The Teaching and Cultivation of the French Language in England Part 29

[537] Printed by William Turner, 8, pp. 72.

[538] _Athenae Oxon._ (Bliss), ii. 624.

[539] Valence, French tutor to the Earl of Lincoln, had studied at Cambridge early in the sixteenth century.

[540] "Eandem linguam in celeberrima Cantabrigiensi Academia docens."

[541] Sm. 8vo, pp. 96.

[542] Cp. R. Bowes, _Catalogue of Books printed at Cambridge, 1521-1893_.

[543] The statement of Wood (_Athenae Oxon._ iii. 184), that Du Gres had studied at Oxford before going to Cambridge, is probably incorrect.

[544] 8vo, pp. 195, printed by Leonard Lichfield.

[545] _Jean Arman Du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu and Peere of France his Life_, etc., followed by a translation, "out of the French copie," of _The Will and Legacies of the Cardinall Richelieu ... together with certaine Instructions which he left the French King. Also some remarkable pa.s.sages that hath happened in France since the death of the said Cardinall._

[546] He charged 10s. a month for an hour's lesson daily.

[547] _Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1661-62_, p. 439.

[548] Le Moyne also translated _The Articles of Agreement between the King of France, the Parlaiment and Parisians. Faithfully translated out of the French original copy._ London, 1649.

[549] In the Middle Ages, Pembroke College gave preference to Frenchmen in the election of Fellows; cp. _supra_, p. 6.

[550] _Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1660-61_, p. 162.

[551] "Autobiographie de Pierre du Moulin," _Bulletin de la Societe de l'histoire du Protestantisme Francais_, vii. pp. 343 _sqq._

[552] Mullinger, _History of the University of Cambridge_, 1911, iii. p.

300.

[553] _Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1670_, p. 275. Evelyn (_Diary_, ed.

Wheatly, 1906, ii. p. 306) describes verses written in Latin, English, and French by Oxford students and added to _Newes from the dead_, an account of the restoration to life of one Anne Green, executed at Oxford, 1650.

[554] _Sir Harry Wildair_, Act III. Sc. 2; cp. Mockmode in the same dramatist's _Love and a Bottle_.

[555] _Diary_, 5th May 1669.

[556] He long looked forward to a journey there--a hope which was not fulfilled until his failing eyesight had compelled him to stop writing his diary.

[557] She spent some time in France, until her father ordered her back to England on account of her leaning towards Roman Catholicism. Many times she expressed a wish to go and live in France.

[558] Cp. Shakespeare, _2 Henry IV._ Act III. Sc. 2:

"He's at Oxford still, is he not?

A' must then to the Inns a' Court shortly."

[559] Higford (_Inst.i.tution of a Gentleman_, 1660, p. 58) blames those of his countrymen who neglect the Inns of Court.

[560] J. Fortescue, _De Laudibus Legum Angliae ... Translated into English ... with notes by Selden_, new ed., 1771, p. 172.

[561] Higford, _The Inst.i.tution of a Gentleman_, 1660, p. 88.

[562] Perlin says of the English in the middle of the sixteenth century, referring no doubt to the n.o.bility: "Ceux du pays ne courent gaire ou bien peu aux deux universites, et ne se donnent point beaucoup aux lettres, sinon qu'a toute marchandise et a toute vanite" (_Description des royaulmes d'Angleterre et d'Escosse_, p. 11).

[563] _Letters_ (1638), Camden Soc., 1854, p. 8. Nearly half a century later, Chancellor Clarendon wrote: "I doubt our Universities are defective in providing for those exercises and recreations, which are necessary even to nourish and cherish their studies, at least towards that accomplished education which persons of quality are designed to; and it may be want of those Ornaments that may prevail with many to send their sons abroad, who since they cannot attain the lighter with the more serious Breeding, chuse the former which makes a present shew, leaving the latter to be wrought out at leisure" (_Miscellaneous Works_, 1751, p. 326).

CHAPTER VII

THE STUDY OF FRENCH BY ENGLISH TRAVELLERS ABROAD

One of the favourite methods of learning French was a sojourn in France.

