The Teaching and Cultivation of the French Language in England Part 42

After his return to England, he composed his _Book of Curious stories of the Times_ in French and English for the use of his pupils. The new editions of his grammar, however, are identical with the thirteenth, which itself bears very great resemblance to the twelfth issued while Mauger was still at Paris. How many years he continued to superintend the new issues of his grammar is not certain; the nineteenth edition of 1702 is the last described as "corrected and enlarged by the Author."

Again and again he refers to the popularity of his book in England, and the "unexpressible courtesies" he received at the hands of his English patrons. "This grammar sells so well," he wrote in the sixth edition (1670), "as you may see, being printed so often, and many thousands every time, that I cannot but acknowledge the kindness of this generous nation towards me in raising its credit both at home and abroad, in so much that other Nations, following the general approbation concerning it of so wise a people, use it as commonly everywhere beyond the Sea, as they do here in London, and in all the dominions of his majesty of Great Britain." It was also looked on with much favour in France. In 1689 a French edition, called the thirteenth, was printed at Bordeaux. But it was in the Netherlands that the grammar received almost as warm a welcome as in England. The book thus forms another link between the study of French in England and the Low Countries. In 1693 this Dutch edition of the grammar was issued for the thirteenth time, and in 1707 for the fifteenth, both at the Hague. It was usually published with an English grammar of more importance than the short one added by Mauger to the English editions--that of Festeau, Mauger's friend and fellow-townsman. Their combined work was known as the _Nouvelle double grammaire Francoise-Angloise et Angloise-Francoise par messieurs Claude Mauger et Paul Festeau, Professeurs de Langues a Paris et a Londres_.

The two grammars are followed by Mauger's dialogues and a collection of twenty-one "plaisantes et facetieuses Histoires pour rire," in French and English, ent.i.tled _l'Ecole pour rire_. The growing popularity of English from the beginning of the reign of William of Orange, the editor tells us in 1693, induced him to add the English grammar to the French grammar of Mauger, and he chose Festeau's because it was in as high favour for learning English as Mauger's was for learning French.

[Header: PAUL FESTEAU]

Paul Festeau was the author of a French as well as an English grammar,[821] and, like Mauger, he taught English to foreign visitors in London, as well as French to English people. Indeed his career bears a close resemblance to that of Mauger, of whom he seems to have been a sort of protege. Like Mauger he had taught at Blois, and the two teachers probably came to England together; at any rate they arrived at much the same time. He enjoyed a greater popularity than Mauger as a teacher of English, and was also looked upon with respect as a teacher of French.[822]

