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Title: The Anglo-French Entente in the Seventeenth Century
Author: Bastide, Charles
Language: English
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THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE IN THE XVII CENTURY
BY CHARLES BASTIDE
[Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO CALAIS]
THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
BY CHARLES BASTIDE
Even as a hawke flieth not hie with one wing, even so a
man reacheth not to excellency with one tongue.
ASCHAM.
LONDON JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK JOHN LANE COMPANY
TORONTO BELL & COCKBURN MCMXIV
_Printed by_ MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED, _Edinburgh_
INTRODUCTION
Of late there have appeared on the literary relations of England and France
some excellent books, foremost of which may be mentioned, besides the now
classical works of M. Jusserand, Dr. A. H. Upham's _French Influence in
English Literature_ and Sir Sidney Lee's _French Renaissance in England_.
The drift of the main argument set forth in those several volumes may be
pointed out in a few words. Up to the death of Louis XIV., France gave more
than she received; but, in the eighteenth century, England paid back her
debt in full. France, intended by her geographical position to be the
medium through which Mediterranean civilisation spread northwards,
continued by her contributions to the English Renaissance and the influence
of her literary models on the Restoration writers, a work that historians
trace back to Caesar's landing in Britain, Ethelbert's conversion to
Christianity, and the triumph of the Normans at Hastings. But ere long the
native genius of the people asserted itself. Thanks to a series of lucky
revolutions, England reached political maturity before the other Western
nations, and, in her turn, she taught them toleration and self-government.
The French were among the first to copy English broad-mindedness in
philosophy and politics; to admire Locke and Newton; and to practise
parliamentary government.
To books that lead up to conclusions so general may succeed monographs on
minor points hitherto partly, if not altogether, overlooked. In the
following essays will be found some information on the life that Frenchmen
led in England in the seventeenth century and at the same time answers to a
few not wholly uninteresting queries. For instance: was it easy to journey
from Paris to London, and what men cared to run the risk? Did the French
learn and, when they settled in England, did they endeavour to write,
English correctly? Though the two nations were often at war, many
Englishmen admired France and a few Frenchmen appreciated certain aspects
of English life; how was contemporary opinion affected by these men? Though
England taught France rationalism in the eighteenth century, must it be
conceded that rationalism sprang into existence in England? when English
divines proved overbold and English royalists disrespectful, they might
allege for an excuse that Frenchmen had set the bad example. Hence the
importance of noticing the impression made by the Huguenots on English
thought.
Since nothing gives a stronger illusion of real life than the grouping of
actual facts, extracts and quotations are abundant. They do not only
concern governors and generals, Cromwell and Charles II., but men of the
people, an Aldersgate wig-maker, a Covent Garden tailor, a private tutor
like Coste, and poor Thémiseul, bohemian and Grub Street hack.
The danger of the method lies in possible confusion, resulting from the
crowding together of details. But the anecdotes, letters, extracts from old
forgotten pamphlets, help to build up a conviction in which the one purpose
of the book should be sought.
The history of the relations of France and England in the past is the
record of the painful endeavours of two nations to come to an
understanding. Though replete with tragical episodes brought about by the
ambition of kings, and the prejudices and passive acquiescence of subjects,
the narrative yields food for helpful reflections. In spite of mutual
jealousy and hatred, the two nations are irresistibly drawn together,
because, having reached the same degree of civilisation, they have need of
each other; whereas the causes that keep them apart are accidental, being
royal policy, temporary commercial rivalry, some estrangement too often
ending in war through the selfishness of party leaders; yet the chances of
agreement seem to grow more numerous as the years roll by; and the
unavoidable happy conclusion makes the narrative of past disunion less
melancholy.
The fantastic dream of one generation may come true for the next succeeding
ones. Did Louis XIV. and William III. think that while their armies were
endeavouring to destroy each other in Flanders, and their fleets on the
Channel, some second-rate men of letters, a few divines who wrote
indifferent grammar, a handful of merchants and skilled workmen were paving
the way for peace more surely than diplomatists? The work of those
cosmopolites was quite instinctive: they helped their several nations to
exchange ideas as insects carry anther dust from one flower to another.
Voltaire was probably the first deliberately to use the example of a
foreign nation as an argument in the controversy which he carried on
against tradition and authority, and, in that respect, he proved superior
to his more obscure predecessors.
It is a pleasure to acknowledge the help I have received while collecting
material. My thanks are due above all to M. Mortreuil of the Bibliothèque
Nationale, to whose unfailing kindness I owe much; and to M. Weiss, the
courteous and learned librarian of the Bibliothèque de la Société pour
l'histoire du protestantisme français. Nor shall I omit the authorities of
the Bodleian Library and the British Museum. I desire also to express my
thanks to Mr. W. M. Fullerton, Dr. F. A. Hedgcock, Mr. Frederic Cobb, MM.
Lambin and Cherel.
I must add that the chapters on the political influence of the Huguenots,
that appeared some years ago in the _Journal of Comparative Literature_, of
New York, have been rewritten.
To the readers of _Anglais et Français du dix-septième Siècle_ an
explanation is owing. If the original title is retained only in the
headlines, it is because, on the eve of publication, a book appeared
bearing almost the same title. They will, it is hoped, hail in the
short-lived Anglo-French _entente_ of Charles II.'s time, the forerunner of
the present "cordial understanding."
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
INTRODUCTION v
I. FROM PARIS TO LONDON UNDER THE MERRY MONARCH 1
II. DID FRENCHMEN LEARN ENGLISH IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY? 19
III. SPECIMENS OF ENGLISH WRITTEN BY FRENCHMEN 39
IV. GALLOMANIA IN ENGLAND (1600-1685) 62
V. HUGUENOT THOUGHT IN ENGLAND (FIRST PART) 77
VI. HUGUENOT THOUGHT IN ENGLAND (SECOND PART) 114
VII. SHAKESPEARE AND CHRISTOPHE MONGOYE 142
VIII. FRENCH GAZETTES IN LONDON (1650-1700) 149
IX. A QUARREL IN SOHO (1682) 167
X. THE COURTSHIP OF PIERRE COSTE, AND OTHER LETTERS 176
XI. THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF THE TRANSLATOR OF
ROBINSON CRUSOE, THE CHEVALIER DE THÉMISEUL 207
INDEX 229
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ON THE ROAD TO CALAIS (see p. 4) _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
THE FORTUNE-TELLER, AFTER ARNOULT 36
A FRENCH COQUETTE AT HER TOILET-TABLE 66
THE DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH AS A LEADER OF FASHION 70
"L'ANGLAIS," POPULAR REPRESENTATION OF AN ENGLISHMAN,
_c._ 1670, AFTER BONNART 74
A SCHEME OF THE PERSECUTION 100
JEAN CLAUDE, THE HUGUENOT DIVINE 120
LOUIS XIV. DESTROYS HERETICAL BOOKS 140
"NOUVELLES ORDINAIRES DE LONDRES," NUMBER I 156
AT VERSAILLES, AFTER BONNART 164
THE FRENCH TAILOR, AFTER ARNOULT 168
PIERRE BAYLE, REFUGEE AND MAN OF LETTERS 204
JEAN-BAPTISTE COLBERT, MARQUIS DE SEIGNELAY, SECRETARY
OF STATE, 1690, AFTER MIGNARD 222
ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
CHAPTER I
FROM PARIS TO LONDON UNDER THE MERRY MONARCH
"The French," wrote Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "are the most travelled people.
The English nobility travel, the French nobility do not; the French people
travel, the English people do not." Strange as the fact appears, our
forefathers in the seventeenth century, even as in the eighteenth, wandered
over England as well as Spain or Italy, but they drew up their wills before
setting out.
The nobility travelled little; only a royal injunction would cause a
gentleman to forsake Versailles; the ambassadors left with reluctance. But
there followed a suite of attachés, secretaries, and valets. One day,
Secretary Hughes de Lionne had a mind to send his son to London. The young
marquis was entrusted to the charge of three grave ambassadors; good
advice therefore he did not lack, and we must believe his journey was not
altogether distasteful as he was seen to weep when the day came for him to
return.[1]
Next to official envoys stood unofficial agents, gentlemen who preferred
exile to a more rigorous punishment; lastly, mere adventurers.
Not a few Frenchmen came over to England on business purposes. The Bordeaux
wine merchant, the Rouen printer, the Paris glovemaker, could not always
trust their English agents when some difficult question arose. Cardinal
Mazarin's envoy mentions in his dispatches the "numerous Bordeaux merchants
in London, some of whom are Catholics."[2] At the Restoration there existed
a kind of French Chamber of Commerce, and, as early as 1663, the
ambassadors extol the adroitness of one Dumas, who appears to have played
the part of an unofficial consul-general.[3]
But there were travellers by taste as well as by necessity. Long before the
word _globe-trotter_ was added to the English language, not a few Frenchmen
spent their lives wandering about the world, to satisfy a natural craving
for adventure. Men of letters had been known to travel before Voltaire or
Regnard. Shall we name Voiture, Boisrobert, Saint-Amant, the author of
_Moses_, an epic ridiculed by Boileau? Saint-Amant celebrated his journey
in an amusing poetical skit in which he complains of the climate, the
splenetic character of the people, the rudeness of the drama. But most of
the travellers preferred to note their impressions in ordinary prose. Some
published guides. Those narratives enable us to find out how a Frenchman
could journey from Paris to London under the Grand Monarch.
Then, as now, the travellers had the choice between the Calais and Dieppe
routes. According to their social status, they would set out in a private
coach, on horseback, or in the stage coach. The latter was not yet the
diligence, it was a heavy cumbersome vehicle "neither decent nor
comfortable," through the canvas cover of which the rain would pour.[4] It
took five days to go from Paris to Calais. As travelling by night was out
of the question, the traveller would put up at Beaumont-sur-Oise, Poix,
Abbeville, Montreuil.
As soon as the traveller had passed the gates of the capital, his
adventures began. When the Swiss servant fell off his horse, every one
laughed because he received no more consideration than a "stout
portmanteau."[5] Then the roads were bad: the coach might upset or stick
fast in the mud. Dangers had to be taken into account as well as
inconveniences: in November 1662, Ambassador Cominges quaintly
congratulated himself upon avoiding "two or three shipwrecks on land,"
meaning that there were floods between Montreuil and Boulogne.[6] Another
danger arose from the highwaymen who infested the country, and, in time of
war, no one dreamed of leaving the shelter of a fortress such as Abbeville
or Montreuil without getting previous information on the movements of the
enemy in Flanders or Artois.[7]
A traveller will always complain of the inns; in the seventeenth century
they seem to have been of more than Spartan simplicity: "We were no sooner
got into our chambers," writes a distinguished traveller, "but we thought
we were come there too soon, as the highway seemed the cleaner and more
desirable place.... After supper, we retreated to the place that usually
gives relief to all moderate calamities, but our beds were antidotes to
sleep: I do not complain of the hardness, but the tangible quality of what
was next me, and the savour of all about made me quite forget my
supper."[8]
The illustration "On the road to Calais," taken from a contemporary print,
gives a good idea of what an inn, the "Tin Pot" at Boulogne or the "Petit
Saint-Jean" at Calais, then looked like. The scene is dreary enough, in
spite of the picturesque bare-legged turnspit by the roaring wood-fire, the
furniture is scanty, there are draughts, and the litter lying about spells
slovenliness and discomfort.
In such a place, one must be as wary of one's fellow-travellers as of the
rascally innkeepers. "One of the Frenchmen," Locke goes on to say, "who
had disbursed for our troop, was, by the natural quickness of his temper,
carried beyond the mark, and demanded for our shares more than we thought
due, whereupon one of the English desired an account of particulars, not
that the whole was so considerable, but to keep a certain custom we had in
England not to pay money without knowing for what. Monsieur answered
briskly, he would give no account; the other as briskly, that he would have
it: this produced a reckoning of the several disbursements, and an
abatement of one-fourth of the demand, and a great demonstration of good
nature. Monsieur Steward showed afterwards more civility and good nature,
after the little contest, than he had done all the journey before."
Those were minor difficulties next to what the traveller had to expect who
was bold enough to cross the Channel. In 1609, Beaumont and Fletcher
mention not without horror "Dover's dreadful cliffe and the dangers of the
merciless Channel 'twixt that and Callis."[9] The passengers crossed on
what would appear now a ridiculously small bark, which belonged to the
English Post Office. The boat, pompously named "a packet-boat," attempted
the passage twice a week, but did not always effect it. Even when the sea
was calm the skipper had to wait for the tide before weighing anchor. If
the tide turned in the night, the passengers would set up in an inn
outside the walls of Calais because the gates closed at sunset, and, as
about the same time a huge chain was stretched across the harbour's mouth,
they were compelled to reach by means of a small cock-boat the bark
anchored in the roads.
At last, the passengers being safely on board, the sails are set. Hardly
has the wind carried the packet-boat beyond Cape Grisnez when the swell
becomes uncomfortably perceptible. Nowadays we cross the Channel on fast
steamers, but progress which has given us speed has not done away with the
chief discomfort. Even as we do, so our forefathers dreaded sea-sickness.
