The Teaching and Cultivation of the French Language in England during Tudor and Stuart Times / With an Introductory Chapter on the Preceding Period

by K. Rebillon Lambley

THE STUDY OF FRENCH BY ENGLISH TRAVELLERS ABROAD

One of the favourite methods of learning French was a sojourn in France. To speak the language well a visit there was considered imperative, and to speak it "as one who had never been out of England"[564] was synonymous with speaking it badly. Consequently a journey to France was common among the young gentry and nobility of the time. Moreover, those who pursued their travels further, and undertook the Grand Tour as many gentlemen did on leaving the university, invariably visited France first, and spent the greater part of their time there. Eighteen months in France, nine or ten in Italy, five in Germany and the Low Countries, was considered a suitable division of a three years' tour. Most young Englishmen of family and fortune spent some time on the Continent. Sir Francis Walsingham, said by one of his contemporaries to have been the most accomplished linguist of his day,[565] had acquired his proficiency abroad, as had also Lord Burghley, who wrote to Walsingham from France in 1583 to report on his progress in the language.[566] Both ministers in their turn were patrons to numerous young travellers in France. A certain Charles Danvers wrote to Walsingham from Paris, in French, to show his progress and thank him for his favours.[567] And Burghley gave one Andrew Bussy a monthly allowance of £5 to enable him to study French at Orleans, where, according to his own account, he took great pains to make good progress so as to serve his patron the better on his return.[568] It was generally held that travel was "useful to useful men,"[569] and that "peregrination" well used was "a very profitable school, a running Academy."[570]

Many young English gentlemen went to the French Court in the train of an ambassador,[571] or with a private tutor;[572] Henry VIII. sent his natural son, the Duke of Richmond, Palsgrave's pupil, to the French Court, in the care of Lord Surrey the poet. Richard Carew, the friend of Camden, was sent to France with Sir Henry Nevill, ambassador to Henri IV., and Bacon visited Paris in his early youth in the suite of the diplomat Lord Poulet. The last-mentioned ambassador had several young Englishmen in his charge. Of few, however, could he make so favourable a report as he did of the son of Sir George Speake: "I am not unacquainted with your son's doings in Parris," he wrote to Sir George, "and cannot comend him inoughe unto you aswell for his dilligence in study as for his honest and quiett behaviour." One of these young travellers, a Mr. Throckmorton, he was particularly glad to be rid of; the young man "got the French tongue in good perfection," we are informed, but he was of flippant humour, and before he left for England, Poulet told him his mind freely, and forbade him to travel to Italy, as he intended to do later, without the company of "an honest and wyse man." The ambassador had kept him and his man in food during the whole of his stay in Paris, and, besides, provided him with a horse, which he had also "kept att his chardges."[573]

Children too were often sent abroad for education. Thomas Morrice, in his Apology for Schoolmasters (1619), commends "the ancient and laudable custom of sending children abroad when they can understand Latin perfectly"; for then they learn the romance languages all the more easily, "because the Italian, French and Spanish borrow very many words of the said Latin, albeit they do chip, chop and change divers letters and syllables therein." ENGLISH GENTRY AT THE FRENCH COURTAnd Thomas Peacham[574] tells us in the early seventeenth century that as soon as a child shows any wildness or unruliness, he is sent either to the Court to act as a page or to France, and sometimes to Italy. The number of English children in France was, we may assume, considerable; and when the news of the terrible massacre of St. Bartholomew reached England, one of its most noticeable effects was to fill with concern and apprehension all parents who had children in France. "How fearfull and carefull the mothers and parents that be here be of such yong gentlemen as be there, you may easely ges," wrote Elizabeth's secretary of state to Sir Francis Walsingham, the English ambassador at Paris.[575] Among these "yong gentlemen" was Sir Philip Sidney, then newly arrived at the French Court, whom Walsingham himself sheltered in the ambassador's quarters during that awful night.

James Basset, the son of Lord Lisle, deputy at Calais for Henry VIII., was sent to Paris in the autumn of 1536 to complete his education, after having been for some time in the charge of a tutor in England. There he went to school with a French priest, whom he soon left for the College of Navarre. He appears to have attended the college daily, and boarded with one Guillaume le Gras, who, in June 1537, wrote to Lady Lisle that her son would soon be able to speak French better than English. "I think when he goes to see you," writes the Frenchman to her ladyship who did not understand French, "he will need an interpreter to speak to you." James himself wrote to tell his mother how he was progressing "at the large and beautiful college of Navarre, with Pierre du Val his Master and Preceptor."[576] The following letter[577] giving details on the course pursued by a young English gentleman studying French in Paris may no doubt be taken as fairly typical. "In the forenoone ... two hours he spends in French, one in reading, the other in rendryng to his teacher some part of a Latin author by word of mouth.... In the afternoon ... he retires himself into his chamber, and there employs two other hours in reading over some Latin author; which done, he translates some little part of it into French, leaving his faults to be corrected the morrow following by his teacher. After supper we take a brief survey of all.... M. Ballendine [apparently the teacher] hath commended unto us Paulus Aemilius in French, who writeth the history of the country. His counsell we mean to follow."

