FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[882]Discourse in derision of the Teaching in Free Schools, 1644.[883]One John Gifford, for instance, obtained permission to spend seven years in France in order to educate his family there (Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1623-25, p. 282). Mr. Storey sent his grandson Starky to France to learn the language (ibid., 1649-50, p. 535).[884]Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1654, p. 427. Care was taken to prevent English students abroad from going to Roman Catholics; in 1661 Francis Cottington made a successful application for the remission of a forfeiture he incurred by going to Paris without a licence and living three months in the house of a Papist (Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1661-62, p. 566).[885]Memoirs of the Verney Family, i. pp. 477, 497.[886]Among the books he read were Monluc'sCommentaires, theSecrétaire à la mode, and theSecrétaire de la cour(Memoirs of the Verney Family, iii. p. 80).[887]Memoirs, iii. p. 66.[888]An Edict of 1683 restricted the number of such pupils allowed to French pastors to two.[889]An account of the schools of the French Protestants is given by M. Nicolas in theBulletin de l'Histoire du Protestantisme français, vol. iv. pp. 497et seq.[890]Cp. pp. 233sqq.,supra. The names of many famous families are found in the registers of Geneva University—the Pembrokes, Montagus, Cavendishes, Cecils, etc. Borgeaud,L'Académie de Genève, p. 442.[891]Memoirs, i. p. 358.[892]Verney Memoirs, vol. i. p. 358.[893]Cal. of State Papers, Dom., 1661-62, p. 283.[894]Ibid., 1656-56, pp. 182, 188, 281, 288, 316.[895]Savile Correspondence, Camden Society, 1858, pp. 80, 71sqq., 228.[896]When the Academy of Saumur was suppressed in 1684, the town lost about two-thirds of its inhabitants.[897]Locke was one of those who went to the South of France "carrying a cough with him"; cp. his Journal in King,Life of Locke ... with Extracts from his ... Journal, 1830, i. pp. 86sqq., Nov. 1675-March 1679.[898]Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1667-68, p. 69.[899]New Instructions to the Guardian, 1694, p. 101.[900]Cooper,Annals of Cambridge, iv. 184.[901]New Instructions to the Guardian, 1694, p. 101.[902]The Compleat Gentleman or Directions for the Education of Youth as to their breeding at home and Travelling Abroad, 1687, pp. 33sqq.[903]Eliote seems to have been the first to have described the Grand Tour—in his grammar,Ortho-Epia Gallica(1593). Sherwood followed his example in 1625. After the middle of the century such dialogues assume a more educational and guide-like and less descriptive form.[904]Lister,A Journey to Paris in the year 1698, p. 2. Lister had previously visited France in about 1668. In 1698 he visited the aged Mlle. de Scudéry and the Daciers, and frequented the French theatres.[905]Second edition, 1657.[906]London, 1656. Another edition appeared in 1673, entitledThe Voyage of France, or a compleat Journey through France.[907]As inA Tour in France and Italy made by an English Gentleman(J. Clenchy), 1675 and 1676, reprinted inA Collection of Voyages, 1745, vol. i.; andRemarks on the Grand Tour of France and Italy lately performed by a person of quality(W. Bromley), 1692 and 1693 (when it was entitledRemarks made in Travels through France and Italy with many public inscriptions. Lately undertaken by a Person of Quality). Cp. pp. 220sqq., supra.[908]For instance:Le Guide des chemins pour aller et venir par tous les pays et contrées du Royaume de France . . . par C. Estienne, Paris, 1552, 1553; Lyons, 1556.Les Antiquitez et Recherches des Villes, chasteaux, et places plus remarquables de toute la France, 6eéd., 1631. L. Coulon,Le fidèle conducteur pour le voyage de France montrant exactement les Routes et choses remarquables qui se trouvent en chaque ville, et les distances d'icelles avec un dénombrement des Batailles qui s'y sont données, Paris, 1654.