Locke, good sailor as he was, rather coarsely jests at his
fellow-traveller, the astronomer Römer: "I believe he will sacrifice to
Neptune from the depths of his heart or stomach."[10] Those who have
experienced the sufferings of a bad passage will sympathise with the
Frenchman Gourville. "I went on board the packet-boat," he writes, "to go
to Dover; at two or three leagues out at sea, we were beset by a dead calm;
as I was very ill, I compelled the sailors to let down a small skiff not
ten feet long; and two of them having got into it with their oars, I had
trouble enough to find room; hardly had we rowed two leagues, when a gale
arose that scared my two sailors. I got to land nevertheless and, no sooner
had I drained a glass of canary, than I felt well again."[11] On coming
back, Fortune did not favour him. The North Sea that he had thus braved,
took her revenge. "I travelled post to Dover where I went on board the
packet-boat. The winds being against us, I felt worse than the first time,
and it took me three weeks to recover."
The time of crossing varied considerably. "The Strait of Dover," wrote
Coulon, "is only seven leagues wide, so that with a fair wind one can cross
from one kingdom to the other in three hours."[12] But then the wind was
seldom fair. Generally it took twelve or fourteen hours to sail from Calais
to Dover. The passengers always had to take the unexpected into account.
"At 6 in the evening," Evelyn records in his _Diary_, "set saile for
Calais, the wind not favourable. I was very sea sicke. Coming to an anker
about one o'clock; about five in the morning we had a long boate to carry
us to land tho' at a good distance; this we willingly enter'd, because two
vessells were chasing us, but being now almost at the harbour's mouth,
thro' inadvertency there brake in upon us two such heavy seas as had almost
sunk the boate, I being neere the middle up in water. Our steeresman, it
seems, apprehensive of the danger, was preparing to leape into the sea and
trust to swimming, but seeing the vessell emerge, he put her into the pier,
and so, God be thanked, we got to Calais, tho' wett."[13] Thus delays were
frequent enough; for which fogs, contrary winds, and storms were chiefly
responsible. No one appears to have grumbled much at the loss of time: the
age was not one of quick travelling, and worse might befall a passenger
than tossing about the Channel on a cold night. Many a seventeenth-century
packet-boat met with the fate of the _White Ship_, when it did not fall
into the hands of unscrupulous privateers. Under the Protectorate, the
packet-boat was escorted by "a pinnace of eight guns";[14] but the
improvident Government of Charles II. left the merchants to guard their
ships as well as they might.
Happy the passenger whose title, fortune, family connections or mere
impudence secured him a place on one of the royal yachts! He had nothing to
fear from the insolence or greed of the seamen, and instead of setting foot
on a filthy tar-bespattered deck, he found, according to the Duc de
Verneuil, "rooms which were admirably clean with foot carpets and velvet
beds."[15]
But the traveller lands on English shores. Hardly has he left the boat when
the Custom-House officers are upon him. The alert and courteous officials
one meets with nowadays at Dover or Newhaven have little in common with
their predecessors of the Restoration. The latter were coarse, ill-clad
wretches bent on extorting from the travellers a pay that a needy
Government held back. Useless to add, that they readily succumbed to the
offer of a bribe. Even the Puritan Custom-House officers had been known
for a consideration to wink at a forged pass. "Money to the searchers,"
observed Evelyn, "was as authentiq as the hand and seale of Bradshaw
himselfe."[16]
When the Frenchman has got rid of these, he is confronted by the
harbour-master, who demands the payment of a licence to pass over seas. Nor
are his troubles at end: he needs must get the governor of the castle to
affix his seal to the pass. If that exalted personage is out with the
hounds, there is nothing to do but to await his return. There is not even
the expedient of visiting the town to while away the time. Dover, in the
seventeenth century, far from resembling the picturesque port we know
closely nestling in a hollow of the white cliffs, held altogether "in one
ill-paved street about a mile long" and lined with "tumbledown houses."[17]
What about the castle? "Built upon a chalky rock, very lofty and looking
out to sea. It was formerly called the key to England, and, before cannon
came into use, was considered impregnable; but at the present time it is
used solely as a prison. It is placed too high for it to endanger any
vessel, and by land it could not withstand half a day's regular siege."[18]
The harassed traveller must needs bend his steps to an inn, probably the
French inn, kept by one Lefort and his capable wife.[19]
Travellers never landed at Folkestone: it was then "a small poor-looking
town, inhabited by fishermen."[20] Skippers seldom preferred Rye to Dover,
which greatly puzzled Frenchmen. "Rye is built on a hill at the foot of
which is a pretty good harbour which might accommodate all kinds of ships;
but I cannot imagine why the haven is so neglected. I am sure the French or
the Dutch would make it a very convenient haven, being at the mouth of a
fine river. The port is blocked up by sandbanks, through the carelessness
and idleness of the inhabitants and the selfish disposition of some of
their neighbours, who have reclaimed from the sea a great part of the port
and turned it into enclosed lands. But that is the people's business and
not mine."[21]
At last the Frenchman, all formalities being disposed of, is free to pursue
his journey. He may choose between a saddle horse or a coach. According to
Chamberlayne, the charge for a horse was threepence a mile, besides
fourpence a stage for the guide. The coach cost less: one shilling for five
miles.[22] In a few hours the traveller would reach Gravesend and there he
would take boat up to London Bridge.
Coulon gives a slightly different route: Dover to Gravesend via Canterbury,
Sittingbourne, and Rochester; Gravesend to London via Dartford (spelt by
Coulon Datford). By the way, he copies a sixteenth-century guide-book,
Jean Bernard's _Traité de la Guide des Chemins d'Angleterre_ (1579).[23]
Travelling is both easier and quicker than in France, but there are dangers
to look out for. "Take heed," cautions Jean Bernard, "of a wood called
Shuttershyll (Shooter's Hill) or the Archers' Hill, very perilous for
travellers and passers-by on account of the thieves and robbers, who would
formerly take refuge there." Even under the Merry Monarch, marauders lurked
about every main road.
One of the guide-book writers, the Lyonnese Payen, has handed down to us a
very curious computation, which it is worth while to transcribe:--
"TABLE OF THE ROADS, OF THE INNS AND THE EXPENSE TO BE INCURRED"
"FROM PARIS TO ENGLAND"
"_Dieppe_: 30 leagues.
Lodge at Place Royale and pay per meal, 20 sous.
_Rye_: 30 leagues.
Pay for the Channel crossing, 3 livres.
Lodge at the Ecu de France and pay for meal, 15 sous.
_Gravesend_: 30 leagues.
Pay by post, 9 livres.
Lodge at Saint Christopher's and pay per meal, 20 sous.
_London_: 10 leagues.
Pay by boat on the Thames, 10 sous.
Lodge at the Ville-de-Paris, at the Common Garden,
and pay for meal, 12 sous."[24]
The _Ville-de-Paris_ was a French inn, and the landlord at the time was
one Bassoneau, as Claude Mauger records in his delightful dialogues.[25]
M. Payen was a wise man; as he travelled without ostentation, he managed to
get from Paris to London spending about 26 francs or a little over. In
London, he could rent a room for four shillings a week.
It is interesting to compare the above account with that of Fynes Moryson,
an Englishman writing some thirty-five years previously. Choosing the
longer route at a time when civil wars had made the roads round Paris
impassable, he took boat from Paris to Rouen, was three days going down the
river and paid the boatman "one French crown" or three francs. His meals
had cost him 15 sous in Paris, but he was charged only 12 for them in
Rouen, and the hostler told him that before the religious wars the price of
a meal was as low as 8 sous. Along the road the innkeepers asked 15 sous,
the price of the supper including lodging for the night. Yet, he exclaims,
"all things for diet were cheaper in France than they used to be in
England." From Rouen he rode to Dieppe and there took passage to Dover for
"one crown." Odd expenses he duly recorded: 10 sous for a "licence to pass
over sea" plus 5 sous gratuity to the officer; 10 sous "for my part in the
hire of a boat to draw our ship out of the haven." It took him fourteen
hours to sail to Dover. There he had to disburse sixpence for a seat in
the boat that carried the passengers ashore. The rest of the journey was
easy, though two little mishaps happened to him: in Dover he was taken into
custody on suspicion of being a papist and brought before the Mayor; on his
arrival in his sister's house in London, the servants sought to drive him
from the door, not one of them recognising in the dirty, ill-clad, lean
stranger the gentleman who had set out for his travels ten years
before.[26]
Political changes have, as well as private misfortunes, obliged a great man
to travel under conditions which to the most humble would appear trying
enough. The details of Charles II.'s flight after the defeat at Worcester
are now known with the utmost accuracy. Extraordinary adventures, including
the episode of the famous Boscobel oak, brought the royal outlaw to the
little port of Shoreham in Sussex, where the captain of a brig bound for
Poole with a cargo of coal consented to take him over to France. On 25th
October 1651, about seven or eight o'clock, the tide came up and they set
sail. No sooner did the boat stand to sea than Charles began playing a
little comedy to avert suspicions. Drawing near the men, he told them he
was a merchant fleeing from his creditors, but with money owing to him in
France. He entreated them to induce the captain to sail for the coast of
Normandy, and made them a gift of twenty shillings. After feigning to
refuse, the captain ended by listening to the men's entreaties. Next
morning the coast of Normandy was sighted, but the wind failing, they had
to cast anchor two miles from Fécamp. Thereupon a sail came in sight and
the captain fancied it might be an Ostend privateer. A boat was instantly
lowered, and the King, together with Wilmot, reached the port with all
possible speed.
On the 27th, Charles and Wilmot took horses for Rouen. At the inn where
they resolved to stay, they were mistaken for thieves, so disreputable was
their appearance, and, no doubt, trouble would have befallen them had not
some English merchants vouched for their respectability. Refreshed and
supplied with new clothes more befitting their rank, the two wanderers set
out for Paris, the day after, in a coach.
Forty-eight hours later, they had reached the capital. Having slept at
Fleury, they arrived on the 30th at Magny, where Queen Henrietta, James
Duke of York, the Duc d'Orléans and a number of gentlemen met them. Late at
night Charles, much tired but always good-humoured, entered the Louvre.
"His retinue," wrote the Venetian ambassador, "consisted of one gentleman
and one servant; his costume was more calculated to induce laughter than
respect; his appearance was so changed that the outriders who first came up
with him, thought he must be one of his own servants."[27]
To-day, in London, one may read every morning letters from France. It was
not so three centuries ago. The mails for France, the "ordinary," as it was
then called, left London twice a week, on Monday and Thursday.[28] An
answer would be forthcoming a fortnight later, if no mishap had taken
place, that is to say, if the carrier had not been drowned on the way,[29]
or if the Secretary of State had not caused the bags to be opened in his
office. "Here," wrote Cominges to Louis XIV., "they know how to open
letters with more dexterity than anywhere in the world; they think it the
right thing to do and that no one can be a great statesman without prying
into private correspondence."[30] The Record Office preserves the
melancholy letters that never reached those to whom they were addressed.
The present house-to-house delivery of letters was unknown. They had to be
called for at the Post Office in Lombard Street. Contemporary guides never
fail to give a lengthy description of the building, and the grand court
where the City merchants used to walk up and down while the officers sorted
the foreign mails.
Frenchmen of rank seldom leave London. "The quarter of the Common Garden is
ordinarily that of the travelling Frenchmen, more busy at Court than at the
Exchange.... Most of our young Frenchmen who go to London know only that
region, and have ventured only as far as the Exchange by land or the Tower
by water."[31]
How does the Frenchman of rank spend his time in London? Moreau de Brazey
has answered the question in the most satisfactory manner: "We rise at
nine, those who assist at the levees of great men have plenty to do till
eleven; about twelve, the people of fashion assemble in the chocolate and
coffee houses; if the weather is fine, we take a walk in Saint James's Park
till two, when we go and dine. The French have set up two or three pretty
good inns for the accommodation of foreigners in Suffolk Street, where we
are tolerably well entertained. At the inn, we sit talking over our glasses
till six o'clock, when it is time to go to the Comedy or the Opera, unless
one is invited to some great lord's house. After the play one generally
goes to the coffee-house, plays at piquet, and enjoys the best conversation
in the world till midnight."[32]
At that late hour, the kind help of the City constable may be needed: "the
watchmen or _guards_ are so civil and obliging that they lead a foreigner
to his home with a lantern; but if he rebels and is overbearing, they are
content to lead him to the Roundhouse, where he spends the night till the
fumes of the wine may have vanished."[33]
Though the guide-book has expatiated on the attractions of London life, the
Frenchman soon gets weary. Neither the country nor the people please him.
The English, he thinks, are haughty, fantastic, unfriendly. Moreover, they
are melancholy because their climate engenders spleen. Complaints against
the fogs ever recur in the ambassador's dispatches: "What I wish," wrote
the Duc d'Aumont to the Marquis de Torcy (19th January 1713), "is that the
fog, the air, and the smoke did not irritate my lungs." Courtin speaks in
the same strain: "an ambassador here must be broad-shouldered. M. de
Cominges has an everlasting cold that will follow him to the grave or to
France, and I who am by nature of delicate health, have grown hoarse for
the last four or five days and feel a burning in my stomach, with great
pains in the side."[34] A bad winter, a fit of influenza, were enough to
make the Grand Monarch's envoys loathe a country which they did not care to
understand.
