GALLOMANIA AFTER THE RESTORATION
The French teachers of London at the time of the Restoration, chief amongst whom were Claude Mauger, Paul Festeau, Pierre Lainé, and Guillaume Herbert, all urged students to travel in France as a means of completing the knowledge of French acquired in England; yet at the same time they naturally and in their own interests lay emphasis on the facilities for learning the language in England, especially after the Restoration, when, to use Mauger's words, there was a little France in London, as well as a little England in Paris; "there being so great a correspondence between the two Courts of England and France that we see here continually the Lords of the latter, as they see at Paris persons of quality of the former, besides an infinity of others going and coming from thence." This indeed was the period in which Francomania reached its height in England. During the Commonwealth the English Court and many of the nobility and gentry had sojourned in France, and returned thence imbued with admiration for everything French. This admiration was intensified by the universal popularity of the French language and French fashions. Gentlemen from all parts of Europe repaired to France to learn the language and "frenchify" their manners. France was the country to which English gentlemen resorted "to get their breeding"; and the Chancellor Clarendon held that their manners were much improved by the contact. On the other hand, French men and women of the same class came to the English Court in larger numbers than ever before. Some returned with their English friends at the Restoration. Others followed later, for the English Court offered more attractions to pleasure-seekers than did the French Court, now under the influence of Madame de Maintenon.
The indignation and dismay aroused in France by the execution of Charles I.[943] made the welcome offered to the royalist emigrants all the warmer in the first instance. We are told that Paris, and indeed all France, was full of loyal fugitives.[944] The exiled English Court was sheltered at the Louvre and the Palais Royal in turn.[945] The queen arrived in her native land in 1644, and shortly afterwards came Prince Charles, then about sixteen years old, and James, the young Duke of York. Mlle. de Montpensier, the grand-daughter of Henry IV., remarks on the French of the two young princes. James, she thought, spoke the language with ease, and very well indeed, and Mademoiselle was no lenient critic.[946] But Charles had not drawn as much profit from the lessons received in England.[947] He found the pronunciation an almost insuperable difficulty, stammered and hesitated, and during the early part of his stay remained almost mute for want of words. Mademoiselle says he could not utter one intelligible sentence in French, though he understood all she said to him. Charles, however, soon felt the benefit of his sojourn abroad. When he returned to France from Holland in 1648, he had already made much progress and answered the French king readily in French, when that monarch inquired about the horses and dogs of the Prince of Orange. He was ready enough to talk of hunting in French, but when the queen wished to know about the progress of his affairs, and to talk of serious matters, he excused himself, declaring he could not speak French.[948] He would also sit silent for long periods in Mlle. de Montpensier's presence, and only ventured to convey his compliments to her through Lord Jermyn, one of the chief counsellors of Charles I., who remained in the service of the queen during her exile in France. But the princess was THE ENGLISH COURT IN FRANCEdelighted to see a great improvement in his speaking of the language at the time of his return from the expedition into Scotland, and the fatal battle of Worcester. He forgot his shyness and spoke French well, relating to her the thrilling story of his escape, and how he was "furieusement ennuyé" in Scotland, where they think it a sin to listen to a violin. He was also able to make the princess very pretty compliments in French, and on these occasions, she remarks, he spoke the language particularly well.[949]
Charles is even said to have gone incognito to several French reformed churches during his stay in France. The presence of Cromwell's ambassador prevented his going to the famous church of Charenton, but he went to others. On one occasion he listened to the sermon in the Protestant church of La Rochelle, in company with the Duke of Ormond, and expressed his satisfaction to one or two of the congregation to whom he revealed his identity.[950]