Festeau's French Grammar, first published in 1667, occupies an important second place among the French text-books produced in the third quarter of the seventeenth century. It was dedicated to Colonel Russel, of the King's Guard, who had learnt French under Festeau's guidance. As a grammar it is fuller and more clearly arranged than Mauger's, and, in main outline, there is much similarity between the two. The rules, which occupy the first two hundred pages, are written in English and provide information on p.r.o.nunciation and on each part of speech in turn. Each is accompanied by a considerable number of ill.u.s.trative examples, which, Festeau thought, were of great help in impressing the rule on the memory, and of more use than dialogues. He also included dialogues in his work, and was attacked on account of their prolixity. He argued, in reply, that "if the reader pleases to consider the store of phrases in the body of the Work amongst the Rules which do contain near two hundred pages, he will very well apprehend that, when a scholar hath learnt all these Phrases without book in learning the rules, he needs not at all burden his memory with many dialogues: for ... I have found by experience that those who have learned them were able afterwards to translate French into English, with the aid of a dictionary and I do maintain that it is not necessary to learn such abondance of Dialogue by heart, it is enough to read and English them, and next to that to explain them from English into French, and so doing the words and phrases do insensibly make an impression in the memory and the discreet scholar goeth forward with a great deal of ease. As for young children I yield that it is good they should continue the Dialogues: but after they have learned short phrases, they must of necessity learn long ones, otherwise they could never attain to the capacity of joyning words together. Beside when a master doth teach his scholar, he must not ask him a whole long phrase at once, he must divide it in parts according to the distinction of points. As for instance, if I will ask this long phrase of a child | Quand on a gaigne une fois | le jeu attire insensiblement | en esperance de gaigner davantage |. I will ask it him at three several times." Festeau gives the pupil the English in three separate phrases, and requires him to give the French rendering. "Them that will take the pains to peruse it," to use Festeau's own words in describing his grammar, "will observe a very new method, clear and intelligible Rules to the least capacities, fine remarks upon all the parts of speech and particularly upon the gender of nouns, and the use of moods and tenses. They will find the difficulties of the particles, _en_, _on_, and _que_ explained, which give commonly so much trouble to the learner, they will see the use and good order of impersonal verbs, as well active as pa.s.sive, likewise also of the reciprocal and reflected verbs. Finally they will see familiar dialogues on divers sorts of subjects, very useful and profitable for them that desire to speak properly: no barbarous kind of words and phrases as are found in some other grammars, by reason that the Author professes to speak and to write his own language well." A vocabulary of thirty pages, in the style of Mauger's, and rules for the accents and the length of the vowels fill the rest of the volume. This was how the work stood in the third edition, which, Festeau explains, "might rightly be said the fourth, seeing that there was fifteen hundred copies drawn off the second edition, and two thousand of this, whereas they use to draw but a thousand at most: and considering the time it first came out, it seems that it sells pretty well. If some other former grammars have had more editions, it cannot be inferred thence that this comes short of them: we can buy nothing at market but what is to be sold, and when this hath been in the light as long, no doubt but (especially being better known) it may have as many editions." [Header: PIERRE LAINe] Possibly he was referring to Mauger's popularity, and the two friends may have become rivals during the latter part of their stay in England. On similar grounds he claimed that the sixth edition might be called the tenth, as two thousand copies were drawn of the four last editions. Mauger, however, states that "many thousand" copies of his grammar were drawn at every edition.

By this time Festeau's grammar had acquired a considerable reputation.

"The approbation that it hath received," he writes, "of the most learned of the nation, who have esteemed it the neatest, the easiest and most correct, is not a small advantage to it: It is that which hath encouraged me to bring it to a better perfection." There is, however, very little difference between the half score or so editions which were issued.

Like Mauger, Festeau soon began to modify his att.i.tude towards the Blois accent. In 1679, while still advertising himself proudly as a "native of Blois, where the true tone of the French Tongue is found by the unanimous consent of all Frenchmen," he claims to teach the "Elegancy and Purity of the French Tongue as it is now spoken at the Court of France." However, it is uncertain whether Festeau went to Paris or not.

At the time when he first wrote of Court French he was teaching in London, and we are informed that "if any gentleman have occasion for the author of this grammar, his Lodging is in the Strand near St. Clement's, at Mr. John King's house, at the sign of the wounded heart." He was still there in 1693. In 1675 we see him requesting any "gentleman or others desiring to speak with him to inquire for him in Haughton Street, next door to the Joyner's Arms, near Claire Market," or at Mr. Loundes, his bookseller and publisher. At about this time he began to teach mathematics as well as, and by means of French; he was prepared to instruct gentlemen in all its branches. It was at the request of several gentlemen, with whom he "did often discourse of the same in French,"

that he added to the fourth edition of his grammar a long dialogue covering the whole field of mathematics, and giving "a clear and fair idea thereof."

Another French tutor who flourished at the same time as Mauger, and who wrote a French grammar which, like his, appeared during the Commonwealth, was Peter Laine. Laine is not very communicative as regards himself; he does not even tell us from what part of France he came. All we know of him is that he was a protege of Robert Paston, to whom he dedicated his book, and who, no doubt, had been his pupil for French. Of his grammar he writes, "I here expose to thy view a work which might rather be counted an Errata than a book"--a state of things for which both himself and the printer were to blame. For his part, he says, he does not write for the sake of seeing his name in print, or because he fancies he excels others. "I rather count myself inferior to the least of them. But the urgent importunities of some persons whom I have had, and still have the honour to inform in French, have made me undertake it to satisfie their desires, and my grat.i.tude."