Never was a king worse informed by his ambassadors than Louis XIV. None of
them dreamed of forsaking the Court to study the middle classes and the
people. Of the institutions of England they knew what contemporary lawyers
and archæologists had to teach. The love of freedom, the insular pride,
they did not even suspect. Ignorant as they were, they tried by giving
advice to the king, who mocked them, and money to his ministers, to subvert
parliamentary government established at the price of six years of civil war
and six years of dictatorship. "The French nobility do not travel"; when
the gentlemen of France left Versailles they carried away with them their
spirit of caste and narrow-mindedness. Forgetting nothing, they did not
readily learn anything new.
But France had unofficial representatives beyond the Channel besides the
royal envoys and their retinue of brainless young marquises.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Jusserand, _French Ambassador at the Court of Charles II._, Appendix.
[2] Guizot, _Répub. d'Angleterre_, i. p. 420.
[3] Jusserand, _French Ambassador at the Court of Charles II._
[4] Babeau, _Voyageurs en France_, p. 78.
[5] _Lettres de Locke à Thoynard_ (ed. Ollion), p. 35.
[6] Jusserand, _French Ambassador at the Court of Charles II._
[7] Evelyn, _Diary_, 12th November 1643.
[8] Locke, _Journal in France_, November 1675.
[9] _Scornful Lady_, Act I. Sc. 2.
[10] _Lettres de Locke_, p 38.
[11] _Mémoires de Gourville_, p. 539 (1663).
[12] _Fidèle Conducteur pour le voyage d'Angleterre_ (1654).
[13] _Diary_, 13th July 1650.
[14] _Diary_, 12th July 1649.
[15] Jusserand, _French Ambassador at the Court of Charles II._
[16] _Diary_, 12th July 1650.
[17] Moreau de Brazey, _Guide d'Angleterre_, p. 72.
[18] _Ibid._ p. 73.
[19] _State Papers_, _Dom._, 1668-1669, p. 155.
[20] Moreau de Brazey, _Guide d'Angleterre_, p. 75.
[21] _Ibid._ p. 76.
[22] _Angliæ Notitia_, ii. p. 254 (1684).
[23] This Bernard or Bénard styles himself elsewhere: "Secretary to the
King for English, Welsh, Irish, and Scotch" (es langues angloise, galoise,
irlandoise, et escossoise).
[24] _Voyages de M. Payen_, 1663.
[25] _French Grammar_, 1662.
[26] _Itinerary_, 1617.
[27] Eva Scott, _Travels of the King_, pp. 279-80.
[28] Chamberlayne, _op. cit._ ii. p. 254.
[29] Jusserand, _French Ambass._ p. 206.
[30] Jusserand, _idem._ p. 193.
[31] Sorbière, _Relation d'un voyage en Angleterre_, 1664.
[32] _Guide_, pp. 156-58.
[33] _Ibid._ p. 293.
[34] Jusserand, _op. cit._
CHAPTER II
DID FRENCHMEN LEARN ENGLISH IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY?
It is generally supposed that no Frenchman before Voltaire's time ever took
the trouble to learn English. Much evidence has been adduced in support of
this opinion. In one of Florio's Anglo-Italian dialogues, an Italian
traveller called upon to say what he thinks of English, answers that it is
worthless beyond Dover.[35] In 1579, Jean Bernard, "English Secretary" to
Henri III. of France, deplored the fact that English historians wrote in
their mother-tongue, because no one understood them on the Continent.[36]
Not one contributor to the _Journal des Savans_, then the best French
literary paper, could read in 1665 the _Transactions_ of the Royal Society.
"It is a pity," wrote Ancillon in 1698, "that English writers write only in
English, because foreigners are unable to make use of their works."[37]
Misson, a French traveller, said: "The English think their language the
finest in the world, though it is spoken only in their isle."[38] "I know
by experience," wrote Dennis the critic in 1701, "that a man may travel
over most of the western parts of Europe without meeting there foreigners
who have any tolerable knowledge of English."[39] As late as 1718, Le Clerc
regretted that only a very small number of Continental scholars knew
English.[40] Those who had learned to speak it out of necessity, soon
forgot it when they went back to France.[41]
To Frenchmen, English appeared a barbarous dialect, most difficult to
master. "Few foreigners, above all Frenchmen," said Harrison, "are able to
pronounce English well."[42] A hundred years later, Le Clerc declared it
"as difficult to pronounce English well as it is easy to read an English
book; one must hear Englishmen speak, otherwise one is unable to master the
sound of certain letters and especially of the _th_, which is sometimes a
sound approaching _z_ and sometimes _d_, without being either."
So, while the English not only watched the progress of French literature
but were carefully informed about the internal difficulties of France, the
French knew the English writers merely by their Latin works; and at a
turning-point in history the French diplomatists, through their ignorance
of the real situation of James II., were caught napping when the Revolution
broke out.
No doubt all this is true; but it remains, nevertheless, a little
venturesome to assert that up to the eighteenth century Frenchmen neglected
to learn English. The intercourse between the two countries has always been
so constant that, in all ages, English must have been familiar, if not to
large sections of society, at least to certain individuals in France. In
the Middle Ages, the authors of the _Roman de Renart_ had a smattering of
English,[43] and in the sixteenth century Rabelais was able not only to put
a few broken sentences in the mouth of his immortal Panurge, but to risk a
pun at the expense of the Deputy-Governor of Calais.[44]
In an inquiry the like of which we are now instituting, it is expedient not
to lose sight of leading events. A war will make trade slack and hinder
relations between the two countries; on the contrary, emigration caused by
civil war or religious persecution, an alliance, a royal marriage, may
bring the neighbouring countries into closer touch. Then the inquiry must
concern the different classes: the nobles, the merchants and bankers, the
travellers, men of letters, and artisans. Even under Charles II., it must
have been imperative in certain callings for a Frenchman to understand
English.
At the Court of France, it would have been thought absurd to learn English.
"Let the gentleman, if he findeth dead languages too hard and the living
ones in too great number, at least understand and speak Italian and
Spanish, because, besides being related to our language, they are more
extensively spoken than any others in Europe, yea, even among the Moors."
The advice thus tendered by Faret[45] was followed to the letter. The
French ambassadors in London were hardly ever able to spell correctly even
a proper name.[46] Jean du Bellay wrote _Guinvich_ for Greenwich, _Hempton
Court_ for Hampton Court, _Nortfoch_ for Norfolk, and called Anne Boleyn
_Mademoiselle de Boulan_. Sully, though sent twice to England, did not
trouble to learn a word of the language. When Cromwell gave audience to
Bordeaux, the "master of the ceremonies" acted as interpreter. Gourville,
of whom Charles II. said that he was the only Frenchman who knew anything
about English affairs, acknowledges in his _Mémoires_ that he could not
understand English. M. Jusserand tells us in a delightful book[47] how one
of Louis XIV.'s envoys wrote to his master that some one at Whitehall had
greeted a speech by exclaiming "very well": "the Count de Gramont," he
added, "will explain to your Majesty the strength and energy of this
English phrase."
Ministers of State were as ignorant as ambassadors. In the Colbert papers,
the English words are mangled beyond recognition. Jermyn becomes _milord
Germain_; the Lord Inchiquin, _le Comte d'Insequin_; the right of scavage,
_l'imposition d'esdavache_; and no one apparently knows to what mysterious
duty on imports the famous minister referred when he complained of the
English _imposition de cajade_.
The marriage of Henri IV.'s daughter Henrietta with an English king ought
to have incited Frenchmen to learn English. We know that the Queen learned
English and even wrote it.[48] She gathered round her quite a Court of
French priests, artists, and musicians. There were "M. Du Vall, Monsieur
Robert, Monsieur Mari,"[49] and "Monsieur Confess."[50] Even as Queen
Elizabeth, Henrietta had French dancing-masters. Her mother-in-law, Queen
Anne, chose Frenchmen as precentors in the Chapel Royal. Nicolas Lanier,
one of these, became a favourite to Charles I., who employed him in buying
abroad pictures for the Royal Gallery. When a mask was played at Court,
Corseilles, a Frenchman, painted the scenery. It is owing to Queen
Henrietta that French players, for the first time since the remote days of
Henry VII., came over to London in 1629 and 1635 and were granted special
privileges, such as the permission to perform in Lent.[51] They were not
welcome to the people: a riot broke out at Blackfriars on their first
visit, and, for reflecting on the Queen on the occasion of their second
visit, Prynne the Puritan was prosecuted and cruelly punished.
At the Restoration, Charles II. followed his mother's example. Yet we must
guard against the tendency to exaggerate in the King a gallomania dictated
more by reasons of policy than determined by taste. When he came to Paris
for the first time in 1646 he could not speak a word of French,[52] and
later on, he often hesitated to use a language that seemed unfamiliar.[53]
Yet he had been taught French by an official in the Paris Post-house, who
tampered with the letters coming into his hands, and in his hours of
leisure wrote pamphlets in favour of the fallen House.[54]
The Frenchmen invited over to England after the Restoration do not appear
to have known English. However, the Count de Gramont was an exception to
the rule. They formed in Whitehall quite a colony: Cardinal D'Aubigny was
the Queen's almoner, and Mademoiselle de Kéroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth,
the King's mistress; Louis de Duras, Earl of Feversham, commanded one of
the regiments of guards; Nicolas Lefèvre, sometime professor of chemistry
in Paris, was at the head of the Royal laboratory; Blondeau engraved the
English coins; Fabvollière was the King's engineer, Claude Sourceau, the
King's tailor; Paris players, the famous Bellerose among them, went to
London and acted before the Court; Frenchmen were to be found even in the
Royal kitchens, witness René Mézandieu, a serjeant in the Poultry
Office.[55]
The Pepys papers yield proof of the general use then made of the French
tongue. An Italian named Cesare Morelli writing to Pepys from Brussels in
1686 discards his mother-tongue; probably knows no English, so naturally
uses French.
If the Frenchmen at the Court of Charles II. did not learn English, the
English summoned to Paris by Louis XIV. helped but little to make their
language known. A curious thing happened: through living long in a foreign
country, the exiled Englishman would forget his mother-tongue. Macaulay
tells how the Irish Catholics that hurried back to England under James II.
appeared to be out of their element. Their uncouthness of expression
stirred their countrymen's laughter.[56] One Andrew Pulton, returning after
eighteen years' absence, asked leave, when called upon to dispute with Dr.
Tenison, to use Latin, "pretending not to any perfection of the English
tongue."
Colbert had occasion to reciprocate Charles II. in inviting a few
Englishmen to serve Louis XIV., such as one Kemps, "employed in the
laboratory," and the portrait-painter Samuel Cooper. The minister's
attention was often directed towards England, in which his political genius
divined latent possibilities. But the financial transactions of Charles II.
had revolted his habits of honesty, and he distrusted the English, of whom
his master Mazarin had had occasion to complain.[57] So he prepared to have
recourse to Frenchmen. "M. Duhamel," writes his secretary De Baluze, "says
that M. de Saint-Hilaire has written a memoir on the State of the Church in
England and on the diversity of religions there, and has left the paper in
England; but he will send it over as soon as he gets back."[58]
On the list of payments made to scholars can be read the name of M. de
Beaulieu, "busy translating English manuscripts." Others besides Colbert
needed English translators: "Père de la Chaise," Henry Savile wrote to
ambassador Jenkins (29th July 1679), "has had the speeches of the five last
Jesuits hanged in England translated into French."[59]
The rule laid down by Colbert was followed by his successors. By the side
of ambassadors it became the habit to set interpreters or unofficial
agents. Such, for instance, was Abbé Renaudot, "who knew English so well
that he could not only translate Lord Perth's letters, but compose in
English, either letters addressed to the French agents in England, or
drafts of ordinances and proclamations in the name of James II."[60] To
him was due the French translation of the papers of Charles II. and the
Duchess of York, published by command of James II.
No one about Henrietta of England, Charles II.'s sister, wife to the Duc
d'Orléans, seems to have thought of learning English. The Princess could
discourse with the Duke of Buckingham about the "passion of the Count de
Guiche for Madame de Chalais" without letting her voice drop to a whisper.
No one among the bystanders understood what she was saying.[61] On her
death-bed she summoned the English ambassador Montague and began talking
English; at a certain moment she uttered the word "poison." "As the word,"
says Madame de la Fayette, "is common to both languages, M. Feuillet, the
father-confessor, heard it and interrupted the conversation, saying she
should give up her life to God and not dwell on any other
consideration."[62] In her death throes, the unfortunate princess seems to
have found relief in talking her mother-tongue, for it is in English that
she instructed her senior waiting-woman to "present the Bishop of Condom
(Bossuet) with an emerald."
The men of letters were in close touch if not with the Court at least with
the nobles their patrons. In the sixteenth century, many French writers and
poets crossed the Channel. The list includes Ronsard, Du Bartas, Jacques
Grévin, Brantôme.[63] The latter uses the word _good cheer_, and it is said
that Ronsard learned English.
In the following century there came to London, Boisrobert, Voiture,
Saint-Amant, Théophile de Viau. Saint-Evremond lived in England many years
without learning more than a few words, such as those he quotes in his
works: _mince pye_, _plum-porridge_, _brawn_, and _Christmas_. Albeit
Saint-Evremond is credited with a free translation of Buckingham's
"Portrait of Charles II.," Johnson was probably right in saying that
"though he lived a great part of a long life upon an English pension, he
never condescended to understand the language of the nation that maintained
him."[64] But Jean Bulteel, the son of a refugee living in Dover, adapted a
comedy of Corneille to the English stage (1665).
