The Anglo-French Entente In The Seventeenth Century Part 14

At first the discovery was noticed in the reviews, particularly in the _Observer_ and the _National Review_,[263] then scholars and critics turned their attention to it, Sir Sidney Lee mentioning the Mountjoys in a footnote to his _French Renaissance in England_ and the _Cambridge History of English Literature_ honouring them with a line in the bibliographical appendix. To M. Jusserand it was reserved to point out in his lecture before the British Academy the real significance of Shakespeare's intimacy with a French family living in London.

It was in _Harper's Magazine_ that Professor C. W. Wallace of the University of Nebraska gave the first account of the doc.u.ments that he had just unearthed. They consist in a bundle of papers relating to a lawsuit brought before the Court of Requests. One Christopher Mountjoy, a wig-maker in the City of London, had given his daughter Mary in marriage to his apprentice Stephen Bellott. A few months after, upon the wig-maker's wife dying, her estate was claimed at once by her husband and by her son-in-law, who, being unable to come to an agreement, brought the cause before the Court.

Stephen Bellott, it appears, had taken lodgings with the Mountjoys as early as 1598. A year after, at the request of his step-father Humphrey Fludd, the youth became an apprentice, served Christopher Mountjoy six years, then, having vainly sought to make his fortune in Spain, drifted back to his master's house, where Mary Mountjoy was awaiting him. An amusing little comedy now took place. As Stephen remained irresolute, Mary's mother decided to bring matters to a pitch: duly instructed by her, a mutual friend, then lodging with the Mountjoys, none other of course than Shakespeare, met the too shy young man, showed him the advantages of the match, persuaded him to accept, and in November 1604 the pair were married.

When the case came before the Court in 1612, a number of witnesses were called upon to give evidence. The first to be examined was Joan Johnson, a former servant, who testified to Shakespeare's part in the match; then came Daniel Nicholas, apparently one of Shakespeare's friends and companions.

The third whose interrogatory was taken down by the clerk was Shakespeare.

"Wm. Shakespeare of Stratford upon Avon in the Countye of Warwicke gentleman of the age of forty yeres or thereabouts sworne and examined--sayeth,

"To the first interrogatory this deponent sayeth he knowethe the partyes plaintiff and deffendant and hathe knowne them bothe as he now remembrethe for the s.p.a.ce of tenne yeres or thereabouts.

"To the second interrogatory this deponent sayethe he did know the complainant when he was servant with the deffendant and that during the time of his the complainantes service with the said deffendant he the said complainant to this deponentes knowledge did well and honestly behave himselfe, but to this deponentes remembrance he hath not heard the deffendant confesse that he had gott any great profitt and commoditye by the service of the said complainant, but this deponent sayeth he verily thinkethe that the said complainant was a very good and industrious servant in the said service and more he cannott depose to the said interrogatory."

And the clerk goes on recording questions and answers in this dull unemotional style for some time, then the witness having duly signed his deposition--a most precious signature, that!--withdraws.

A question naturally arises while we read these depositions, Who were these artisans thus thrust suddenly into prominence? The issue of the suit has provided the answer. After a protracted inquiry, the Court, in accordance with the law of England that left the Ecclesiastical Courts to decide testamentary causes, referred the parties to the Consistory of the French Church. Both Mountjoy and Bellott, in spite of their names being Englished, were Huguenot refugees. There only remains to search the registers of the French Church. Sure enough, on 14th April 1603, the name of Christophe Mongoye appears as a witness to a christening, and so it should evidently be spelt.

Moreover the name of Christophe Montioy occurs in the lists of aliens resident in London in the early seventeenth century. And, finally, on 27th May 1608, Christopher Monioy, "subject of the King of France, born in Cressy," was naturalized English.[264] The humble wig-maker's life is thus quite vividly outlined.

