the progress of French literature but were carefully informed about the internal difficulties of France, the French knew the English writers merely by their Latin works; and at a turning-point in history the French diplomatists, through their ignorance of the real situation of James II., were caught napping when the Revolution broke out.
No doubt all this is true; but it remains, nevertheless, a little venturesome to a.s.sert that up to the eighteenth century Frenchmen neglected to learn English. The intercourse between the two countries has always been so constant that, in all ages, English must have been familiar, if not to large sections of society, at least to certain individuals in France. In the Middle Ages, the authors of the _Roman de Renart_ had a smattering of English,[43] and in the sixteenth century Rabelais was able not only to put a few broken sentences in the mouth of his immortal Panurge, but to risk a pun at the expense of the Deputy-Governor of Calais.[44]
In an inquiry the like of which we are now inst.i.tuting, it is expedient not to lose sight of leading events. A war will make trade slack and hinder relations between the two countries; on the contrary, emigration caused by civil war or religious persecution, an alliance, a royal marriage, may bring the neighbouring countries into closer touch. Then the inquiry must concern the different cla.s.ses: the n.o.bles, the merchants and bankers, the travellers, men of letters, and artisans. Even under Charles II., it must have been imperative in certain callings for a Frenchman to understand English.
At the Court of France, it would have been thought absurd to learn English.
”Let the gentleman, if he findeth dead languages too hard and the living ones in too great number, at least understand and speak Italian and Spanish, because, besides being related to our language, they are more extensively spoken than any others in Europe, yea, even among the Moors.”
The advice thus tendered by Faret[45] was followed to the letter. The French amba.s.sadors in London were hardly ever able to spell correctly even a proper name.[46] Jean du Bellay wrote _Guinvich_ for Greenwich, _Hempton Court_ for Hampton Court, _Nortfoch_ for Norfolk, and called Anne Boleyn _Mademoiselle de Boulan_. Sully, though sent twice to England, did not trouble to learn a word of the language. When Cromwell gave audience to Bordeaux, the ”master of the ceremonies” acted as interpreter. Gourville, of whom Charles II. said that he was the only Frenchman who knew anything about English affairs, acknowledges in his _Memoires_ that he could not understand English. M. Jusserand tells us in a delightful book[47] how one of Louis XIV.'s envoys wrote to his master that some one at Whitehall had greeted a speech by exclaiming ”very well”: ”the Count de Gramont,” he added, ”will explain to your Majesty the strength and energy of this English phrase.”
Ministers of State were as ignorant as amba.s.sadors. In the Colbert papers, the English words are mangled beyond recognition. Jermyn becomes _milord Germain_; the Lord Inchiquin, _le Comte d'Insequin_; the right of scavage, _l'imposition d'esdavache_; and no one apparently knows to what mysterious duty on imports the famous minister referred when he complained of the English _imposition de cajade_.
The marriage of Henri IV.'s daughter Henrietta with an English king ought to have incited Frenchmen to learn English. We know that the Queen learned English and even wrote it.[48] She gathered round her quite a Court of French priests, artists, and musicians. There were ”M. Du Vall, Monsieur Robert, Monsieur Mari,”[49] and ”Monsieur Confess.”[50] Even as Queen Elizabeth, Henrietta had French dancing-masters. Her mother-in-law, Queen Anne, chose Frenchmen as precentors in the Chapel Royal. Nicolas Lanier, one of these, became a favourite to Charles I., who employed him in buying abroad pictures for the Royal Gallery. When a mask was played at Court, Corseilles, a Frenchman, painted the scenery. It is owing to Queen Henrietta that French players, for the first time since the remote days of Henry VII., came over to London in 1629 and 1635 and were granted special privileges, such as the permission to perform in Lent.[51] They were not welcome to the people: a riot broke out at Blackfriars on their first visit, and, for reflecting on the Queen on the occasion of their second visit, Prynne the Puritan was prosecuted and cruelly punished.
At the Restoration, Charles II. followed his mother's example. Yet we must guard against the tendency to exaggerate in the King a gallomania dictated more by reasons of policy than determined by taste. When he came to Paris for the first time in 1646 he could not speak a word of French,[52] and later on, he often hesitated to use a language that seemed unfamiliar.[53]
Yet he had been taught French by an official in the Paris Post-house, who tampered with the letters coming into his hands, and in his hours of leisure wrote pamphlets in favour of the fallen House.[54]
The Frenchmen invited over to England after the Restoration do not appear to have known English. However, the Count de Gramont was an exception to the rule. They formed in Whitehall quite a colony: Cardinal D'Aubigny was the Queen's almoner, and Mademoiselle de Keroualle, d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth, the King's mistress; Louis de Duras, Earl of Feversham, commanded one of the regiments of guards; Nicolas Lefevre, sometime professor of chemistry in Paris, was at the head of the Royal laboratory; Blondeau engraved the English coins; Fabvolliere was the King's engineer, Claude Sourceau, the King's tailor; Paris players, the famous Bellerose among them, went to London and acted before the Court; Frenchmen were to be found even in the Royal kitchens, witness Rene Mezandieu, a serjeant in the Poultry Office.[55]
The Pepys papers yield proof of the general use then made of the French tongue. An Italian named Cesare Morelli writing to Pepys from Brussels in 1686 discards his mother-tongue; probably knows no English, so naturally uses French.
If the Frenchmen at the Court of Charles II. did not learn English, the English summoned to Paris by Louis XIV. helped but little to make their language known. A curious thing happened: through living long in a foreign country, the exiled Englishman would forget his mother-tongue. Macaulay tells how the Irish Catholics that hurried back to England under James II.
appeared to be out of their element. Their uncouthness of expression stirred their countrymen's laughter.[56] One Andrew Pulton, returning after eighteen years' absence, asked leave, when called upon to dispute with Dr.
Tenison, to use Latin, ”pretending not to any perfection of the English tongue.”
Colbert had occasion to reciprocate Charles II. in inviting a few Englishmen to serve Louis XIV., such as one Kemps, ”employed in the laboratory,” and the portrait-painter Samuel Cooper. The minister's attention was often directed towards England, in which his political genius divined latent possibilities. But the financial transactions of Charles II.
had revolted his habits of honesty, and he distrusted the English, of whom his master Mazarin had had occasion to complain.[57] So he prepared to have recourse to Frenchmen. ”M. Duhamel,” writes his secretary De Baluze, ”says that M. de Saint-Hilaire has written a memoir on the State of the Church in England and on the diversity of religions there, and has left the paper in England; but he will send it over as soon as he gets back.”[58]