The Anglo-French Entente In The Seventeenth Century Part 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]

On the list of payments made to scholars can be read the name of M. de Beaulieu, "busy translating English ma.n.u.scripts." Others besides Colbert needed English translators: "Pere de la Chaise," Henry Savile wrote to amba.s.sador Jenkins (29th July 1679), "has had the speeches of the five last Jesuits hanged in England translated into French."[59]

The rule laid down by Colbert was followed by his successors. By the side of amba.s.sadors it became the habit to set interpreters or unofficial agents. Such, for instance, was Abbe Renaudot, "who knew English so well that he could not only translate Lord Perth's letters, but compose in English, either letters addressed to the French agents in England, or drafts of ordinances and proclamations in the name of James II."[60] To him was due the French translation of the papers of Charles II. and the d.u.c.h.ess of York, published by command of James II.

No one about Henrietta of England, Charles II.'s sister, wife to the Duc d'Orleans, seems to have thought of learning English. The Princess could discourse with the Duke of Buckingham about the "pa.s.sion of the Count de Guiche for Madame de Chalais" without letting her voice drop to a whisper.

No one among the bystanders understood what she was saying.[61] On her death-bed she summoned the English amba.s.sador Montague and began talking English; at a certain moment she uttered the word "poison." "As the word,"

says Madame de la Fayette, "is common to both languages, M. Feuillet, the father-confessor, heard it and interrupted the conversation, saying she should give up her life to G.o.d and not dwell on any other consideration."[62] In her death throes, the unfortunate princess seems to have found relief in talking her mother-tongue, for it is in English that she instructed her senior waiting-woman to "present the Bishop of Condom (Bossuet) with an emerald."

The men of letters were in close touch if not with the Court at least with the n.o.bles their patrons. In the sixteenth century, many French writers and poets crossed the Channel. The list includes Ronsard, Du Bartas, Jacques Grevin, Brantome.[63] The latter uses the word _good cheer_, and it is said that Ronsard learned English.

In the following century there came to London, Boisrobert, Voiture, Saint-Amant, Theophile de Viau. Saint-Evremond lived in England many years without learning more than a few words, such as those he quotes in his works: _mince pye_, _plum-porridge_, _brawn_, and _Christmas_. Albeit Saint-Evremond is credited with a free translation of Buckingham's "Portrait of Charles II.," Johnson was probably right in saying that "though he lived a great part of a long life upon an English pension, he never condescended to understand the language of the nation that maintained him."[64] But Jean Bulteel, the son of a refugee living in Dover, adapted a comedy of Corneille to the English stage (1665).

Scholars were more curious of reading the works of their English confreres.

The English then had the reputation of being born philosophers. "Among them," wrote Muralt the traveller, "there are men who think with more strength and have profound thoughts in greater number than the wits of other nations."[65] The works of Hobbes had caused a great stir on the Continent. His frequent and prolonged stays in France, his disputes with Descartes, his relations with Mersenne and Sorbiere, contributed to his fame. A little later, the names of Locke and Newton were known. As early as 1668, Samuel Puffendorf inquired of his friend Secretary Williamson whether there existed an English-French or English-Latin dictionary.[66]

Bayle wished to read the works of those new thinkers. "My misfortune is great," he wrote, "not to understand English, for there are many books in that tongue that would be useful to me."[67] Barbeyrac learned English on purpose to read Locke.[68] Leibniz was proud enough to inform Bishop Burnet that he knew enough English "to receive his orders in that tongue"; yet, for him Aberdeen University remained _l'universite d'Abredon_.[69]

The teachers of French in England were almost men of letters, the number and variety of books they wrote showing how vigorously they wielded the pen. We may remember here Bernard Andre of Toulouse, who taught Henry VIII.