Many other Englishmen improved their French during their enforced stay on the Continent. Most of the high officials of the Court of Charles I., the courtiers, nobles, and gentlemen round the king, spent the greater part of the interregnum in Paris, although some of them were disturbed by the French understanding with Cromwell in 1656. John Evelyn[951] enumerates most of the distinguished Englishmen he met in France,[952] and remarks on the number of French courtiers who paid their respects to the king (Charles II.); he himself kissed His Majesty's hand at St. Germain's. French courtiers had free intercourse with the English at concerts, festivals, and other entertainments.[953] They also met at the Academies so fashionable at the time. On the 13th March 1650, for instance, Evelyn witnessed a "triumph" in Mr. Del Campo's Academy, where "divers of the French and English noblesse, especially my Lord of Ossory, and Richard, sons to the Marquis of Ormond (afterwards Duke), did their exercises on horseback in noble equipage before a world of spectators and great persons, men and ladies." And again, on the 24th of May, he writes, "we were invited by the Noble Academies to a running, where were many brave horses, gallants and ladies, my Lord Stanhope entertaining us with a collation." The king's brother, the young Duke of Gloucester, set the example by daily attending one of these academies. Sir John Reresby, that time-serving politician, has also left an account of his journey in France during the Commonwealth. On his arrival at Paris in 1654 he saw the king, the Duke of York, and Prince Rupert playing at billiards in the Palais Royal; "but was incognito, it being crime sufficient the waiting upon His Majesty to have caused the sequestration of his estates."[954] Reresby was again in France in 1659, and was well received by Henrietta Maria. Almost alone of the English exiles, Sir Edward Hyde, the Chancellor, who found the discomforts of the exiled Court very great, failed to become a fluent speaker of French, chiefly because he was unable to overcome the difficulties of the pronunciation. After the Restoration he was the one high official of the English Court who did not speak the language with fluency. It was not till the time of his exile in France, after his disgrace in 1668, that he mastered the language sufficiently to read its literature; but he still found "many inconveniences" in speaking it.[955]
Men of letters formed a considerable section of the English colony in France. Waller, Denham, Cowley, Davenant, Hobbes, Killigrew, Shirley, Fanshawe, Crashaw, etc., and later Roscommon, Rochester, Buckingham, Wycherley, Vanbrugh, and others lived in France, and some mixed freely in French literary circles, then centring round the Hôtel de Rambouillet, and such names as those of Malherbe, Vaugelas, Corneille, Bossuet, Scudéry, La Calprenède. English literature of the Restoration gives ample proof of their familiarity with both the language and literature of their hosts.[956] Waller, for instance, after spending some time at Rouen, moved to Paris, where he lived "in great splendour and hospitality."[957] ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS IN FRANCECowley, who had followed the queen to Paris, became secretary to Lord Jermyn, afterwards Earl of St. Albans, and deciphered the letters which passed between the king and queen of England. The dramatist Davenant was twice in France, where he remained several years on his second visit. Hobbes, who for many years acted as a travelling tutor, made his mark in the philosophic circles of Paris, and knew Mersenne, Sorbière, and Gassendi. He fled to Paris during the civil wars, and for a time was engaged in teaching arithmetic to the Prince of Wales.[958]
Among the many children sent to France for education during the Civil War and Commonwealth were several future literary men. Both Vanbrugh and Wycherley were brought up in this way. At the age of fifteen Wycherley was "sent for education to the Western parts of France, either to Saintonges or the Angoumois. His abode there was either upon the Banks of the Charente, or very little remov'd from it. And he had there the Happiness to be in the neighbourhood of one of the most accomplish'd Ladies of the Court of France, Mme. de Montausier, whom Voiture has made famous by several very ingenious letters, the most of which were writ to her when she was a Maid, and call'd Mlle. de Rambouillet. I have heard Mr. Wycherley say he was often admitted to the Conversation of that lady, who us'd to call him the Little Hugenot: and that young as he was, he was equally pleased with the Beauty of her Mind, and with the Graces of her person."[959]
One of the young royalists who received his education in France during the Commonwealth so completely mastered the French language that he gained an important place among French men of letters: the famous Anthony Hamilton, the author of short stories in French[960]—masterpieces in the light vein[961]—and of the well-known life of his gallant brother-in-law, the Comte de Grammont, which gives a vivid picture of the life at the Court of Charles II. Hamilton has been placed second only to Voltaire as a representative of the esprit français.[962]