Scholars were more curious of reading the works of their English confrères.
The English then had the reputation of being born philosophers. "Among
them," wrote Muralt the traveller, "there are men who think with more
strength and have profound thoughts in greater number than the wits of
other nations."[65] The works of Hobbes had caused a great stir on the
Continent. His frequent and prolonged stays in France, his disputes with
Descartes, his relations with Mersenne and Sorbière, contributed to his
fame. A little later, the names of Locke and Newton were known. As early
as 1668, Samuel Puffendorf inquired of his friend Secretary Williamson
whether there existed an English-French or English-Latin dictionary.[66]
Bayle wished to read the works of those new thinkers. "My misfortune is
great," he wrote, "not to understand English, for there are many books in
that tongue that would be useful to me."[67] Barbeyrac learned English on
purpose to read Locke.[68] Leibniz was proud enough to inform Bishop Burnet
that he knew enough English "to receive his orders in that tongue"; yet,
for him Aberdeen University remained _l'université d'Abredon_.[69]
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 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.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] Einstein, _Italian Renaissance in England_, p. 103.
[36] _Guide des Chemins d'Angleterre_, Preface.
[37] Jusserand, _Shakespeare en France_, p. 97.
[38] _Mémoires et observations faites par un voyageur en Angleterre_, 1698.
[39] _Adv. and Ref. of Mod. Poetry_, Ep. dedic.
[40] _Bibliothèque choisie_, xxviii., Preface.
[41] "Monsr Boyd ... has forgott, I believe, most of his
English."--_Original Letters of Locke_, etc., p. 229.
[42] _Description of Britain_, bk. i. (1577).
[43] Jusserand, _Histoire littéraire du peuple anglais_, i. p. 149 n.
[44] _Pantagruel_, iii. ch. xlvii.
[45] _L'honnête homme ou l'art de plaire à la cour._
[46] D'Estrades should be excepted. He knew English, so he was sent to the
Hague.
[47] _French Ambassador at the Court of Charles II._
[48] See Chap. III.
[49] Reyher, _Masques_, p. 81 sq.
[50] _Ibid._ p. 79.
[51] See _Anglia_, xxxii.
[52] _Mémoires de Mlle de Montpensier_, i. pp. 126, 211.
[53] Jusserand, _French Ambassador_, p. 203.
[54] _Procès de Charles I., traduit de l'anglois, par le Sieur de Marsys,
interprète et maistre pour la langue françoise du Roy d'Angleterre._
[55] _Angliæ Notitia_, p. 154.
[56] _History of England_, ch. vi.
[57] Cardinal Mazarin employed many secret agents under the Protectorate;
he spoke of them as "double-dealing minds, whom no one can trust"
(_Correspondence_, 25th April 1656).
[58] _Lettres, mémoires et instructions de Colbert_, vii. p. 372.
[59] Savile, _Correspondence_, p. 112.
[60] A. Villien, _L'abbé Renaudot_, p. 56.
[61] Madame de la Fayette, _Histoire de Madame Henriette d'Angleterre_, p.
182.
[62] _Ibid._ p. 205.
[63] See for details Sir Sidney Lee, _French Renaissance_.
[64] _Life of Waller._
[65] _Lettres sur les François et les Anglois_, p. 10.
[66] _State Papers, Dom., 1667-1668_, p. 604.
[67] _Lettres choisies_, ii. p. 737.
[68] _Essai sur l'Entendement_ (2nd ed.), _Avis_ by Coste.
[69] Clarke and Foxcroft, _Life of Burnet_, pp. 361-62.
[70] _The French Littleton_, 1566; _The French Schoole-Maister_, 1573; _A
Dictionarie_, 1584, etc.
[71] _The French Grammar_, 1578.
[72] _The French Garden_, 1605.
[73] _A French Grammar and Syntax_, 1634.
[74] _A Sure Guide to the French Tongue_, 1635.
[75] _French Grammar_, 1662.
[76] _Dictionary_, 1677.
[77] _Nouvelle Grammaire Angloise_, 1678.
[78] _A New French Grammar_, 1675.
[79] _Relation d'un voyage_, pp. 20, 169 (1664).
[80] See Chap. VII.
[81] Bochart, _Lettre à M. Morley_, p. 7.
[82] _Journal de Henri IV._, i. p. 354.
[83] See Chap. VIII.
[84] _Nouvelles ordinaires de Londres_, p. 1550.
[85] _Ibid._ p. 956.
[86] _French Grammar_, p. 288.
[87] _Diary_, 8th July 1686.
[88] See the letters of De la Motte and De Luzancy, printed in Chap. III.
[89] See Chap. IX.
[90] Saint-Evremond, _Works_, x. xxiii.
[91] _New State of England_, ii. p. 15.
[92] _Journal de Henri IV._, p. 526.
[93] Reprinted by Dr. Brotanek, Halle, 1905.
[94] E. Gordon Duff, _English Provincial Printers_, p. 58.
[95] Beaumont and Fletcher, _Women Pleased_, Act IV. Sc. 3.
[96] See Chap. III.
[97] Gildersleeve, _Government Regulations of the Elizabethan Drama_, p.
70.
[98] _Poems on State Affairs_, ii. p. 152.
[99] Butler, _Pindarick Ode to the Happy Memory of the most renowned Du
Val_.
[100] Chap. III.
CHAPTER III
SPECIMENS OF ENGLISH, WRITTEN BY FRENCHMEN[101]
MERIC CASAUBON
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (1635)
The chiefest subject of this booke is, the vanity of the world and all
worldly things, as wealth, honour, life, etc., and the end and scope of it,
to teach a man how to submit himselfe wholly to God's providence, and to
live content and thankfull in what estate or calling soever. But the booke,
I doubt not, will sufficiently commend itselfe, to them who shall be able
to read it with any judgement, and to compare it with all others of the
same subject, written either by Christians or Heathens: so that it be
remembered that it was written by a Heathen; that is, one that had no other
knowledge of any God, then such as was grounded upon naturall reasons
meerely; no certaine assurance of the Immortality of the soule; no other
light whereby hee might know what was good or bad, right or wrong, but the
light of nature, and humane reason.... As for the Booke itselfe, to let it
speake for itselfe; In the Author of it two maine things I conceive very
considerable, which because by the knowledge of them, the use and benefit
of the Booke may be much the greater then otherwise it would be, I would
not have any ignorant of. The things are these: first, that he was a very
great man, one that had good experience of what he spake; and secondly,
that he was a very good man, one that lived as he did write, and exactly
(as farre as was possible to a naturall man) performed what he exhorted
others unto.
(_Marcus Aurelius, His Meditations, translated out of
the Originall Greeke, with Notes._ London. 1635.
Preface.)
_On Reason_ (1655)
I think that man that can enjoy his natural wit and reason with sobriety,
and doth affect such raptures and alienations of mind, hath attained to a
good degree of madnesse, without rapture, which makes him so much to
undervalue the highest gift of God, Grace excepted, sound Reason. It made
Aristotle deny that any divination, either by dreams or otherwise, was from
God, because not ignorant only, but wicked men also were observed to have a
greater share in such, then those that were noted for either learning or
piety. And truly I think it is not without some providence of God that it
should be so; that those whom God hath blessed with wisdome, and a
discerning spirit, might the better content themselves with their share,
and be the more heartily thankfull. And in very deed, sound Reason and a
discerning spirit is a perpetual kind of divination: as also it is
somewhere called in the Scriptures.
(_A Treatise concerning Enthusiasme_, London, 1655, pp.
46-47.)
[Born in Geneva, in 1599, Méric Casaubon was educated in Sedan, followed
his father Isaac to the Court of James I. and settled in England where he
became prebendary of Canterbury.]
QUEEN HENRIETTA
_Queen Henrietta of France to Prince Charles (April 15, 1646)_
DEARE CHARLES,--Having reseauved a lettre from the King[102] I have
dispatch this berear, Dudley Wiatt to you, with the copie of the lettre, by
which you may see the King's command to you and to me. I make no doubt that
you will obey it, and suddeyneley; for sertainly your coming hither is the
securitie of the King your father. Therfor make all the hast you can to
showe yourself a dutifull sonne, and a carefull one, to doe all that is in
your power to serve him: otherwise you may ruine the King and yourself.
Now that the King is gonne from Oxford, whether to the Scotch or to Irland,
the Parliament will, with alle ther power, force you to come to them. Ther
is no time to be lost, therfor loose none, but come speedeley. I have writt
more at large to Milord Culpepper, to show it to your Counsell. Ile say no
more to you, hoping to see you shortley. I would have send you Harry Jermin
but he is goinge to the Court with some commands from the King to the
Queen-Regente.
Ile adde no more to this but that I am your most affectionat mother,
HENRIETTE MARIE R.
For me dearest Sonne.[103]
MAUGER
_Extract from Claudius Mauger's French Grammar_ (1662)
Courteous English reader, I need not to commend you this work, having
already received such a general approbation in this noble country that in
eight years of time it hath been printed foure times, and so many thousands
at once. Only I thank you kindly if any of my countrymen, jealous of the
credit that you have given it amongst yourselves, will speak against it, he
doth himselfe more harm than to me, to be alone against the common voice
of such a learned and heroical a Nation. Many think I beg of you. First of
all be pleased to excuse me, if my English phrase do not sound well to your
delicate ears. I am a learner of your tongue, and not a master; what I
undertake 'tis to explain my French expressions; secondly, if any Frenchman
(especially one that professeth to be a master of the Language) dispiseth
it unto you, do not believe him, or if any other critical man will find
faults where there are none, desire him to repair to the author, and you
shall have the sport to see him shamefully convinced for some small errours
of printing (although it is very exactly corrected, that cannot be hope if
there be any, none but ignorants will take any advantage of them). I have
added abundance of new short dialogue concerning for the most part the
Triumphs of England, and a new State of France, as it is now governed,
since Cardinal Mazarin's death, with two sheets, viz. the first and the
last of the most necessary things belonging to the Learner, and so I desire
you to make an acceptance of it. Farewell.
If anybody be pleased to find me out, he may enquire at the _Bell_ in St.
Pauls-Church-Yard, or else in Long-acre, at the signe of the _French-armes_
at Mr. l'Anneau.
[Little is known of Claude Mauger, one of the numerous and obscure teachers
of French who took refuge in London in the seventeenth century.]
PETER DU MOULIN
_Peter Du Moulin's Defence of the French Protestants_ (1675)
My angry Antagonist, to make me angry also, giveth many attacks to the
French Protestants ... he saith that they had _Milton's_ Book against our
precious King and Holy Martyr in great veneration. That they will deny. But
it is no extraordinary thing that wicked Books which say with a witty
malice all that can be said for a bad cause, with a fluent and florid
stile, are esteemed even by them that condemn them. Upon those terms
_Milton's_ wicked Book was entertained by Friends and Foes, that were
Lovers of Human Learning, both in _England_ and _France_. I had for my part
such a jealousie to see that Traytour praised for his Language that I writ
against him _Clamor Regii Sanguinis ad Coelum_.
That some of the Regicides were taken in the Congregations of the French
Protestants is no disgrace to them. The Churches doors are open to all
commers; false Brethren and Spies enter into it. But how much they detested
their act, they exprest both in their Conversation and in printed Books, as
much as the English Royalists.
His Lordship supposeth that they had a kindness for _Cromwell_, upon this
ground, that _Cromwell_ had a kindness for them. Had his Lordship had any
ground for that assertion by any act of theirs, he would have been sure to
have told us of it. It is true that _Cromwell_ did them that kindness by
his interest with _Mazarin_ to make them injoy the benefits of the Edicts
made in their favour. He knew that it was the interest of the King of
_England_ (which he would have been) to oblige his Protestant Neighbours,
and to shew himself the Head of the Protestant Cause.
(_A Reply to a Person of Honour_, London, 1675, pp.
39-41.)
[Eldest son to Pierre Du Moulin, pastor at Charenton, Peter Du Moulin
studied at Sedan and Leyden, was tutor to Richard Boyle, took orders, threw
in his lot with the royalists, and became in 1660 prebendary of
Canterbury.]
FRANÇOIS DE LA MOTTE
_Letter to Secretary Williamson (July 20, 1676)_
Since I live here[104] on the gracious effects of your liberality I think I
am obliged to give you an account of my behaviour and studies, and I do it
in English, though I am not ignorant you know French better than I do. I do
what lies in me to be not altogether useless in the Church of England. I
have got that tongue already well enough to peruse the English books and to
read prayers which I have done in several churches and I have made three
sermons I am ready to preach in a fortnight. Some scholars I have showed
them to, have found but very few faults in my expressions. I hope to do
better in a short time, for I pronounce English well enough to be
understood by the people, and have a great facility to write it, having
perused to that end many of your best English divines, so I hope in three
months to be able to preach every week. I hope your Lordship will make good
my troubling you with this letter, considering I am in a manner obliged to
do so to acknowledge the exceeding charity you have showed me which makes
me offer every day my humble prayers to God for your prosperity.
[François de la Motte, an ex-Carmelite, came over to England, was
befriended by Secretary Williamson, and owing to the latter's patronage
entered the Church. The above letter is printed in _Cal. State Papers,
Dom., 1676-1677_, p. 235. There are still extant a few sermons of this
preacher.]