[909]AsLe Guide Fidelle des étrangers dans le voyage de France, Paris, 1672 (by Aloide de St. Maurice);Les Délices de la France ou description des provinces et villes capitales d'icelles, Leyde, 1685;Le Gentilhomme étranger voyageant en France, par le baron G.D.N., 1699—borrowed, without acknowledgement, fromLe Guide Fidelleof 1672. Cp. A. Babeau,Les Voyageurs en France depuis la Renaissance jusqu'à la Révolution, Paris, 1885, chapter v.[910]By La Serre. The former, which first appeared in 1625, went through fifty editions.[911]Lockier, in Spense'sAnecdotes, 1820, p. 75.[912]Journal, p. 89.[913]Riding on horseback was the more usual mode of travelling, the horses being hired from town to town; cp. Locke'sJournal, p. 149. Wherever possible, travellers went from one town to another by water—as from one of the Loire towns to another.[914]The Memoirs of M. du Val ... intended as a severe reflexion on the too great fondness of English ladies towards French valets which at that time was a common complaint, London, 1670, Harleian Miscellany, iii. p. 308.[915]Spared Houres of a Souldier, 1623.[916]Moryson mentions Orleans as a good town; Edward Leigh, Blois and Orleans (Foelix Consortium, 1663); Evelyn, Blois and Bourges; Lookier, Orleans and Caen.[917]Epistolae Ho-Elianae, 9th ed., 1726, p. 38.[918]Heylyn,Voyage of France, 1673, p. 294.[919]He kept a diary in Latin (1648-50); cf. Wood,Athenae Oxon.(Bliss), iii. 901.[920]Gailhard,The Compleat Gentleman, 1678.[921]Who, in hisLudus Literarius, urges boys to practise speaking Latin "to fit them if they shall go beyond the seas, as Gentlemen who go to travel, Factors for merchants, and the like."[922]He tells us that at Rouen the English usually went to an inn kept by a certain Mr. Madde; at Dieppe, Madame Godard's house was very popular; at Paris, the best hotel was the "Ville de Venize." At Orleans, good lodging was found at the "Croix Blanche," kept by one M. Richard, and at the house of M. Marishall Laisné.[923]J. Rutledge,Mémoire sur le caractère, et les mœurs des Français comparés à ceux des Anglais, 1776, p. 55.[924]Vairasse was bornc.1630, probably at Allais.[925]Another grammar of similar intent was that of Ruau,La vraie methode d'enseigner la langue françoise aux estrangers expliquée en Latin, Paris, 1687.[926]Epistolae Ho-Elianae, 9th ed., 1726, p. 283.[927]Instructions for forreine travel, 1642, ed. Arber, 1869, pp. 19sqq.[928]Bacon had many years before advised the traveller to keep a diary: and further "let him sequester himself from the company of his countrymen, and diet in such places where there is a good company of the nation where he travaileth" (Essay on Travel).[929]A Huguenot boy of about sixteen was considered a suitable valet (Lainé,French Grammar, 1650).[930]I.e.Théophile de Viau.[931]St. Maurice,Guide Fidelle, 1672.[932]Limberman or the Kind Keeper, Act I. Sc. 1.[933]On Education.Miscellaneous Works, 1751, pp. 322-3.[934]Satire against the French, 1691.[935]Webb,The Penns and Penningtons of the Seventeenth Century in their Domestic and Religious Life, 1867, p. 154.[936]Gibbon, on the contrary, was sent to the house of a pastor of Lausanne, in the hope that he would abjure the doctrines of Roman Catholicism, which he had affected at the same University.[937]Diary, August 26 and 27, 1664; August 30, 1664.[938]D. Fordyce,Dialogues on Education, 1745, i. p. 417.[939]The Compleat Education of a Young Nobleman, 1723, pp. 13 and 14.[940]Costeker,op. cit.pp. 50-51.[941]Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, 1634-1689, London, 1875, pp. 26sqq., andMemoirs and Travels of Sir John Reresby, London, 1904, p. 21.[942]Travelling by boat on the Loire, as was usual, and passing by Tours. They were accompanied by a band of French men and women who, says Reresby, tried to make the journey more pleasant by singing, and made it less so.

