Old French

“ I've often thought that those old French landscape men must have dearly loved the country they made so beautiful—loved it intelligently—for they left so much wild beauty edging the formality of their creations. ”

“ As years went on, and as men more and more aped their betters, the French words would drive out the Old En­glish words; and the latter class would linger only in the mouths of upland folk, where a keen antiquary may find some of them still. So mighty was the spell at work, that in the Fourteenth Century French words found their way into even the Lord's Prayer and the Belief; the last strongholds, it might be thought, of pure En­glish. ”

“ A large number of Old French words and meanings, now extinct in the language of Paris, were introduced into English after the Norman Conquest; and though some have perished, many have survived—strife from Old French estrif (Teutonic strīt) ; quaint from cointe (cognitum) ; remember from remembrer (rememorāre) ; chaplet (garland) from chapelet (Modern French “chaplet of beads”) ; appointment (rendezvous) from appointement (now “salary”) . Many also survive in other French dialects. ”

“ Connect yourself, while you are in France, entirely with the French; improve yourself with the old, divert yourself with the young; conform cheerfully to their customs, even to their little follies, but not to their vices. ”

“ He feels oppressively, discouragingly, as many another of his countrymen must have felt—for the French have worked their language as no other people have done—the penalty of coming at the end of three centuries of literature, the difficulty of dealing with an instrument of expression so worn by friction, of drawing new sounds from the old familiar pipe. ”

“ Summary.—Looking at the internal history of the French language as a whole, there is no such strongly marked division as exists between Old and Middle English, or even between Middle and Modern English. Some of the most important changes are quite modern, and are concealed by the traditional orthography ”

“ And along with the influx of Anglo-French words further semantic changes were, of course, taking place in the more important Old English words. If there are occasions when a single word seems to throw more light on the workings of men’s minds than a whole volume of history or a whole page of contemporary literature, the Middle English love-longing is certainly one of them. ”

“ They observe the true distinction of the tenses with an exactitude that sounds stiff and pedantic to those French people who move about, and who consider that they live in the 'world.' To the unprejudiced foreigner, however, it is not unpleasant to hear this old-fashioned literary French spoken in an easy, simple manner that removes all suspicion of affectation. ”

“ Again, we learn that the gallant Frenchman spoke 'the French dialect' because he has not as yet mastered 'the good old Anglo-Saxon idiom.' This is even more puzzling than the dialect-question. Why the Anglo-Saxon idiom? ”

“ He spoke in that refined French in which our grandfathers not only spoke but thought, and with the gentle, patronizing intonation natural to a man of importance who had grown old in society and at court. ”

“ The old interests of aristocracy—the romance of action, the exalted passions of chivalry and war—faded into the background, and their place was taken by the refined and intimate pursuits of peace and civilization. ”

“ But look at the imagination, the vivacity, of the others: we read them in childhood for the poetry of their wonders, and in more advanced life for their wit; for they are the Horaces of fairy land. The French have the very perfection of short stories in their literature—little touches like the flight of a shining arrow. ”

“ The French, to do them justice, attend very minutely to the purity, the correctness, and the elegance of their style in conversation and in their letters. 'Bien narrer' is an object of their study; and though they sometimes carry it to affectation, they never sink into inelegance, which is much the worst extreme of the two. Observe them, and form your French style upon theirs: for elegance in one language will reproduce itself in all. ”

“ The English represent the genius of commerce, the art of making a fortune, the distinctive characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon race. We, on this continent, represent some of the virtues which have distinguished the French race from all time, generosity, the love of belles lettres and of good taste and Gallic gaiety and enthusiasm which are the heritage of France and have been the inspiring cause of so many noble actions inscribed in the annals of history. ”

“ What, then, is the place they give to the disturbing element? They treat it—the answer might be—as the poetry of life. For the French, simply because they are the most realistic people in the world, are also the most romantic. ”

“ These great writers are not merely remarkable for the vigour and originality of their thoughts, the freshness, variety and grace of their fancy, the abundance of their learning and the solidity of their arguments in the cases where argument is required. Their great merit is the creation of a language and a style able to give expression to these good gifts. The foregoing account of the medieval literature of France will have shown sufficiently that it is not lawful to despise the literary capacities and achievements of the older French. ”

“ But the sentence is pronounced; even our Henry IV. could not change it. Under his reign the Langue d'Oil became for ever the French language, and the Langue d'Oc remained but a patois.
"Popular poet as you are, you sing to posterity in the language of the past. This language, which you recite so well, you have restored and perhaps even created; yet you do not feel that it is the national language; this powerful instrument of a new era, which invades and besieges yours on all sides like the last fortress of an obsolete civilisation." ”

“ How enviable is the culture of a nation that can figure out so many shades of meaning by a single word! French is exactly the language of the world,—worthy to become the universal language, that all may have it in their power to cheat and cozen and betray each other! ”

“ As has already been observed, the older foreign literature which had hitherto been kept out of France, and the new, which was captivating men's minds by its novelty, were simultaneously seized on and assimilated by the young generation, with an eagerness exactly proportioned to the vehemence with which the works in question repudiated the rules adhered to in earlier French literature. ”

“ The 13th century, from the point of view of Biblical renderings into the vernacular, is an absolute blank. French—or rather the Anglo-Norman dialect of the period—reigned supreme amongst the upper classes, in schools, in parliament, in the courts of law and in the palace ofAnglo-Norman Period. the king. English lurked in farms and hovels, amongst villeins and serfs, in the outlying country-districts, in the distant monasteries, amongst the lower clergy, amongst the humble and lowly and ignorant. ”

