Читать книгу The Anglo-French Entente in the Seventeenth Century - Charles Bastide - Страница 12

The teachers of French in England were almost men of letters, the number and variety of books they wrote showing how vigorously they wielded the pen. We may remember here Bernard André of Toulouse, who taught Henry viii. French, Nicolas Bourbon, a friend of Rabelais, Nicolas Denisot, French master to Somerset's daughters. Then came Saint-Lien, whose productions would fill a library,[70] James Bellot,[71] Pierre Erondel,[72] Charles Maupas,[73] Paul Cougneau.[74]

After the Restoration may be noted Claude Mauger,[75] Guy Miège,[76] Paul Festeau, "maître de langues à Londres,"[77] d'Abadie,[78] Pierre Bérault, "chapelain de la marine britannique." "If," wrote the latter in his quaint Nosegay or Miscellany of Several Divine Truths (1685), "any gentleman or gentlewoman hath a mind to learn French or Latin, the author will wait upon them; he lives in Compton Street, in Soo-Hoo Fields, four doors of the Myter." These men spread the taste of French manners and French books. One of the more obscure among them, Denis, a schoolmaster at Chester, taught Brereton, the future translator of Racine.

The most unpardonable ignorance was that of most of the travellers. Under Etienne Perlin's pen (1558) Cambridge and Oxford are transmuted into Cambruche and Auxonne; Dartford becomes Datford with Coulon (1654); Payen calls the English coins crhon, toupens, farden (1666); even sagacious Misson prefers the phonetic form coacres (quakers) and coacresses (quakeresses) (1698). Sorbière travelled about England, meeting some eminent men of the time, without knowing a word of English.[79] They have for excuse their extraordinary blindness. Thus Coulon does not hesitate to deliver his opinions on the English language, which he calls "a mixture of German and French, though it is thought that it was formerly the German language in its integrity." As for Le Pays, he candidly owns that he would have found London quite to his taste if the inhabitants had all spoken French (1672).

If the travellers, like the ambassadors, were content to glance contemptuously at the strange country, the Huguenots, who were compelled by fate or the royal edicts to live in England, showed more curiosity. On those foreign colonies of London and the southern ports we now possess accurate information.

Let us leave aside Shakespeare's Huguenot friends;[80] we have the evidence of Bochart, minister at Rouen; the Huguenot settlers in England in the first half of the seventeenth century would learn English, attend church services, and receive communion at the hands of the bishops.[81] The earliest translations of English works came from Huguenot pens. In August 1603, Pierre De l'Estoile, the French Evelyn, records how "Du Carroy and his son, together with P. Lebret, were released from prison, where they were confined for printing in Paris the Confession of the King of England (a pamphlet by James i. setting forth his Anglican faith); whence they should have been liberated only to be hanged but for the English ambassador's intercession; so distasteful to the people was that confession, in which mass was termed an abomination."[82]

A glance at the Nouvelles ordinaires de Londres, the weekly French gazette published in French during the Commonwealth and the Protectorate,[83] will convince any one that the editor knew English well: in those pages there are no traces of "coacres" for "quakers." Proper names are always spelt correctly, be they ever so numerous. The readers know both languages, otherwise what use would there be to advertise in the gazette a recently-published devotional English work?[84] However, they could not be expected to help their countrymen to read Shakespeare, for they felt the Puritan's dislike for the stage; witness the satisfaction with which is recorded the arrest by Cromwell's musketeers of a company of players "at the Red Bull in St. John's Street."[85]

If the translation of Eikon Basiliké was due to Porrée and Cailloué, both Huguenots, Milton's reply was translated by a pupil of the Huguenot Academy of Sedan, the Scotsman John Dury.

After the Restoration, the information is still more abundant. In 1662, Mauger writes that "he has seen many Frenchmen in London, able to speak English well."[86] Translations become more plentiful, as the Term Catalogues testify. Then there are precise facts: for instance, the first time Evelyn met Allix, the pastor at Charenton, Allix spoke Latin, in order to be understood by Archbishop Sancroft.[87] Three years later, Allix, now an English divine, was able to publish a book in English. M. de Luzancy, an ex-Carmelite, fled to England and abjured the Catholic faith at the Savoy in 1675. Becoming minister at Harwich, he had occasion to write to Pepys, and accordingly penned some excellent English. Another refugee, François de la Motte, was sent to Oxford by Secretary Williamson. A few months later, he was reported as able "to pronounce English better than many strangers who preach there," and, to show that he had not wasted his time, he wrote his benefactor a letter in English, preserved in the Record Office.[88] The quarrel that broke out in 1682 between French artisans living in Soho gave some humble Huguenot the opportunity of proving his knowledge of English.[89] When Saint-Evremond wished to read Asgill the deist's works, he had recourse to his friend Silvestre. Born in Tonneins, in South-Western France, in 1662, Silvestre had studied medicine at Montpellier, then went to Holland, and settled in London in 1688; "the King wished to send him to Flanders, to be an army-surgeon, but he preferred to stay in London, where he had many friends."[90]