LOUIS DU MOULIN
_Apology for the Congregational Churches_ (1680)
I think myself here obliged to add an Apology as to my own Account, for
what I have said as to the Independant Churches. I do imagine I shall be
accused at first for having made the description of the Congregational way,
not according as it is in effect, but in that manner as Xenophon did the
_Cyropædia_ to be the perfect model of a Prince. They will say that any
other interest than that of the inward knowledge I have of the goodness,
truth, and holiness of the Congregational way, ought to have excited me to
commend it as I have done. That I commend what I do not approve in the
bottome of my heart, since I do not joyn my self to it.... To which, I
answer that though I should joyn my self to their Assemblies, it would be
no argument that I should approve of all the things they did, and all they
believed, as they cannot conclude by my not joyning to their Congregations,
that I have not the Congregational way in greater and higher esteem than
any other. As I am a _Frenchman_, and by the grace of God of the Reformed
Church, I joyn to the Church of my own Nation, to which I am so much the
more strongly invited by the holiness of the Doctrines, and lives of our
excellent Pastors, _Monsieur Mussard_ and _Monsieur Primerose_, and because
they administer the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in the same manner as
_Jesus Christ_ did it with His Disciples; not having anything to give me
offence in their conduct, unless that they are not absolutely undeceived of
the practice of our Pastors in _France_, of excommunicating in the name and
authority of _Jesus Christ_, and of interposing the same sacred Name, and
the same sacred Authority to excommunicate as _St. Paul_ made use of to
deliver the _Incestuous_ person over to Satan....
(_Conformity of the Discipline and Government of the
Independants to that of the Primitive Church_, London,
1680, p. 54.)
[Second son to Pierre Du Moulin, Louis Du Moulin came to England with his
father, and followed the fortunes of the Independents. He was seventy-four
when he published the above work. He died three years after, at
Westminster, confessing his errors, according to Bishop Burnet, whose zeal
in this case got the better of his discretion.]
PIERRE DRELINCOURT
_Speech to the Duke of Ormond_ (1680)
I should not presume to take up any part of that time, which your Grace so
happily employs in the Government and Conservation of a whole Nation; nor
to divert the rest of this honourable Board from those important Affairs,
which usually call your Lordships hither; were I not under an Obligation
both of Gratitude and Duty, to be an Interpreter for those poor
Protestants, lately come out of _France_, to take Sanctuary with you: and
to express for them and in their names, as they have earnestly desired me,
a part of that grateful sense, which they have, and will for ever preserve,
of your Lordships' Christian Charity and Generosity towards them: This they
have often, I assure you, acknowledg'd to Heav'n in their Pray'rs, but
cou'd not be satisfied, till they had made their solemn and publick
Acknowledgments to their Noble Benefactors.
(_A Speech made to His Grace the Duke of Ormond,
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and to the Lords of the
Privy Council_, Dublin.)
[Pierre Drelincourt was the sixth son of Charles Drelincourt, the author of
the famous _Consolations_, translated into English 1675, and to a later
edition of which Defoe was to append the story of the ghost of Mrs. Veal.
Pierre studied in Geneva, went over to England, took Orders and became Dean
of Armagh. The Doctor Drelincourt of whom Coste speaks (see Chapter X.) was
Pierre's brother.]
DE LUZANCY
_Letter to Pepys_ (Jan. 18, 1688-89)
Sir,--I have bin desired by your friends to send you the inclos'd paper, by
which you may easily be made sensible how we are overrun with pride, heat,
and faction; and unjust to ourselves of the greatest honor and advantage
which we could ever attain to, in the choice of so great and so good a man
as you are. Had reason had the least place amongst us, or any love for
ourselves, we had certainly carried it for you. Yet, if we are not by this
late defection altogether become unworthy of you, I dare almost be
confident, that an earlier application of the appearing of yourself or Sir
Anthony Deane, will put the thing out of doubt against the next Parlement.
A conventicle set up here since this unhappy Liberty of Conscience has bin
the cause of all this. In the meantime, my poor endeavours shall not be
wanting, and though my stedfastness to your interests these ten years has
almost ruined me, yet I shall continue as long as I live,
Your most humble and most obedient Servant,
DE LUZANCY, _Minister of Harwich_.
(_Corr. of Samuel Pepys_, p. 740.)
[De Luzancy, an ex-monk, came over to England and became minister to the
French congregation in Harwich. The above letter refers to an election at
Harwich, when Pepys was not returned.]
GUY MIÈGE
_On England and the English_ (1691)
As the country is temperate and moist, so the English have naturally the
advantages of a clear complexion; not sindged as in hot climates, nor
weather-beaten as in cold regions. The generality, of a comely stature,
graceful countenance, well-featured, gray-eyed, and brown-haired. But for
talness and strength the Western people exceed all the rest.
The women generally more handsome than in other places, and without
sophistications, sufficiently indowed with natural beauties. In an absolute
woman, say the Italians, are required the parts of a Dutch woman from the
waste downwards, of a French woman from the waste up to the shoulders; and
over them an English face.
In short there is no country in Europe where youth is generally so
charming, men so proper and well proportioned, and women so beautiful.
The truth is, this happiness is not only to be attributed to the clemency
of the air. Their easy life under the best of governments, which saves them
from the drudgery and hardships of other nations, has a great hand in it.
For merchandizing and navigation, no people can compare with them but the
Hollanders. For literature, especially since the Reformation, there is no
nation in the world so generally knowing. And, as experimental philosophy,
so divinity, both scholastick and practical, has been improved here beyond
all other places. Which makes foreign divines, and the best sort of them,
so conversant with the learned works of those famous lights of the Church,
our best English divines.
In short, the English genius is for close speaking and writing, and always
to the point.... The gawdy part and pomp of Rhetorick, so much affected by
the French, is slighted by the English; who, like men of reason, stick
chiefly to Logick.
(_State of England_, London, 1691, Part II., pp. 3-12.)
[Little is known of Guy Miège, a refugee who continued, under William III.,
Chamberlayne's _Angliæ Notitia_.]
PIERRE ALLIX
_Against the Unitarians_ (1699)
I cannot but admire that they who within these few years have in this
kingdom embraced Socinus his opinions, should consider no better how
little success they have had elsewhere against the truth, and that upon the
score of their divisions, which will unavoidably follow, till they can
agree in unanimously rejecting the authority of Scripture. Neither doth it
avail them anything to use quibbles and evasions, and weak conjectures,
since they are often unanswerably confuted even by some of their brethren,
who are more dexterous than they in expounding of Scriptures.
But being resolved by all means to defend their tenents, some chief men
amongst them have undertaken to set aside the authority of Scriptures,
which is so troublesome to them: and the author of a late book, intitled
_Considerations_, maintains that the Gospels have been corrupted by the
Orthodox party, and suspects that of _St. John_ to be the work of
_Cerinthus_.
It is no very easy task to dispute against men whose principles are so
uncertain, and who in a manner have no regard to the authority of
Scripture. It was much less difficult to undertake Socinus himself, because
he owned however the authority of Scripture, and that it had not been
corrupted. But one knows not how to deal with his disciples, who in their
opinion seem to be so contrary to him, and one another.
(_The Judgment of the Ancient Jewish Church against the
Unitarians_, London, 1699, Preface.)
[Pierre Allix, born in Alençon in 1641, died in London in 1717. He was
pastor at Charenton up to 1685, when he fled to England and became Canon of
Salisbury. He contemplated writing a history of the Councils in seven
volumes. A special Act of Parliament (11 & 12 Will. III., c. 3) was
obtained, providing that the paper for the entire work should be imported
duty free.]
ABEL BOYER
_Upon History_ (1702)
Some writers barely relate the actions of men, without speaking of their
motives, and, like gazeteers, are contented to acquaint us with matter of
fact, without tracing it to its spring and cause; others, on the contrary,
are so full of politicks and finesse, that they find cunning and design in
the most natural and innocent actions. Some, to make their court to the
powerful, debase the dignity of history, by cringing and adulation; whilst
others, to serve a party, or faction, or merely to gratify their
ill-nature, rake up all the scandal of men's lives, give a malicious turn
to every thing, and libel every body, even without respecting the sacred
Majesty of Princes. Another sort moralize upon every petty accident, and
seem to set up for philosophers, instead of historians. And lastly, others
are peremptory in their decisions, and impose on the world their
conjectures for real truths.
These faults I have endeavoured to avoid. When I relate matters of fact, I
deduce them, as far as my informations permit me, from their true causes,
without making men more politick, or subtle, than nature has made them. I
commend what, in conscience I believe, deserves to be commended, without
any prospect of favour, or private interest; and I censure what I think
deserves to be blam'd, with the liberty that becomes a faithful
unprejudic'd historian, tho' with due regard to persons, whose birth,
dignity and character command the respect, even of those who disapprove
their actions. I am sparing of reflections, unless it be upon those
remarkable events from which they naturally result; and I never biass the
reader's judgment by any conjectural impositions of my own.
Yet after all these precautions, I am not so vain as to expect to please
all: for how were it possible to gain the general approbation, when people
differ so much in opinion about the _Prince_, whose history I have
attempted to write?
(_The History of King William the Third_, London, 1702,
Preface.)
[Born in Castres in 1664, Boyer lived in Switzerland and Holland before
settling in England, where he became a journalist and party-writer. He
edited a French-English and English-French Dictionary which was long a
classic. Swift honoured him once with the appellation of "French dog."]
PIERRE MOTTEUX
_Extract from a Letter to the Spectator_ (1712)
Sir,--Since so many dealers turn authors, and write quaint advertisements
in praise of their wares, one who from an author turn'd dealer may be
allowed for the advancement of trade to turn author again. I will not
however set up like some of 'em, for selling cheaper than the most able
honest tradesman can; nor do I send this to be better known for choice and
cheapness of China and Japan wares, tea, fans, muslins, pictures, arrack,
and other Indian goods. Placed as I am in Leadenhall-street, near the
India-Company, and the centre of that trade, thanks to my fair customers,
my warehouse is graced as well as the benefit days of my Plays and Operas;
and the foreign goods I sell seem no less acceptable than the foreign books
I translated, _Rabelais_ and _Don Quixote_. This the critics allow me, and
while they like my wares, they may dispraise my writing. But as 'tis not so
well known yet that I frequently cross the seas of late, and speaking Dutch
and French, besides other languages, I have the conveniency of buying and
importing rich brocades, Dutch atlasses, with gold and silver, or without,
and other foreign silks of the newest modes and best fabricks, fine
Flanders lace, linnens, and pictures, at the best hand. This my new way of
trade I have fallen into I cannot better publish than by an application to
you. My wares are fit only for such as your traders; and I would beg of you
to print this address in your paper, that those whose minds you adorn may
take the ornaments for their persons and houses from me....[105]
_A Song_
Lovely charmer, dearest creature,
Kind invader of my heart,
Grac'd with every gift of nature,
Rais'd with every grace of art!
Oh! cou'd I but make thee love me,
As thy charms my heart have mov'd,
None cou'd e'er be blest above me,
None cou'd e'er be more belov'd.
(_The Island Princess or the Generous Portuguese_, 1734.)
_To the Audience_
... So will the curse of scribling on you fall;
Egad, these times make poets of us all.
Then do not damn your brothers of the quill;
To be reveng'd, there's hope you'll write as ill.
For ne'er were seen more scribes, yet less good writing,
And there ne'er were more soldiers, yet less fighting.
Both can do nothing if they want supplies,
Then aid us, and our league its neighbouring foes defies;
Tho' they brib'd lately one of our allies.
Sure you'd not have us, for want of due pittance,
Like nincompoops sneak to them for admittance,
No; propt by you, our fears and dangers cease,
Here firm, tho' wealth decay, and foes increase,
We'll bravely tug for liberty and peace.
(_The Loves of Mars and Venus_, Epilogue, 1735.)
[Pierre Antoine Motteux, born at Rouen in 1660, came over to England in
1685, wrote plays and poems, translated Bayle and Montaigne, and
established himself as a trader in Leadenhall street.]
JEAN ABBADIE
_Letter to Desmaizeaux_
Sir,--I sometime ago acquainted my Lord of your readyness to serve his
Lordship in making a Catalogue of his books. His Lordship's new Library
being now near finished the Books cannot be removed thither 'till the
Catalogue be made. If your health will permit you, His Lordship would be
glad to see you here. Mr. Beauvais will deliver you this, and at the same
time will desire you to wait upon my Lord Parker, who will inform you how
you may come; either on Monday next or the next week after, in my Lord's
Coach. I should be very glad to see you, being, Sir, your most humble
servant,
JOHN ABBADIE.
SHIRBURN, _14th Nov._ [17--.]
(Brit. Mus. _Add. MSS._ 4281.)
[Jean Abbadie was a French valet. In another letter to Desmaizeaux, written
in French, and dated Aug. 2, 1718, he tells how a noble Lord whom he had
faithfully served dismissed him because he could not play the French horn
"par la raison que je ne say pas sonner du cor de chasse"!]