[882]Discourse in derision of the Teaching in Free Schools, 1644.

[883]One John Gifford, for instance, obtained permission to spend seven years in France in order to educate his family there (Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1623-25, p. 282). Mr. Storey sent his grandson Starky to France to learn the language (ibid., 1649-50, p. 535).

[884]Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1654, p. 427. Care was taken to prevent English students abroad from going to Roman Catholics; in 1661 Francis Cottington made a successful application for the remission of a forfeiture he incurred by going to Paris without a licence and living three months in the house of a Papist (Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1661-62, p. 566).

[885]Memoirs of the Verney Family, i. pp. 477, 497.

[886]Among the books he read were Monluc'sCommentaires, theSecrétaire à la mode, and theSecrétaire de la cour(Memoirs of the Verney Family, iii. p. 80).

[887]Memoirs, iii. p. 66.

[888]An Edict of 1683 restricted the number of such pupils allowed to French pastors to two.

[889]An account of the schools of the French Protestants is given by M. Nicolas in theBulletin de l'Histoire du Protestantisme français, vol. iv. pp. 497et seq.

[890]Cp. pp. 233sqq.,supra. The names of many famous families are found in the registers of Geneva University—the Pembrokes, Montagus, Cavendishes, Cecils, etc. Borgeaud,L'Académie de Genève, p. 442.

[891]Memoirs, i. p. 358.

[892]Verney Memoirs, vol. i. p. 358.

[893]Cal. of State Papers, Dom., 1661-62, p. 283.

[894]Ibid., 1656-56, pp. 182, 188, 281, 288, 316.

[895]Savile Correspondence, Camden Society, 1858, pp. 80, 71sqq., 228.

[896]When the Academy of Saumur was suppressed in 1684, the town lost about two-thirds of its inhabitants.

[897]Locke was one of those who went to the South of France "carrying a cough with him"; cp. his Journal in King,Life of Locke ... with Extracts from his ... Journal, 1830, i. pp. 86sqq., Nov. 1675-March 1679.

[898]Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1667-68, p. 69.

[899]New Instructions to the Guardian, 1694, p. 101.

[900]Cooper,Annals of Cambridge, iv. 184.

[901]New Instructions to the Guardian, 1694, p. 101.

[902]The Compleat Gentleman or Directions for the Education of Youth as to their breeding at home and Travelling Abroad, 1687, pp. 33sqq.

[903]Eliote seems to have been the first to have described the Grand Tour—in his grammar,Ortho-Epia Gallica(1593). Sherwood followed his example in 1625. After the middle of the century such dialogues assume a more educational and guide-like and less descriptive form.

[904]Lister,A Journey to Paris in the year 1698, p. 2. Lister had previously visited France in about 1668. In 1698 he visited the aged Mlle. de Scudéry and the Daciers, and frequented the French theatres.

[905]Second edition, 1657.

[906]London, 1656. Another edition appeared in 1673, entitledThe Voyage of France, or a compleat Journey through France.

[907]As inA Tour in France and Italy made by an English Gentleman(J. Clenchy), 1675 and 1676, reprinted inA Collection of Voyages, 1745, vol. i.; andRemarks on the Grand Tour of France and Italy lately performed by a person of quality(W. Bromley), 1692 and 1693 (when it was entitledRemarks made in Travels through France and Italy with many public inscriptions. Lately undertaken by a Person of Quality). Cp. pp. 220sqq., supra.

[908]For instance:Le Guide des chemins pour aller et venir par tous les pays et contrées du Royaume de France . . . par C. Estienne, Paris, 1552, 1553; Lyons, 1556.Les Antiquitez et Recherches des Villes, chasteaux, et places plus remarquables de toute la France, 6eéd., 1631. L. Coulon,Le fidèle conducteur pour le voyage de France montrant exactement les Routes et choses remarquables qui se trouvent en chaque ville, et les distances d'icelles avec un dénombrement des Batailles qui s'y sont données, Paris, 1654.

[909]AsLe Guide Fidelle des étrangers dans le voyage de France, Paris, 1672 (by Aloide de St. Maurice);Les Délices de la France ou description des provinces et villes capitales d'icelles, Leyde, 1685;Le Gentilhomme étranger voyageant en France, par le baron G.D.N., 1699—borrowed, without acknowledgement, fromLe Guide Fidelleof 1672. Cp. A. Babeau,Les Voyageurs en France depuis la Renaissance jusqu'à la Révolution, Paris, 1885, chapter v.

