The Teaching and Cultivation of the French Language in England Part 49

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 _a 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 francoise 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 p.r.o.nounced it "not very good." Many, no doubt, had to be content "t' adorn their English with French sc.r.a.ps."

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 sc.r.a.ps 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 b.u.t.ton;[1021] and Sir Novelty Fashion, who prefers the t.i.tle 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 _a la mode_ to be

Attended by a young pet.i.t garcon 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 _divertiss.e.m.e.nt_ 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 a 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 _a 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 _pet.i.t-maitre_,--at no better place, however, than a _table d'Auberge_, the Abbe Le Blanc tells us:[1032] "Il faut lui pardonner ses erreurs sur ses modeles, il n'etoit a portee d'en voir d'autres: si meme il n'a pas aussi bien imite ceux-ci que les Anglois se le sont persuade, je n'en suis pas surpris: il m'a avoue de bonne foi qu'il n'entend pas a.s.sez notre langue pour suivre la conversation." It is unlikely, however, that Cibber's French was as scanty as the _abbe_ 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, ba.s.set: your vin, your dress, your dance, 'Tis all, you zee, tout a-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 b.l.o.o.d.y bills, call you each day, To laugh and break your b.u.t.tons 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 c.o.c.kpit 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, d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth, Mme. Mazarin, the French amba.s.sador, 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 comediens de son Altesse serenissime 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 a Paris, 1656-58_ (ed. A. P. Faugere, 2nd ed., Paris, 1899), there is some information concerning the exiled Court. The teacher Laine mentions a lady in the suite of the exiled queen in his _Dialogues_.

[946] _Memoires_, 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 Amba.s.sador, 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 Amba.s.sador at the Court of Charles II._, London, 1892, p. 143.

[949] "Il me disoit des douceurs, a ce que m'ont dit les gens qui nous ecoutoient et parloit si bien francois, en tenant ces propos-la, qu'il n'y a personne qui ne doive convenir que l'Amour etoit plutot francois 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" (_Memoires_, _ed. cit._ i. p. 322).

[950] _Lettre de M. de L'Angle a un de ses amis touchant la religion du serenissime 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 Conde 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 Theatre anglais a l'epoque 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 delicates ressources en grace, en malice plaisante et en ironie." Cf. Sayous, _Histoire de la litterature francaise a l'etranger_.

[961] "Hamilton dans le conte (says Sayous, _op. cit._) l'emporte sur Voltaire qui eut ete le premier, si au lieu de se jeter dans les allegories philosophiques il s'etait abandonne, comme notre ecossais, au plaisir plus innocent de laisser courir son imagination et sa plume."

[962] The Scotch Chevalier de Ramsay (1686-1743), the friend of Fenelon, 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'Hele, d'h.e.l.l, or Dell, a French dramatist of English birth, also made himself a name in French literature (Sylvain van de Weyer, _Les Anglais qui ont ecrit en francais_, Miscellanies, Philobiblon Soc., 1854, vol.

i.).

[963] Hamilton, _Memoires 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 Belier_ as a model of style.

[964] "Il trouvoit si peu de difference aux manieres et a la conversation de ceux qu'il voyoit le plus souvent, qu'il ne lui paroissoit pas qu'il eut change 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 quitte pour l'accompagner dans son exil" (_Memoires_, _ed. cit._ p. 83).