The life of Cardinal Mezzofanti / With an introductory memoir of eminent linguists, ancient and modern

by Charles William Russell

Many of the French missionaries of the seventeenth century would deserve a place in this series, and among them especially Francis Picquet, who, after serving for several years as French consul at Aleppo, embraced a missionary life, and at last was consecrated Archbishop of Bagdad in 1674. Le Jay, the projector and editor of the well-known polyglot Bible which appeared in France a few years before the rival publication of Brian Walton, though he is often spoken of as the mere patron of the undertaking, was in reality a very profound and accomplished Orientalist. The same may be said of Rapheleng, the son-in-law of Plantin, and often described as his mere assistant in the publication of the King of Spain’s Polyglot Bible. Matthew Veysiere de la Croze, too, the apostate Benedictine, although a superficial scholar and a hasty and inaccurate historian, was a very able linguist.

But, as we descend lower in the history of this generation of French linguists, we find comparatively few names which, for variety of attainments, can be compared with those of Italy or Germany. Beyond the cultivation of the Biblical languages, little was done in France for this department of study during the rest of the seventeenth century. There seems but too much reason to believe that the reputation of the learned but pedantic Menage as a linguist, is extravagantly exaggerated. He was an accomplished classicist, and his acquaintance with modern languages was tolerably extensive. He was a good etymologist, too, according to the servile and unscientific system of the age. But his claims to Oriental scholarship appear very questionable. And in truth during this entire period, if it were not for the interest of the controversy above referred to, on the antiquity and authority of the Masoretic Points, it might almost be said that Oriental studies had fallen entirely into disuse in France. Even of those who took a part in that discussion, the name of Masclef (who knew Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldee, and Arabic, with perhaps some of the modern languages) is the only one which can approach the rank of the higher masters of the study. The three Buxtorfs (father, son, and grandson), Guarin, and even Girandeau, were mere Hebraists; patient and accurate scholars, it is true, but with few of the characteristics of an eminent linguist. La Bletterie can hardly claim even this qualified reputation.

There is one brilliant exception—the eminent historian and controversialist, Eusebius Renaudot. He was born at Paris in 1646. Having made his classical studies under the Jesuits, and those of Philosophy in the College d’Harcourt, he entered the congregation of the Oratory. But he very soon quitted that society; and, although he continued to wear the ecclesiastical dress, he never took holy orders. His life, however, was a model of piety and of every Christian virtue; and it was his peculiar merit that, while many of his closest friends and most intimate literary allies were members of the Jansenist party, Renaudot was inflexible in his devotion to the judgment of the Holy See. His first linguistic studies lay among the Oriental languages, the rich fruit of which we still possess in his invaluable Collection of Oriental Liturgies, and in the last two volumes of the Perpetuitè de la Foi sur l’Eucharistie, which are also from his prolific pen. But he soon extended his researches into other fields; and he is said to have been master of seventeen languages,[109] the major part of which he spoke with ease and fluency.

But Renaudot stands almost alone.[110] The only names which may claim to be placed in comparison with his, are those of the two Petis, François Petis, and François Petis de la Croix. The latter especially, who succeeded his father as royal Oriental interpreter, under Lewis XIV., and made several expeditions to the East in this capacity, was well versed, not only in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Tartar, but also in Coptic and Armenian. His translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments is the work by which he is best known; but his dissertations and collections on Oriental history are full of valuable learning. The eighteenth century in France was a period of greater activity. Etienne Fourmont, although born in 1683, belongs properly to the eighteenth century. He is often cited as an example of extraordinary powers of memory, having, when a mere boy, learnt by rote the whole list of Greek Roots in the Port Royal Treatise, so as to repeat them in every conceivable order. He soon after published in French verse all the roots of the Latin language. But it is as an Orientalist that he is chiefly remarkable. He was appointed to the chair of Arabic in the College Royal, and also to the office of Oriental interpreter in the Bibliothèque du Roi; and soon established such a reputation as an Orientalist, that he was consulted on philological questions by the learned of every country in Europe. He was thoroughly master of Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and Persian, and was one of the first French scholars who, without having visited China,[111] attained to any notable proficiency in Chinese.