Girls also were occasionally sent to France for purposes of education. Two of James Basset's young sisters, Anne and Mary, spent some time in that country. To prevent their hindering each other's progress, Anne was committed to the care of a M. and Mme. de Ryon, at Pont de Remy, while Mary was sent to Abbeville to a M. and Mme. de Bours. Both girls wrote letters in French to their mother, Lady Lisle, and it appears that they had almost forgotten their mother tongue. When Anne returned to England, where she became maid of honour to Jane Seymour, she had to apologize to her mother for not being able to write in English, "for surely where your Ladyship doth think that I can write English, in very deed I cannot, but that little that I can write is French,"[578] and Mary wrote to her sister Philippa in French expressing her wish to spend an hour with her every day in order to teach her to speak French. In France the two sisters acquired, besides French, the usual accomplishments befitting their sex—needlework, and playing on the lute and virginals.[579]

The traveller Fynes Moryson did not unreservedly approve of the custom of sending children "of unripe yeeres" to France; "howsoever they are more to be excused who send them with discreet Tutors to guide them with whose eyes and judgments they may see and observe.... Children like Parrots soone learne forraigne languages and sooner forget the same, yea, and their mother tongue also." He relates how a familiar friend of his "lately sent his sonne to Paris, who, after two yeeres returning home, refused to aske his father's blessing after the manner of England, saying ce n'est pas la mode de France."[580] Milton in the same vein deplores the fact that his compatriots have "need of the monsieurs of Paris to take their hopeful youth into their slight and prodigal custodies and send them over back again transformed into mimics, apes and kickshows."[581] ENGLISH CHILDREN IN FRANCE"My countrymen in England," wrote Sir Amias Poulet from Paris in 1577, "would doe God and theire countreye good service if either they woulde provide scolemasters for theire children at home, or else they woulde take better order of their educacion here, where they are infected with all sortes [of] pollucions bothe ghostly and bodylie and find manie willinge scolemasters to teache theme to be badd subiects."[582]

Nor were such sentiments confined to individual cases. Queen Elizabeth was constantly making inquiries concerning her subjects beyond the seas generally, often for political reasons or on account of her Protestant fears of popery. She found "noe small inconvenience to growe into the realm" by the number of children living abroad "under colour of learning the languages." In 1595 she ordered a list of such "children" to be sent to her with the names of their parents or guardians and tutors,[583] and there were frequent examinations of subjects suspected of desiring to go abroad; in 1595 the Mayor of Chester writes to Burghley to know what he is to do with two boys, aged fifteen and seventeen, who have been brought before him on suspicion of intending to travel into France to learn the language, and thence into Spain.

The objections raised against the journey to France were few, however, in comparison with those alleged as regards Italy. Italy held a place second only to France in the Grand Tour on the Continent, and in the early sixteenth century the first enthusiasm awakened by the Renaissance attracted many Englishmen there. Scholars, such as Linacre and Colet, set the example. Then others, including most literary men of the time, made their way as pilgrims to the centre of the revived learning, passing through France on their way.[584] Soon the journey became largely a matter of fashion. This rapid development of the custom of continental travel was looked upon as a danger in matters political and religious; popish plots were suspected and foreign intrigues of all kinds feared. In Elizabeth's time leave "to resort beyond seas for his better increase in learning, and his knowledge of foreign languages"[585] was not freely granted to any who might apply. Lord Burghley would often summon before him applicants for licences to travel, and look carefully into their knowledge of their own country,[586] and if this proved insufficient, would advise them to improve it before attempting to study other countries.[587]

Voluble were the protests against foreign travel which were made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. France and above all Italy were made responsible for all the vices of the English. It was urged that trade and state negotiations were the only adequate reasons for travel abroad. "We are moted in an Island, because Providence intended us to be shut off from other regions," Bishop Joseph Hall affirms, in his Quo Vadis: a juste censure of travel as it is commonly undertaken by gentlemen of our own nation (1617). So strong were the prejudices of some of these critics that the grandfather of the royalist Sir Arthur Capell wrote—in 1622—a pamphlet containing Reasons against the travellinge of my grandchylde Arthur Capell into the parts beyond the sea, in which he draws an alarming picture of the dangers of infection from popery, and seeks to prove that the time could be much better spent at home.[588] The chronicler Harrison went so far as to assert that the custom would prove the ruin of England.[589] And even the courtly Lyly could write: "Let not your mindes be carried away with vaine delights, as travailing into farre and straunge countries, wher you shall see more wickednesse then learn virtue and wit."[590]

But it was Italy much more than France that excited the fears of these alarmists. There was a common saying at the time that an Englishman Italianate was a devil incarnate. "I was once in Italy myself," wrote Roger Ascham,[591] "but I thank God my abode there was but nine dayes"—in which he saw more wickedness than he had beheld during nine years in London. "Suffer not thy sons to pass the Alpes, for they shall learn nothing there but Pride, Blasphemy and Atheism; PROTESTS AGAINST FOREIGN TRAVELand if by travelling they get a few broken Languages, that will profit them no more than to have the same meat served in divers dishes," was the advice of Lord Burghley.[592] Many were the precautions taken to prevent English subjects from travelling to Rome of all places. Travellers who were suspected of such intentions or who had travelled abroad without permission were rigorously examined. One such traveller confessed that he went to Brittany and France to see the countries and learn the language, but swore he had never been to Rome or spoken to the papist Cardinal Allen.[593] Many passports issued for the Grand Tour stipulated specifically that the traveller should not repair to Rome.[594]

George Carleton gave expression to the general feeling when he wrote to his brother Dudley, afterwards Lord Dorchester: "I like your going to France much better than if you had gone to Italy."[595] "France is above all most needful for us to mark," was the advice Sir Philip Sidney sent to his brother Robert on his travels.[596] Sir John Eliot gave similar injunctions to his sons.[597] France was, he said, a country full of noble instincts and versatile energy; and what his own experience had been, he recommended his sons to profit by. Some friend had warned them of possible dangers in France. Heed them not, says Eliot; any hazard or adventure in France they will find repaid by such advantages of knowledge and experience as observation of the existing troubles there is sure to convey. But he will not allow them even to enter Spain; and the Italian territories of the Church they must avoid as dangerous: "stagnant and deadly are the waters in the region of Rome, not clear and flowing for the health-seeking energies of man." He thought, however, that some parts of Italy might be visited with profit. To attempt to learn the Italian language before some knowledge of French had been acquired, was not discreet. "Besides it being less pleasant and more difficult to talk Italian first," he writes, "it was leaving the more necessary acquirement to be gained when there was, perchance, less leisure for it. Whereas by attaining some perfection in French, and then moving onward, what might be lost in Italy of the first acquirement, would be regained in France as their steps turned homeward."