His sympathy with the Protestants emerges clearly from the contents of his grammar. Apparently he did not belong to the Blois group. He differs from them in adopting the new orthography in which many of the unsounded letters were omitted. It was a pity to spoil the purity and elegance of the p.r.o.nunciation by the old orthography, he thought; moreover the clear resemblance between the orthography and the p.r.o.nunciation renders the language easier to foreigners; "seeing that we both write and speak any vulgar Tongue to be understood and to entertain Society, it is in my judgement, not only convenient but even necessary to bring as near a conformity betwixt the Tongue and the Pen, as may without prejudice to the material grounds of our language, afford all the facility that is possible to those that are strangers to it." It is curious to recall that Peletier, and other earlier writers, had, on the contrary, retained the etymological consonants of the old orthography, with the idea that the foreigner's Latin would thereby be of greater service to him.

Laine's _Compendious Introduction to the French Tongue, teaching with much ease, facility and delight, how to attain briefly and most exactly to the true and modern p.r.o.nunciation thereof_, is very similar to Mauger's grammar in the distribution of the matter. Rules for the p.r.o.nunciation, which as usual are briefly explained by means of comparison with English sounds, are followed by observations on each part of speech in turn;[823] finally come familiar phrases "to be used at the first learning of French," ten long dialogues, and a vocabulary, all in French and English. [Header: LAINe'S DIALOGUES] The book closes with what Laine calls "an alphabetical rule for the true and modern orthography of that French now spoken, being a catalogue of very necessary words never before printed"--an alphabetical list of words.

The grammatical section of the work is written in English. In the dialogues he purposely adapts the English to the French phrase. "I have been more careful," he explains, "in the whole course of the treatise, to observe the French, then the English phrase: to the end I might make its signification more intelligible, to vary less from the sense, and to afford most delight and more facility to the learner."

According to him, the first thing to be learned by the student of French are the sounds of the language. He should commit to memory as many of the familiar phrases as he can easily retain, and from them pa.s.s to the "dialogical discourses." Their substance is much the same as in Mauger--polite and gallant conversations mainly between students of French, talk and guidance for travellers in France, etc. The following specimen is from a dialogue between an English gentleman and his language master:

Quel beau livre est-ce la? What fine book is that?

Mons., c'est le romant comique. Sir, it is the comic romance.

Qui en est l'autheur? Who is the author of it?

Mons. C'est Mons. Scarron. Sir, it is Mr. Scarron.

Est-il fort celebre? Is he very famed?

Est il fort estime? Is he much esteemed?

Mons., c'est un esprit sublime et Sir, it is a sublime and transcendant. transcendant wit.

De quoi traite cet ouvrage? What doth this work deal on?

Mons., il n'est plein que Sir, it is full but de drolleries facesieuses... . of pleasant drolleries....

Lisons un peu: faites moi Let us read a little: do me la faveur de m'antandre the favour to understand me lire. read.

p.r.o.noncez hardiment; p.r.o.nounce boldly; Observez vos accents. Observe your accents.

Ne prenez point de mauvaise habitude. Take no ill habit.

Lises distinctement. Read distinctly.

Vou lisez trop vite. You read too fast.

Notre langue est ennemi de la Our tongue is enemy to precipitation. precipitation.