MAITTAIRE
_Letter to Dr. Charlett_ (March 27, 1718)
Reverend Sir,--I received yours, wherein you demonstrated your friendship
by overlooking all the imperfections of my poor work. I wish I could find
in my style that facility and felicity of language, which your great
goodness flatters me with. To write Latin, is what of all the perfections
of a Scholar I admire most; but I know myself so well, as to be sensible
how much I fall short of it. I have herein inclosed something that will
still try your patience and goodness. 'Tis a poor copy of verses, which
(after a long desuetude) I ventured to make in France, upon the occasion of
presenting my last book to the King's Library; and I met with such friends,
who to shew their civility to me, commanded it to be printed at the Royal
Printing-house, and published their candor at the expense of exposing my
faults. 'Tis ridiculous to turn poet in my old age. But you'll excuse
everything in an old friend. What you mention in your letter concerning
other printers, is what I am now pursuing; the work is already begun; the
name is _Annales Typographici_; it will be three volumes in 4to. And I hope
the first will come out by next midsummer.... I am come to the end of my
paper, and by this time to the end of your patience; having just room
enough to subscribe myself, Worthy Sir, Your most humble and most obedient
Servt.
M. MAITTAIRE.
(Printed by Aubrey, _Letters written by Eminent Persons_, London, 1813, ii.
pp. 37-39.)
[Born in France in 1668, came over to England when a boy, studied in
Westminster School, of which he ultimately became a master. He died in
London in 1747.]
VOLTAIRE
_To Lady Hervey_ (1725?)
Hervey, would you know the passion
You have kindled in my breast?
Trifling is the inclination
That by words can be expressed.
In my silence see the lover:
True love is best by silence known;
In my eyes you'll discover
All the power of your own.
_Letter to Pierre Desmaizeaux_ (1725?)
I hear Prevost hath a mind to bring you a second time as an evidence
against me. He sais I have told you I had given him five and twenty books
for thirty guineas. I remember very well, Sir, I told you at Rainbow's
Coffee-House that I had given him twenty subscription receipts for the
_Henriade_ and received thirty guineas down; but I never meant to have
parted with thirty copies at three guineas each, for thirty-one pounds, I
have agreed with him upon quite another foot; and I am not such a fool
(tho' a writer) to give away all my property to a bookseller.
Therefore I desire you to remember that I never told you of my having made
so silly a bargain. I told, I own, I had thirty pounds or some equivalent
down, but I did not say twas all the bargain, this I insist upon and
beseech you to recollect our conversation: for I am sure I never told a
tale so contrary to truth, to reason, and to my interest. I hope you will
not back the injustice of a bookseller who abuses you against a man of
honour who is your most humble servant. VOLTAIRE.
I beseech you to send me an answer to my lodging without any delay. I shall
be extremely obliged to you.
(British Museum, _Add. MSS._ 4288, fol. 229. Printed by
J. Churton Collins and by Ballantyne.)
_Letter to Joseph Craddock_ (1773)
FERNEY, _October_ 9, 1773.
Sr
Thanks to your muse a foreign copper shines
Turn'd in to gold, and coin'd in sterling lines.
You have done too much honour to an old sick man of eighty.--I am with the
most sincere esteem and gratitude, Sir, your obedient servant,
VOLTAIRE.
(Ballantyne, _Voltaire's Visit to England_, p. 69.)
[With Voltaire these _Specimens_ must end. To quote Père Le Courayer,
Letourneur, Suard, or Baron D'Holbach would be unduly to prolong an
argument that should stop on the threshold of the eighteenth century.]
FOOTNOTES:
[101] For specimens of French written by Englishmen, see _Anglais et
Français au XVIIe Siècle_, ch. iv.
[102] Charles I.
[103] _Cal. Clarendon State Papers_, ii., No. 2214. See also Eva Scott,
_King in Exile_, p. 9.
[104] In Oxford.
[105] _Spectator_, No. 288, 30th January 1712.
CHAPTER IV
GALLOMANIA IN ENGLAND (1600-85)
The English have always been divided between a wish to admire and a
tendency to detest us. France is for her neighbour a coquette whimsical
enough to deserve to be beaten and loved at the same time. The initial
misunderstanding between the two nations endures through ages, sometimes
threatening open war, more seldom ready to be cleared up. A few miles of
deep sea cuts Great Britain off from the rest of Europe. As England has
retained no possessions on the Continent, no intermediary race has sprung
up, as is the case with most of the Western Powers on their borderlands.
Thus the French and Germans are linked together by the Flemings, Alsatians,
and Swiss; the Savoyards and Corsicans are a cross between the French and
the Italians; and before reaching Spain, a Frenchman must traverse vast
tracts of land inhabited by Basques and Catalans; but a few hours' sail
from Calais to Dover, from Rotterdam or Antwerp to Harwich will bring a
traveller from the Continent into an entirely new world. To avoid
disagreements, in the past infinite tact and patience were requisite on
both sides of the Channel: our indiscreet friends made us unpopular with
their fellow-countrymen. The story of English gallomania, which is amusing
enough, is thus also instructive, as a few episodes will show.[106]
In the sixteenth century, Italy, just emerging from her glorious
Renaissance, charmed England; but common interests, political and
economical necessities, a degree of civilisation almost the same, prevented
her from neglecting us altogether. In the following century, the marriage
of Charles I. with a daughter of Henri IV. made French fashions acceptable
for a time in Whitehall. But misfortune overtook the Stuarts. The Great
Rebellion broke out, Charles I. was put to death and his son exiled. During
over twelve years, the future King of England lived in French-speaking
countries; when restored to his throne, he could not help bringing back our
fashions, literature, manners of thinking and doing; of all the Kings of
England, from Plantagenets to Edward VII., Charles II., in spite of some
diplomatic reserve and occasional outbursts of insularity, proved the most
amenable to French influence: perhaps that is why his popularity was so
great; the English would admire France without stint, if France were but
her finest colony.
If the courtiers imitated French manners to please the monarch, the
citizens did so to copy the courtiers; so that, about 1632 and 1670, all
the frivolous, unreflective idlers that England numbered, were bent on
appearing French. Few examples are more striking of the power of the
curious desire that possesses ordinary mankind to astonish simple souls by
aping the eccentricities of the higher classes.
The mania was carefully studied by contemporary writers: they describe the
morbid symptoms with so much accuracy and minuteness as to render all
conjectures superfluous.
The disease was developed chiefly by travelling. Attracted by the mildness
of a foreign climate and dazzled by the luxurious life of the nobles there,
the young Englishman feels estranged from his native land and the rude
simplicity of his home. When he comes back, the contrast between his new
ideas and his old surroundings, the conflict waged in his own heart between
Continental influence and insularity, are fit themes for a tragedy or at
least a tragi-comedy. The character of the frenchified Englishman appears
several times on the stage in Beaumont and Fletcher's _Monsieur Thomas_, in
Marston's _What you Will_, in Davenant's _Fair Favourite_. Others, again,
picture the young fop just back from Paris, clad in strange garments,
praising foreign manners, so affected as to disregard his mother-tongue.
About 1609 or 1610, Beaumont and Fletcher sketch the man's character. "The
dangers of the merciless Channel 'twixt Dover and Calais, five long hours'
sail, with three poor weeks' victuals. Then to land dumb, unable to inquire
for an English host, to remove from city to city, by most chargeable
post-horse, like one that rode in quest of his mother-tongue. And all these
almost invincible labours performed for your mistress, to be in danger to
forsake her, and to put on new allegiance to some French lady, who is
content to change language with your laughter, and after your whole year
spent in tennis and broken speech, to stand to the hazard of being laughed
at, at your return, and have tales made on you by the chamber-maids."[107]
As a fervid preacher finds hearers, so the traveller induces some of his
friends to share his mania. The infection spreads in spite of ridicule:
"Would you believe, when you this monsieur see,
That his whole body should speake French, not he?
That he, untravell'd, should be French so much,
As Frenchmen in his company should seem Dutch?...
Or is it some French statue? No: 't doth move,
And stoope, and cringe...."[108]
The most frequent symptom of gallomania in early, as in recent times, is to
use French words in everyday conversation. So Sir Thomas More laughed at
the fop who affected to pronounce English as French but whose French
sounded strangely like English.[109]
In the sixteenth century, as in the Middle Ages, French was as generally
used as Latin. "In England," wrote Peletier, "at least among princes and in
their courts, all their discourses are in French."[110] A few years later,
Burghley advised his son Thomas, then travelling on the Continent, to write
in Latin or in French.[111] In schools, French was taught with great zeal,
and, according to Sylvester, the future translator of Du Bartas, it was
forbidden to speak English, however trivial the matter, under penalty of
wearing the foolscap.
In spite of these stringent methods of education, backward pupils were not
lacking. They were sent to France, but even this desperate remedy was
sometimes unavailing; witness Beaumont and Fletcher's youth whose mother,
asking him on his return to speak French, was shocked at hearing only a few
broken words of abuse.[112]
Yet it was imperative to speak French correctly at Queen Henrietta's Court.
Of course the ladies succeeded. In Blount's Preface to Lyly's plays we read
that "the beautie in court which could not parley euphuisme, was as litle
regarded, as shee which now there, speakes not French."[113]
[Illustration: A COQUETTE AT HER TOILET-TABLE]
What was the distinctive mark of a good education under Charles I., was
equally so under Charles II. "All the persons of quality in England could
speak French." The Queen, the Duchess of York spoke "marvellously
well."[114] There was no need to know English at Whitehall: few French
gentlemen troubled to learn it, but the English unfortunate enough not to
know French had to conceal the defect. These would repeat the same foreign
words or phrases; "to smatter French" being "meritorious."[115] "Can there
be," exclaims Shadwell, "any conversation well drest without French in the
first place to lard it!"[116] In an amusing scene, Dryden shows a coquette
rehearsing a polite conversation: "Are you not a most precious damsel," she
says to her teacher, "to retard all my visits for want of language, when
you know you are paid so well for furnishing me with new words for my daily
conversation? Let me die, if I have not run the risque already to speak
like one of the vulgar; and if I have one phrase left in all my store that
is not threadbare and _usé_, and fit for nothing but to be thrown to
peasants."[117]
Fops followed the example set by coquettes. Monsieur de Paris and Sir
Fopling Flutter "show their breeding" by "speaking in a silly soft tone of
a voice, and use all the foolish French words that will infallibly make
their conversation charming."[118]
After an interval of a hundred years, the reproaches of Sir Thomas More
were repeated. If we must credit Shadwell, the youth of England had
forgotten their English through studying foreign languages with too much
application: they return "from Paris with a smattering of that mighty
universal language, without being ever able to write true English."[119]
And, again, "all our sparks are so refined they scarce speak a sentence
without a French word, and though they seldom arrive at good French, yet
they get enough to spoil their English."[120]
From time immemorial Europe has learned from Paris polished manners and the
inimitable art of good tailoring. In the sixteenth-century drama, the
tailors are invariably French. Harrison deplored the introduction of new
fashions, regretting the time "when an Englishman was known abroad by his
own cloth, and contented himself at home with his fine kersey hosen, and a
mean slop, a doublet of sad tawny or black velvet or other comely silk."
Then he proceeds to inveigh against the "garish colours brought in by the
consent of the French, who think themselves the gayest men when they have
most diversities of jags (ribbons)" and "the short French breeches" that
liken his countrymen "unto dogs in doublets." The dramatists constantly
mention "French hose, hoods, masks, and sticks," thus attesting the vogue
of the Paris fashions. In one of Chapman's plays, two shipwrecked gentlemen
cast ashore at the mouth of the Thames think they have reached the coasts
of France; seeing a couple of natives drawing near, one of them exclaims:
"I knew we were in France: dost thou think our Englishmen are so
frenchified, that a man knows not whether he be in France or in England,
when he sees them?"[121]
The lover of France was a true epicure as well as a fop. In the houses of
the nobility the cooks were invariably French. "I'll have none," says one
of Massinger's characters, "shall touch what I shall eat but Frenchmen and
Italians; they wear satin, and dish no meat but in silver."[122] We must go
to Overbury for the portrait of a French cook "who doth not feed the belly,
but the palate. The serving-men call him the last relique of popery, that
makes men fast against their conscience.... He can be truly said to be no
man's fellow but his master's: for the rest of his servants are starved by
him.... The Lord calls him his alchymist that can extract gold out of
herbs, roots, mushrooms, or anything.... He dare not for his life come
among the butchers; for sure they would quarter and bake him after the
English fashion, he's such an enemy to beef and mutton."[123]
Gallomania quickly spread after the Restoration. The Record Office has
preserved the name of the French tailor, Claude Sourceau, who helped the
Englishman, John Allen, to make Charles II.'s coronation robes.[124] As
early as October 20, 1660, Pepys, dining with Lord Sandwich, heard the
latter "talk very high how he would have a French cooke, and a master of
his horse, and his lady and child to wear black patches"; which was quite
natural, since "he was become a perfect courtier"; and on December 6, 1661,
My Lady Wright declared in Pepys' hearing "that none were fit to be
courtiers, but such as had been abroad and knew fashions." Soon the motto
at Court was to
"Admire whate'er they find abroad,
But nothing here, though e'er so good."[125]
Hamilton tells in his delightful _Mémoires de Gramont_ how every week there
came from France "perfumed gloves, pocket-mirrors, dressing-cases,
apricot-jam and essences." Every month the Paris milliners sent over to
London a jointed doll, habited after the manner of the stars that shone at
the Court of the Grand Monarch.[126] According to M. Renan, the dreamy
Breton blue eyes of Mademoiselle de Kéroualle conquered Charles II.; but we
feel inclined to think that the monarch appreciated also her brilliant
success as a leader of fashion. As Butler satirically said, the French gave
the English "laws for pantaloons, port-cannons, periwigs and
feathers."[127] Every one spoke of "bouillis, ragouts, fricassés," bordeaux
and champagne were drunk instead of national beer.[128]
[Illustration: THE DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH AS A LEADER OF FASHION]
The City ladies tried to outdo the Court belles. One of them "had always
the fashion a month before any of the Court ladies; never wore anything
made in England; scarce wash'd there; and had all the affected new words
sent her, before they were in print, which made her pass among fops for a
kind of French wit."[129]
The movement, of course, elicited a violent opposition. Poets and
dramatists were banded together in denouncing the subservience to France of
a portion of English society. At times, these nationalists went perhaps too
far in their praise of old manners and old fashions. Assuredly any
reasonable man will side with Sir Fopling Flutter in preferring the wax
candle, albeit from France, to the time-honoured tallow candle.[130]
Butler's notebooks, which were published a few years ago, reveal in the man
a singularly conservative state of mind. The French are the same, he
thinks, to the English nation as the Jews or the Greeks were to the Romans
of old. Fashions, cooking, books, all that comes from France is to be
abhorred.[131]
One day Evelyn, champion as he was of all generous ideas, determined to
bring his countrymen back to their forefathers' simplicity. He accordingly
wrote an "invective" against the fashions of France and proposed to adopt
in their stead the "Persian costume," "a long cassock fitted close to the
body, of black cloth, and pinked with white silk under it, and a coat over
it, and the legs ruffled with black ribbon." Under the title of _Tyrannus
or the Mode_, the pamphlet was dedicated to the King. Apparently Charles
II. was very idle at the time: the idea pleased him and he donned the
"oriental vest." Several members of the House of Commons, probably by way
of protesting against the dissoluteness of the Court, had forestalled him.
