—Mademoiselle the French Mantua maker.
We are told that the Frenchified lady was educated in a French boarding-school, by a French dancing master, a French singing master, and a French waiting woman. "Before I could speak English plain," she tells us, "I was taught to jabber French: and learnt to dance before I could go: in short I danced French dances at 8, sang French at 10, spoke it at 13, and before 15 could talk nothing else."
Among the gentlemen à la mode, "to speak French like a magpie" was also the fashion:
We shortly must our native speech forget
And every man appear a French coquett.
Upon the Tongue our English sounds not well,
But—oh, monsieur, la langue françoise est belle;[1017]
wrote a satirist of the time. And so the Francomaniacs, designated as beaux or English monsieurs, became the subject for satire and ridicule. Their French was often not of a very high standard. Pepys met one of the monsieurs, "full of his French," and pronounced it "not very good." Many, no doubt, had to be content "t' adorn their English with French scraps."
And while they idly think t' enrich,
Adulterate their native speech:
For, though to smatter ends of Greek
Or Latin be the rhetorique
Of pedants counted and vainglorious,
To smatter French is meritorious,
And to forget their mother tongue
Or purposely to speak it wrong.[1018]
Butler says that "'tis as ill breeding now to speak good Englis, as to wrote good Englis,[1019] good sense or a good hand," and "not to be able to swear a French oath, nor use the polite French word in conversation," debarred one from polite society. The town spark or beau garzion is frequently introduced in the comedies of the time. Not being master of his own language, he intermingles it with scraps of French that the ladies may take him for a man of parts and a true linguist.[1020] Such is Sir Foppington, who walks with one eye hidden under his hat, with a toothpick in prominence, and a cane dangling at his button;[1021] and Sir Novelty Fashion, who prefers the title of Beau to that of Right Honourable;[1022] and the Monsieur of Paris of Wycherley's Gentleman Dancing Master, "mightily affected with French Language and Fashions," preferring the company of a French valet to that of an English squire, and talking "agreeable ill Englis." Etherege's Sir Fopling Flutter[1023] presents us with a telling picture of what was considered good breeding and wit at the Court of Charles II. Sir Fopling is "a fine undertaking French fop, arrived piping hot from Paris," bent on imitating THE ENGLISH "MONSIEUR"the people of quality in France and on speaking a mixture of French and English. "His head stands for the most part on one side, and his looks are more languishing than a lady's when she lolls at stretch in her coach, or leans her head carelessly against the side of a box in the playhouse." He judges everything according to what is done at Paris, and English music and dancing make him shudder. And as it was à la mode to be
Attended by a young petit garçon
Who from his cradle was an arch Fripon,[1024]
he walks about with a train of French valets. Mr. Frenchlove of James Howard's "English Monsieur" (1674) is likewise "a Frenchman in his second nature, that is in his fashion, discourse and clothes"; he cannot discover a divertissement in the whole of London, but finds "some comfort that in this vast beef-eating city, a French house may be found to eat at."
The French ordinaries held an important place in the daily round of the beau. His toilet occupied the whole of the early part of the day. He would then go to the French ordinary,[1025] where he boasts of his travels to the untravelled company, and if they receive this well, plies them with "more such stuff, as how he, simple fellow as he seems to be, had interpreted between the French King and the Emperor." Or, if his accomplishments will not stand this strain, "flings some fragments of French or small parcels of Italian about the table."[1026] He may then take the promenade or Tour à la Mode, where he salutes with bon meen, and has a hundred jolly rancounters on the way.[1027] He usually ended his day at the play.