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 Basiliké, 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 assumed the title 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 entitled 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 assert 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 Bibliothèque 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 Basiliké. 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, entitled Defensio pro se), having passed 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 assailed upon mistaking him for the author of the Clamor sanguinis regii ad cœlum, which had been published at the Hague in 1652. The book was by Peter Du Moulin. More replied by a defence entitled 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 Bibliothèque 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 (entitled 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 connétable, 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.
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 lustre 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 passion 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 unimpassioned 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.
Such sufferings and trials were not enough: impossible to read even now without some emotion the bare paragraph in which Du Gard, with official coldness and hard-heartedness, tells about the death of little Princess Elizabeth.
"Princess Elizabeth Stuart, daughter to the late King, who you know was brought together with her brother[278] to the Isle of Wight, having got overheated while playing at bowls and drenched afterwards by an unexpected fall of rain, took cold, being moreover of a weak and sickly health, and fell ill of a bad headache and fever, which increasing, she was obliged to be abed where she died on December 8th inst., though carefully attended by Mr. Mayerne, chief physician to her late Father" (September 1650, p. 41).
But the triumphs of the Parliament extend to enemies abroad; Portugal and Holland are both humbled, Barbadoes and Jamaica forced to surrender. Du Gard remained true to his promise. All Europe might peruse the famous letter, "des généraux de l'armée navale du Parlement et de la République d'Angleterre au très honorable Guil. Lenthal ecuier, orateur dudit Parlement, écrite à bord du navire le Triomfe en la baie dite de Stoake," and signed: Robert Blake, Richard Deane, George Monck. Sprung from the ranks of the people, those revolutionists used, when occasion needed, the language of patricians. "M. Bourdeaux (the French envoy) having delivered a copy of the letters accrediting him and subscribed: To our very dear and good friends, the people of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, it was directed to be returned, for all addresses should be subscribed: To the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England" (p. 513).
Such patriotic pride must move the writer of the Nouvelles ordinaires. So in one of his very few outbursts of humour he exclaims: "The King of Portugal being unable to do us harm, had tried to frighten us, but being unable to do either, on the contrary showing the most egregious cowardice and poltroonery as ever was seen, without the slightest regard for his reputation, has tried to conceal his shame by a lying account, signed by himself; if the said King thinks he has seen what he has written, it must be said that his spectacles were set awry" (p. 45).
Religious intelligence takes up a great space in the Nouvelles ordinaires. The readers are not spared a single proclamation about days of fasting and repentance; lengthy abstracts are duly given of the sermons preached at the Abbey or St. Margaret's; nor are the wordy resolutions of the several committees on religious affairs omitted. The quakers are often spoken about. The first risings of the sect are set forth with the kind of minuteness that appeals to a modern historian. They are "evil-disposed and melancholy people" (gens malfaits et mélancoliques); most pestilent and persevering proselytisers, with an inordinate appetite for martyrdom, they appear at the same time in the most unexpected quarters; driven from Boston, they cause a holy panic in Hamburgh and Bordeaux (p. 1375). Their leader, or at any rate "the chief pillar of that frenzied sect," is named George Fox. "Many think the said Fox is a popish priest, there being several of that garb among the said quakers, and what makes the opinion plausible is that he is strong for popish and arminian tenets, such, for instance, as salvation by good works." (p. 981).
With the exception of the poor Piedmont Waldenses, who had found a strenuous protector in Cromwell, the foreign Protestants interest but little the editor of the Nouvelles ordinaires: he was probably afraid of offending those in high places by more than casually alluding to the Huguenots who had shown themselves vehemently opposed to independency. Thus it would be difficult to find a more explicit piece of news than the following: "Letters from Paris say that of late divers outrages have been committed on the Reformed, under frivolous pretences quite contrary to their privileges, especially at La Rochelle, Metz, Amiens, Langres.... Local quarrels breaking out daily in divers places on the score of religion, together with the massacres of Protestants in Piedmont, make it feared lest there be a universal hidden design of the Papists to endeavour to exterminate all those that make profession of the Reformed religion in all places in the world" (p. 1057).
Mention is made of the French Churches in London. "This week, the members of the French and Walloon Churches in this city have petitioned Parliament to be maintained in the enjoyment of the privileges granted to them of old; which petition being duly read, was referred to the Council of State" (p. 668); and further on: "This week, the ministers of the French Church in this city, and six of the elders of the said Church, together with the Marquis de Cugnac, came to Whitehall to congratulate His Highness" (p. 729).
The Marquis de Cugnac was then in England on behalf of the rebel Prince de Condé, bidding against Cardinal Mazarin's envoys to gain the friendship of Cromwell and the help of the English fleet. Many are the allusions in the Nouvelles ordinaires to the dark intrigues of the Frondeurs. A most characteristic one may be quoted here; in May 1653 the "city of Bordeaux sends four deputies to the Commonwealth, a councillor of Parliament Franquart, a gentleman La Cassagne, a man of the Reformed religion whose name is not stated, and a tin-potter named Taussin; with them have come a herald bearing the arms of England as they were when Guyenne was under English rule, and a trumpeter of the said city" (p. 597).