To speak the language well a visit there was considered imperative, and to speak it "as one who had never been out of England"[564] was synonymous with speaking it badly. Consequently a journey to France was common among the young gentry and n.o.bility of the time. Moreover, those who pursued their travels further, and undertook the Grand Tour as many gentlemen did on leaving the university, invariably visited France first, and spent the greater part of their time there. Eighteen months in France, nine or ten in Italy, five in Germany and the Low Countries, was considered a suitable division of a three years' tour. Most young Englishmen of family and fortune spent some time on the Continent. Sir Francis Walsingham, said by one of his contemporaries to have been the most accomplished linguist of his day,[565] had acquired his proficiency abroad, as had also Lord Burghley, who wrote to Walsingham from France in 1583 to report on his progress in the language.[566] Both ministers in their turn were patrons to numerous young travellers in France. A certain Charles Danvers wrote to Walsingham from Paris, in French, to show his progress and thank him for his favours.[567] And Burghley gave one Andrew Bussy a monthly allowance of 5 to enable him to study French at Orleans, where, according to his own account, he took great pains to make good progress so as to serve his patron the better on his return.[568] It was generally held that travel was "useful to useful men,"[569] and that "peregrination" well used was "a very profitable school, a running Academy."[570]

Many young English gentlemen went to the French Court in the train of an amba.s.sador,[571] or with a private tutor;[572] Henry VIII. sent his natural son, the Duke of Richmond, Palsgrave's pupil, to the French Court, in the care of Lord Surrey the poet. Richard Carew, the friend of Camden, was sent to France with Sir Henry Nevill, amba.s.sador to Henri IV., and Bacon visited Paris in his early youth in the suite of the diplomat Lord Poulet. The last-mentioned amba.s.sador had several young Englishmen in his charge. Of few, however, could he make so favourable a report as he did of the son of Sir George Speake: "I am not unacquainted with your son's doings in Parris," he wrote to Sir George, "and cannot comend him inoughe unto you aswell for his dilligence in study as for his honest and quiett behaviour." One of these young travellers, a Mr.

Throckmorton, he was particularly glad to be rid of; the young man "got the French tongue in good perfection," we are informed, but he was of flippant humour, and before he left for England, Poulet told him his mind freely, and forbade him to travel to Italy, as he intended to do later, without the company of "an honest and wyse man." The amba.s.sador had kept him and his man in food during the whole of his stay in Paris, and, besides, provided him with a horse, which he had also "kept att his chardges."[573]

Children too were often sent abroad for education. Thomas Morrice, in his _Apology for Schoolmasters_ (1619), commends "the ancient and laudable custom of sending children abroad when they can understand Latin perfectly"; for then they learn the romance languages all the more easily, "because the Italian, French and Spanish borrow very many words of the said Latin, albeit they do chip, chop and change divers letters and syllables therein." [Header: ENGLISH GENTRY AT THE FRENCH COURT] And Thomas Peacham[574] tells us in the early seventeenth century that as soon as a child shows any wildness or unruliness, he is sent either to the Court to act as a page or to France, and sometimes to Italy. The number of English children in France was, we may a.s.sume, considerable; and when the news of the terrible ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew reached England, one of its most noticeable effects was to fill with concern and apprehension all parents who had children in France. "How fearfull and carefull the mothers and parents that be here be of such yong gentlemen as be there, you may easely ges," wrote Elizabeth's secretary of state to Sir Francis Walsingham, the English amba.s.sador at Paris.[575] Among these "yong gentlemen" was Sir Philip Sidney, then newly arrived at the French Court, whom Walsingham himself sheltered in the amba.s.sador's quarters during that awful night.

James Ba.s.set, the son of Lord Lisle, deputy at Calais for Henry VIII., was sent to Paris in the autumn of 1536 to complete his education, after having been for some time in the charge of a tutor in England. There he went to school with a French priest, whom he soon left for the College of Navarre. He appears to have attended the college daily, and boarded with one Guillaume le Gras, who, in June 1537, wrote to Lady Lisle that her son would soon be able to speak French better than English. "I think when he goes to see you," writes the Frenchman to her ladyship who did not understand French, "he will need an interpreter to speak to you."

James himself wrote to tell his mother how he was progressing "at the large and beautiful college of Navarre, with Pierre du Val his Master and Preceptor."[576] The following letter[577] giving details on the course pursued by a young English gentleman studying French in Paris may no doubt be taken as fairly typical. "In the forenoone ... two hours he spends in French, one in reading, the other in rendryng to his teacher some part of a Latin author by word of mouth.... In the afternoon ... he retires himself into his chamber, and there employs two other hours in reading over some Latin author; which done, he translates some little part of it into French, leaving his faults to be corrected the morrow following by his teacher. After supper we take a brief survey of all....

