Herbert, it will be seen, had not a very high opinion of the social origin or ability of the majority of his fellow-teachers. He was a very unwilling member of the profession. He does not style himself "Professor of the French Language" on the title-page of his dialogues, although he taught both in his house and away from home, because few people care to boast of their cross, and his cross was—to be reduced to belong to a profession "que tant de valets, de mécaniques, et d'ignorants rendent tous les jours méprisable." He draws a far from flattering picture of the common sort of French teacher. He is a "brouillon," a shuffling fellow, who boasts, dresses well, and intrudes everywhere, cringing and offering his services at a cheaper price than the genuine teachers. He can hardly write seven or eight lines of French correctly. Yet men such as this, says Herbert, pass for first-class teachers, and some take upon themselves to correct and write books. What is more, they count many pupils, even among the nobility.
Yet another cause of annoyance to Herbert was what seemed to him the presumption of the Blois fraternity. It is the fashion, he remarks scornfully, to say you come from Blois. And you do so if you happen to come from Normandy. He is not ashamed of his province, though he takes good care not to advertise it needlessly; Brittany (of which he was evidently a native) is better than Blois, according to him. Thus we may conclude that Herbert was one of the 'enemies' to whom members of the Blois group frequently allude. Festeau refers to them as being ignorant and envious persons, while Mauger describes them foaming with envy and jealousy, and trying to harm him in the eyes of his pupils, as well as casting aspersions on his grammar;[841] but he did not regard what they said, England having raised his grammar so high that "their envy cannot reach to it." And Mauger goes on to censure a certain section of the French teaching profession, "broken Frenchmen," who make their pupils speak rapidly, but not distinctly. "Have a speciall care," he exclaims, "that you have not to do with those that are not true Frenchmen as your Normans or Gascons. I confesse that a Norman that is a man of some quality or one that hath seen the world or that is a good scholar may possibly have the right accent, but any other that hath not such parts can never give the true accent." Herbert retorted that the Blois clique tried to persuade every one that Bretons and Normans cannot speak correct French. He naturally resented such assertions, and was not himself nearly so exclusive in the list of those who were not "good Frenchmen." He merely states that the English are greatly mistaken in their estimation of the French living here, "considering as such all those that speak their tongue, so that the high Germans, Switzers of the French tongue, Danes, Swedes, Dutch, Walloons, and those of Geneva pass for good French in the opinion of many, although in truth there are not here two naturall French 'mongst ten, which are taken for such, and who for their profit would gladly go for such."
There was every need, thought Herbert, of protecting the profession from these incompetent teachers. Before a tutor is engaged he should be made to translate a passage from a good author from English into French, and then from French into English, and both the pieces should be examined by competent judges of both languages; for, according to him, a teacher must know English, or some other language with which the scholar is acquainted, such as Latin, so that there may be some foundation on which to build the new edifice.
Beyond the importance he attached to translation, we know little of Herbert's ideas on the teaching of French. He devotes more space to criticizing the teachers. He does tell us, however, that French orthography is best learnt by transcribing French passages, by which operation it impresses itself on the mind without effort. He was also an advocate of much and careful reading. Grammatical rules he considered necessary, and he had intended to publish a grammar together with his dialogues, but he was prevented from doing so by illness. He hoped, however, to issue it a few months later, but apparently he was again prevented from carrying out his design. Yet two years after the appearance of his GUILLAUME HERBERTdialogues he published another work but of quite a different character—Considerations on the behalf of Foreiners which reside in England, and of the English who are out of their own country, to allay the tempest which is too often raised in the minds of the vulgar sort, and to sweeten the bitterness of a bilious or cholerick humour against strangers, in which he showed "that of all the Nations of Europe, the English and French should love one another best, as well for their vicinity as for the great commerce that is 'mongst them in time of peace, and for their consanguinitie, there being in this country thousands of families which are descended from the French, and as many or more in France whose progenitours are English." These 'considerations,' twenty in number, are mainly a plea in favour of the foreign churches in England and of the liberty of aliens to trade and work in this country, with an allusion to the "good usage of neighbouring Nations" towards the English fugitives of Mary's reign. They are dated from the Charterhouse, June 1662, and appear to have been the only work Herbert published after his Dialogues. He had, however, previously shown his interest in the teaching of French by editing in 1658 the fourth edition of Cogneau's Sure Guide to the French Tongue,[842] which consisted largely of the style of dialogue which he ridiculed at a later date.
