Madame de Sevigné’s taste has been arraigned for slighting Racine; and she has been charged with the unfortunate prediction; Il passera comme le café. But it is denied that these words can be found, though few like to give up so diverting a miscalculation of futurity. In her time, Corneille’s party was so well supported, and he deserved so much gratitude and reverence, that we cannot much wonder at her being carried a little too far against his rival. Who has ever seen a woman just towards the rivals of her friends, though many are just towards their own?
The French Academy. 11. The French Academy had been so judicious, both in the choice of its members, and in the general tenor of its proceedings, that it stood very high in public esteem, and a voluntary deference was commonly shown to its authority. The favour of Louis XIV., when he grew to manhood, was accorded as amply as that of Richelieu. The Academy was received by the king, when they approached him publicly, with the same ceremonies as the superior courts of justice. This body had, almost from its commencement, undertaken a national dictionary, which should carry the language to its utmost perfection, and trace a road to the highest eloquence that depended on purity and choice of words; more than this could not be given by man. The work proceeded very slowly; and dictionaries were published in the meantime, one by Richelet in 1680, another by Furetiére. The former seems to be little more than a glossary of technical, or otherwise doubtful words;[1014] but the latter, though pretending to contain only terms of art and science, was found, by its definitions and by the authorities it quoted, to interfere so much with the project of the academicians, who had armed themselves with an exclusive privilege, that they not only expelled Furetiére from their body, on the allegation that he had availed himself of materials intrusted to him by the Academy for its own dictionary, but instituted a long process at law to hinder his publication. This was in 1685, and the dictionary of Furetiére only appeared after his death, at Amsterdam, in 1690.[1015] Whatever may have been the delinquency, moral or legal, of this compiler, his dictionary is praised by Goujet as a rich treasure, in which almost everything is found that we can desire for a sound knowledge of the language. It has been frequently reprinted, and continued long in esteem. But the dictionary of the Academy, which was published in 1694, claimed an authority to which that of a private man could not pretend. Yet the first edition seems to have rather disappointed the public expectation. Many objected to the want of quotations, and to the observance of an orthography that had become obsolete. The Academy undertook a revision of its work in 1700; and, finally, profiting by the public opinion on which it endeavoured to act, rendered this dictionary the most received standard of the French language.[1016]
[1014] Goujet, Baillet, n. 762.
[1015] Pelisson, Hist. de l’Académie (continuation par Olivet), p. 47. Goujet, Bibliothèque Française, i., 232, et post. Biogr. Univers., art. Furetiére.
[1016] Pelisson, p. 69. Goujet, p. 261.
French Grammars. 12. The Grammaire Générale et Raisonnée of Lancelot, in which Arnauld took a considerable share, is rather a treatise on the philosophy of all language than one peculiar to the French. “The best critics,” says Baillet, “acknowledge that there is nothing written by either the ancient or the modern grammarians, with so much justness and solidity.”[1017] Vigneul-Marville bestows upon it an almost equal eulogy.[1018] Lancelot was copied in a great degree by Lami, in his Rhetoric or Art of Speaking, with little of value that is original.[1019] Vaugelas retained his place as the founder of sound, grammatical criticism, though his judgments have not been uniformly confirmed by the next generation. His remarks were edited with notes by Thomas Corneille, who had the reputation of an excellent grammarian.[1020] The observations of Ménage on the French language, in 1675 and 1676, are said to have the fault of reposing too much on obsolete authorities, even those of the sixteenth century, which had long been proscribed by a politer age.[1021] Notwithstanding the zeal of the Academy, no critical laws could arrest the revolutions of speech. Changes came in with the lapse of time, and were sanctioned by the imperious rule of custom. In a book on grammar, published as early as 1688, Balzac and Voiture, even Patru and the Port-Royal writers, are called semi-moderns;[1022] so many new phrases had since made their way into composition, so many of theirs had acquired a certain air of antiquity.
[1017] Jugemens des Sçavans, n. 606. Goujet copies Baillet’s words.
[1018] Mélanges de Littérature, i., 124.
[1019] Goujet, i., 56. Gibert, p. 351.
[1020] Goujet, 146. Biogr. Univ.