And, again, why should Shakespeare have selected Mongoye's house to lodge in? The explanation suggested by Mr. Plomer seems acceptable. In 1579, Richard Field, a native of Stratford-on-Avon, came to London and apprenticed himself to Thomas Vautrollier, a printer in Blackfriars. This Vautrollier and his wife were Huguenot refugees like the Mountjoys, "and we may well believe that the members of the French colony within the walls of the city at that time were more or less acquainted with each other." In 1586 or 1587, Vautrollier died and Richard Field, then a freeman of the Stationers' Company, married the widow and became a master printer.[265]

His friendship with Shakespeare is a well-attested fact: both _Venus and Adonis_ and _Lucrece_ were issued by Field's press, in 1593 and 1594. What wonder then that Shakespeare should have known the Mountjoys through his friend's wife.

How long did Shakespeare lodge with the Mountjoys? In his deposition, dated 11th May 1612, he states, as we have just seen, that he has known them for the s.p.a.ce of ten years or thereabouts, therefore since 1602.

Thanks to Professor C. W. Wallace, the site of the Mountjoys' house has been identified. It stood in Aldersgate, at the corner of Silver Street and Monkwell Street (formerly Mugwell Street). Let us add that lovers of Shakespeare need not try to summon up visions of the past before the commonplace building taking the place of what might have been a sacred pile. A pa.s.sing reflection, just a rapid recollection of poor Yorick, is enough. Modern London, grey, noisy, colossal, and vulgar, ill suits the brightness and the distinction of Elizabethan England.

Does the discovery throw any light on Shakespeare's character? M. Jusserand thinks so. "It shows us," he says, "Shakespeare unwittingly thrown by events into a quarrel; his efforts to minimise his role and to withdraw and disappear are the most conspicuous trait in the new-found doc.u.ments."[266]

In conclusion, the chief fact to be remembered is that Shakespeare lived with French artisans during the most important period of his literary life.

_Macbeth_, _Oth.e.l.lo_, _King Lear_, perhaps _Hamlet_, were most probably written in the house at the corner of Silver Street. The mystery of the scene in French in _Henry V._ is now cleared up: the Vautrolliers, the Mongoyes and their circle taught Shakespeare French.

And yet there is about Professor C. W. Wallace's discovery something unsatisfactory that will be readily understood. The voice that reaches us over the bridge of time seems terribly disappointing: known only by the illuminating utterances in his works, the poet lived on in our memory surrounded with a halo of idealism; he was as an eagle soaring on high and whose wings were never soiled by touching earth. A pity it is that, instead of a formal deposition before a judge's clerk, chance did not bring to light a conversation with Ben Jonson. The veil is just lifted, we draw near, and the G.o.d we had figured dwindles into a mere man.

FOOTNOTES:

[261] _Cambridge History of English Literature_, vol. v. chap. viii.

[262] _Athenaeum_, 26th February 1910.

[263] Nor let us omit Professor Morel in _Bulletin de la Societe pour l'etude des langues et litteratures modernes_, March 1910.

[264] W. A. Shaw, _Denizations and Naturalizations of Aliens_, 1911, p. 11.

[265] Letter to the _Athenaeum_, 26th March 1910.

[266] _What to Expect of Shakespeare_, p. 14.

CHAPTER VIII

FRENCH GAZETTES IN LONDON (1650-1700)

By a strange coincidence, Milton as well as Shakespeare had the opportunity of meeting Frenchmen in London. His connection with William Du Gard, schoolmaster and printer, dates from the time of the Civil War.

Born in 1606 in Worcestershire, William Du Gard came, as his name implies, of a family of French or Jerseyan extraction.[267] His father, Henry Du Gard, was a clergyman; his uncle, Richard, a tutor in Cambridge; his younger brother, Thomas, took orders and became rector of Barford. William devoted himself to teaching and was appointed in 1644 headmaster of Merchant Taylors' School.

The minds of the people were then in an extraordinary ferment, as ever happens when a crisis is at hand. A far-reaching change loomed over England. No sheet-anchor could long withstand the heaving seas. Both in Church and State, the old Elizabethan settlement was breaking up. No wonder that new, unlooked-for thoughts rose in the minds of men and that pamphlets unceasingly flowed from the printers' presses. Perhaps the prevalent rage of idealism caught Du Gard in his turn, or maybe he acted out of ambition or mere vulgar hope of gain. About 1648, schoolmaster as he was, he set up a private press.

