[941] Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, 1634-1689, London, 1875, pp. 26 sqq., and Memoirs and Travels of Sir John Reresby, London, 1904, p. 21.
[942] Travelling by boat on the Loire, as was usual, and passing by Tours. They were accompanied by a band of French men and women who, says Reresby, tried to make the journey more pleasant by singing, and made it less so.
CHAPTER VI
GALLOMANIA AFTER THE RESTORATION
The French teachers of London at the time of the Restoration, chief amongst whom were Claude Mauger, Paul Festeau, Pierre Lainé, and Guillaume Herbert, all urged students to travel in France as a means of completing the knowledge of French acquired in England; yet at the same time they naturally and in their own interests lay emphasis on the facilities for learning the language in England, especially after the Restoration, when, to use Mauger's words, there was a little France in London, as well as a little England in Paris; "there being so great a correspondence between the two Courts of England and France that we see here continually the Lords of the latter, as they see at Paris persons of quality of the former, besides an infinity of others going and coming from thence." This indeed was the period in which Francomania reached its height in England. During the Commonwealth the English Court and many of the nobility and gentry had sojourned in France, and returned thence imbued with admiration for everything French. This admiration was intensified by the universal popularity of the French language and French fashions. Gentlemen from all parts of Europe repaired to France to learn the language and "frenchify" their manners. France was the country to which English gentlemen resorted "to get their breeding"; and the Chancellor Clarendon held that their manners were much improved by the contact. On the other hand, French men and women of the same class came to the English Court in larger numbers than ever before. Some returned with their English friends at the Restoration. Others followed later, for the English Court offered more attractions to pleasure-seekers than did the French Court, now under the influence of Madame de Maintenon.
The indignation and dismay aroused in France by the execution of Charles I.[943] made the welcome offered to the royalist emigrants all the warmer in the first instance. We are told that Paris, and indeed all France, was full of loyal fugitives.[944] The exiled English Court was sheltered at the Louvre and the Palais Royal in turn.[945] The queen arrived in her native land in 1644, and shortly afterwards came Prince Charles, then about sixteen years old, and James, the young Duke of York. Mlle. de Montpensier, the grand-daughter of Henry IV., remarks on the French of the two young princes. James, she thought, spoke the language with ease, and very well indeed, and Mademoiselle was no lenient critic.[946] But Charles had not drawn as much profit from the lessons received in England.[947] He found the pronunciation an almost insuperable difficulty, stammered and hesitated, and during the early part of his stay remained almost mute for want of words. Mademoiselle says he could not utter one intelligible sentence in French, though he understood all she said to him. Charles, however, soon felt the benefit of his sojourn abroad. When he returned to France from Holland in 1648, he had already made much progress and answered the French king readily in French, when that monarch inquired about the horses and dogs of the Prince of Orange. He was ready enough to talk of hunting in French, but when the queen wished to know about the progress of his affairs, and to talk of serious matters, he excused himself, declaring he could not speak French.[948] He would also sit silent for long periods in Mlle. de Montpensier's presence, and only ventured to convey his compliments to her through Lord Jermyn, one of the chief counsellors of Charles I., who remained in the service of the queen during her exile in France. But the princess was THE ENGLISH COURT IN FRANCEdelighted to see a great improvement in his speaking of the language at the time of his return from the expedition into Scotland, and the fatal battle of Worcester. He forgot his shyness and spoke French well, relating to her the thrilling story of his escape, and how he was "furieusement ennuyé" in Scotland, where they think it a sin to listen to a violin. He was also able to make the princess very pretty compliments in French, and on these occasions, she remarks, he spoke the language particularly well.[949]
Charles is even said to have gone incognito to several French reformed churches during his stay in France. The presence of Cromwell's ambassador prevented his going to the famous church of Charenton, but he went to others. On one occasion he listened to the sermon in the Protestant church of La Rochelle, in company with the Duke of Ormond, and expressed his satisfaction to one or two of the congregation to whom he revealed his identity.[950]
Many other Englishmen improved their French during their enforced stay on the Continent. Most of the high officials of the Court of Charles I., the courtiers, nobles, and gentlemen round the king, spent the greater part of the interregnum in Paris, although some of them were disturbed by the French understanding with Cromwell in 1656. John Evelyn[951] enumerates most of the distinguished Englishmen he met in France,[952] and remarks on the number of French courtiers who paid their respects to the king (Charles II.); he himself kissed His Majesty's hand at St. Germain's. French courtiers had free intercourse with the English at concerts, festivals, and other entertainments.[953] They also met at the Academies so fashionable at the time. On the 13th March 1650, for instance, Evelyn witnessed a "triumph" in Mr. Del Campo's Academy, where "divers of the French and English noblesse, especially my Lord of Ossory, and Richard, sons to the Marquis of Ormond (afterwards Duke), did their exercises on horseback in noble equipage before a world of spectators and great persons, men and ladies." And again, on the 24th of May, he writes, "we were invited by the Noble Academies to a running, where were many brave horses, gallants and ladies, my Lord Stanhope entertaining us with a collation." The king's brother, the young Duke of Gloucester, set the example by daily attending one of these academies. Sir John Reresby, that time-serving politician, has also left an account of his journey in France during the Commonwealth. On his arrival at Paris in 1654 he saw the king, the Duke of York, and Prince Rupert playing at billiards in the Palais Royal; "but was incognito, it being crime sufficient the waiting upon His Majesty to have caused the sequestration of his estates."[954] Reresby was again in France in 1659, and was well received by Henrietta Maria. Almost alone of the English exiles, Sir Edward Hyde, the Chancellor, who found the discomforts of the exiled Court very great, failed to become a fluent speaker of French, chiefly because he was unable to overcome the difficulties of the pronunciation. After the Restoration he was the one high official of the English Court who did not speak the language with fluency. It was not till the time of his exile in France, after his disgrace in 1668, that he mastered the language sufficiently to read its literature; but he still found "many inconveniences" in speaking it.[955]
Men of letters formed a considerable section of the English colony in France. Waller, Denham, Cowley, Davenant, Hobbes, Killigrew, Shirley, Fanshawe, Crashaw, etc., and later Roscommon, Rochester, Buckingham, Wycherley, Vanbrugh, and others lived in France, and some mixed freely in French literary circles, then centring round the Hôtel de Rambouillet, and such names as those of Malherbe, Vaugelas, Corneille, Bossuet, Scudéry, La Calprenède. English literature of the Restoration gives ample proof of their familiarity with both the language and literature of their hosts.[956] Waller, for instance, after spending some time at Rouen, moved to Paris, where he lived "in great splendour and hospitality."[957] ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS IN FRANCECowley, who had followed the queen to Paris, became secretary to Lord Jermyn, afterwards Earl of St. Albans, and deciphered the letters which passed between the king and queen of England. The dramatist Davenant was twice in France, where he remained several years on his second visit. Hobbes, who for many years acted as a travelling tutor, made his mark in the philosophic circles of Paris, and knew Mersenne, Sorbière, and Gassendi. He fled to Paris during the civil wars, and for a time was engaged in teaching arithmetic to the Prince of Wales.[958]