"Men who know the world hold that the true use of speech is not so much to express our wants, as to conceal them."
Then comes Talleyrand, who is reported to have said:
"La parole n'a été donnée à l'homme que pour déguiser sa pensée."
The latest writer who adopts this remark without acknowledgment is, I believe, Lord Holland. In his Life of Lope de Vega he says of certain Spanish writers, promoters of the cultismo style:
"These authors do not avail themselves of the invention of letters for the purpose of conveying, but of concealing, their ideas."
From these passages (some of which have already appeared in Vol. i., p. 83) it will be seen that the germ of the thought occurs in Jeremy Taylor; that Lloyd and South improved upon it; that Butler, Young and Goldsmith repeated it; that Voltaire translated it into French; that Talleyrand echoed Voltaire's words; and that it has now become so familiar an expression, that any one may quote it, as Lord Holland has done, without being at the trouble of giving his authority.
If, from the search for the author, we turn to consider the saying itself, we shall find that its practical application extends not merely to every species of equivocation, mental reservation, and even falsehood; but comprises certain forms of speech, which are intended to convey the contrary of what they express. To this class of words the French have given the designation of contre-vérité; and, to my surprise, I find that they include therein the expression amende honorable. Upon this point the Grammaire des Grammaires, by Girault Duvivier, has these remarks:
"La contre-vérité a beaucoup de rapport avec l'ironie. Amende honorable, par exemple, est une contre-vérité, une vérité prise dans un sens opposé à celui de son énonciation; car, au lieu d'être honorable, elle est infamante, déshonorante."
I have some doubts as to whether this meaning of amende honorable be in accordance with our English notion of its import; and I shall be thankful to any of your readers who will help me to a solution. I always understood that the term honorable, in this expression, was to be taken in its literal sense, namely, that the person who made an open avowal of his fault, or tendered an apology for it, was acting, in that respect, in strict conformity with the rules of honour. It is possible that, at first, the amende honorable may have been designed as a "peine infamante;" but its modern acceptation would seem to admit of a more liberal construction.