“ And yet, O nineteenth-century France, learn to prize that old France which was as good as you. You will grow old in your turn and you will be accused, as we were accused, of clinging to obsolete ideas. The men whom you have vanquished are your fathers; do not deny them, you are sprung from their blood. Had they not been generously faithful to the ancient traditions, you would not have drawn from that native fidelity the energy which has been the cause of your glory in the new traditions: between the old France and the new, all that has happened is a transformation of virtue. ”

“ There is much, we think, that shows that the ancestors of modern Frenchmen were grand and admirable in deeds as well as in words. To comment upon their conduct would be, as in the case of the inspired writers, to weaken the eloquence of the text and the power of its imagery. We have in the History of France an incident that is even more imposing, more wonderful, and quite à propos in reference to current French and Italian Politics ”

“ And this new literary culture was naturally confined to the French dialect of the conquerors, which had become the language of court and castle, of church and law, of chivalry and the chase; while the rich and cultured tongue of Alfred and Ælfric was left for generations without literary employment, during which time it lost nearly all its poetical, philosophical, scientific, and artistic vocabulary, retaining only the words of common life and everyday use [4] . And for more than 300 years after the Conquest English lexicography stood still. ”

“ The English, like ancient medals, kept more apart, and passing but few people’s hands, preserve the first sharpnesses which the fine hand of Nature has given them;—they are not so pleasant to feel,—but in return the legend is so visible, that at the first look you see whose image and superscription they bear.—But the French, Monsieur le Count, added I (wishing to soften what I had said) , have so many excellences, they can the better spare this;—they are a loyal, a gallant, a generous, an ingenious, and good temper’d people as is under heaven;—if they have a fault—they are too serious. ”

“ That is an impossible thought, Arenta.”
“No more so than an Englishman. In fact, Englishmen are not to be thought of at all; while Frenchmen are the fashion. Just consider the drawing-rooms of our great American ladies; they are full of French nobles.” ”

“ At the close of the eleventh century and at the beginning of the twelfth we find the vulgar tongue in France not merely in full organisation for literary purposes, but already employed in most of the forms of poetical writing. ”

“ This is perhaps because the French are the great phrase-makers of the world. The turn of a phrase comes easily to them; and the turn of a phrase captivates and conquers them, so that they will die for it. ”

“ The complex origin of the English tongue has enabled English writers to obtain those effects of diversity, of contrast, of imaginative strangeness, which have played such a dominating part in our literature. The genius of the French language, descended from its single Latin stock, has triumphed most in the contrary direction—in simplicity, in unity, in clarity, and in restraint. ”

“ For the representation of pieces bearing the general character which we have described, the French are certainly better fitted than any other people,—their native gaiety and sprightliness of disposition,—the polish which their manners so readily acquire,—their irrepressible confidence and self-conceit,—their love of shewing off, and attracting attention, give really a stage effect to many of their serious actions, and to almost all their trifling conversation and amusements. ”

“ The place belongs so entirely to the past, and there seems such a remoteness between the hoar antiquity of a scene so thoroughly old English and the busy world from which we have just emerged, that we almost hesitate to advance. ”

“ Are not these vulgar great men, after all? Is man ever sublime but when he renounces?
It is in this point that the French stand in opposition to the critical, no less than the religious, spirit of modern times. ”

“ Regardless of the hopes, faith and love which had endeared him to France in earlier years, and which—as they are to the present Poet Laureate of England—were more than enough to have made his old age beautiful and dignified, the grey-headed old man, tossed upon the black wave of Revolutions, sullied his fame by bringing forth books which only live to swell the torrent of iniquity, and to effect the downfall of many a promising, fair and guileless youth, abroad as well as in France. ”

“ In the eyes of the vulgar, the French are starved wigmakers, papists, and serfs, an inferior kind of creatures, who can neither call their bodies nor their souls their own, puppets and tools in the hands of a master and a priest. ”

“ The harmony of both however depends so much on the same flow of cadence and disposal of the pause, that they appear plainly to be of the same original; and every French heroic verse evidently consists of the ancient distich of their Francic ancestors: which, by the way, will account to us why this verse of the French so naturally resolves itself into two complete hemistics. ”

“ To the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary—vigorous, but harsh, limited in extent, and lacking in fine discriminations and power of abstract expression, was now added nearly the whole wealth of French, with its fullness, flexibility, and grace. As a direct consequence the resulting language, modern English, is the richest and most varied instrument of expression ever developed at any time by any race. ”

“ The ancient penmanship and curious contents of the faded pages before me carried my thoughts backward into the old Colonial times, with their rigid social distinctions, lofty manners, and ill-concealed superstition ; and I mused upon grim old magistrates, wizened witches, stately dames, rugged Indian-fighters, and all their strange doings and sayings in the ancient days, until, between drowsiness and imagining. I fell into a tangled labyrinth of romance, history, and reverie. ”

“ Like summer lightning, French wit flashes frequently, brightly and innocuously, leaving nothing disagreeable to remind one of its having appeared. Conversation is, with the French, the aim and object of society. ”

“ But the intense admiration of the severe beauties of classical literature, which was the dominant literary note of the Renaissance, translated itself in their active minds into a determination to make, if it were possible, French itself more able to emulate the triumphs of Greek and of Latin. ”

“ A slow temperament makes them less rapid and ready than other countrymen, and has given occasion to the observation, that English wit comes afterwards, – which the French denote as esprit d'escalier. This dulness makes their attachment to home, and their adherence in all foreign countries to home habits. ”

“ The nearer we approach 1303, the more numerous become the French words, upon which the right of En­glish citizenship was being bestowed. In the Thirteenth Century the greatest change that ever revolutionised our tongue was made. A baleful Century it was, when we look to English philology; though a right noble Century, in its bearing on English politics and English architecture. ”