Not only were fears of Roman Catholicism and corrupt manners directed more specifically toward Italy than France, but the French language was considered a much more necessary acquirement than Italian. It was generally agreed that the country most requisite for the English to know was France, "in regard of neighbourhood, of conformity in Government in divers things and necessary intelligence of State."[598]. "French is the most useful of languages—the richest lading of the traveller next to experience—Italian and Spanish not being so fruitful in learning," remarks Francis Osborne in his Advice to a Son.[599]

Thus the main object of study of the traveller in France was usually the language itself, and next to that the polite accomplishments. Those who continued their travels into Italy were attracted chiefly by the country and its antiquities. When Addison was in France, after a short stay in Paris in 1699[600] he settled for nearly a year at Blois to learn the language, living in great seclusion, studying, and seeing no one but his teachers, who would sup with him regularly. In 1700 he returned to Paris, qualified to converse with Boileau and Malebranche. But he spent his time in Italy very differently, living in fancy with the old Latin poets, taking Horace as his guide from Naples to Rome, and Virgil on the return journey: there was no question of settling down in a quiet town to study Italian. The experience of Lord Herbert of Cherbury at the end of the sixteenth century and of Evelyn in the middle of the seventeenth was of a similar nature. Though travellers continued to include Italy in their tour, the feeling in favour of France became stronger and stronger. It reached its climax in the latter half of the seventeenth century, when Clarendon wrote: "What parts soever we propose to visit, to which our curiosity usually invites us, we can hardly avoid the setting our feet first in France." And he invites travellers, on returning there after visiting Italy, THE TRAVELLING TUTORto stay in Paris a year to "unlearn the dark and affected reservation of Italy." As for Germany, he thinks they have need to remain two years in France that they may entirely forget that they were ever in Germany![601]

The sons of gentlemen setting out on the Grand Tour were usually accompanied by a governor or tutor,[602] and the need for such a guide was generally recognized by writers on travel; all urge the necessity of his being acquainted with the languages and customs of the countries to be visited. "That young men should Travaile under some Tutor or grave Servant, I allow well: so that he be such a one that hath the language and hath been in the Countrey before," wrote Bacon. And if any one was not able or did not wish to "be at the charges of keeping a Governor abroad" with his son, he was advised[603] to "join with one or two more to help to bear the charges: or else to send with him one well qualified to carry him over and settle him in one place or other of France, or of other Countries, to be there with him 2 or 3 months, leave him there after he hath set him in a good way, and then come home." We also gather from Gailhard's The Compleat Gentleman that it was "a custom with many in England to order Travelling to their sons, as Emetick Wine is by the Physician prescribed to the Patient, that is when they know not what else to do, and when schools, Universities, Inns of Court, and every other way hath been tried to no purpose: then that nature which could not be tamed in none of these places, is given to be minded by a Gouvernor, with many a woe to him."[604]

The suitable age for the Grand Tour, as distinct from the shorter journey in France, was the subject of much discussion. It was usually undertaken between the ages of sixteen and twenty, and occupied from three to five years. Some, and among them Locke,[605] agreed with Gailhard in thinking that travel should not come at the end. They argued that languages were more easily learnt at an earlier age, and that children were then less difficult to manage. Others, regarding travel as a necessary evil,[606] held that, at a later age, travellers are less receptive of evil influences and the snares of popery. This was the current opinion.

In many cases, especially in later times, the travelling tutor was a Frenchman. Many Englishmen, however, found in this capacity an opportunity for travel which they might not otherwise have had. For example, Ben Jonson visited Paris in 1613 as tutor to the son of Sir Walter Raleigh, and became better known there as a reveller than as a poet.[607] In the same way Ben Jonson's friend, the poet Aurilian Townsend, accompanied Lord Herbert of Cherbury on his foreign tour in 1608, and was of much help to him on account of his fluent knowledge of French, Italian, and Spanish.[608] The time-serving politician Sir John Reresby travelled with a Mr. Leech, a divine and Fellow of Cambridge.[609] And the philosopher Thomas Hobbes spent as travelling tutor in the Cavendish family many years which he calls the happiest time of his life. He visited France, Germany, and Italy. For a time he left the Cavendishes to act as tutor to the son of Sir Gervase Clifton, with whom he remained eighteen months in Paris. It was while travelling with his pupils that Hobbes became known in the philosophic circles of Paris.[610] Addison was offered a salary of £100 to be tutor to the Duke of Somerset, who desired him "to be more of a companion than a Governor," but did not accept the offer.[611] In some cases the travelling tutor had several pupils. Thus Mr. Cordell, the friend of Sir Ralph Verney, was tutor to a party of Englishmen.[612]

On the other hand, Sir Philip Sidney travelled without a governor. At Frankfort, in the house of the Protestant BOOKS ON TRAVELprinter Andreas Wechel, he began his life-long friendship with the Huguenot scholar Hubert Languet, who, to some degree, supplied his needs. Languet, however, expresses his regret that Sidney had no governor, and when the young Englishman continued his journey into Italy they kept up a correspondence, in the course of which Languet sent Sidney much good advice. At his instigation Sidney practised his French and Latin by translating some of Cicero's letters into French, then from French into English, and finally back into Latin again, "by a sort of perpetual motion."[613] John Evelyn the diarist also travelled without a governor, while the eldest son of Lord Halifax first made the Grand Tour in the usual fashion, and afterwards returned to his uncle, Henry Savile, English ambassador at Paris, without the "encumbrance" of a governor. Savile superintended his nephew's reading, providing him with books on such subjects as political treaties and negotiations, and warning him against "nouvelles" and other "vain entretiens."[614]