French, Nicolas Bourbon, a friend of Rabelais, Nicolas Denisot, French master to Somerset's daughters. Then came Saint-Lien, whose productions would fill a library,[70] James Bellot,[71] Pierre Erondel,[72] Charles Maupas,[73] Paul Cougneau.[74]

After the Restoration may be noted Claude Mauger,[75] Guy Miege,[76] Paul Festeau, "maitre de langues a Londres,"[77] d'Abadie,[78] Pierre Berault, "chapelain de la marine britannique." "If," wrote the latter in his quaint _Nosegay or Miscellany of Several Divine Truths_ (1685), "any gentleman or gentlewoman hath a mind to learn French or Latin, the author will wait upon them; he lives in Compton Street, in Soo-Hoo Fields, four doors of the Myter." These men spread the taste of French manners and French books. One of the more obscure among them, Denis, a schoolmaster at Chester, taught Brereton, the future translator of Racine.

The most unpardonable ignorance was that of most of the travellers. Under Etienne Perlin's pen (1558) Cambridge and Oxford are trans.m.u.ted into _Cambruche_ and _Auxonne_; Dartford becomes _Datford_ with Coulon (1654); Payen calls the English coins _crhon_, _toupens_, _farden_ (1666); even sagacious Misson prefers the phonetic form _coacres_ (quakers) and _coacresses_ (quakeresses) (1698). Sorbiere travelled about England, meeting some eminent men of the time, without knowing a word of English.[79] They have for excuse their extraordinary blindness. Thus Coulon does not hesitate to deliver his opinions on the English language, which he calls "a mixture of German and French, though it is thought that it was formerly the German language in its integrity." As for Le Pays, he candidly owns that he would have found London quite to his taste if the inhabitants had all spoken French (1672).

If the travellers, like the amba.s.sadors, were content to glance contemptuously at the strange country, the Huguenots, who were compelled by fate or the royal edicts to live in England, showed more curiosity. On those foreign colonies of London and the southern ports we now possess accurate information.

Let us leave aside Shakespeare's Huguenot friends;[80] we have the evidence of Bochart, minister at Rouen; the Huguenot settlers in England in the first half of the seventeenth century would learn English, attend church services, and receive communion at the hands of the bishops.[81] The earliest translations of English works came from Huguenot pens. In August 1603, Pierre De l'Estoile, the French Evelyn, records how "Du Carroy and his son, together with P. Lebret, were released from prison, where they were confined for printing in Paris the _Confession of the King of England_ (a pamphlet by James I. setting forth his Anglican faith); whence they should have been liberated only to be hanged but for the English amba.s.sador's intercession; so distasteful to the people was that confession, in which ma.s.s was termed an abomination."[82]

A glance at the _Nouvelles ordinaires de Londres_, the weekly French gazette published in French during the Commonwealth and the Protectorate,[83] will convince any one that the editor knew English well: in those pages there are no traces of "coacres" for "quakers." Proper names are always spelt correctly, be they ever so numerous. The readers know both languages, otherwise what use would there be to advertise in the gazette a recently-published devotional English work?[84] However, they could not be expected to help their countrymen to read Shakespeare, for they felt the Puritan's dislike for the stage; witness the satisfaction with which is recorded the arrest by Cromwell's musketeers of a company of players "at the Red Bull in St. John's Street."[85]

If the translation of _Eikon Basilike_ was due to Porree and Cailloue, both Huguenots, Milton's reply was translated by a pupil of the Huguenot Academy of Sedan, the Scotsman John Dury.

After the Restoration, the information is still more abundant. In 1662, Mauger writes that "he has seen many Frenchmen in London, able to speak English well."[86] Translations become more plentiful, as the _Term Catalogues_ testify. Then there are precise facts: for instance, the first time Evelyn met Allix, the pastor at Charenton, Allix spoke Latin, in order to be understood by Archbishop Sancroft.[87] Three years later, Allix, now an English divine, was able to publish a book in English. M. de Luzancy, an ex-Carmelite, fled to England and abjured the Catholic faith at the Savoy in 1675. Becoming minister at Harwich, he had occasion to write to Pepys, and accordingly penned some excellent English. Another refugee, Francois de la Motte, was sent to Oxford by Secretary Williamson. A few months later, he was reported as able "to p.r.o.nounce English better than many strangers who preach there," and, to show that he had not wasted his time, he wrote his benefactor a letter in English, preserved in the Record Office.[88] The quarrel that broke out in 1682 between French artisans living in Soho gave some humble Huguenot the opportunity of proving his knowledge of English.[89] When Saint-Evremond wished to read Asgill the deist's works, he had recourse to his friend Silvestre. Born in Tonneins, in South-Western France, in 1662, Silvestre had studied medicine at Montpellier, then went to Holland, and settled in London in 1688; "the King wished to send him to Flanders, to be an army-surgeon, but he preferred to stay in London, where he had many friends."[90]