Herbert had had a long career in England before we first hear of him as a teacher of French. He had composed treatises in French and in English, both of which he wrote with equal facility. His language gives no clue to his nationality, but, as we saw, we may conclude from his autobiographical dialogue that he was a native of Brittany. He was, no doubt, the William Herbert, native of France, who received a grant of letters of denization in 1636. At that date he was living at Pointington, Somerset, and was married to an Englishwoman, Frances Sedgwicke. In the previous year he had prepared for the press a work in French called La Mallette de David.[843] How he spent his time in Pointington is not clear, but in 1640 he was tutor to the sons of Montague Bertie, second Earl of Lindsey. On the death of his wife in 1645 he moved to London, and published a number of devotional works in English, which he had composed at Pointington, chiefly for the benefit of his wife and children. He refers to the unfavourable reception of these compositions in his French and English dialogues, which he hoped would meet with a better fate.
Herbert also took a great interest in the foreign churches of London. He dedicated his Quadripartit Devotion of 1648 to the "learned, pious, and reverend Pastors, Elders, and Deacons of all the French and Dutch congregations in England." At a later date he published a biting pamphlet against a French Pastor, Jean Despagne,—the Réponse aux Questions de Mr. Despagne adressées à l'Eglise Françoise de Londres (1657), accusing "le ridicule Despagne" of blasphemy and immorality, as well as criticising his French. In this work Herbert agrees with Lainé in omitting a number of superfluous letters, with the intention of facilitating reading for foreigners, though he was opposed to too many changes, for fear of offending the partisans of the old orthography. The Dialogues and the Considerations in behalf of Strangers were the two works issued subsequently to the attack on Despagne, and with them ends all we know of the career of Herbert, critic of the French teaching profession, and earliest advocate of the "registration" of teachers.
The Jean Despagne attacked so bitterly by Herbert was none the less a welcome guest in this country, and was the only truly French minister in London during the Commonwealth. English as well as French, attracted by his excellent sermons, gathered round him. Thus he co-operated in a sense, and no doubt unconsciously, with Mauger and the other French teachers of the time, who were busy encouraging their pupils to attend the French church. Despagne was minister, not of the old church of Threadneedle Street, but of a new congregation in Westminster, which met at first in Durham House in the Strand, and when that was pulled down, at the chapel in Somerset House (1653).[844] He held aloof from the older church, and went so far as to criticise Calvin. He was attacked and accused of schism, but was protected by his powerful patrons, chief among whom was the Earl of Pembroke. An important group of the royalist English nobility and gentry found in Despagne a means of satisfying their religious needs when the Anglican church was in abeyance. Among them was the diarist John Evelyn, who heard Despagne preach in the Savoy church. THE FRENCH CHURCHESAnother adherent, and a very faithful one, was a certain Henry Brown, who, in his English translation of one of Despagne's works,[845] speaks of the great resort of the English nobility and gentry to the "excellent sermons and Doctrines" of the French pastor. Many continued to attend after the Restoration, Evelyn among others; as late as 1670 he remarks that "a 'stranger' preached at the Savoy French church, the liturgie of the Church of England being now used altogether, as translated into French by Dr. Durell."