[910]By La Serre. The former, which first appeared in 1625, went through fifty editions.

[911]Lockier, in Spense'sAnecdotes, 1820, p. 75.

[912]Journal, p. 89.

[913]Riding on horseback was the more usual mode of travelling, the horses being hired from town to town; cp. Locke'sJournal, p. 149. Wherever possible, travellers went from one town to another by water—as from one of the Loire towns to another.

[914]The Memoirs of M. du Val ... intended as a severe reflexion on the too great fondness of English ladies towards French valets which at that time was a common complaint, London, 1670, Harleian Miscellany, iii. p. 308.

[915]Spared Houres of a Souldier, 1623.

[916]Moryson mentions Orleans as a good town; Edward Leigh, Blois and Orleans (Foelix Consortium, 1663); Evelyn, Blois and Bourges; Lookier, Orleans and Caen.

[917]Epistolae Ho-Elianae, 9th ed., 1726, p. 38.

[918]Heylyn,Voyage of France, 1673, p. 294.

[919]He kept a diary in Latin (1648-50); cf. Wood,Athenae Oxon.(Bliss), iii. 901.

[920]Gailhard,The Compleat Gentleman, 1678.

[921]Who, in hisLudus Literarius, urges boys to practise speaking Latin "to fit them if they shall go beyond the seas, as Gentlemen who go to travel, Factors for merchants, and the like."

[922]He tells us that at Rouen the English usually went to an inn kept by a certain Mr. Madde; at Dieppe, Madame Godard's house was very popular; at Paris, the best hotel was the "Ville de Venize." At Orleans, good lodging was found at the "Croix Blanche," kept by one M. Richard, and at the house of M. Marishall Laisné.

[923]J. Rutledge,Mémoire sur le caractère, et les mœurs des Français comparés à ceux des Anglais, 1776, p. 55.

[924]Vairasse was bornc.1630, probably at Allais.

[925]Another grammar of similar intent was that of Ruau,La vraie methode d'enseigner la langue françoise aux estrangers expliquée en Latin, Paris, 1687.

[926]Epistolae Ho-Elianae, 9th ed., 1726, p. 283.

[927]Instructions for forreine travel, 1642, ed. Arber, 1869, pp. 19sqq.

[928]Bacon had many years before advised the traveller to keep a diary: and further "let him sequester himself from the company of his countrymen, and diet in such places where there is a good company of the nation where he travaileth" (Essay on Travel).

[929]A Huguenot boy of about sixteen was considered a suitable valet (Lainé,French Grammar, 1650).

[930]I.e.Théophile de Viau.

[931]St. Maurice,Guide Fidelle, 1672.

[932]Limberman or the Kind Keeper, Act I. Sc. 1.

[933]On Education.Miscellaneous Works, 1751, pp. 322-3.

[934]Satire against the French, 1691.

[935]Webb,The Penns and Penningtons of the Seventeenth Century in their Domestic and Religious Life, 1867, p. 154.

[936]Gibbon, on the contrary, was sent to the house of a pastor of Lausanne, in the hope that he would abjure the doctrines of Roman Catholicism, which he had affected at the same University.

[937]Diary, August 26 and 27, 1664; August 30, 1664.

[938]D. Fordyce,Dialogues on Education, 1745, i. p. 417.

[939]The Compleat Education of a Young Nobleman, 1723, pp. 13 and 14.

[940]Costeker,op. cit.pp. 50-51.

[941]Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, 1634-1689, London, 1875, pp. 26sqq., andMemoirs and Travels of Sir John Reresby, London, 1904, p. 21.

[942]Travelling by boat on the Loire, as was usual, and passing by Tours. They were accompanied by a band of French men and women who, says Reresby, tried to make the journey more pleasant by singing, and made it less so.

