CHAPTER VIII
THE STUDY OF FRENCH AMONG MERCHANTS AND SOLDIERS
Merchants, always a very important and influential class in England, claim a place by the side of the higher classes as learners of French. They were continually in need of foreign languages, and French was certainly the most useful, and, for those trading with France and the Netherlands, quite indispensable. As to their own language, we are told that when English merchants were out of England "it liketh them not, and they do not use it."[685] Those sons of gentlemen and others who wished to engage in trade were usually apprenticed to merchants. For instance, Sir William Petty (b. 1623) first went to school where he got a smattering of Latin and Greek, and, at the age of twelve, was bound apprentice to a sea captain. At fifteen he went to Caen in Normandy aboard a merchant vessel, and began to trade there with such success that he managed to maintain and educate himself. He learnt French and perfected himself in Latin, and had enough Greek to serve his turn. Thence he travelled to Paris and studied anatomy.[686] Sylvester, no doubt, had many opportunities of putting to the test the French he first learnt in Saravia's school when later in life he became a merchant adventurer. It appears that many merchants belonged to the class of travellers who picked up the language abroad by mixing with those who spoke it. Fynes Moryson accuses merchants, women, and children of neglecting any serious study of languages and "rushing into rash practice." "They doe many times," he admits, "pronounce the tongue and speake common speeches more gracefully than others, but they seldome write the tongue well, and alwaies forget it in short time, wanting the practice." The many practical little manuals of conversation which had appeared in the Middle Ages, and the "litle pages set in print without rules or precepts" which succeeded them, would certainly encourage this "rushing into rash practice"; such, indeed, was their aim. The majority of merchants acquired their French, we may be sure, either by the help of such little handbooks, intended to be learnt by heart, or simply by "ear."
Dialogues for merchants are provided in almost all French text-books of the time, giving phrases for buying and selling and enquiring the way. Barclay describes his grammar (1521) as particularly useful to merchants. There was, moreover, a very popular little book specially intended for that class—A plaine pathway to the French Tongue, very profitable for Marchants and also all other which desire the same, aptly devided into nineteen chapters, which appeared first in 1575, and in at least one,[687] and probably several other editions.[688] The aim of the book would explain how it has come about that only one copy has survived the wear and tear of the demands made upon it. Again James Howell dedicated his edition of Cotgrave's dictionary (1650) to the nobility and gentry, and to the "merchant adventurers as well English as the worthy company of Dutch here resident and others to whom the language is necessary for commerce and foren correspondence." Books such as those of Holyband and Du Ploich were written for the use of the middle class, and, no doubt, for merchants also; and a later writer, John Wodroeph, describes his collection of common phrases as "more profitable for the merchants than for the loathsome curtier who cannot digest such coarse meats."
Dutch merchants are mentioned by Howell in the dedication of Cotgrave's dictionary, and the close relations, existing between England and the Netherlands in the time of Elizabeth, possibly account for the fact that the Netherlanders took some part in instructing the English, chiefly merchants, in the French tongue. It has already been seen how unfavourably the Huguenot teachers in England criticized their fellow-teachers of French from the Low Countries, and we are not surprised to find that the latter contented themselves with teaching the language orally, and avoided the risk of committing their views to paper. FRENCH TEXT-BOOKS FOR MERCHANTSIn the Netherlands, however, no such compunction was felt, and some manuals composed there made their way to England. At an early date one was reprinted in London. Holyband, the chief of the group of Huguenot teachers, was quickly up in arms against it. "Je ne diray rien," he writes in 1573, "d'un nouveau livre venu d'Anvers, et dernierement imprimé à Londres, à cause que, ne gardant ryme ne raison, soit en son parler, phrase, orthographe, maniere de converser et communiquer entre gens d'estat; et cependant qu'il pindarise en son iargon il monstre de quel cru il est sorti, que si nos chartiers d'Orleans, Bourges ou de Bloys avoyent oui gazouiller l'autheur d'icelluy, ilz le renvoyeroient bailler entre ses geais, apres luy avoir donné cinquante coups de leur fouet sur ses échines." Let this writer teach his jargon to the Flemings, the Burgundians, and the people of Hainault; it is a true saying that a good Burgundian was never a good Frenchman. "Lesquelles choses considerées," concludes the irate Holyband, "i'espere que l'autheur de ce beau livre ne nous contraindra point de manger ses glands, ayans trouvé le pur froment."