The practice of travelling abroad called forth many books on the subject, often written by travellers desiring to place their experience at the service of others. Such books usually include indications of the routes to be followed and the places to be visited, and sometimes advice as to the best way of studying abroad. Some, such as those of Coryat, Fynes Moryson, and Purchas,[615] are descriptions of long journeys. Others deal more especially with the method of travel.[616] A few were written for the particular use of some traveller of high rank; for instance, when the Earl of Rutland set out on his travels in 1596, his cousin Essex sent him letters of advice, which circulated at Court, and were published as Profitable Instructions for Travellers in 1633.[617] Further information was supplied in the treatises on polite education.[618]

The subject of travel was thus continually under consideration, and the different books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which deal with this topic are of great interest. Robert Dallington, the author of an early guide to France,[619] thought it necessary, seeing the few teachers there were in France, to "set downe a course of learninge." "I will presume to advise him," he says of the traveller to France, "that the most compendious way of attaining the tongue is by booke. I mean for the knowledge, for as for the speaking he shall never attaine it but by continuall practize and conversation: he shall therefore first learne his nownes and verbs by heart, and specially the articles, and their uses, with the two words sum and habeo: for in these consist the greatest observation of that part of speech." He also urges the future traveller to engage a Frenchman to assist him, chiefly, no doubt, with reading and pronunciation. This "reader," as Dallington calls him, "shall not reade any booke of Poetrie at first, but some other kinde of stile, and I thinke meetest some moderne comedie. Let his lecture consist more in questions and answers, either of the one or the other, then in the reader's continued speech, for this is for the most part idle and fruitlesse: by the other many errors and mistakings either in pronunciation or sense are reformed. After three months he shall quit his lectures, and use his Maister only to walk with and discourse, first the one and then the other: for thus shal he observe the right use of the phrase in his Reader, heare his owne faults reproved and grow readie and prompt in his owne deliverie, which, with the right straine of the accent, are the two hardest things in language." He should also read much in private, and "to this reading he must adde a continuall talking and exercising of his speech with all sorts of people, with boldnesse and much assurance in himselfe, A "METHOD OF TRAVEL"for I have often observed in others that nothing hath more prejudiced their profiting then their owne diffidence and distrust. To this I would have him adde an often writing, either of matter of translation or of his owne invention, where againe is requisite the Reader's eye, to censure and correct: for who so cannot write the language he speaks, I count he hath but halfe the language. There, then, are the two onely meanes of obtaining a language, speaking and writing, but the first is the chiefest, and therefore I must advertise the traveller of one thing which in other countries is a great hinderer thereof, namely, the often haunting and frequenting of our own Countrimen, whereof he must have a speciall care,[620] neither to distaste them by a too much retirednesse[621] nor to hinder himselfe by too much familiaritie."

A few years later Fynes Moryson[622] offered equally sound advice to the traveller "for language." "Goe directly to the best citie for the puritie of language," he tells him, and first "labour to know the grammar rules, that thy selfe mayst know whether thou speaketh right or no. I meane not the curious search of those rules, but at least so much as may make thee able to distinguish Numbers, Cases, and Moodes." Moryson thought that by learning by ear alone students probably pronounced better, but, on the other hand, with the help of rules, "they both speake and write pure language, and never so forget it, as they may not with small labour and practice recover it again." The student, he adds, should make a collection of choice phrases, that "hee may speake and write more eloquently, and let him use himselfe not to the translated formes of speech, but to the proper phrases of the tongue." For this purpose he should read many good books, "in which kind, as also for the Instruction of his soule, I would commend unto him the Holy Scriptures, but that among the Papists they are not to be had in the vulgar tongue, neither is the reading of them permitted to laymen. Therefore to this purpose he shall seeke out the best familiar epistles for his writing, and I thinke no booke better for his Discourse then Amadis of Gaule.... In the third place I advise him to professe Pythagoricall silence, and to the end he may learne true pronunciation, not to be attained but by long observation and practice, that he for a time listen to others, before he adventure to speake." He should also avoid his fellow-countrymen, and, having observed these rules, "then let him hier some skilfull man to teach him and to reprove his errors, not passing by any his least omission. And let him not take it ill that any man should laugh at him, for that will more stirre him up to endevour to learne the tongue more perfectly, to which end he must converse with Weomen, children and the most talkative people; and he must cast off all clownish bashfulnesse, for no man is borne a Master in any art. I say not that he himselfe should rashly speake, for in the beginning he shall easily take ill formes of speaking, and hardly forget them once taken."

The learning of French in England before going abroad did not, as a rule, enter into the plan of writers on the subject of travelling. Moryson, however, realized that "at the first step the ignorance of language doth much oppresse (the traveller) and hinder the fruite he should reape by his iourney." And Bacon went a step further when he wrote that "he that travaileth into a Country, before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to schoole, and not to travaile.... If you will have a Young Man to put his Travaile into a little Roome, and in a short time to gather much, this you must doe. First, as was said, he must have some Entrance into the Language before he goeth. Then he must have such a Servant, or Tutor, as knoweth the country."[623] Later writers usually agree that it would be of benefit to have "something of the French"[624] before leaving England, "though it were only to understand something of it and be able to ask for necessary things," or to have "some grammatical instruction in the language, as a preparation to speaking it."[625] And indeed many travellers had some previous knowledge of French. Sir Philip Sidney, for instance, could manage a letter in French when he was at school at Shrewsbury; Lord Herbert of Cherbury had studied the language with the help of a dictionary; Sir John Reresby, at a later date, had learnt French at a private school, though, like many students nowadays, he could not speak the language on his arrival in France. STUDIES PREVIOUS TO TRAVELSeveral went abroad to "improve" themselves in French, and no doubt the phrase "to learn the French tongue"[626] often meant to learn to speak it.