TheFrench teachers of London at the time of the Restoration, chief amongst whom were Claude Mauger, Paul Festeau, Pierre Lainé, and Guillaume Herbert, all urged students to travel in France as a means of completing the knowledge of French acquired in England; yet at the same time they naturally and in their own interests lay emphasis on the facilities for learning the language in England, especially after the Restoration, when, to use Mauger's words, there was a little France in London, as well as a little England in Paris; "there being so great a correspondence between the two Courts of England and France that we see here continually the Lords of the latter, as they see at Paris persons of quality of the former, besides an infinity of others going and coming from thence." This indeed was the period in which Francomania reached its height in England. During the Commonwealth the English Court and many of the nobility and gentry had sojourned in France, and returned thence imbued with admiration for everything French. This admiration was intensified by the universal popularity of the French language and French fashions. Gentlemen from all parts of Europe repaired to France to learn the language and "frenchify" their manners. France was the country to which English gentlemen resorted "to get their breeding"; and the Chancellor Clarendon held that their manners were much improved by the contact. On the other hand, French men and women of the same class came to the English Court in larger numbers than ever before. Some returned with their English friends at the Restoration. Others followed later, for the English Court offered more attractions to pleasure-seekers than did the French Court, now under the influence of Madame de Maintenon.

The indignation and dismay aroused in France by the execution of Charles I.[943]made the welcome offered to the royalist emigrants all the warmer in the first instance. We are told that Paris, and indeed all France, was full of loyal fugitives.[944]The exiled English Court was sheltered at the Louvre and the Palais Royal in turn.[945]The queen arrived in her native land in 1644, and shortly afterwards came Prince Charles, then about sixteen years old, and James, the young Duke of York. Mlle. de Montpensier, the grand-daughter of Henry IV., remarks on the French of the two young princes. James, she thought, spoke the language with ease, and very well indeed, and Mademoiselle was no lenient critic.[946]But Charles had not drawn as much profit from the lessons received in England.[947]He found the pronunciation an almost insuperable difficulty, stammered and hesitated, and during the early part of his stay remained almost mute for want of words. Mademoiselle says he could not utter one intelligible sentence in French, though he understood all she said to him. Charles, however, soon felt the benefit of his sojourn abroad. When he returned to France from Holland in 1648, he had already made much progress and answered the French king readily in French, when that monarch inquired about the horses and dogs of the Prince of Orange. He was ready enough to talk of hunting in French, but when the queen wished to know about the progress of his affairs, and to talk of serious matters, he excused himself, declaring he could not speak French.[948]He would also sit silent for long periods in Mlle. de Montpensier's presence, and only ventured to convey his compliments to her through Lord Jermyn, one of the chief counsellors of Charles I., who remained in the service of the queen during her exile in France. But the princess wasTHE ENGLISH COURT IN FRANCEdelighted to see a great improvement in his speaking of the language at the time of his return from the expedition into Scotland, and the fatal battle of Worcester. He forgot his shyness and spoke French well, relating to her the thrilling story of his escape, and how he was "furieusement ennuyé" in Scotland, where they think it a sin to listen to a violin. He was also able to make the princess very pretty compliments in French, and on these occasions, she remarks, he spoke the language particularly well.[949]

Charles is even said to have gone incognito to several French reformed churches during his stay in France. The presence of Cromwell's ambassador prevented his going to the famous church of Charenton, but he went to others. On one occasion he listened to the sermon in the Protestant church of La Rochelle, in company with the Duke of Ormond, and expressed his satisfaction to one or two of the congregation to whom he revealed his identity.[950]