His first venture in this new capacity was that of a royalist. After helping to print _Eikon Basilike_, he undertook to publish in England Claude Saumaise's treatise against the regicides, _Defensio Regia pro Carolo Primo_. But the authorities quickly took alarm and the Council of State on the same day (1st February 1649-50) deprived Du Gard of his headmastership, confined him to Newgate, confiscated his press, imprisoned his corrector Armstrong.[268]

Then the unforeseen happened: a few weeks only had elapsed when Du Gard was set free, reinstated at Merchant Taylors' School, and, having recovered press, forms, and type, professed himself a Puritan and a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of "printer to the Council of State." It is alleged that his freedom was due to the friendship of Secretary Milton. We think it more simple to believe that the Council wished to conciliate the only printer at the time whose literary attainments ent.i.tled him to publish abroad the answer to Saumaise's treatise which Milton was then commissioned to write. That the Council were anxious to counteract the efforts of the royalist party to inflame Continental opinion against the Parliament, we repeatedly gather from the State Papers; nor is it venturesome to a.s.sert that, when compared with the printers of Amsterdam, Cologne, or Rouen, the printers of London were mostly hacks.[269]

The sudden conversion of Du Gard seems to have had lasting effects. In 1659, the Council still trusted him.[270] In ten years' time, he had made only one mistake when, in 1652, overlooking Parliamentary zeal for orthodoxy, he printed the Racovian Catechism. Needless to add that the book was burnt by the common hangman.

At the Restoration, William Du Gard was finally deprived of his headmastership and died in 1662, having after all little cause to regret his adventures as a printer; he enjoyed a large competence, being wealthy enough to act as surety for his friend Harrington, the author of _Oceana_, in no less than 5000.[271]

The books issued from Du Gard's press are of less interest than the weekly paper which he undertook to publish in French, from 1650 to 1657. A few numbers are preserved in the British Museum, but the nearly complete set of the _Nouvelles ordinaires de Londres_ may be consulted at the Bibliotheque Nationale. It is in that old long-forgotten paper that are to be read the earliest mentions of Milton's name in a French publication.[272]

Du Gard advertised the _Defensio pro populo Anglicano_ in the following terms: "The reply to the scandalous and defamatory book of M. de Saumaise against this State, which has long been wished for by many worthy people and generally expected by all, is at last near ready, being now under press and pushed forward" (Feb. 1650-51). Coming from Saumaise's printer, such humble professions were well calculated to mollify the Council of State.

A few weeks later, in No. 34, we meet again with Milton's name: "The reply to the insulting book of M. de Saumaise by Mr. John Milton, one of the Secretaries to the Council of State, appeared last Monday, to the utmost content and approval of all" (March 2-9, 1650-51).

The following year, Du Gard published the French translation of _Eikonoklastes_, Milton's reply to _Eikon Basilike_. It is thus advertised in the _Nouvelles ordinaires_: "This week has been issued, in this town, the French translation of Mr. Milton's book confuting the late King of England's book" (No. 125, Dec. 1652). The translator was John Dury, a Scottish minister.[273]

The last mention of Milton's name appears in a letter from Paris: "We have notice from France that M. Morus, a minister opposed to Mr. Milton (who has just published another book against him, ent.i.tled _Defensio pro se_), having pa.s.sed through the chief Reformed Churches in France and preached everywhere to the applause of the people, has gone from Paris, where some wished to retain him as minister, and come to Rouen, leaving his friends in doubt as to his return, but that the favour shown him has as promptly subsided as it was stirred up, many marking the lack of constancy in his mind, and the ambition and avarice of his pretensions" (No. 298, Feb.

1656-57). The paragraph refers to Alexander More, minister of Charenton, whom Milton had most vehemently a.s.sailed upon mistaking him for the author of the _Clamor sanguinis regii ad coelum_, which had been published at the Hague in 1652. The book was by Peter Du Moulin. More replied by a defence ent.i.tled _Fides publica contra calumnias J. Miltoni_, and Milton then retorted by the pamphlet referred to above: _J. Miltoni pro se defensio contra A. Morum_.