What was this book newly come from Antwerp? Probably an edition of a very popular collection of phrases and conversations, written originally in French and Flemish in the early years of the sixteenth century, by a schoolmaster of Antwerp, Noel de Barlement or Barlaiment.[689] By the middle of the century the work had appeared in four languages. In 1556 it was printed at Louvain in Flemish, French, Latin, and Spanish, and in 1565 it appeared at Antwerp in Flemish, French, Italian, and Spanish. In 1557 a London printer, Edward Sutton, received licence to print "a boke intituled Italian, Frynshe, Englesshe and Laten,"[690] and in 1568 a "boke intituled Frynsche, Englysshe and Duche" was licensed to John Alde.[691] Both of these volumes, we may safely conclude, were adaptations of the Flemish handbook, and either may have been the "book from Anvers" reviled by Holyband. Another English edition of the work was issued in 1578, a few years after Holyband's attack, by George Bishop, who received licence to print a Dictionarie colloques ou dialogues en quattre langues, Fflamen, Ffrançoys, Espaignol et Italien, "with the Englishe to be added thereto."[692]
This vocabulary of Barlement probably enjoyed considerable popularity in England in its foreign editions also. It was widely used by English merchants and travellers after it had been adapted to their use by the addition of English to its columns; and they would, no doubt, bring copies back with them from the Netherlands. The earliest edition in which English has a place was probably that of 1576, entitled Colloques or Dialogues avec un Dictionaire en six langues, Flamen, Anglois, Alleman, François, Espagnol et Italien. Tres util a tous Marchands ou autres de quelque estat qu'ils soyent, le tout avec grande diligence et labeur corrigé et mis ensemble. A Anvers 1576. By the end of the century a seventh and finally an eighth language were added. There are copies of two further editions of the work issued in England in the first half of the seventeenth century. The first included four languages and appeared in 1637, under the title of The { English FrenchLatine Dutch } Scholemaster or an introduction to teach young Gentlemen and Merchants to travell or trade. Being the only helpe to attaine to those languages. It was printed for Michael Sparke, who issued another edition in eight languages in 1639 as New Dialogues or colloquies or a little Dictionary of eight languages. A Booke very necessary for all those that study these tongues either at home or abroad, now perfected and made fit for travellers, young merchants and seamen, especially those that desire to attain to the use of the Tongues. Michael Sparke recommends the convenience of this portable little volume: "And if parents use to send their children beyond the sea to learne the language and to gaine the learning of forraine nations, judge what may be said of the benefit of this booke (I had almost said of the necessity of it) which being read doth by daily experience furnish the Reader with a full and perfect knowledge of divers tongues." He also tells you "in your eare" that "since the worke has been published in England and the Netherlands," not so perfect an edition has appeared.
Turning to the contents of the little handbook, we are at once struck by the close resemblance between its dialogues and those of the French text-books produced in England—still further THE DIALOGUES OF BARLEMENTevidence of the use of the book in our country. Its contents, which in all the varied forms in which it appeared are fundamentally the same, are divided into two parts. The first consists of four chapters, and opens with table talk very similar to that of the English-French dialogues, especially those of Du Ploich. There is a passage, for example, in which the schoolboy speaks of his school, found in varying form in several of the early manuals produced in England:
| Peter is that your son? | Pierre est cela vostre filz? |
| Ye it is my sonne. | Ouy c'est mon filz. |
| It is a goodly child. | C'est un bel enfant. |
| God let him alwayes prosper in vertue. | Dieu le laisse tousiours prosperer en bien. |
| I thanke you cousen. | Je vous remercie cousin. |
| Doth he not goe to schoole? | Ne va-il point a l'escole? |
| Yes, he learneth to speake French. | Ouy, il apprend a parler François. |
| Doth he? | Fait-il? |
| It is very well done. | C'est tres bien fait. |
| John can you speake good French? | Jean sçavez vous bien parler françois? |
| Not very well, cousen, but I learne. | Ne point fort bien, mon cousin, mais ie l'apprends. |
| Where go you to schoole? | Ou allez vous a l'escole? |
| In the Lombarde Street. | En la rue de Lombarts. |
| Have you gone long to schoole? | Avez vous longuement allé à l'escole? |
| About halfe a yeare. | Environ un demy an. |
| Learn you also to write? | Apprenez vous aussi a escrire? |
| Yea, cousen. | Ouy, mon cousin. |
| That is well done, learne alwayes well. | C'est bien fait, apprenez tousiours. |
| Well cousen, if it please God. | Bien mon cousin, s'il plait a Dieu. |
The second chapter deals with buying and selling; the third with counting, demanding payment of debts, and so on; and the fourth gives specimens of commercial letters and documents. The second part contains an alphabetical vocabulary of common words, followed by directions for reading and speaking French, in the guise of a slight grammar. A few rules for pronunciation and the different parts of speech are accompanied by advice to seek fuller information in other French grammars. Then come a few rules for the other languages—Italian, Spanish, and Flemish.