At the Restoration, Hamilton returned to England with the rest of the English emigrants, together with a considerable number of Frenchmen who had attached themselves to the English Court. He was followed two years later by the hero of his Mémoires,[963] the Comte de Grammont, who pronounced the English Court so like that of France in manners and conversation that he could hardly realize he was in another country.[964] French was the language freely used by the English emigrants on their return to London, and by others in imitation of them. "French is the most in use," wrote William Higford in the year of the Restoration, "a most sweet tongue called the Woman's tongue, and as I think for the address from the servant to the mistress, and from the servant to the soveraigne, there is no sweeter nor more civil."[965] The use of the French language was spreading all over Europe, but nowhere was it so popular as in England: "indeed it is most alamode and best pleases the ladies and we cannot deny but Messieurs of France are excellent wits."[966]
The presence of so many of these messieurs in London intensified the already strong French atmosphere. Several famous names occur in the list of French ladies and gentlemen who took up their abode in England at this time. Shortly before De Grammont, St. Evremond had arrived in England, where he spent over thirty years, and died in 1703. Both played important parts in the social life of the time. De Grammont especially was very popular. FRENCH COURTIERS IN LONDONHe received a warm welcome at Court, where he met many old friends and was overwhelmed with hospitality; to make an engagement with him it was necessary to see him a fortnight beforehand. He himself added to the Court festivities by giving French entertainments in the Parisian style.
At the numerous festivities held in honour of De Grammont, St. Evremond[967] was almost invariably one of the guests. He soon became the centre of a coterie, half English and half French, including his literary companion the Dutchman Vossius, Canon of Windsor, the French doctor Le Fèvre, professor of chemistry to Charles II.,[968] and the learned Huguenot Henri Justel, who had charge of the royal library at St. James's. What contributed most to reconcile St. Evremond to his life in England, however, was the arrival of Hortense Mancini, Duchesse de Mazarin, niece of the cardinal. The French ambassador Courtin said England was the refuge of French wives who had quarrelled with their husbands, and the Duchesse was one of these.[969] In her salon St. Evremond met the most distinguished Englishmen and foreign ministers of the day. He saw her daily, and she inspired much of his best work. There, too, met French Catholics, Huguenots, and Englishmen, free from all religious prejudice, and talked of the subjects which interested them most. Another of Mazarin's nieces, the Duchesse de Bouillon,[970] was also in London for a time, and received in her salon Waller, St. Evremond, and others; at one time there was a possibility of La Fontaine joining her circle. La Fontaine seems to have felt some interest in England and the English, who, he says,
pensent profondément;
Leur esprit, en cela, suit leur tempérament,
Creusant dans les sujets, et forts d'expériences,
Ils étendent partout l'empire des sciences.
To Mrs. Harvey, sister of Lord Montagu and friend of the Duchess of Mazarin, he dedicated his fable Le Renard Anglais.
Both St. Evremond and the Duchess of Mazarin ended their days in England.[971] St. Evremond enjoyed the favour of three English kings. Charles II. gave him a pension, and when William III. dined with one of his courtiers, he is said to have always stipulated that the French writer should be of the party, as he took great delight in his conversation. Though St. Evremond received permission in 1689 to return to his native land, he did not avail himself of the offer, preferring to remain in the midst of his English friends, who were accustomed to his ways and manners and his peculiarities.[972] But during the whole of his thirty years' stay in England he made no attempt to speak English. French was the language in which he and the rest of his countrymen carried on their daily intercourse with their hosts.
Pepys also refers frequently to the Frenchmen he met in London.[973] On one occasion at the Cockpit his attention was diverted from the stage by a group of loquacious Frenchmen in a box, who, not understanding English, were amusing themselves by asking a pretty lady, who knew both languages, what the actors said. "Lord! what sport they made!" says Pepys. On another occasion at Whitehall he met a very communicative Frenchman with one eye, who shared a coach with him, and told him the history of his own life "without asking."