The Savoy church had been authorized by Charles II. at the Restoration on condition that the English Liturgy in French should be used. The Threadneedle Street church, on the contrary, continued to use the Calvinistic 'discipline,' and regarded with jealousy and suspicion the church rising in Westminster. It refused all co-operation, and endeavoured to bring about the suppression of the new church. The Savoy church benefited on account of its situation in the fashionable residential quarter, while Threadneedle Street was away in the city. Consequently many members of the English aristocracy and gentry continued to frequent the Westminster church even after the Restoration. The use of the Anglican Liturgy was no doubt an additional attraction. When service was opened there in 1661, by J. Durel,[846] among the English present were the Duke and Duchess of Ormond, the Countess of Derby and her daughters, the Earl of Stafford, and the Dukes of Newcastle and Devonshire. Indeed the English gentry seem to have occupied the attention of the French churches just as much as the refugees themselves. The Threadneedle Street church felt the advantages of its Westminster rival in this respect, and at the Restoration, offered to establish a French Sabbath Lecture at Westminster for those of the English gentry and French Protestants who found Threadneedle Street too remote, hoping by this means to prevent division by having a separate church there.[847] The Threadneedle Street church, however, was not without its English adherents. Pepys went from time to time to both French churches, but more frequently to Threadneedle Street, as far as can be gathered from his diary, where he does not always specify which of the churches is meant. "At last I rose," he writes on the 28th September 1662, "and with Tom to the French church at the Savoy, where I never was before; a pretty place it is; and there they have the Common Prayer Book read in French, and which I never saw before, the minister do preach with his hat off, I suppose in further conformity with our Church." Pepys as a rule went to the Anglican church in the morning, and to the French in the afternoon. He usually has a very good word for the sermon, though on one occasion it was so "tedious and long that they were fain to light candles to baptize the children by." There were also services held at the French ambassador's, which many of the nobility attended, as well as French sermons at Court from time to time. Evelyn was present on one of these occasions: "At St. James's chapel preached, or rather harangued, the famous orator, Monsieur Morus, in French. There were present the King, the Duke, the French ambassador Lord Aubigny, the Earl of Bristol, and a world of Roman Catholics, drawn thither to hear this eloquent Protestant." This was on the 12th of January 1662. At a much later date, September 1685, he heard another Frenchman, "who preached before the King and Queene in that splendid chapell next St. George's Hall."
It appears therefore that the practice, common among French teachers, of urging their pupils to go to the French church, met with some response, as did their advice as regards the reading of French literature. On both these points the teachers of the middle of the seventeenth century are at one with those of the sixteenth, and, as a general rule, there is very little difference between the methods used in the two centuries. Reading remained the basis of the teaching; dialogues were committed to memory and translated into English, less importance being attached to retranslation into French in later times. As for pronunciation, the teachers of the seventeenth century realised the inadequacy of teaching it by comparison with English sounds; they laid all the more emphasis on the services of a good tutor, continuing, none the less, to supply certain rules, though not without a warning. As time went on, more importance was attached to the grammar, which, though still limited in theory to essential general rules, was often studied in the first place, and not left till need for it arose in practice. The general opinion is thus expressed by James Howell: "What foundations are FRENCH BY "GRAMMAR AND ROTE"to material fabriques the same is grammar to a language. If the foundation be not well laid, 'twill be but a poor tottring superstructure; if grammatical rules go not before, there is no language can be had in perfection. Yet there are no precepts so punctuall, but much must be left to observation, which is the grand Mistresse that guides and improves the understanding in the research and poursute of all humane knowledge, Quod deficit in praecepto, suppleat observatio." Students who learnt on this method, called a combination of "grammar and rote," would read aloud with their tutor, chiefly for practice in pronunciation; study the principal grammar rules and commit to memory the vocabulary of familiar phrases, and a few short dialogues; read and translate[848] French dialogues, and then pass to the favourite French authors; sometimes they would translate from English into French, or write French letters; finally they would converse as much as possible with their tutor, repeat stories they had read in French, and seize every opportunity of speaking the language and hearing it spoken.
Such was the method employed by the more serious French teachers of the time. There were, however, others, and apparently very many, who taught "by rote" alone without any grammar rules—a common method of learning modern languages. "In England, the French, Spanish, and Italian Languages are not the languages of our country, and spoke only by few Persons, yet 'tis evident they are taught in London, and several other places in the Kingdom, purely by conversation." "For it is well known," argues a writer on education,[849] "that there are Grammars writ for the French, Italian, and Spanish languages, and yet notwithstanding, these Languages are learned by Conversation ... little children, who know not what Grammar means, are bred up to speak foreign languages fluently and correctly.... There are some indeed, in England that teach Modern Languages by Grammar. But this is not at all necessary, as is unanswerably evident from those Persons who perfectly learn them without it. However, those who reach the Modern Languages by Grammar only teach their scholars so much of it as to know how to decline Nouns and Verbs and understand some few rules. For as for the Languages themselves, they are generally taught not by Books but Conversation, which is found by experience to be much the readiest, easiest, and best Method of teaching them.... Some by great application have learn'd French or Italian in half a year's time by conversation, and indeed any foreign Tongue is ordinarily taught in a year or a year and a half. And such as are two years in learning any of them are accounted either very negligent or else very incapable of retaining them.... Men who know little or nothing of French, Italian, or Spanish, quickly learn any one of these languages only by going twice or thrice a week to a club where they are obliged to speak it."