And here again he would find the desired French atmosphere. Many translations or adaptations of French plays were acted,[1028] and the English drama of the period is so full of French words and phrases that it is hardly intelligible to any one without a good knowledge of French.[1029] The Frenchified Gallants and Ladies, the French Valets, and other French characters introduced so freely into the plays, offered ample opportunity for the use of French words.[1030] Dryden, alone, is responsible for the introduction of more than a hundred such words.[1031] As literature was fashionable at the time, most of the dramatic authors were themselves gentlemen à la mode with strong French tastes. Sedley, for instance, had a great reputation in the world of fashion. Wycherley and Vanbrugh had both been educated in France. Etherege had probably resided many years in Paris. Cibber, who always played the part of the fop in his own plays, went twice to France specially to study the airs and graces of the French petit-maître,—at no better place, however, than a table d'Auberge, the Abbé Le Blanc tells us:[1032] "Il faut lui pardonner ses erreurs sur ses modèles, il n'étoit à portée d'en voir d'autres: si même il n'a pas aussi bien imité ceux-ci que les Anglois se le sont persuadé, je n'en suis pas surpris: il m'a avoué de bonne foi qu'il n'entend pas assez notre langue pour suivre la conversation." It is unlikely, however, that Cibber's French was as scanty as the abbé reports. At any rate his daughter Charlotte, afterwards Mrs. Clarke, tells us that she understood the alphabet in French before she was able to speak English.[1033]
The prologues and epilogues of the Restoration plays are frequently addressed to the gallants, and often in a language which would appeal to them; for instance, a French Marquis speaks the epilogue in Farquhar's Constant Couple:
... Vat have you English, dat you call your own,
Vat have you of grand plaisir in dis towne,
Vidout it come from France, dat will go down?
Picquet, basset: your vin, your dress, your dance,
'Tis all, you zee, tout à-la-mode de France.
FRENCH PLAYS IN LONDON The Francomaniacs of the time would find still more to their taste at the French play. During nearly twenty years after the Restoration, London was hardly ever without a company of French players. The beaux and gallants flocked to see "a troop of frisking monsieurs," and cry "Ben" and "keep time to the cadence of the French verses":[1034]
Old English authors vanish and give place
To these new conquerors of the Norman race,
wrote Dryden, protesting against the caprice of the town for the French comedians; and he adds elsewhere:[1035]
A brisk French troop is grown your dear delight,
Who with broad bloody bills, call you each day,
To laugh and break your buttons at their play.
There was a great rush to the French plays, both tragedies and comedies. Valets went hours in advance to reserve a place for their masters. There is no need, says Dryden, to seek far for the reason of their popularity,—they are French, and that is enough. People go to show their breeding and try to laugh at the right moment. The English dramatist insinuates that the comedians let in their own countrymen free of charge that they might lead the applause, and give the cue to the ladies.
The English Court and its followers had evidently acquired a taste for French plays during their sojourn abroad. Immediately after the Restoration a French company settled in London, and the king became their special patron and protector. In 1661 he made a grant of £300 to Jean Channoveau to be distributed among the French comedians,[1036] and in 1663 they obtained permission to bring from France their stage decorations and scenery. It seems to have always been the king's "pleasure" that "the clothes, vestments, scenes, and other ornaments proper for and directly designed for their own use about the stage should be imported customs free."[1037] The earliest troupe of French actors, under Jean Channoveau, acted at the Cockpit in Drury Lane; and there, on the 30th August 1661, Pepys took his wife to see a French comedy. He carried away a very bad impression of the play, describing it as "ill done, the scenes and company and everything else so nasty and out of order and poor, that (he) was sick all the while in (his) mind to be there." He vented his ill humour on a friend of Mrs. Pepys whom she had met in France; and "that done, there being nothing pleasant but the foolery of the farce, we went home."
French comedies were also acted at Court. Evelyn, who went very little to the theatre, witnessed one of these on the 16th December 1662, but makes no observation on it. In the Playhouse to be let of Davenant, who directed the Duke's company playing at Dorset Gardens,[1038] figures a Frenchman who has brought over a troupe of his countrymen to act a farce. The French actor Bellerose is said to have made a fortune by playing in London.[1039] Another of these actors who ventured to London was Henri Pitel, sieur de Longchamp, who came in 1676 with his wife and two daughters.[1040] He stayed nearly two years in England, and shone at the Court of Charles II. Charles himself is said not to have missed one of the French plays,[1041] at which his mistress, Louise de Kerouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth, Mme. Mazarin, the French ambassador, and many courtiers were always present. In 1684 the "Prince's French players" were again expected in England,[1042] no doubt the same troupe, directed by Pitel and known as Les comédiens de son Altesse sérénissime M. le Prince.