M. Ballendine [apparently the teacher] hath commended unto us Paulus Aemilius in French, who writeth the history of the country. His counsell we mean to follow."

Girls also were occasionally sent to France for purposes of education.

Two of James Ba.s.set's young sisters, Anne and Mary, spent some time in that country. To prevent their hindering each other's progress, Anne was committed to the care of a M. and Mme. de Ryon, at Pont de Remy, while Mary was sent to Abbeville to a M. and Mme. de Bours. Both girls wrote letters in French to their mother, Lady Lisle, and it appears that they had almost forgotten their mother tongue. When Anne returned to England, where she became maid of honour to Jane Seymour, she had to apologize to her mother for not being able to write in English, "for surely where your Ladyship doth think that I can write English, in very deed I cannot, but that little that I can write is French,"[578] and Mary wrote to her sister Philippa in French expressing her wish to spend an hour with her every day in order to teach her to speak French. In France the two sisters acquired, besides French, the usual accomplishments befitting their s.e.x--needlework, and playing on the lute and virginals.[579]

The traveller Fynes Moryson did not unreservedly approve of the custom of sending children "of unripe yeeres" to France; "howsoever they are more to be excused who send them with discreet Tutors to guide them with whose eyes and judgments they may see and observe.... Children like Parrots soone learne forraigne languages and sooner forget the same, yea, and their mother tongue also." He relates how a familiar friend of his "lately sent his sonne to Paris, who, after two yeeres returning home, refused to aske his father's blessing after the manner of England, saying _ce n'est pas la mode de France_."[580] Milton in the same vein deplores the fact that his compatriots have "need of the monsieurs of Paris to take their hopeful youth into their slight and prodigal custodies and send them over back again transformed into mimics, apes and kickshows."[581] [Header: ENGLISH CHILDREN IN FRANCE] "My countrymen in England," wrote Sir Amias Poulet from Paris in 1577, "would doe G.o.d and theire countreye good service if either they woulde provide scolemasters for theire children at home, or else they woulde take better order of their educacion here, where they are infected with all sortes [of] pollucions bothe ghostly and bodylie and find manie willinge scolemasters to teache theme to be badd subiects."[582]

Nor were such sentiments confined to individual cases. Queen Elizabeth was constantly making inquiries concerning her subjects beyond the seas generally, often for political reasons or on account of her Protestant fears of popery. She found "noe small inconvenience to growe into the realm" by the number of children living abroad "under colour of learning the languages." In 1595 she ordered a list of such "children" to be sent to her with the names of their parents or guardians and tutors,[583] and there were frequent examinations of subjects suspected of desiring to go abroad; in 1595 the Mayor of Chester writes to Burghley to know what he is to do with two boys, aged fifteen and seventeen, who have been brought before him on suspicion of intending to travel into France to learn the language, and thence into Spain.

The objections raised against the journey to France were few, however, in comparison with those alleged as regards Italy. Italy held a place second only to France in the Grand Tour on the Continent, and in the early sixteenth century the first enthusiasm awakened by the Renaissance attracted many Englishmen there. Scholars, such as Linacre and Colet, set the example. Then others, including most literary men of the time, made their way as pilgrims to the centre of the revived learning, pa.s.sing through France on their way.[584] Soon the journey became largely a matter of fashion. This rapid development of the custom of continental travel was looked upon as a danger in matters political and religious; popish plots were suspected and foreign intrigues of all kinds feared. In Elizabeth's time leave "to resort beyond seas for his better increase in learning, and his knowledge of foreign languages"[585]

was not freely granted to any who might apply. Lord Burghley would often summon before him applicants for licences to travel, and look carefully into their knowledge of their own country,[586] and if this proved insufficient, would advise them to improve it before attempting to study other countries.[587]

Voluble were the protests against foreign travel which were made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. France and above all Italy were made responsible for all the vices of the English. It was urged that trade and state negotiations were the only adequate reasons for travel abroad. "We are moted in an Island, because Providence intended us to be shut off from other regions," Bishop Joseph Hall affirms, in his _Quo Vadis: a juste censure of travel as it is commonly undertaken by gentlemen of our own nation_ (1617). So strong were the prejudices of some of these critics that the grandfather of the royalist Sir Arthur Capell wrote--in 1622--a pamphlet containing _Reasons against the travellinge of my grandchylde Arthur Capell into the parts beyond the sea_, in which he draws an alarming picture of the dangers of infection from popery, and seeks to prove that the time could be much better spent at home.[588] The chronicler Harrison went so far as to a.s.sert that the custom would prove the ruin of England.[589] And even the courtly Lyly could write: "Let not your mindes be carried away with vaine delights, as travailing into farre and straunge countries, wher you shall see more wickednesse then learn virtue and wit."[590]