The fact that Milton's name appears at so early a date in a French publication would alone excite curiosity about the _Nouvelles ordinaires_.

The collection preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale comprises four hundred numbers, extending from 21/11 July 1650 to 31/21 January 1657-58; out of which only six are missing (Nos. 161-63, 202, 237, 238). The paper came out every Thursday, in one quarto sheet. "Extraordinary" numbers (ent.i.tled _Nouvelles extraordinaires de Londres_), such as No. 185, printing in full _The Instrument of Government_; No. 202, the treaty with the Dutch; No. 288, that with France; are on two quarto sheets. At the close of No. 2 may be read the following curious notice: "and are to be sold by Nicholas Bourne, at the South Gate of the Old Exchange, Tyton at the sign of the Three Daggers by Temple Gate, and Mary Constable at the sign of the Key in Westminster Hall." That Du Gard's paper circulated abroad may be inferred from the quaint notice appended to No. 44: "The reader is warned that the author (who up to now has with the utmost care gathered every week these happenings for the information of the public, though what he has gained thereby up to now has not given him much encouragement to go on, on the contrary hardly defraying the cost of the printing) has received intelligence that an English printer ... issues every week in The Hague a pirated edition, reprinting the paper in same size and type, with the name of the author's own printer, which is an intolerable falsification ... the author will henceforth take care to provide M. Jean Veely, bookseller, in The Hague, at the sign of the Dutch Chronicles, with true copies from London." Since no one has ever dreamed of issuing a pirated edition of an unsaleable book, we must believe the author to have somewhat exaggerated his complaints.[274]

After all, the author may have been Du Gard himself. However that may be, the editor of the paper knew English well; that he had long resided in England is implied by the many English words and idioms in his style.[275]

Names of places often puzzle him, and he deals with the several difficulties in a rather awkward manner.[276] None but a Frenchman that had left his country for some time past or, as was actually the case with Du Gard, an Englishman of French descent, would venture to think of a village constable as a _connetable_, p. 816; of the _Speaker_ of the House of Commons as _l'orateur_, p. 253; and calmly translate _Solicitor-General_ by the absolutely meaningless expression _solliciteur general_, p. 305; and _writ of error_ by the no less unintelligible _billet d'erreur_, p.

679.[277] Nevertheless, he spells in the most accurate way proper names, whether French or English.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NOUVELLES ORDINAIRES DE LONDRES, NUMBER 1.]

The gazette begins by a sort of general statement that it is worth while to quote in full: "The troubles and different revolutions that have taken place for the last ten or twelve years in England, Scotland, or Ireland, have provided us such a number of fine deeds, that, though writers, especially abroad, have unjustly tried either to stifle them by their silence or to tarnish their l.u.s.tre by lessening their price or worth, nevertheless, enough has been seen, though as through a cloud, to move with admiration the best disposed minds that have heard about them. Now that the war with Scotland, that with Ireland, and the present differences with Portugal, are likely to provide us with new ones, I have deemed it not unacceptable to foreign nations, to impart in a language that extends and is understood throughout Europe, all the most signal and remarkable happenings. To that effect, should this account and the following be favourably received by the public, I propose to carry it on every week, on the same day, briefly and with what truthfulness can be obtained in things of that nature out of the several rumours that the pa.s.sion of every one disguises according to his temper."

The Council of State could not but acquiesce in an endeavour to enlighten public opinion on the Continent. Du Gard kept his promise to say the truth: his paper is as unimpa.s.sioned as could well be a paper published "by authority."

If the newswriter was anxious to keep his readers well informed, he did not at the same time conceal his admiration for Cromwell. Maybe he was sincere.

It was difficult not to be impressed by the soldier who had won Dunbar and Worcester.

Readers in Paris and Brussels did not only peruse the accounts of these Puritan victories, they learned also all about the flight of the Lord's anointed, young Charles II.