His nephew, Michael Angelo Deshauterayes, born at Conflans Ste. Honorine, near Pontoise, 1724, was even more precocious. At the age of ten, he commenced his studies under Fourmont’s superintendence. He thus became familiar at an early age with Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and Chinese; so that in his twenty-second year he was appointed to succeed his uncle as Oriental Interpreter to the Royal Library, to which post, a few years later, was added the Arabic professorship in the College de France. In these employments he devoted himself to Oriental studies for above thirty years.

Another pupil of Fourmont, Joseph de Guignes, born at Pontoise in 1721, attained equal eminence as an Orientalist. At Fourmont’s death, he was associated with the last named linguist on the staff of the Royal Library. But De Guignes’ merit in the department of Oriental history and antiquities, has almost overshadowed his reputation as a mere linguist, although he was a proficient in all the principal Eastern languages, and in many of those of Europe. His History of the Huns, Turks, Moguls, and other Tartar nations, notwithstanding that many of its views are now discarded, is still regarded as a repertory of Oriental learning; and, while both in this and also in some others of his works, De Guignes is often visionary and even paradoxical,[112] he is acknowledged to have done more for Chinese literature in France, than any linguist before Abel Remusat; nor is there one of the scholars of the eighteenth century, who in the spirit, if not in the letter, of the views which he put forward, comes so near to the more enlarged and more judicious theories of the scholars of our own day, on the general questions of philology.

From the days of De Guignes the higher departments of linguistic science fell for a time into disrepute in France; but a powerful impulse was given to the practical cultivation of Oriental languages by the diplomatic relations of that kingdom with Constantinople and the Levant. The official appointments connected with that service served to supply at once a stimulus to the study and an opportunity for its practice. Cardonne, Ruffin,[113] Legrand, Kieffer, Venture de Paradis, and Langlés, were all either trained in that school, or devoted themselves to the study as a preparation for it.

Of these, perhaps John Michael Venture De Paradis is the most remarkable. His father had been French Consul in the Crimea, and in various cities of the Levant, and appears to have educated the boy with a special view to the Oriental diplomatic service. From the College de Louis le Grand, he was transferred, at the age of fifteen, to Constantinople, and, before he had completed his twenty-second year, he was appointed interpreter of the French embassy in Syria. Thence he passed into Egypt in the same capacity, and, in 1777, accompanied Baron de Tott in his tour of inspection of the French establishments in the Levant. He was sent afterwards to Tunis, to Constantinople, and to Algiers; and eventually was attached to the ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, with the Professorship of Oriental Languages. His last service was in the memorable Egyptian expedition under Bonaparte, in which he fell a victim to fatigue, and the evil effects of the climate, in 1799.[114]

Lewis Matthew Langlés[115] was a Picard, born at Peronne, in 1763. From his boyhood he too was destined for the diplomatic service; and studied first at Montdidier, and afterwards in Paris, where he obtained an employment which afforded him considerable leisure for the pursuit of his favourite studies. He learned Arabic under Caussin de Perceval, and Persian under Ruffin. Soon afterwards, however, he engaged in the study of Mantchu, and in some time became such a proficient in that language, that he was entrusted with the task of editing the Mantchu Dictionary of Pere Amiot. From that time his reputation was established, at least with the general public. His subsequent publications in every department of languages are numerous beyond all precedent. He had the reputation of knowing, besides the learned languages, Chinese, Tartar, Japanese, Sanscrit, Malay, Armenian, Arabic, Turkish, and Persian. But it must be added that the solidity of these attainments has been gravely impeached, and that by many he is regarded more as a charlatan than as a scholar.