But it was Italy much more than France that excited the fears of these alarmists. There was a common saying at the time that an Englishman Italianate was a devil incarnate. "I was once in Italy myself," wrote Roger Ascham,[591] "but I thank G.o.d my abode there was but nine dayes"--in which he saw more wickedness than he had beheld during nine years in London. "Suffer not thy sons to pa.s.s the Alpes, for they shall learn nothing there but Pride, Blasphemy and Atheism; [Header: PROTESTS AGAINST FOREIGN TRAVEL] and if by travelling they get a few broken Languages, that will profit them no more than to have the same meat served in divers dishes," was the advice of Lord Burghley.[592] Many were the precautions taken to prevent English subjects from travelling to Rome of all places. Travellers who were suspected of such intentions or who had travelled abroad without permission were rigorously examined.

One such traveller confessed that he went to Brittany and France to see the countries and learn the language, but swore he had never been to Rome or spoken to the papist Cardinal Allen.[593] Many pa.s.sports issued for the Grand Tour stipulated specifically that the traveller should not repair to Rome.[594]

George Carleton gave expression to the general feeling when he wrote to his brother Dudley, afterwards Lord Dorchester: "I like your going to France much better than if you had gone to Italy."[595] "France is above all most needful for us to mark," was the advice Sir Philip Sidney sent to his brother Robert on his travels.[596] Sir John Eliot gave similar injunctions to his sons.[597] France was, he said, a country full of n.o.ble instincts and versatile energy; and what his own experience had been, he recommended his sons to profit by. Some friend had warned them of possible dangers in France. Heed them not, says Eliot; any hazard or adventure in France they will find repaid by such advantages of knowledge and experience as observation of the existing troubles there is sure to convey. But he will not allow them even to enter Spain; and the Italian territories of the Church they must avoid as dangerous: "stagnant and deadly are the waters in the region of Rome, not clear and flowing for the health-seeking energies of man." He thought, however, that some parts of Italy might be visited with profit. To attempt to learn the Italian language before some knowledge of French had been acquired, was not discreet. "Besides it being less pleasant and more difficult to talk Italian first," he writes, "it was leaving the more necessary acquirement to be gained when there was, perchance, less leisure for it. Whereas by attaining some perfection in French, and then moving onward, what might be lost in Italy of the first acquirement, would be regained in France as their steps turned homeward."

Not only were fears of Roman Catholicism and corrupt manners directed more specifically toward Italy than France, but the French language was considered a much more necessary acquirement than Italian. It was generally agreed that the country most requisite for the English to know was France, "in regard of neighbourhood, of conformity in Government in divers things and necessary intelligence of State."[598]. "French is the most useful of languages--the richest lading of the traveller next to experience--Italian and Spanish not being so fruitful in learning,"

remarks Francis...o...b..rne in his _Advice to a Son_.[599]

Thus the main object of study of the traveller in France was usually the language itself, and next to that the polite accomplishments. Those who continued their travels into Italy were attracted chiefly by the country and its antiquities. When Addison was in France, after a short stay in Paris in 1699[600] he settled for nearly a year at Blois to learn the language, living in great seclusion, studying, and seeing no one but his teachers, who would sup with him regularly. In 1700 he returned to Paris, qualified to converse with Boileau and Malebranche. But he spent his time in Italy very differently, living in fancy with the old Latin poets, taking Horace as his guide from Naples to Rome, and Virgil on the return journey: there was no question of settling down in a quiet town to study Italian. The experience of Lord Herbert of Cherbury at the end of the sixteenth century and of Evelyn in the middle of the seventeenth was of a similar nature. Though travellers continued to include Italy in their tour, the feeling in favour of France became stronger and stronger. It reached its climax in the latter half of the seventeenth century, when Clarendon wrote: "What parts soever we propose to visit, to which our curiosity usually invites us, we can hardly avoid the setting our feet first in France." And he invites travellers, on returning there after visiting Italy, to stay in Paris a year to "unlearn the dark and affected reservation of Italy." [Header: THE TRAVELLING TUTOR] As for Germany, he thinks they have need to remain two years in France that they may entirely forget that they were ever in Germany![601]