While Evelyn was gravely congratulating himself on the good effect of his
pamphlet, the King, in the vein of irrepressible "blague" that was his
characteristic trait, remarked that the "pinking upon white made his
courtiers look like so many magpies." A few days after, upon hearing that
the King of France had caused all his footmen to be put into vests, Charles
II. quietly reverted to the French fashion, "which," as Guy Miège wrote
after the Revolution, "has continued ever since."[132]
Though beaten in that particular instance, the nationalists were to carry
the day, thanks to the power of tradition and the strong individualism of
the English nation. For a hundred years at least, it had been recognised as
an assured principle that an Englishman ran the risk of depravation if he
ventured abroad.[133] What could the fancy of a few courtiers avail against
universal consent? All the satirical poets--Wyatt, Gascoigne, Bishop Hall,
Butler--had successfully declaimed against foreigners and frenchified
Englishmen. Even Charles II. applauded Howard's comedy, _The English
Monsieur_. Then, as now, for the average Englishman, Paris was
pre-eminently the pleasure-city. It was even worse at times: if gentlemen
fought private duels, it was to copy the French.[134] A man as
well-informed as the Earl of Halifax feared that the famous poisoning cases
in which the Marquise de Brinvilliers and the woman Voisin were concerned,
might find imitators in England, "since we are likely to receive hereafter
that with other fashions."[135] As the Chinese in modern America, so the
Frenchman was looked upon as a suspicious character; not altogether without
cause: the cooks, tailors, and valets, the adventurers of the Gramont type
lurking about the Court, were redolent of vice. Pepys, who had nothing of
the saint about him, could not hide his aversion for Edward Montagu's
French valet, the mysterious Eschar, most probably a spy. The great ladies
had the habit, which seems so strange to us, to be waited upon by valets
instead of maids. When the valet came from France, the pretext for scandal
was eagerly seized upon.[136]
If anglomania was unknown to France in the seventeenth century, yet
Frenchmen were found who appreciated England. Some lived at Court, during
Louis XIV.'s minority and later, when the King of England was in the pay of
his cousin, the Grand Monarch. No doubt English literature did not profit
by those good dispositions, for the simple reason that none of those
Frenchmen knew English.
Both Cardinal Mazarin and the Grande Mademoiselle caused horses to be
imported from England, but Colbert found them rather expensive. When he
received instructions to build Versailles, the minister had to be resigned
to extravagance. Henrietta of England stood in high favour with the King,
and all that came from England proved acceptable; overwhelmed with work,
responsible for the national finances, the navy and public prosperity, the
great minister was compelled to discuss trivial details; the same year as
the Treaty of Dover was signed, he corresponded with Ambassador Colbert de
Croissy about the purchase for the canal at Versailles of two "small
yachts." The boats were built in Chatham dockyard, sent to France, and
workmen were dispatched to carve and gild the figure-heads.[137]
[Illustration: POPULAR REPRESENTATON OF AN ENGLISHMAN
_After Bonnart_]
When Locke visited Paris in 1679, he found some admirers of England. He was
told that Prince de Conti, then aged seventeen, proposed to learn
English.[138] No wonder the princes of the blood were anxious to know all
about the allies of France. The King himself had shown as much curiosity as
his exalted station allowed. He had asked his envoys to forward him reports
on the government and institutions of the newly-discovered land, on the
state of arts and sciences there, on the latest Court scandals. In the
Colbert papers may be found reports on the state of the English navy, by
superintendent Arnoul, a learned disquisition on the origin of Parliaments,
and amusing bits of information, such as the following, about Charles II.'s
Queen: "She is extremely clean and takes a bath once every six weeks,
winter and summer. Nobody ever sees her in her bath, not even her maids,
curtains being drawn around."
When Gilbert Burnet visited Paris in 1685, he was asked on behalf of the
Archbishop if he would write in English a memoir of Louis XIV. From which
significant fact it may be inferred that in official circles the state of
public opinion in England was beginning to be taken into account.[139]
In all these manifestations of gallomania and incipient anglomania, there
is ample matter for ridicule. We should gladly give up the imitation of
French fashions and French cooking and the passion for English horses and
yachts, just to have once more an instance of the noble spirit of rivalry
that Spenser showed when, after reading Du Bellay's poems, he exclaimed:--
"France, fruitful of brave wits."
Yet efforts were being made during the whole seventeenth century to bring
about an understanding between the two neighbouring nations. Unluckily the
methods pursued were calculated to make France most unpopular with the
larger section of the English public.
FOOTNOTES:
[106] See on the subject Sir Sidney Lee, _French Renaissance in England_;
Upham, _French Influence in English Literature_, Charlanne, _L'influence
française en Angleterre au XVIIe Siècle_.
[107] _Scornful Lady_, Act I. Sc. 1.
[108] Chalmers, _English Poets_, v. p. 506.
[109]
"Et Gallice linguam sonat Britannicam,
Et Gallice omnem, præter unam Gallicam,
Nam Gallicam solam sonat Britannice."
_Thomæ Mori Lucubrationes_ (Basil, 1563), p. 209.
[110] _Dialogues de l'orthografe_, p. 60 (1550).
[111] _State Papers, Dom._, Eliz. xix. No. 35; see also _The Travels of
Nicander Nucius_ (Camden Soc.), p. 13; Paul Jove, _Descriptio Britanniæ_,
Venice, 1548. "Aulæ et foro Gallicus sermo familiaris."
[112] _The Coxcomb_, Act IV. Sc. 1 (1610)
[113] _Six Court Comedies_, 1632.
[114] Mauger, _French Grammar_, pp. 189, 217, 234.
[115] Butler, _On our Ridiculous Imitation of the French_.
[116] _Bury Fair_, Act II. Sc. 1.
[117] _Marriage à la Mode_, Act III. Sc. 1.
[118] Etheredge, _Man of Mode_, Act II. Sc. 1.
[119] _Virtuoso_, Act I. Sc. 1.
[120] _True Widow_, Act II. Sc. 1.
[121] _Eastward Hoe_, Act II. Sc. 1 (1605).
[122] _City Madam_, Act I. Sc. 1 (1632).
[123] _Characters_, p. 144 (1614).
[124] _State Papers, Dom._, 1665-1666, p. 481.
[125] Butler, _op. cit._
[126] _Spectator_, No. 277.
[127] _Hudibras_, iii. 923.
[128] "Put about a cup of ale, is this not better than your foolish French
kickshaw claret."--Shadwell, _Epsom-Wells_, Act I. Sc. 1.
[129] _True Widow_, Act I. Sc. 1.
[130] "How can you breathe in a room where there's grease frying? Advise My
Lady to burn wax lights."--_Man of Mode_, Act IV. Sc. 1.
[131] _Characters_, pp. 419, 424, 469.
[132] See Evelyn, _Diary_, 18th-30th October 1666; Pepys, _Diary_,
15th-17th October, 22nd November 1666; Miège, _New State of England_, ii.
p. 38; _State Papers, Dom._, 1666, p. 191.
[133] Ascham, _The Schole-master_, 1570, pp. 26 _ssq._; Nash, _The
Unfortunate Traveller_, 1587 (_Works_, ii. p. 300)
[134] Beaumont and Fletcher, _Little French Lawyer_, Act I. Sc. 1.
[135] _Savile Correspondence_, p. 143.
[136] Etheredge, _Man of Mode_, Act IV. Sc. 2.
[137] _Lettres, Mémoires et Instructions de Colbert_, v. p. 322.
[138] King, _Life and Letters of Locke_, p. 83.
[139] Clarke and Foxcroft, _Life of Burnet_, p. 210.
CHAPTER V
HUGUENOT THOUGHT IN ENGLAND
FIRST PART
From a literary point of view the intercourse between England and France in
the period that immediately preceded and followed the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes (1685) has been exhaustively studied by M. Texte[140] and
M. Jusserand,[141] both coming after M. Sayous.[142] We propose, while
tracing the progress of political speculation among the Huguenots, to
discover to what extent they influenced English thought. The field of
research is extensive: a mass of information on the subject lies scattered
in books, some of which are scarce, and the numerous manuscript sources
have been hitherto imperfectly explored. We cannot hope to do more than
draw a general outline of a profoundly interesting subject.
From the dawn of the Reformation, different reasons impelled the Huguenots
to look towards England. Besides the natural link formed by community of
thought in a matter that then pervaded life, _i.e._ religious belief,
political necessities led the Huguenots to seek the friendship of England.
Having the same household gods, the Huguenots and the English loved the
same mystical Fatherland, which dangers, ambitions, and interests shared in
common invested with stern reality. As the Huguenots increased, they grew
from a sect to a faction which, seeking alliances abroad, sent envoys to
the foreign Courts. According also to the vicissitudes of their fortunes,
streams of Huguenot refugees would flow from time to time towards the
neighbouring countries likely to welcome them. Thus from the first were the
Huguenots represented in England, not only by their noblemen, but by their
democracy.
A whole book might be written on the influence of Calvin in England, both
within and without the Church. To a student of comparative literature, if
the word be understood in the larger sense of intercommunication of thought
among nations, the part played by Calvin in the early framing of the
institutions of the English Reformation is a matter not too unimportant to
be overlooked.[143]
The first mention of Huguenot refugees in England occurs under the reign of
Henry VIII., when in 1535-36 forty-five naturalizations were granted. When,
responding to an appeal from Archbishop Cranmer, Bucer and his disciple
Buchlein repaired to England, in 1549, they met in the Archbishop's Palace
Peter Martyr and "diverse pious Frenchmen."[144] M. de Schickler and M.
Jusserand have rescued from long oblivion Claude de Saint-Lien, who,
quaintly anglicising his name into Holy-Band, began earning his bread by
teaching his mother tongue.
But it was only after Saint Bartholomew's Day that the Huguenot colonies in
England grew to such numbers as to form congregations. Several illustrious
Huguenots then found a last home in England. Admiral Coligny's brother,
Cardinal Odet de Chatillon, lies buried in Canterbury Cathedral. In 1591 Du
Plessis-Mornay was in London with Montgomery and the Vidame de Chartres,
negotiating an alliance with Elizabeth, and, with characteristic lack of
diplomacy, availing himself of his stay in England to intercede with the
Queen's counsellors in favour of the Puritans.[145] Though befriended by
Archbishop Parker and Sir Robert Cecil, "the gentle and profitable
strangers," as Strype calls the Huguenots,[146] were not generally welcome.
Popular prejudice was so strong against the newcomers that a Bill was
introduced in Parliament in 1593, prohibiting them from selling foreign
goods by retail.[147] The settlers, averaging during the sixteenth century
about 10,000, were chiefly skilled artisans, weavers, printers, binders, or
ministers, physicians, and teachers. By some curious unexplained accident,
Shakespeare lodged from 1598 to 1604 in the house of a Huguenot wig-maker,
Christophe Mongoye by name.[148]
With James I. the political preoccupations fell into the background; the
King sought the company of the most famous Continental scholars. In 1611 he
invited to his Court Isaac Casaubon, and three years later, at the instance
of his Huguenot physician, Sir Théodore Mayerne, Pierre Du Moulin, the
minister at Charenton. In the train of the scholars came over the men of
letters, among them Jean de Schélandre, the future author of the epic _La
Stuartide_, inscribed to James I.