Laine evidently intended that the dialogues, at least some of them, should be committed to memory, as well as read and translated; "after that," he continues, "as his sufficiency shall permit, he may proceed to Reading any Histories, among which the Holy Writ ought to have the pre-eminence, had not divine Providence, and the Eternal Spirit that dictated it, purposely rejected the affected smoothness and polishedness of the style." We recall, as we reflect on this strange reason for rejecting the Holy Scriptures as reading material, the unenviable reputation the refugees themselves had as regards literary style. As the Bible is left us "for divine study only," Laine advises his pupils to make use of moral histories for purposes of reading. Many, he says, have been produced of late years. Nor did he limit his pupils' choice to these; he encouraged them to read the heroic romances so popular at the time--_Artamene ou le grand Cyrus_ and _Clelie_ by Mlle. de Scudery, _Ca.s.sandre_ and _Cleopatre_ by La Calprenede; also the _Poesies spirituelles_ of Corneille, the commentaries of Caesar in French, and Scarron's _Roman comique_. Lighter fare could be found in the _Gazette francoise_.

FOOTNOTES:

[813] "Which city, lying in the very middle of France, is the most famous for the true p.r.o.nunciation of the language."

[814] "What are you doing? You must not render this in French, _qu'estes vous en faisant?_ but thus, _Que faites-vous?_" ... and so on.

[815] The practice was a common one at the time. Thus Sir Charles Cotterel wrote in Italian to Mrs. Katherine Philipps, who thanks him for the care he takes to improve her in Italian by writing to her in that language. Letter of April 12, 1662, in _Letters of Orinda to Poliarchus_, 1705.

[816] One of his letters (No. 18) is addressed to Adrien Mauger (1675), Bachelor of Divinity, Claude's nephew, whom he calls the head of the family, and who apparently lived at Blois.

[817] His fee was 40s. a month, for three lessons a week.

[818] Cp. p. 383, _infra._

[819] The names Mauger and Maugier occur frequently in the Registers of the Threadneedle Street Church, but none can be connected with Claude.

[820] "L'Angleterre que j'aime infiniment," he writes in his twelfth edition.

[821] The first edition appeared in 1672. The second edition was advertised in 1678 (Arber, _Term Catalogues_, i. 323).

[822]

"De tous les professeurs de la langue francoyse, Festeau c'est de toi seul dont je fais plus de cas.

Si tu es eloquent dans nostre langue angloise, Dans la tienne, pourquoy ne le serois-tu pas?"

Thus wrote one of his pupils, Mr. P. Hume, probably the famous statesman and Covenanter.

[823] Pp. 48-130. Laine retains the usual six Latin cases; the verbs are divided into four conjugations; the indeclinables are given in lists. A vocabulary of nouns which have two meanings according as they are masculine or feminine is included.

CHAPTER IV

THE FRENCH TEACHING PROFESSION AND METHODS OF STUDYING THE LANGUAGE

From their very first appearance the voluminous French romances of the time enjoyed great popularity in England,[824] partly, perhaps, on account of the lack of a supply of similar works in the vernacular.

Several English translations appeared, but many preferred to read them in the original. Their importance in the eyes of the French teachers may also have increased their vogue. They were especially affected by Charles I.; and when on the eve of his death, he was distributing a few of his favourite possessions among his friends, he left the volumes of La Calprenede's _Ca.s.sandre_ to the Earl of Lindsey.[825] Later on, Pope describing, in his _Rape of the Lock_, the adventurous baron in quest of the much-coveted lock, pictures him imploring Love for help, and declares he

to Love an altar built Of twelve vast French Romances neatly gilt.

Among the most eager readers of French romances was Dorothy Osborne. We are enabled to trace part of her course in reading from the charming letters she wrote to Sir William Temple, her future husband. They are full of references to things French, and replete with French words; she uses English words in a French sense: _injury_ with her means _insult_; and she writes to explain that when she said _maliciously_ she really meant "a French _malice_, which you know does not signify the same thing as an English one." A little note sent to Temple when she was in London, shortly before their marriage, evidently in answer to one from him, may be quoted as a specimen of her French, and her total disregard of spelling and grammar:

Je n'ay guere plus dormie que vous et mes songes n'ont pas estres moins confuse, au rest une bande de violons que sont venue jouer sous ma fennestre m'ont tourmentes de tel facon que je doubt fort si je pourrois jamais les souffrire encore; je ne suis pourtant pas en fort mauvaise humeur et je m'en voy ausi tost que je serai habillee voire ce qu'il est posible de faire pour vostre satisfaction; apres je viendre vous rendre conte de nos affairs et quoy qu'il en sera vous ne scaurois jamais doubte que je ne vous ayme plus que toutes les choses du monde.[826]