Many other Englishmen improved their French during their enforced stay on the Continent. Most of the high officials of the Court of Charles I., the courtiers, nobles, and gentlemen round the king, spent the greater part of the interregnum in Paris, although some of them were disturbed by the French understanding with Cromwell in 1656. John Evelyn[951]enumerates most of the distinguished Englishmen he met in France,[952]and remarks on the number of French courtiers who paid their respects to the king (Charles II.); he himself kissed His Majesty's hand at St. Germain's. French courtiers had free intercourse with the English at concerts, festivals, and other entertainments.[953]They also met at the Academies so fashionable at the time. On the 13th March 1650, for instance, Evelyn witnessed a "triumph" in Mr. Del Campo's Academy, where "divers of the French and English noblesse, especiallymy Lord of Ossory, and Richard, sons to the Marquis of Ormond (afterwards Duke), did their exercises on horseback in noble equipage before a world of spectators and great persons, men and ladies." And again, on the 24th of May, he writes, "we were invited by the Noble Academies to a running, where were many brave horses, gallants and ladies, my Lord Stanhope entertaining us with a collation." The king's brother, the young Duke of Gloucester, set the example by daily attending one of these academies. Sir John Reresby, that time-serving politician, has also left an account of his journey in France during the Commonwealth. On his arrival at Paris in 1654 he saw the king, the Duke of York, and Prince Rupert playing at billiards in the Palais Royal; "but was incognito, it being crime sufficient the waiting upon His Majesty to have caused the sequestration of his estates."[954]Reresby was again in France in 1659, and was well received by Henrietta Maria. Almost alone of the English exiles, Sir Edward Hyde, the Chancellor, who found the discomforts of the exiled Court very great, failed to become a fluent speaker of French, chiefly because he was unable to overcome the difficulties of the pronunciation. After the Restoration he was the one high official of the English Court who did not speak the language with fluency. It was not till the time of his exile in France, after his disgrace in 1668, that he mastered the language sufficiently to read its literature; but he still found "many inconveniences" in speaking it.[955]

Men of letters formed a considerable section of the English colony in France. Waller, Denham, Cowley, Davenant, Hobbes, Killigrew, Shirley, Fanshawe, Crashaw, etc., and later Roscommon, Rochester, Buckingham, Wycherley, Vanbrugh, and others lived in France, and some mixed freely in French literary circles, then centring round the Hôtel de Rambouillet, and such names as those of Malherbe, Vaugelas, Corneille, Bossuet, Scudéry, La Calprenède. English literature of the Restoration gives ample proof of their familiarity with both the language and literature of their hosts.[956]Waller, for instance, after spending some time at Rouen, moved to Paris,where he lived "in great splendour and hospitality."[957]ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS IN FRANCECowley, who had followed the queen to Paris, became secretary to Lord Jermyn, afterwards Earl of St. Albans, and deciphered the letters which passed between the king and queen of England. The dramatist Davenant was twice in France, where he remained several years on his second visit. Hobbes, who for many years acted as a travelling tutor, made his mark in the philosophic circles of Paris, and knew Mersenne, Sorbière, and Gassendi. He fled to Paris during the civil wars, and for a time was engaged in teaching arithmetic to the Prince of Wales.[958]

Among the many children sent to France for education during the Civil War and Commonwealth were several future literary men. Both Vanbrugh and Wycherley were brought up in this way. At the age of fifteen Wycherley was "sent for education to the Western parts of France, either to Saintonges or the Angoumois. His abode there was either upon the Banks of the Charente, or very little remov'd from it. And he had there the Happiness to be in the neighbourhood of one of the most accomplish'd Ladies of the Court of France, Mme. de Montausier, whom Voiture has made famous by several very ingenious letters, the most of which were writ to her when she was a Maid, and call'd Mlle. de Rambouillet. I have heard Mr. Wycherley say he was often admitted to the Conversation of that lady, who us'd to call him the Little Hugenot: and that young as he was, he was equally pleased with the Beauty of her Mind, and with the Graces of her person."[959]

One of the young royalists who received his education in France during the Commonwealth so completely mastered the French language that he gained an important place among French men of letters: the famous Anthony Hamilton, the author of short stories in French[960]—masterpieces in the light vein[961]—and of the well-known life of his gallant brother-in-law,the Comte de Grammont, which gives a vivid picture of the life at the Court of Charles II. Hamilton has been placed second only to Voltaire as a representative of theesprit français.[962]

At the Restoration, Hamilton returned to England with the rest of the English emigrants, together with a considerable number of Frenchmen who had attached themselves to the English Court. He was followed two years later by the hero of hisMémoires,[963]the Comte de Grammont, who pronounced the English Court so like that of France in manners and conversation that he could hardly realize he was in another country.[964]French was the language freely used by the English emigrants on their return to London, and by others in imitation of them. "French is the most in use," wrote William Higford in the year of the Restoration, "a most sweet tongue called the Woman's tongue, and as I think for the address from the servant to the mistress, and from the servant to the soveraigne, there is no sweeter nor more civil."[965]The use of the French language was spreading all over Europe, but nowhere was it so popular as in England: "indeed it is most alamode and best pleases the ladies and we cannot deny but Messieurs of France are excellent wits."[966]