Many of Du Gard's readers are merchants; for them he prints the resolutions of Parliament concerning the Customs and Excise, the Post Office regulations, the treaties with foreign countries. No sooner is peace proclaimed with Portugal than Du Gard gives information as to sending letters to Lisbon, by means of frigates building at Woolwich (pp. 1326, 1328, 1333). Warnings are issued as to pirates in the Mediterranean or the piratical practices of neutrals: "Letters from Leghorn say that Mr. Longland, an English merchant, having loaded a French ship with a cargo of tin, the captain of the said ship perfidiously gave notice to the Dutch, who forthwith came with two men-of-war and seized it" (p. 562).
Pirates and "sea-rovers" (escumeurs de mer) meet with short mercy at the hands of Du Gard: "We have notice from Leghorn that our ships on the Mediterranean have captured a French ship commanded by Captain Puille, nicknamed the Arch-pirate" (p. 194).
Robbers must be as summarily dealt with, especially Irish robbers: "Lieutenant-General Barry was taken prisoner in Ireland by the Tories and put to death. The Tories are a kind of brigands, of somewhat the same sort as the Italian banditti; they live in marshes, woods, and hills, neither till nor sow the earth, do no work, but live only on thieving and robbery" (p. 15). Fancy Cardinal Mazarin reading about the Tories!
Such is the curious French paper in which Milton's name was mentioned for the first time. Nor should we think the old forgotten publication unworthy to record the rising fame of a future epic poet. Though the style of the Nouvelles ordinaires be as rough and harsh as the manners of Roundheads and Ironsides, it served to tell in Paris and Brussels and Amsterdam of lofty thoughts and splendid deeds. The utterings of a Cromwell still ring with the haughtiness and energy that remind one of Satan's speeches in Paradise Lost.
Du Gard's undertaking was remembered after the Commonwealth. To the Nouvelles ordinaires succeeded, with but a few years' interval, the Gazette de Londres, the French edition to Charles ii.'s London Gazette. The general editor was one Charles Perrot, an Oxford M.A.; the printer, a friend of Thurloe, as Du Gard had been, was called Thomas Newcombe; and the task of writing the French translation was entrusted to one Moranville. Editor, printer, and translator received their inspirations from Secretary Williamson, who, the better to see his directions obeyed, placed Mrs. Andrews, a spy, in the printing-house.
Beginning Feb. 5, 1666 (old style), the Gazette de Londres was issued under the reigns of both Charles ii. and James ii. Numbers are extant dating from William iii. and Queen Anne.
The few numbers of the Gazette that we were enabled to read, appear of much less interest than the Nouvelles ordinaires. Even a newspaper would degenerate in the hands of Charles ii. and his ministers. Here are specimens of the vague colourless political news concerning France and England: "Two of Mons. Colbert's daughters were bestowed—the elder on M. de Chevreuse, son to the Duc de Luynes, the younger on the Count de Saint-Aignan, only son to the Duc of the same name" (No. 13, Dec. 1666). "Mons. de Louvois is ill with a fever" (No. 2248, May 1688). "His Majesty (James ii.) has begun to touch for the King's evil" (No. 1914, March 1684). Such news the Secretary of State thought would neither stir rebellion nor cause diplomatic complications.
The Gazette de Londres appeared twice a week, on Monday and Thursday, was printed on a half-sheet, and cost one penny.
Here is an advertisement that brings one back to the Great Fire: "All that wish to provide this city with timber, bricks, stones, glass, tiles and other material for building houses, are referred to the Committee of the Common Council in Gresham House, London" (No. 12, Dec. 1666). Another may be quoted: "An engineer has brought to this city the model in relief of the splendid Versailles Palace, with gardens and waterworks, the whole being 24 feet long and 18 wide" (No. 2222, Feb. 1687).
To Thomas Newcombe succeeded as printer, in 1688, Edward Jones, who till his death in 1705 published the Gazette, which then passed to his widow, and ultimately to the famous bookseller Tonson.
The French edition met with some mishaps. Volume ix. of the Journals of the House of Commons records a dramatic incident. On 6th Nov. 1676 a member rose in the House to point out the singular discrepancies between the Royal proclamations against the Papists printed in the London Gazette and the French translation in the Gazette de Londres. The terms had been softened down not to cause offence to the French Court.
AT VERSAILLES
After Bonnart
Immediately the House took fire, and summoned Newcombe and Moranville to appear on the very next day. "Mr. Newcombe being called in to give an account of the translation of the Gazette into French, informed the House that he was only concerned in the setting the press, and that he understood not the French tongue! And that Mons. Moranville had been employed in that affair for many years and was only the corrector of it. Mons. Moranville being called in, acknowledged himself guilty of the mistake, but he endeavoured to excuse it, alleging it was through inadvertency."[279]
Assemblies have abundance of energy, but seldom persevere in one course of action: since no more is heard of the case, we may suppose that both delinquents got off at little cost. Moreover, there is nothing very heroical in the Gazette de Londres. Next to the editor of the Nouvelles ordinaires, Moranville sinks into insignificance. He was most probably a refugee reduced by poverty to write for a bookseller. What could an exiled Frenchman do but teach or write French? So Moranville found many to follow his example. As late as Queen Anne's time, French journalists earned a scanty livelihood in London. The Postman was edited in English, mind! by Fonvive; the Postboy by Boyer, whom Swift derisively called a "French dog."[280]
The refugees were but continuators of Théophraste Renaudot, the father of the modern press. The very name of Mercury given to the early English papers, came from France; what wonder then that French journalists should be found in London? Why some should write in French, the forewords to the Nouvelles ordinaires set forth in an illuminating phrase: French was in the seventeenth century "a language that extended and was understood throughout Europe."