Covent Garden, we are told, was the favourite resort of the French residents, "nearer the Court, than the Exchange."[974] Their presence, however, was not confined to Court circles; for the French were beginning to take an interest in England and to visit the country,[975] although, as yet, their curiosity had not extended to the language. In a few cases English was studied. Mauger even tells us that several of his contemporaries learnt it in France. It is certain that some employed the services of the French teachers of London, who were willing to teach their newly acquired language to their countrymen; for this purpose the practice of attaching English grammars to French ones—a combination first instituted by Mauger, who urged the French and English to FRENCH VALETS AND "FEMMES DE CHAMBRE"avail themselves of this opportunity of exchanging lessons—became more and more common as the seventeenth century drew to its close. In the meanwhile guide-books[976] and relations of travel in England appeared. The writer of one of these, M. Payen,[977] remarks on the great number of strangers, especially Frenchmen, in London.[978] At the time of the Restoration, however, the chief significance of their presence lies in the need they created for the English to speak French.
The great demand for everything French, including the language, offered an opening for many Frenchmen in London; for all the men and women of fashion were not in the position of De Grammont, who sent his valet, Thermes, to France every week to bring back the latest fashions from Paris. "Nothing will go down with the town now," writes a contemporary author, "but French fashions, French dancing, French songs, French servants, French wines, French kickshaws, and now and then French sawce come in among them, and so no doubt but French doctors may be in esteem too."[979] In almost every book written at the time there is some reference to the mania for French fashions. And some time later the Abbé Le Blanc relates how, on one occasion in England, a self-satisfied Englishman taunted him thus: "Il faut que votre pays soit bien pauvre, puisque tant de gens sont obligés de le quitter pour chercher à vivre en celui-ci. C'est vous qui nous fournissez de Maîtres à danser, de Perruquiers, de Tailleurs, et de Valets de chambre: et nous vous devons cette justice, pour la Frisure ou pour le Menuet, les François l'emportent sur toutes les autres Nations. Je ne comprens pas comment on aime si fort la Danse dans un Pays où l'on a si peu sujet de rire. N'est-il pas triste, par exemple, de ne cultiver vos Vignes que pour nous?"[980]
Regarding the French valets and femmes de chambre in London, the Abbé writes: "Il n'est pas étonnant que l'on trouve en Angleterre tant de Domestiques François. A Londres on se plaît à parler notre Langue, on copie nos usages, on imite nos mœurs: ils entretiennent du moins dans nos manières ceux qui les aiment: et les Anglois les payent à proportion de l'utilité qu'ils en retirent."[981] We are told that the French lackey was "as mischievous all the year as a London apprentice on Shrove Tuesday";[982] yet he was indispensable:
His Lordship's Valet must be bred in France,
Or else he is a clown without Pretence:
The English Blockheads are in dress so coarse,
They're fit for nothing but to rub a horse.
Her Ladyship's ill manner'd or ill bred,
Whose Woman Confident or Chamber Maid,
Did not in France suck in her first breath'd Air,
Or did not gain her education there.[983]
French cooks were also in great demand, and it was a point of gentility to dine at one of the French ordinaries. Thus Briske, in Shadwell's Humourists, is condemned as "a fellow that never wore a noble or polite garniture, or a white periwig, one that has not a bit of interest at Chatelin's, or ever ate a good fricacy, sup, or ragoust in his life"; for now, "like the French we dress, like Frenchmen eat." "Substantial beef" is "boil'd in vain," and "our boards are profaned with fricassee":[984]
Our cooks in dressing have no skill at all,
French cooks are only of the modish stamp.
Pepys did not care for the new French restaurants. At the most popular, Chatelin's,[985] he says, they serve a "damned base dinner at the charge of 8s. 6d." He preferred the old English ordinaries where English food was given a French name. Yet he admits that at the French houses the table is covered and the glasses clean, all in the French manner; and when he dined with his patrons of the Admiralty, he usually was given a "fine French dinner."[986]
As to the French dancing-master, he is a "very Paladin THE FRENCH TAILORof France when he comes into England once, where he has the Regimen of the Ladies leges and is the sole Pedagoge of their feet, teaching them the French Language, as well as the French Pace."[987] French music was also the vogue. We are told that during the reign of Charles II. "all musick affected by the beau mond ran in the ffrench way."[988] John Bannester, the first violin to the king, is said to have lost his post[989] for having upheld, within the hearing of His Majesty, that the English musicians were superior to the French. Soon after the Restoration, Charles on one occasion gave great umbrage to the English musicians by making them stop their performance and bidding the French music play instead.