In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, however, many of those who studied French seriously in England did not go to France. Among these were the ladies, to whose skill Mulcaster[627] draws the attention of travellers, as a proof that languages can be learnt as well at home as abroad; and not a few of the younger sons of noblemen,[628] as well as the prosperous middle class—the frequenters of the French schools in St. Paul's Churchyard, and the pupils of Du Ploich and Holyband, neither of whom makes any reference to the tour in France.

The "common practice" in the sixteenth century among young travellers was to proceed to France knowing no French. They fully expected to learn the language there, with no further exertion than living in the country. They are constantly warned of the futility of such expectations. Dallington, Fynes Moryson, and others lay much emphasis on the necessity of some serious preliminary study of grammar and reading of good literature. French teachers in England compared the poor results obtained in France by these leisurely methods with those achieved by their own efforts in England. No doubt they found the practice of learning French by residence in France a serious rival to their own methods. De la Mothe,[629] for instance, declares he knows English ladies and gentlemen who have never left England and yet speak French incomparably better than others who have been in France three or four years trying to pick up the language by ear, as most travellers do. Another French teacher[630] writes: "I have knowne three Gentlemen's sonnes, although I say it that should not say it, who can testify yet, that in their return from France (after they had remained foure yeares at Paris, spending a great deal of money) perused my rules but six moneths and did confesse they reaped more good language in that short space I taught them then in all the time they spent in France. And sundry others I have helped who never saw France, and yet could talke, read and write better language in one yeare than those who have bene at Paris two yeares, learning but the common phrase of the countrie, shacking off a litle paines to learne the rules."

While holding that French could be better learnt in England with rules than in France without any such assistance, the French teachers of London admitted that the language could perhaps be best learnt in France, but only with the help of a good teacher and serious study, as in England. However, there were hardly any language teachers in France, according to them, while in England it was easy to find many good ones. Dallington more specifically bewails the fact that the traveller finds a "great scarcitie" of such tutors, and directs him to a certain M. Denison, a Canon of St. Croix in Orleans, after whom he may inquire, "except his good acquaintance or good fortune bring him to better."

There was indeed little provision for the serious study of French in France before the end of the sixteenth century. Most travellers, we are told, "observed only for their owne use." Few Frenchmen took up the teaching of their own language to foreigners as a profession, and those who taught from time to time or merely upon occasion rarely proved successful. Yet the earliest grammars produced in France were intended largely for the use of foreigners. Special attention is paid to points which usually offered difficulty to foreigners, such as the pronunciation and its divergencies from the orthography.[631] Sylvius or Du Bois, writing in Latin,[632] remarks that his principles may serve the English, the Italians and Spaniards, in short, all foreigners; no doubt those he had chiefly in mind were the numbers of English and other foreign students at the University of Paris. When the earliest grammar written in French appeared, its author, Louis Meigret,[633] sought to justify his use LANGUAGE TEACHERS IN FRANCEof the vernacular by suggesting that foreign students should first learn to understand French by speaking and reading good French literature, instead of depending on Latin for the first stages. He had noticed the peculiarities of the English pronunciation of French, especially the habit of misplacing the accent; "they raise the voice on the syllable an in Angleterre, while we raise it on the syllable ter: so that French as spoken by the English is not easily understood in France." From other grammarians foreigners always received some attention. Pillot[634] and Garnier[635] both wrote in Latin with a special view to foreigners; and Peletier,[636] who used French, retains all the etymological consonants, that strangers may find Latin helpful in understanding French.

Not before the end of the sixteenth century, however, do we hear of the first important language teacher in France—Charles Maupas of Blois, a surgeon by profession, who spent most of his life, more than thirty years, teaching French to "many lords and gentlemen of divers nations" who visited his native town. He was "well known to be a famous teacher of the French tongue to many of the English and Dutch nobility and gentry." For his English pupils Maupas showed particular affection.[637] And from them he received in turn numerous proofs of friendship. Among the Englishmen who learnt French under his care was George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who, at about the age of eighteen, travelled into France, where "he improved himself[638] well in the language for one that had so little grammatical foundation, but more in the exercises of that Nobility for the space of three years and yet came home in his naturall plight, without affected formes (the ordinary disease of Travellers)."[639] Maupas bears stronger testimony to his pupil's attainments in the French language, and some years later he gratefully dedicated to the Duke his French grammar, first issued publicly in 1618.

Maupas's Grammaire françoise contenant reigles tres certaines et adresse tres asseurée a la naïve connoissance et pur usage de nostre langue. En faveur des estrangers qui en seront desireux, was first privately printed in 1607.[640] He had not originally intended it for publication. The work grew out of the notes and observations he compiled in order to overcome his pupils' difficulties. As these rules increased in number and importance, many students began to make extracts from them; others made copies of the whole, a "great and wearisome labour." Finally, Maupas, touched by this keenness, resolved to have a large number of copies printed. He distributed these among his pupils and their friends, till, contrary to his expectation, he found he had none left. It was then that the first public edition was issued at Lyons in 1618, and was followed by six others, which were not always authorized. A Latin edition also appeared in 1623.

Maupas insists on the necessity of employing a tutor. "Let them come to me," he says, addressing foreigners desirous of learning French, "if it is convenient."[641] To learn the language by ear and use alone is impossible. The small outlay required to engage a teacher saves much time and labour. As to the grammar, it should be read again and again, and in time all difficulties will disappear; it will be of great use even to those already advanced in French. He undertook to teach and interpret the grammar in French itself, without having recourse to the international language Latin, the usual medium of teaching French to travellers; he tells us that many of his pupils were ignorant of Latin, and that the practice of interpreting the grammar in French had been adopted by many of his fellow-teachers in other towns. The great advantage of this method was, he thought, that reading and pronunciation are learnt conjointly with grammar, the phrases and style of the language together with its rules and precepts. Besides, the student must read some book; and a grammar was, in his opinion, preferable to the little comedies and dialogues usually resorted to for this purpose. He did not, however, forget that some light reading was a greater incentive to the learner, and in practice used both.