After the Revolution, the number of Huguenots in England was so considerable that many of them became English authors: it is enough to quote the names of Guy Miège, Motteux, and Maittaire. But we now come to the eve of the eighteenth century when England and France, as in the Middle Ages, were brought into close touch. "Whereas foreigners," wrote Miège in 1691, "used to slight English as an insular speech, not worth their taking notice, they are at present great admirers of it."[91]

The merchants had to know English even as the refugees. While the French gentlemen at Court had no need to mix with the middle or lower classes, the merchants often had to see in person their English buyers. During the sixteenth century, simple grammars and lists of words were available. The Flanders merchants might learn from Gabriel Meurier, teacher of English in Antwerp, the author of a text-book printed at Rouen in 1563. Pierre De l'Estoile mentions in 1609 one Tourval, an "interpreter of foreign languages," then living in Paris;[92] none other, most probably, than the Loiseau de Tourval who contributed to Cotgrave's famous Dictionary. In 1622, a Paris printer issued La Grammaire angloise de George Mason, marchand de Londres.[93] Three years later appeared L'alphabet anglois, contenant la prononciation des lettres avec les déclinaisons et les conjugaisons, and La grammaire angloise, pour facilement et promptement apprendre la langue angloise. These publications must have found readers.

Information on the French merchants in England is scanty. They did not care to draw attention upon business transactions which a sudden declaration of war might at any time render illicit. But something is known about the printers.

About 1488, Richard Pynson, a native of Normandy and a pupil of the Paris University, settled in England. He became printer to Henry vii. and published some French translations. From the few extant specimens we may conclude that Pynson hardly knew how to write English. But he was the first of a line of French printers in England, the most famous of whom were Thomas Berthelet and the Huguenot Thomas Vautrollier.

As in 1912 an English firm print in England for sale on the Continent our French authors, so in 1503 Antoine Vérard, a Paris printer, published English books. When Coverdale had finished his translation of the Bible, he carried the manuscript over to France and entrusted it to François Regnault. This printer seems to have been an enterprising man, having in London an agency for the sale of the English books that he set up in type in Paris. The printing of the "Great Bible" was a lengthy task. In spite of the French king and the English ambassador Bonner, Regnault got into trouble with the authorities and the clergy. The "lieutenant-criminel" seized the sheets, but, instead of having them burnt by the hangman, as it was his duty to do, the greedy official sold them to a mercer who restored them to Regnault for a consideration. In the meantime presses and type and even workmen had been hurried to London, where the work was completed (1539). Nor must the provincial printers be forgotten, thus from 1516 to 1533 almost the whole York book-trade was in the hands of the Frenchman Jean Gachet.[94] Many books sold by English booksellers came from the presses of Goupil of Rouen or Regnault of Paris.

THE FORTUNE-TELLER after Arnoult

The tradition of French printers in England was continued in the following century by Du Gard, the printer of certain Milton pamphlets and of the Nouvelles ordinaires de Londres, and Bureau, "marchand libraire dans le Middle Exchange, dans le Strand," most obnoxious to the French ambassador because a determined opponent of the French Court.

About French artisans and servants the information is, of course, of the most meagre description. There are merely allusions by the contemporary playwrights to the French dancing-master, fencer, or sweep, equally unable to pronounce English correctly, to the great merriment of the "groundlings."[95] However, a French valet, Jean Abbadie, who served many noblemen at the close of the seventeenth century, took the trouble to learn and could even write English.[96]

Now and then a name emerges from the obscure crowd. That, for instance, of "John Puncteus, a Frenchman, professing physick, with ten in his company," licensed "to exercise the quality of playing, for a year, and to sell his drugs";[97] or of Madame Le Croy (De La Croix), the notorious fortune-teller,

"Who draws from lines the calculations,

Instead of squares for demonstrations,"

and

"Imposes on

The credulous deluded town,"[98]

and no doubt carried on the dubious trade of her countrywoman "la devineresse," as recorded by Arnoult the engraver. We may fancy Madame La Croix slyly handing the billet-doux to the daughter, under the unsuspecting mother's very eyes.

Lower still we shall reach the criminal classes: adventurers, gamblers, robbers, and murderers. If the notorious poisoner, the Marquise de Brinvilliers, stayed in England but a short time in her chequered career, Claude Du Val the highwayman became famous in his adopted country as well for his daring robberies as for his gallantry to ladies:

"So while the ladies viewed his brighter eyes,

And smoother polished face,

Their gentle hearts, alas! were taken by surprise."[99]

The State Trials have preserved the name of a French gambler, De La Rue, who in 1696 acted as informer at the trial for high treason of Charnock and his accomplices.

It is difficult to go lower than these infamous men: our inquiry is at end. We shall conclude that if it is an exaggeration to state that the French as a rule learned English in the seventeenth century, it is true that individual instances may be found of Frenchmen learning English, and even speaking and writing it.[100] Though they did not help to spread either English manners or literature in France, they contributed in a most marked manner to make the English familiar with the French language.