In the same way the French tailor is "the King of Fashions and Emperor of the Mode, not onely in France, but most of its Neighboring Nations, and his Laws are received where the King of France's will not pass";[990] and thus the French
Now give us laws for pantalons,
The length of breeches and the gathers,
Port-cannons, periwigs and feathers.[991]
There was a French peddling woman at Court, Mlle. Le Boord, who "us'd to bring peticoates, and fanns and baubles out of France to the Ladys,"[992] and whose opinion had great weight. De Grammont won the favour of the English ladies by having French trinkets sent them from France. "Let the fashion be French, 'tis no matter what the cloth be."[993] Travellers from France were beset with questions as to the latest mode. Some devotees were said to receive weekly letters from France providing information on this subject.[994] At one moment Charles protested against the rage for French fashions by adopting a simple garment after the Persian style, which was first worn at Court on the 18th October 1666. Divers gentlemen went so far as to wager that His Majesty would not persist in this change; and when Louis XIV. retorted by ordering his pages to be attired in the same Persian garb, Charles withdrew. "It was a comely and manly attire," writes Evelyn, "too good to hold, it being impossible for us in good earnest to leave the Monsieurs' vanities long."[995]
Francomania indeed was carried to extremes:
And as some pupils have been known
In time to put their tutors down,
So ours are often found t'ave got
More tricks than ever they were taught.[996]
We are told of an "English captain that threw up his commission because his company would not exercise after the French Discipline."[997] Dryden even accuses the French of influencing the course of English politics:[998]
The Holy League
Begot our Cov'nant; Guisards got Whig,
Whate'er our hot-brain'd sheriffs did advance,
Was like our fashions, first produced in France,
And when worn out, well scourg'd and bannish'd there.
Sent over, like their godly Beggars, here.
A French patent was said to authorize any crime.[999] "Now what a Devil 'tis should make us so dote on these French," says Flecknoe,[1000] and another writer adds:[1001]
Our native speech we must forget e'er long
To learn the French that much more modish Tongue.
Their language smoother is, hath pretty Aires,
But ours is Gothick if compar'd with theirs.
The French by arts of smooth insinuation
Are now become the Darlings of the Nation.
FRENCH SPOKEN AT COURT The example was set at Court, where French was commonly in use, and where to be able to speak it well was a necessity and proof of good breeding. "Mark then, I makes 'em both speak French to show their breeding," says the author Boyes of his two kings in Buckingham's Rehearsal.[1002] Sir John Reresby first attracted notice at Court by his fluent French. "It was this summer," he writes in 1661, "that the Duke of York first took any particular notice of me. I happened to be in discourse with the French Ambassador and some other gentlemen of his nation, in the presence at Whitehall, and the Duke joined us, he being a great lover of the French tongue and kind to those who spoke it. The next night he talked with me a long while as he was at supper with the king."[1003] And Reresby, with a keen eye for his own advancement, took advantage of this to secure the patronage of the Duke. He also tells us that the King, Duke, and French ambassador were very often merry and intimate together at Louise de Kerouaille's (now Duchess of Portsmouth) lodgings,[1004] where French alone would be used, for it was an unknown thing for a French ambassador to speak English. There was not a courtier[1005] who did not speak French with ease, Clarendon alone excepted.