Maupas died in 1625, when a new edition of his grammar was in preparation. His son, who assisted him in teaching, saw the work through the press, and invited students to transfer to him the favours they had bestowed on his father. Apparently the younger Charles Maupas continued to teach his father's clientèle for some time. CHARLES MAUPAS OF BLOISIn 1626 he gave further proof of his zeal for the cause in editing and publishing a comedy which both he and his father had frequently read with pupils not advanced enough for more serious matter. We are told vaguely that this comedy, entitled Les Desguisez: Comedie Françoise avec l'explication des proverbes et mots difficiles par Charles Maupas a Bloys, was the work of one of the beaux esprits of the period.[642] Maupas, however, only had one copy, and knew not where to procure more. He was induced to have it printed on seeing the great labour and time expended by many of his pupils in making copies of it for their own use. For the benefit of students who had no tutor, he added an explanatory vocabulary of proverbs and difficult words.

Maupas's Grammaire et syntaxe françoise is still looked on with respect.[643] The reputation it enjoyed in the seventeenth century is the more remarkable in that it was the work of a provincial who had no relations with the Court, then the supreme arbiter in matters of language. But the grammar passed into oblivion in the course of time, as more modern manuals took its place. Maupas's hope that it would be used by foreign students of French as long as the language was held in esteem was not to be fulfilled.

His Grammar was superseded by that of Antoine Oudin—Grammaire Françoise rapportée au langage du temps, Paris, 1632. Oudin's original intention had been merely to enlarge the grammar of his predecessor. But as his work advanced he found "force antiquailles" and many mistakes, besides much confusion, repetition, and pedantry. He felt no compunction in telling the reader that he had enormously improved all he had borrowed from Maupas—although he is careful to note that he has no intention of damaging his rival's reputation, and is proud to share his opinion on several points. He had a great advantage over Maupas in having spent all his life in close connexion with the Court; his father, César, had been interpreter to the French king, and Antoine succeeded him in that office. He also appears to have had continual relations with foreigners, and he tells us on one occasion that he received from them "very considerable benefits." His grammar was certainly much used by foreign students, although it does not seem to have enjoyed as great a popularity in England as that of Maupas. Oudin's Curiositez Françoises (1640) was also addressed "aux estrangers," and his aim was to show his gratitude by attempting to call attention to the mistakes which had made their way into grammars drawn up for their instruction.[644]

L'Eschole Françoise pour apprendre a bien parler et escrire selon l'usage de ce temps et pratique des bons autheurs, divisée en deux livres dont l'un contient les premiers elements, l'autre les parties de l'oraison (Paris, 1604), by Jean Baptiste du Val, avocat en Parlement at Paris and French tutor to Marie de Medicis, was also intended partly for the use of foreigners. He seeks to console foreign students coping with the difficulties of French pronunciation and orthography, by assuring them that though the French themselves may be able to speak correctly, they cannot prescribe rules on this score. As for his grammar, the student will learn more from it in two hours than from any other in two weeks. He also takes up a supercilious attitude, natural in one who exercised his profession in the precincts of the Court, towards anything that resembled a provincial accent; better no teacher at all than one with a provincial accent.

Among other grammars of similar purport is that of Masset in French and Latin, Exact et tres facile acheminement a la langue Françoyse, mis en Latin par le meme autheur pour le soulagement des estrangers (1606);[645] and to the same category belongs also the Praecepta gallici sermonis ad pleniorem perfectioremque eius linguae cognitionem necessaria tum suevissima tum facillima (1607), by Philippe Garnier, who, after teaching French for many years in Germany, settled down at Orleans, his native town, as a language tutor.[646]

Another work widely used by travellers, and well known in England, was the Nouvelle et Parfaite Grammaire Françoise (1659) of Laurent Chiflet, the zealous Jesuit and missionary, which continued to be reprinted until the eighteenth century, and enjoyed for many years the highest reputation among foreign students of French. The Swiss Muralt relates how he FRENCH GRAMMARS FOR TRAVELLERSand a friend were inquiring for some books at one of the booksellers of the Palais, the centre of the trade; and how the bookseller answered them civilly and tried to find what they desired, until his wife interfered, crying, "Ne voiez vous pas que ce sont des etrangers qui ne savent ce qu'ils demandent? Donnez leur la grammaire de Chiflet, c'est là ce qu'il leur faut."[647]

Chiflet is very explicit in his advice to foreign students. In the first place the pronunciation should be learnt by reading a short passage every day with a French master, and the verbs most commonly in use committed to memory. Then the other parts of speech and the rules of syntax should be studied briefly; but care should be taken not to neglect reading, and to practise writing French, in order to become familiar with the orthography. One of his chief recommendations is to avoid learning isolated words; words should always be presented in sentence form, which is a means of learning their construction and of acquiring a good vocabulary at the same time. The rest of the method consists in translating from Latin or some other language into French, and in conversing with a tutor who should correct bad grammar or pronunciation. When once a fair knowledge of French is acquired, it should be strengthened by reading and reflecting upon some good book every day. Such reading is the shortest way of learning the language perfectly. Excellence and fluency in speaking may be attained by repeating or reciting aloud the substance of what has been read.[648]

The acquisition of the French language was not the only ambition of the English gentleman abroad. His aim was also to acquire those polite accomplishments in which the French excelled—dancing, fencing, riding, and so on. For this purpose he either frequented one of the "courtly" academies or engaged private tutors; and "every master of exercise," it was felt, served as a kind of language master.[649] We are indebted to Dallington[650] for an account of the cost of such a course abroad. "Money," he says, "is the soule of travell. If he travel without a servant £80 sterling is a competent proportion, except he learn to ride: if he maintain both these charges, he can be allowed no less than £150: and to allow above £200 were superfluous and to his hurt. The ordinary rate of his expense is 10 gold crowns a month his fencing, as much his dancing, no less his reading, and 10 crowns monthly his riding except in the heat of the year. The remainder of his £150, I allow him for apparell, books, travelling charges, tennis play, and other extraordinary expenses."

