PART III
STUART TIMES
CHAPTER I
FRENCH AT THE COURTS OF JAMES I. AND CHARLES I.—FRENCH STUDIED BY THE LADIES—FRENCH PLAYERS IN LONDON—ENGLISH GENERALLY IGNORED BY FOREIGNERS
The coming of the Stuarts strengthened considerably the connexion between France and England. French was widely used at the Court of James I. The King himself does not appear to have been well acquainted with other foreign languages than French and Latin, both of which he employed freely in conversation[707] and correspondence.[708] In one or other of these tongues he conversed with the learned foreigners he loved to gather at his Court, such as Isaac Casaubon[709] and the famous Protestant preacher, Pierre Du Moulin, minister of Charenton. The latter has left an account[710] of the warm welcome he received from the English monarch; he tells us that at meal times he usually stood behind His Majesty's chair and conversed with him. James requested Du Moulin to write an answer to Cardinal Du Perron's pamphlet concerning the power of the Pope over monarchs, in which he had been attacked. Du Moulin complied, and his work was printed at London in 1615 as the Declaration du Sérénissme Roy Jacques I. He also preached in French before James at the Chapel Royal at Greenwich, and received marks of distinction from the University of Cambridge, which conferred the degree of D.D. upon him.[711]
An idea of the extent to which French was used in intercourse with ambassadors and other foreigners may be gathered from the Finetti Philoxenus, a series of observations by Sir John Finett, knight and master of the ceremonies to the two first Stuart kings of England, touching the reception and precedence, treatment and audience of foreign ambassadors. The French language was making important progress at this time, and Latin was rapidly losing ground. James was the last king of England to employ Latin in familiar conversation, and this is partly accounted for by his pedantic turn of mind. The spread of the use of French in England was hastened too by its growing popularity all over Europe. The Flemish Mellema, in his Flemish-French Dictionary of 1591, says French is used everywhere in Europe and the East.[712] To be unacquainted with French was accounted a great deficiency in a gentleman. It was said of the language that qui langue a jusqu'à Rome va,[713] and in England the general conviction was that "No nobleman, gentleman, soldier, or man of action in business between Nation and Nation can well be without it."[714]
James seems to have acquired his knowledge of French chiefly by means of intercourse with the many Frenchmen at the Scottish Court, one of whom, Jérôme Grelot, was among the young noblemen who shared his studies.[715] He also read much French literature, however, and later took a great interest in the language studies of his children. They were constantly required to send him letters in French and Latin to allow him to judge of their progress.
"Sir," wrote the Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Queen of Bohemia, "L'esperance que j'ay de vous voir bien tost et d'avoir l'honneur de recepvoir voz commandemens m'empeschera de vous faire ma lettre plus longue que pour baiser tres humblement les mains de vostre Majesté."[716]