The ladies of the Court were equally well versed in the language. When De Grammont, who had made the acquaintance of most of the courtiers in France, came to make that of the ladies, he needed no interpreter, for all knew French—"assez pour s'expliquer et toutes entendaient le françois assez bien pour ce qu'on avait à leur dire."[1006] Amongst them was Miss Hamilton, Anthony's sister, who became De Grammont's wife,[1007] and was much admired at the Court of Louis XIV. The accomplishments of Miss Stuart may be quoted as typical of the rest: "elle avoit de la grâce, dansoit bien, parloit françois mieux que sa langue naturelle: elle étoit polie, possédoit cet air de parure après lequel on court et qu'on n'attrappe guères à moins de l'avoir pris en France dès sa jeunesse."[1008] The least gifted lady of the Court was Miss Blake, who "n'entendoit presque point le françois." When the Countess of Berkshire recommended one of her near relatives as one of the queen's dressers, the fact that she had been twelve years in France, and could speak French exceedingly well, was mentioned as her chief qualification.[1009] The Portuguese queen[1010] was indeed out of place in her Frenchified Court. She could not speak French, and Spanish was her means of intercourse with Charles II. and the Duke of York, who both spoke this language fairly well, and were able to act as interpreters between their French mother and the young queen. Catherine's Portuguese attire was the subject of much amusement, and her efforts to induce the ladies of the Court to adopt it were of no avail. James II., when he was an exile in France for the second time, told the nuns of Chaillot that she had endeavoured to prevail on King Charles to use his influence with them: "but the ladies dressed in the French fashions and would not hear of any other, constantly sending artificers and dressmakers to Paris to import the newest modes, as they do to this very day."[1011] The country ladies caught the fashion as it was going out in London.[1012]
In many cases the passion for all things French became a mania with the ladies, as is frequently pictured in the drama of the time.[1013] A Frenchified lady would have a French maid, "born and bred in France, who could speak English but brokenly," with whom she would talk a mixture of broken French and English; while many a one like Melantha of Dryden's Marriage à-la-mode,[1014] doted on any new French word: "as fast as any bullion comes out of France, she coins it into English, and runs mad in new French words."[1015] THE FRENCHIFIED LADYShe importunes those returned from the tour in France, or who have correspondence with Parisians, to know the latest words used in Paris. Her maid supplies her daily with a store of French words:
Melantha. ... You sot you, come produce your Morning's work.... O, my Venus! 14 or 15 words to serve me a whole day! Let me die, at this rate I cannot last till night! Come read your words....
Philotis. Sottises.
Melantha. Sottises, bon. That's an excellent word to begin withal: as for example, he or she said a thousand sottises to me. Proceed.
Philotis. Figure: as what a Figure of a man is there! Naïve and Naïveté.
Melantha. Naïve! as how?
Philotis. Speaking of a thing that was naturally said: it was so naïve. Or such an innocent piece of simplicity: 'twas such a Naïveté.
And as Melantha becomes excited with her new acquisitions, she bestows gifts on her maid at each new word.
A new catechism[1016] for the ladies was invented on these lines:
—Of what Nation are you?
—English by birth: my education à la mode de France.
—Who confirms you?
—Mademoiselle the French Mantua maker.
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 à 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 françoise 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 pronounced it "not very good." Many, no doubt, had to be content "t' adorn their English with French scraps."
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 scraps 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 button;[1021] and Sir Novelty Fashion, who prefers the title 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. Sir Fopling is "a fine undertaking French fop, arrived piping hot from Paris," bent on imitating THE ENGLISH "MONSIEUR"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 à la mode to be
Attended by a young petit garçon
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 divertissement 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 à 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 à 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 petit-maître,—at no better place, however, than a table d'Auberge, the Abbé Le Blanc tells us:[1032] "Il faut lui pardonner ses erreurs sur ses modèles, il n'étoit à portée d'en voir d'autres: si même il n'a pas aussi bien imité ceux-ci que les Anglois se le sont persuadé, je n'en suis pas surpris: il m'a avoué de bonne foi qu'il n'entend pas assez notre langue pour suivre la conversation." It is unlikely, however, that Cibber's French was as scanty as the abbé 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, basset: your vin, your dress, your dance,
'Tis all, you zee, tout à-la-mode de France.
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 bloody bills, call you each day,
To laugh and break your buttons 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 Cockpit 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, Duchess of Portsmouth, Mme. Mazarin, the French ambassador, 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 comédiens de son Altesse sérénissime M. le Prince.