The presence of so many of thesemessieursin London intensified the already strong French atmosphere. Several famous names occur in the list of French ladies and gentlemen who took up their abode in England at this time. Shortly before De Grammont, St. Evremond had arrived in England, where he spent over thirty years, and died in 1703. Both played important parts in the social life of the time. DeGrammont especially was very popular.FRENCH COURTIERS IN LONDONHe received a warm welcome at Court, where he met many old friends and was overwhelmed with hospitality; to make an engagement with him it was necessary to see him a fortnight beforehand. He himself added to the Court festivities by giving French entertainments in the Parisian style.

At the numerous festivities held in honour of De Grammont, St. Evremond[967]was almost invariably one of the guests. He soon became the centre of acoterie, half English and half French, including his literary companion the Dutchman Vossius, Canon of Windsor, the French doctor Le Fèvre, professor of chemistry to Charles II.,[968]and the learned Huguenot Henri Justel, who had charge of the royal library at St. James's. What contributed most to reconcile St. Evremond to his life in England, however, was the arrival of Hortense Mancini, Duchesse de Mazarin, niece of the cardinal. The French ambassador Courtin said England was the refuge of French wives who had quarrelled with their husbands, and the Duchesse was one of these.[969]In hersalonSt. Evremond met the most distinguished Englishmen and foreign ministers of the day. He saw her daily, and she inspired much of his best work. There, too, met French Catholics, Huguenots, and Englishmen, free from all religious prejudice, and talked of the subjects which interested them most. Another of Mazarin's nieces, the Duchesse de Bouillon,[970]was also in London for a time, and received in hersalonWaller, St. Evremond, and others; at one time there was a possibility of La Fontaine joining her circle. La Fontaine seems to have felt some interest in England and the English, who, he says,

pensent profondément;Leur esprit, en cela, suit leur tempérament,Creusant dans les sujets, et forts d'expériences,Ils étendent partout l'empire des sciences.

To Mrs. Harvey, sister of Lord Montagu and friend of the Duchess of Mazarin, he dedicated his fableLe Renard Anglais.

Both St. Evremond and the Duchess of Mazarin ended their days in England.[971]St. Evremond enjoyed the favour of three English kings. Charles II. gave him a pension, and when William III. dined with one of his courtiers, he is said to have always stipulated that the French writer should be of the party, as he took great delight in his conversation. Though St. Evremond received permission in 1689 to return to his native land, he did not avail himself of the offer, preferring to remain in the midst of his English friends, who were accustomed to his ways and manners and his peculiarities.[972]But during the whole of his thirty years' stay in England he made no attempt to speak English. French was the language in which he and the rest of his countrymen carried on their daily intercourse with their hosts.

Pepys also refers frequently to the Frenchmen he met in London.[973]On one occasion at the Cockpit his attention was diverted from the stage by a group of loquacious Frenchmen in a box, who, not understanding English, were amusing themselves by asking a pretty lady, who knew both languages, what the actors said. "Lord! what sport they made!" says Pepys. On another occasion at Whitehall he met a very communicative Frenchman with one eye, who shared a coach with him, and told him the history of his own life "without asking."

Covent Garden, we are told, was the favourite resort of the French residents, "nearer the Court, than the Exchange."[974]Their presence, however, was not confined to Court circles; for the French were beginning to take an interest in England and to visit the country,[975]although, as yet, their curiosity had not extended to the language. In a few cases English was studied. Mauger even tells us that several of his contemporaries learnt it in France. It is certain that some employed the services of the French teachers of London, who were willing to teach their newly acquired language to their countrymen; for this purpose the practice of attaching English grammars to French ones—a combination first instituted by Mauger, who urged the French and English toFRENCH VALETS AND "FEMMES DE CHAMBRE"avail themselves of this opportunity of exchanging lessons—became more and more common as the seventeenth century drew to its close. In the meanwhile guide-books[976]and relations of travel in England appeared. The writer of one of these, M. Payen,[977]remarks on the great number of strangers, especially Frenchmen, in London.[978]At the time of the Restoration, however, the chief significance of their presence lies in the need they created for the English to speak French.