The French romances were Dorothy's constant companions, and her letters are full of criticisms of and references to her favourite pa.s.sages. She sent the volumes to Temple by instalments,[827] as she finished them, pressing him for his opinion. _Le Grand Cyrus_ seems to have been her favourite. She had also a great admiration for _Ibraham ou l'Ill.u.s.tre Ba.s.sa_, which, like _Polexandre et Cleopatre_ and the four volumes of _Prazimene_, was her "old acquaintance." _Parthenissa_, the English romance in the French style by Lord Broghill, did not meet with her approval. "But," she confides to Temple, "perhaps I like it worse for having a piece of _Cyrus_ by me that I am highly pleased with, and that I would fain have you read. I'll send it you." As for the English translations of her favourites, she had no patience with them. They are written in a language half French and half English, and so changed that Dorothy, their old friend, hardly recognizes them in this strange garb.

French romances were not the only French interest Dorothy Osborne and Temple had in common. They had first become acquainted while travelling to France, the Osbornes on their way to join their father at St. Malo, and Temple setting out on the usual "tour." Temple, apparently, lingered with his new friends in France, until his father, hearing of this, ordered him to Paris.[828] There he evidently acquired the knowledge of French which Dorothy playfully declares a necessary qualification for _her_ husband: for she could not marry one who "speaks the French he has picked up out of the old Laws"; [Header: PEPYS'S FRENCH BOOKS] or, the other extreme, the "travelled monsieur whose head is all feather inside and out, that can talk of nothing but dances and duels, and has courage enough to wear slashes when every one else dies with cold to see him."[829]

Another instance of the popularity of these romances and other French writings is found in Pepys's _Diary_.[830] Both Pepys and more particularly his wife, who was the daughter of a French refugee, were great readers of the romances. Pepys himself seems to have found them a little tiresome, and relates how on a certain occasion Mrs. Pepys wearied him by telling him long stories out of the _Grand Cyrus_, and how he hurt her feelings by checking her outpourings. She would sit up till past midnight reading _Cyrus_ or _Polexandre_. He would often stop at his bookseller's to buy French books for his wife, including _L'Ill.u.s.tre Ba.s.sa_ in four volumes, and _Ca.s.sandre_. One evening she read to him the epistle of _Ca.s.sandre_, which he p.r.o.nounced "very good indeed." When they went to see Dryden's _Evening Love, or the Mock Astrologer_, Mrs. Pepys recognized at once its debt to _L'Ill.u.s.tre Ba.s.sa_, and on the following afternoon "she read in the _L'Ill.u.s.tre Ba.s.sa_ the plot of yesterday's play, which is exactly the same."

His French books seem to have been a great source of interest to Pepys, and to have served him on many occasions. Being ill, "taking physique all day," he beguiled the time by reading "little French romances." He appears to have been particularly attracted by Sorbiere's _Voyage en Angleterre_, which on its appearance caused some indignation at the English Court. Pepys read the book in the year of its publication (1664).[831] Unfortunately he has not left us a very full account of the other French books he knew. However, on the 1st May 1666, he writes that he went "by water to Redriffe, reading a new French book my Lord Bruncker did give me to-day, _L'Histoire Amoureuse des Gaules_" [by the Comte de Bussy], "being a pretty libel against the amours of the Court of France." Another volume which pleased Pepys was a "pretty" work, _La Nouvelle allegorique_, "upon the strife between rhetorique and its enemies, very pleasant." His choice of French literature was wide, ranging from Du Bartas, which he judged "very fine as anything he had seen," to Helot's "idle roguish book," _L'Eschole des Filles_, which he burnt, "that it might not stand in the list of books, nor among them to disgrace them if it be found."[832]