After the Revolution, the number of Huguenots in England was so considerable that many of them became English authors: it is enough to quote the names of Guy Miege, Motteux, and Maittaire. But we now come to the eve of the eighteenth century when England and France, as in the Middle Ages, were brought into close touch. "Whereas foreigners," wrote Miege in 1691, "used to slight English as an insular speech, not worth their taking notice, they are at present great admirers of it."[91]

The merchants had to know English even as the refugees. While the French gentlemen at Court had no need to mix with the middle or lower cla.s.ses, the merchants often had to see in person their English buyers. During the sixteenth century, simple grammars and lists of words were available. The Flanders merchants might learn from Gabriel Meurier, teacher of English in Antwerp, the author of a text-book printed at Rouen in 1563. Pierre De l'Estoile mentions in 1609 one Tourval, an "interpreter of foreign languages," then living in Paris;[92] none other, most probably, than the Loiseau de Tourval who contributed to Cotgrave's famous Dictionary. In 1622, a Paris printer issued _La Grammaire angloise de George Mason, marchand de Londres_.[93] Three years later appeared _L'alphabet anglois, contenant la p.r.o.nonciation des lettres avec les declinaisons et les conjugaisons_, and _La grammaire angloise, pour facilement et promptement apprendre la langue angloise_. These publications must have found readers.

Information on the French merchants in England is scanty. They did not care to draw attention upon business transactions which a sudden declaration of war might at any time render illicit. But something is known about the printers.

About 1488, Richard Pynson, a native of Normandy and a pupil of the Paris University, settled in England. He became printer to Henry VII. and published some French translations. From the few extant specimens we may conclude that Pynson hardly knew how to write English. But he was the first of a line of French printers in England, the most famous of whom were Thomas Berthelet and the Huguenot Thomas Vautrollier.

As in 1912 an English firm print in England for sale on the Continent our French authors, so in 1503 Antoine Verard, a Paris printer, published English books. When Coverdale had finished his translation of the Bible, he carried the ma.n.u.script over to France and entrusted it to Francois Regnault. This printer seems to have been an enterprising man, having in London an agency for the sale of the English books that he set up in type in Paris. The printing of the "Great Bible" was a lengthy task. In spite of the French king and the English amba.s.sador Bonner, Regnault got into trouble with the authorities and the clergy. The "lieutenant-criminel"

seized the sheets, but, instead of having them burnt by the hangman, as it was his duty to do, the greedy official sold them to a mercer who restored them to Regnault for a consideration. In the meantime presses and type and even workmen had been hurried to London, where the work was completed (1539). Nor must the provincial printers be forgotten, thus from 1516 to 1533 almost the whole York book-trade was in the hands of the Frenchman Jean Gachet.[94] Many books sold by English booksellers came from the presses of Goupil of Rouen or Regnault of Paris.

The tradition of French printers in England was continued in the following century by Du Gard, the printer of certain Milton pamphlets and of the _Nouvelles ordinaires de Londres_, and Bureau, "marchand libraire dans le Middle Exchange, dans le Strand," most obnoxious to the French amba.s.sador because a determined opponent of the French Court.

About French artisans and servants the information is, of course, of the most meagre description. There are merely allusions by the contemporary playwrights to the French dancing-master, fencer, or sweep, equally unable to p.r.o.nounce English correctly, to the great merriment of the "groundlings."[95] However, a French valet, Jean Abbadie, who served many n.o.blemen at the close of the seventeenth century, took the trouble to learn and could even write English.[96]