Some of the more studious travellers resorted to one or other of the French universities. John Palsgrave and John Eliote, the two best known English teachers of French in the sixteenth century, had both followed this course. Palsgrave was a graduate of Paris, and John Eliote, after spending three years at the College of Montague in Paris, taught for a year in the Collège des Africains at Orleans. The religious question had much influence in determining the plan of study in France. The university towns of Rheims and Douay were the special resorts of English Catholics.[651] On the suppression of the religious houses in England and the persecution of the English Roman Catholics, English seminaries arose at Paris, Louvain, Cambrai, St. Omer, Arras, and other centres in France. English Roman Catholics flocked to the French universities and colleges, and there is in existence a long list of English students who matriculated at the University of Douay.

On the other hand, the schools,[652] colleges,[653] and academies[654] founded by the Huguenots offered many attractions to Protestant England. The colleges had much in common with the modern French lycée, and the chief subjects taught were the classical languages. They did not take boarders, with the exception of that at Metz, and the students lived en pension with families in the town. The same is true of the academies, institutions of university standing. They were eight in number, and situated at Nîmes, Montpellier, Saumur, Montauban, Die, Sedan, Orthez (in the principality of Béarn[655]), and Geneva. Some Englishmen and many Scotchmen[656] held positions in the Protestant colleges and academies. BRITISH STUDENTS AT FRENCH UNIVERSITIESMany English Protestants, during their enforced sojourn on the Continent during the reign of Mary, took advantage of their exile to study at one or other of the Protestant academies, as well as to perfect their knowledge of French. A great number flocked to Geneva, including the Protestant author Michael Cope, who frequently preached in French.[657]

Of the colleges, that of Nîmes attracted a large number of foreigners. Montpellier likewise was very popular during the short period at the beginning of the seventeenth century when the town was Protestant. Among the academies in France, Saumur, Montauban,[658] and Sedan were much frequented by English travellers. Saumur in particular quickly attained to celebrity; its rapid growth may be partly accounted for by the fact that Duplessis Mornay, Governor of the town in 1588, naturally became a zealous patron of the Academy. Three years after its foundation the number of foreign students was considerable, and throughout the seventeenth century students from England, Scotland, Holland, and Switzerland thronged to the town.

The Academy at Geneva likewise was very popular.[659] Though not French, it was largely attended by French students, who had some influence in raising the standard of the French spoken in the town, which was rather unsatisfactory in the sixteenth century. It greatly improved in the following century, and when the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), which dealt the death-blow to the French Protestant foundations, drove many students to Geneva, their influence in all directions was still more strongly felt. Some years before, in 1654, the regents were enjoined to see to it that their pupils "ne parlent savoyard et ne jurent ou diabloyent," but in 1691 Poulain de la Barre, a doctor of the Sorbonne, could say that "à Geneve on prononce incomparablement mieux que l'on ne fait en plusieurs provinces de France."[660]

The Protestant academies usually consisted of faculties of Arts and Theology. At Geneva[661] there were lectures in Law, Theology, Philosophy, Philology, and Literature; the teaching was chiefly in Latin, but sometimes in French. At the end of the sixteenth century a riding school, known as the Manège de la Courature, on the same lines as the polite academies of France, was started. The instruction given at Geneva was on broader lines than that of the less popular academies. Nîmes and Montpellier, for instance, were mainly theological.[662]

Of the many Englishmen who went to Geneva, as to other Protestant centres, not all attended lectures at the Academies. Some went merely to learn French, "the exercises and assurance of behaviour," as the general belief in England was that they did so with less danger in the towns tempered by a Calvinistic atmosphere. Among the Englishmen who visited Geneva in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century we find the names of Henry Withers, Roger Manners, fifth Earl of Rutland, Robert Devereux, third Earl of Essex, the son of Elizabeth's unfortunate favourite, and others. Thomas Bodley, the celebrated founder of the Oxford Library, followed all the courses at the University in 1559. It was considered a great honour to lodge in the house of one or other of the professors; Anthony Bacon, the elder brother of the great Bacon, had the good fortune to be received into the house of de Bèze. Casaubon likewise received into his house certain young gentlemen who came to the town with a special recommendation to him. These included the young Henry Wotton, then on the long tour on the Continent, during which he acquired the remarkable knowledge of languages which qualified him for the position of ambassador which he subsequently occupied. In 1593 Wotton wrote to Lord Zouch: "Here I am placed to my great contentment in the house of Mr. Isaac Casaubon, a person of sober condition among the French." The learned professor soon became very fond of Wotton, so far as to allow him to get into debt for his board and lodging, and the young man left Geneva without paying his debts, leaving Casaubon to face his numerous creditors in the town. Casaubon was in despair; but fortunately the episode ended satisfactorily, for Wotton lived up to his character, and paid his debts in full as soon as he was able.[663]

THE AFFECTED TRAVELLER When later Casaubon was at Paris (1600-1610) and his fame was widespread, most travellers and scholars passing through the city seized any opportunity of visiting him. Coryat relates his visit to the great humanist as the experience he enjoyed above all others. Lord Herbert of Cherbury was also among the English travellers received by Casaubon into his house at this period. "And now coming to court," writes Lord Herbert, "I obtained licence to go beyond sea, taking with me for my companion Mr. Aurilian Townsend ... and a man to wait in my chamber, who spoke French, two lacqueys and three horses.... Coming now to Paris through the recommendation of the Lord Ambassador I was received to the house of that incomparable scholar Isaac Casaubon, by whose learned conversation I much benefited myself. Sometimes also I went to the Court of the French King Henry IV., who, upon information of me in the Garden of the Tuileries, received me with much courtesy, embracing me in his arms, and holding me some while there."[664]