The great demand for everything French, including the language, offered an opening for many Frenchmen in London; for all the men and women of fashion were not in the position of De Grammont, who sent his valet, Thermes, to France every week to bring back the latest fashions from Paris. "Nothing will go down with the town now," writes a contemporary author, "but French fashions, French dancing, French songs, French servants, French wines, French kickshaws, and now and then French sawce come in among them, and so no doubt but French doctors may be in esteem too."[979]In almost every book written at the time there is some reference to the mania for French fashions. And some time later the Abbé Le Blanc relates how, on one occasion in England, a self-satisfied Englishman taunted him thus: "Il faut que votre pays soit bien pauvre, puisque tant de gens sont obligés de le quitter pour chercher à vivre en celui-ci. C'est vous qui nous fournissez de Maîtres à danser, de Perruquiers, de Tailleurs, et de Valets de chambre: et nous vous devons cette justice, pour la Frisure ou pour le Menuet, les François l'emportent sur toutes les autres Nations. Je ne comprens pas comment on aime si fort la Danse dans un Pays où l'on a si peu sujet de rire. N'est-il pas triste, par exemple, de ne cultiver vos Vignes que pour nous?"[980]

Regarding the Frenchvaletsandfemmes de chambrein London, the Abbé writes: "Il n'est pas étonnant que l'on trouve en Angleterre tant de Domestiques François. A Londres on se plaît à parler notre Langue, on copie nos usages, on imite nos mœurs: ils entretiennent du moins dans nos manières ceux qui les aiment: et les Anglois les payent àproportion de l'utilité qu'ils en retirent."[981]We are told that the French lackey was "as mischievous all the year as a London apprentice on Shrove Tuesday";[982]yet he was indispensable:

His Lordship's Valet must be bred in France,Or else he is a clown without Pretence:The English Blockheads are in dress so coarse,They're fit for nothing but to rub a horse.Her Ladyship's ill manner'd or ill bred,Whose Woman Confident or Chamber Maid,Did not in France suck in her first breath'd Air,Or did not gain her education there.[983]

French cooks were also in great demand, and it was a point of gentility to dine at one of the French ordinaries. Thus Briske, in Shadwell'sHumourists, is condemned as "a fellow that never wore a noble or polite garniture, or a white periwig, one that has not a bit of interest at Chatelin's, or ever ate a good fricacy, sup, or ragoust in his life"; for now, "like the French we dress, like Frenchmen eat." "Substantial beef" is "boil'd in vain," and "our boards are profaned with fricassee":[984]

Our cooks in dressing have no skill at all,French cooks are only of the modish stamp.

Pepys did not care for the new French restaurants. At the most popular, Chatelin's,[985]he says, they serve a "damned base dinner at the charge of 8s. 6d." He preferred the old English ordinaries where English food was given a French name. Yet he admits that at the French houses the table is covered and the glasses clean, all in the French manner; and when he dined with his patrons of the Admiralty, he usually was given a "fine French dinner."[986]

As to the French dancing-master, he is a "very PaladinTHE FRENCH TAILORof France when he comes into England once, where he has the Regimen of the Ladies leges and is the sole Pedagoge of their feet, teaching them the French Language, as well as the French Pace."[987]French music was also the vogue. We are told that during the reign of Charles II. "all musick affected by the beau mond ran in the ffrench way."[988]John Bannester, the first violin to the king, is said to have lost his post[989]for having upheld, within the hearing of His Majesty, that the English musicians were superior to the French. Soon after the Restoration, Charles on one occasion gave great umbrage to the English musicians by making them stop their performance and bidding the French music play instead.

In the same way the French tailor is "the King of Fashions and Emperor of the Mode, not onely in France, but most of its Neighboring Nations, and his Laws are received where the King of France's will not pass";[990]and thus the French

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