By the side of the serious traveller we are introduced to the frivolous type, travelling merely as a matter of fashion. These "idle travellers," as they were called, were the cause of most of the objections raised against the journey to France and the longer tour on the Continent—apart from questions of religion and politics. Few such travellers "scaped bewitching passing over seas."[665] When Lord Herbert of Cherbury arrived in Paris he remarked on the great number of Englishmen thronging about the ambassador's mansion. They had, most of them, studied the language and fashions in some quiet provincial town, such as Orleans or Blois, and returned to Paris full of affectations. Herbert draws a picture[666] of one such "true accomplish'd cavalere":

Now what he speaks are complimental speeches
That never go off, but below the breeches
Of him he doth salute, while he doth wring
And with some strange French words which he doth string,
Windeth about the arms, the legs and sides,
Most serpent like, of any man that bides
His indirect approach.

Many travellers did not follow Moryson's advice "to lay aside the spoone and forke of Italy, the affected gestures of France, and all strange apparrell" on their return to England. Their affectation of foreign languages and customs proved disagreeable to many of their countrymen. The Frenchified traveller and his untravelled imitators were known as beaux or mounsiers. Nash speaks of the "dapper mounsieur pages of the Court," and Shakespeare of the young gallants who charm the ladies with a French song and a fiddle, and fill the Court with quarrels, talks, and tailors.[667] When the English nobles and gentlemen who had held official appointments at Tournai returned to England, after lingering some time at the French Court, the chronicler Hall[668] declares they were "all French in eating, drinking, yea in French vices and brages, so that all estates of England were by them laughed at."

The English beau thought it his duty to despise English ways, fashions, and speech, and to ape and dote upon all things French:[669]

He struts about
In cloak of fashion French. His girdle, purse,
And sword are French; his hat is French;
His nether limbs are cased in French costume.
His shoes are French. In short from top to toe
He stands the Frenchman.

Above all, he loves to display his "sorry French" and chide his French valet in public, and

if he speak
Though but three little words in French, he swells
And plumes himself on his proficiency.

And when his French fails him, as it soon does, he coins words for himself which he utters with "widely gaping mouth, and sound acute, thinking to make the accent French":

With accent French he speaks the Latin Tongue,
With accent French the tongue of Lombardy,
To Spanish words he gives an accent French,
German he speaks with the same accent French,
All but the French itself. The French he speaks
With accent British.

Thus the beau cannot be ranked among the genuine students of French.

Would you believe when you this monsieur see
That his whole body should speak French, not he?

asks Ben Jonson.[670] "FRENCH-ITALIANATE" GENTLEMENWe have a picture, in Glapthorne's The Ladies' Privilege, of a travelled gallant who undertakes to teach French to a young gentleman desiring thereby to be "for ever engallanted." They confer on rudiments; "your French," says the gallant, "is a thing easily gotten, and when you have it, as hard to shake off, runnes in your blood, as 'twere your mother language." Until you have enough of the language to sprinkle your English with it, answer with a shrug, or a nod, or any foreign grimace.[671] The author of the Treatyse of a galaunt bemoans the fact that "Englysshe men sholde be so blynde" as to adopt the "marde gere" of the French.[672] Many were the outbursts of patriotic indignation roused by the affectation of the newly returned travellers, who "brought home a few smattering terms, flattering garbes, apish cringes, foppish fancies, foolish guises and disguises and vanities of neighbour nations."[673] In the sixteenth century France was not exclusively responsible for the fopperies of the English beau, who might often be described as "French Italianate."[674] He spoke his own language with shame and lisping.[675] Nothing "will down but French, Italian and Spanish."[676] "Farewell, Monsieur Traveller," says Rosalind to Jacques, "look you lisp, and wear strange suits; disable all the benefits of your own country; be out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are."[677] The affected beau will "wring his face round about as a man would stirre up a mustard pot and talke English through the teeth."[678] He sprinkles his talk with overseas scraps. "He that cometh lately out of France will talke French-English, and never blush at the matter, and another chops in with English Italianated."[679] And what profit has he from the journey on which he has gathered such evil fruit? Nothing but words, and in this he exceeds his mother's parrot at home, in that he can speak more and understands what he says.[680] And this is often no more than to be able to call the king his lord "with two or three French, Italian, Spanish or such like terms."[681] His attire, like his tongue, speaks French and Italian.[682] He censures England's language and fashions "by countenances and shrugs," and will choke rather than confess beer a good drink. In time the beau forgot what little he had learnt of Italian, and in the seventeenth century was generally known as the English monsieur, or the gentleman à la mode.

There were two very different attitudes towards the journey to France, as there were two types of traveller, the serious and the flippant. The prejudiced and insular-minded asked with Nash:[683] "What is there in France to be learned more than in England, but falsehood in fellowship, perfect slovenry, to love no man but for my pleasure, to swear Ah par la mort Dieu when a man's hands are scabbed. But for the idle traveller (I mean not for the soldier), I have known some that have continued there by the space of half a dozen years, and when they come home, they have hid a little weerish lean face under a broad hat, kept a terrible coil in the dust in the street in their long cloaks of gray paper, and spoke English strangely. Nought else have they profited by their travel, save learned to distinguish the true Bordeaux grape and know a cup of neat Gascoigne wine from wine of Orleans." The opposite view is expressed in the message George Herbert sent to his brother at Paris:[684] "You live in a brave nation, where except you wink, you cannot but see many brave examples. Bee covetous then of all good which you see in Frenchmen whether it be in knowledge or in fashion, or in words; play the good marchant in transporting French commodities to your own country."