In 1642, on the eve of the Civil War, there died in London the notorious
Benjamin de Rohan, Lord of Soubise, who had survived in exile an age that
belonged to the past. With the fall of La Rochelle, the political power of
the Huguenots was struck down, and there remained no further check on the
path of absolute monarchy. Protestant historians are wont to lament the
lukewarm faith that marked the period extending from 1629 to the
Revolution. Indeed, the outward manifestations of Huguenot zeal had then
ceased to be characteristic of the Church militant. The Bearnese or
Languedocian gentleman no longer left his castle for the wars, bearing as
a twofold symbol of his sect and party the Bible in the one hand and the
sword in the other; and the time was yet to come when in the wild Cévennes
mountains, in the "Desert," as they said in their highly-coloured language,
arose the heroic witnesses of the persecuted Church. The accidental causes
that had temporarily given the Huguenots an undue influence in the State
ceasing to operate, they appeared from a formidable party suddenly to
shrink into insignificance. But their intellectual development meanwhile
must not be overlooked. Alone in France, with those that a popular
dogmatism, no doubt justified in some cases, contemptibly nicknamed
libertines, they were prepared by a suitable mental training to act as a
check on the natural bias of the majority regarding its own infallibility.
And over the libertines they had the advantage both of general austereness
of life and of a certain readiness to suffer for their convictions.
No doubt the discipline exercised by the Calvinistic organisation
discouraged individual eccentricity. The struggle for emancipation over,
the leaders who had upheld against the Church of Rome their right of
judging in spiritual matters concluded that no further encroachments of
individualism on authority were permissible. The Confession of Faith lay
heavy upon the Churches; the Synod of Dort, whose decisions had become laws
for the French Synods, was singularly like a Reformed Council of Trent.
Still, there remained in the early seventeenth century a wide difference
between the mental attitude of a Huguenot and a contemporary Scotch
Presbyterian. A minority in France, the Huguenot leaders could not cut off
their flocks from the outer world; they mixed with the Catholics, who
outnumbered them; they shared in the development of thought in their
country; they were not all scholars and divines: some made bold to be men
of letters, poets, even libertines.[149] In the literary coteries of the
capital, in the incipient French Academy, over which the Protestant Conrart
presided, abbés and pastors were reconciled in common admiration for an
elegant alexandrine or a correct period.
In his own country, Calvin's system was imperfectly carried out. "The
pastors," wrote Richard Simon, the Catholic Hebrew scholar, "subscribe
their names to the Confession of Faith only by policy, persuaded as they
are that Calvin and the other Reformers did not perceive everything, and
effected but an imperfect Reformation."[150] "It cannot be denied," said Du
Moulin the elder of a very influential contemporary divine, "that a third
of Cameron's works are devoted to a confutation of Calvin, Beza, and our
other famous Reformers."[151] Due allowance being made for the prejudice of
a Roman Catholic or of an alarmed Orthodox, these statements are borne out
by facts. For instance, the Huguenots had none of the Scotch
Presbyterian's superstition for the Calvinistic system of Church
government. "I think," said Samuel Bochart, the author of the _Geographia
Sacra_, "that those who maintain the divine right either of Episcopacy or
of Presbytery are equally in the wrong, and that the heat of the dispute
makes them overstate their position; if we are asked which is the better
and the fitter for the Church of these two forms of government, it is as
though we were asked if it is better for a State to be ruled by monarchs,
the nobility, or the people, which is not a question to be decided on the
spur of the moment, for that there are nations to which Monarchy is more
suitable, to others Aristocracy, and to others Democracy, and that the same
laws and customs are not followed everywhere."[152] When Bishop Henchman,
in 1680, asked the ministers at Charenton their opinion on the respective
merits of Episcopacy and Presbytery, Claude and De l'Angle answered that
the question of Church government was one of expediency.[153]
The same detachment appeared in a more important matter. The Reformation,
certainly against the wish of its promoters, opened the flood-gates of free
inquiry. From the Church of Rome the Reformers appealed to Scripture, but
underlying that appeal was a right given to reason to decide what
construction should be put upon the divine message. The inconvenience of
the process was not felt at first. In an age of faith, reason is docile and
asks no questions. On the points upon which the Reformers had made no
innovation, reason accepted the traditional teaching; on the others, it had
free play without arousing the suspicions of Synods. But soon the teaching
of the Reformers came to be questioned. Once the horse held the bit in his
mouth, he could not be restrained in his headlong progress. So it came to
pass that in France, as in England and Holland, through the same cause,
latitudinarians followed in natural sequence the Reformers. A Royal Edict
of 1623 forbidding the students to the ministry to leave France, while
severing the tie that bound the Huguenots to Geneva, hurried on the
revolutionary movement. The students flocked to the Academies of Sedan and
Saumur, and soon two schools of divinity flourished opposed to each other,
that of Sedan upholding orthodoxy, while that of Saumur became the nucleus
of French latitudinarianism. Neither Cameron nor his disciple Amyraut, the
two luminaries of the latter school, were Arminians--their philosophy was
an offshoot of Cartesianism; like the English latitudinarians, they drew a
distinction between fundamentals and accidentals, and dreamed the generous
dream--a dream at most--of a Church so comprehensive as to include all the
Christians accepting the Apostles' Creed.
A little book published anonymously at Saumur in 1670, under the title of
_La Réunion du Christianisme ou la manière de rejoindre tous les Chrestiens
sous une seule Confession de Foy_, sets forth in a bold ingenuous form the
aspirations of this school. "Some time ago a method of reasoning and of
making sure progress towards truth was proposed in philosophy.[154] To that
effect it is asserted that we must rid ourselves of all preconceived
notions and of all preoccupations of mind. We must receive at first only
the most simple ideas and such propositions as no one can dispute who hath
the slightest use of reason. Might we not imitate the process in religion?
Might we not set aside for a time all the opinions that we upheld with so
much ardour, to examine them afterwards with an open unimpassioned mind,
adhering always to our common principle, which is Holy Scripture?"[155]
D'Huisseau, the author of the book, answered with a young man's confidence
the most obvious objection. On a few simple dogmas all Christians would be
agreed; there would be no difference between a "Doctor of the Church" and a
poor man, since primitive Christianity is understood of all men. Then, with
Gallic faith in the efficacy of State intervention, he added: "Above all, I
think that those who can strike the hardest blows on that occasion, are the
Princes and those who rule the States and manage the public affairs. They
can add the weight of their authority to that of the reasons alleged in
that undertaking; and their power will be most efficacious in giving value
to the exhortations of others."[156]
In spite of this appeal to secular aid, the school of Saumur furthered
toleration. By the distinction they drew between fundamentals and
accidentals, they tended to deprive the Churches of some pretexts for
persecuting. No doubt they examined the question from the ecclesiastical
and not the political point of view, but their freedom from the prejudices
of their gown was a signal service to progress.
Another instance of detachment, all the more noticeable because of its
consequences in England, was Daillé's attitude towards the Fathers.
Published in 1632, his _Traité de l'emploi des Saints-Pères pour le
jugement des différends qui sont aujourd'hui en la religion_ was translated
into English in 1651. It is no exaggeration to state that to this book was
due the scant reverence shown in the seventeenth century by Protestant
theology for the authority of the Fathers. The Bible, as the Saumur school
desired, became the rule of faith, until in the early eighteenth century
its authority came to be questioned in its turn.
The development of theological thought followed therefore in France about
the same lines as in England. When considered from a merely intellectual
point of view, the speculative activity of the Huguenots, in the period
intervening between the fall of La Rochelle and the Revocation, gives the
impression of an orchard in April, in which the trees covered with blossoms
promise abundance of fruit. The impending frost blasted those hopes. What
fruit ripened was not gathered in France.
The relation between a critical attitude in theology and in politics has
often been noticed. A common charge brought against the early Reformers was
that of sedition. Though the charge was unfounded in most cases, popular
instinct sharpened by enmity was right in the main. Even Protestant writers
admitted the temptation of men who had rebelled against the Church to rebel
against the State. Some profound observations they made on the tendency of
the human mind to extend the scope of a method of reasoning, and to evolve
out of a philosophical theory a programme of political reform long before
the students of political science of our own time made a similar
observation. "All the subtleties," said D'Huisseau, "that are called forth
in religion generally make the minds of the people inquiring, proud,
punctilious, obstinate, and consequently more difficult to curb into reason
and obedience. Every private man pretends to have a right to investigate
those controverted matters, and, bringing his judgment to bear upon them,
defends his opinion with the utmost heat. Afterwards they wish to carry
into the discussion of State affairs the same freedom as they use in
matters of religion. They believe that since they are allowed to exercise
control over the opinions of their leaders in the Church, where the
service of God is concerned, they are free to examine the conduct of those
that are set over them for political government."[157] With still keener
insight did Bayle, twenty years later, perceive the political import of
certain tenets of the Reformation. The emphasis laid upon the divine
command to "search the Scriptures," marked the beginning of a new era for
humanity. Bidden as a most sacred duty to judge for themselves, men could
not be withheld from wandering into the forbidden field of secular
politics.
As the infallibility of the priest, so the infallibility of the ruler came
to be questioned. But if the principle of free inquiry, or, as Bayle terms
it, "l'examen particulier dans les matières de foi,"[158] would lead
necessarily to civil liberty, another tenet led to equality. "When there
was a pressing need, any one had a natural vocation for pastoral
functions."[159] Universal priesthood drew no distinction between a caste
of priests and the people, between the princes or magistrates and the
rabble. In cases of necessity, leaders, political as well as religious,
might spring from the ranks, as the prophets of Israel did, holding their
commissions directly from Heaven.
But the seditious Huguenot negotiating against the King of France with
Englishmen and Hollanders, and marching against the capital at the head of
an army of mercenary Germans, had now disappeared as a type. The mangled
remains of the great admiral, martyred for the cause of political and
religious liberty, lay in the chapel of Chatillon Castle. The Condés had
gone back to Roman Catholicism. With the advent of Henri de Navarre,
sedition became loyalism. Though brought up upon the works of Hotman,
Languet, and Du Plessis-Mornay, the Huguenot found little difficulty in
bowing, with the rest of his countrymen, before the throne of absolutism.
The Synod of Tonneins condemning as early as 1614 the doctrine of Suarez,
"exhorts the faithful to combat it, in order to maintain, together with the
right of God, that of the sovereign power which He has established."[160]
The Synod of Vitré (1617) addresses Louis XIII. in these words: "We
acknowledge after God no other sovereign but Your Majesty. Our belief is
that between God and the Kings, there is no middle power. To cast doubt
upon that truth is among us a heresy, and to dispute it a capital
crime."[161]
The Civil War in England made it imperative for the Huguenots to frame a
theory of government. Readily confounded by popular malice with English
Presbyterians and Independents, they were bound to be on the alert. In
1644, complaints from the Maritime Provinces of attempts on the part of
"Englishmen belonging to the sect of Independents" to spread their
doctrines among the people, gave the Synod of Charenton an opportunity of
condemning them as "a sect pernicious to the Church" and "very dangerous
enemies to the State."[162]
The relations between the Huguenots and the Puritans thus so unexpectedly
revealed are still uncertainly known. As early as 1574, La Rochelle had
been in close touch with the extreme Elizabethan Puritans, Walter Travers
causing one of his works of controversy to be printed there.[163] In 1590
two of the Martin Marprelate tracts were issued from the presses of La
Rochelle,[164] and Waldegrave, one of the factious printers, took refuge
there. During the Civil War there seem to have been active negotiations
going on between some of the Parliamentary leaders and the Bordeaux
malcontents. These found the doctrines of the Levellers more to their taste
than the more moderate schemes of Cromwell, Ireton, and the "grandees."
They even sketched out for France, or at least Guyenne, a Republican
Constitution. For those who have been taught to explain the French
Revolution by racial theories, nothing is more disconcerting than to learn
how the ancestors of the Revolutionists caught some of their most advanced
ideas from their English co-religionists. They clamoured for a
representative assembly, liberty of conscience, trials by jury, the
abolition of privileges. "The peasant," they wrote, "is as free as a
prince, coming into this world without either wooden shoes or saddle, even
as the king's son without a crown on his head. So every one is by birth
equally free and has the power to choose his own government."[165] If it is
astounding enough to hear almost a century and a half before the fall of
the Bastille the cry of liberty and equality, it is startling to think that
the English had raised it.
The tragedy enacted at Whitehall on 30th January 1648-49, stirred up in
Europe a horror equal only to that caused nearly a century and a half later
by the execution of Louis XVI. of France. "We gave ourselves up," wrote
Bochart, "to tears and afflictions, and solemnised the obsequies of your
King by universal mourning."[166] One of the most distinguished laymen in
the Rouen congregation, Porrée the physician, declared that "all true
Protestants abhorred that execrable parricide."[167]
The Doctors of the Church delivered their opinion in emphatic terms. In
1650 two works appeared exalting the royal prerogative.[168] Amyraut, the
latitudinarian professor of Saumur, was the author of one of them;[169]
Bochart that of the other.[170] Their argument is mainly Biblical. The
kings being God's vice-regents, are accountable only to Him. To sit in
judgment upon them, to inflict them bodily injury, is heinous sacrilege.
"Kings are absolute and depend only on God; it is never allowed to attempt
their lives on any pretence whatsoever."[171] Yet Amyraut recorded a
remarkable reservation in which the regicides could have found their
justification: "Except there be an express command, proceeding from God
directly, such as those given to Ehud and Jehu, nothing may be attempted
against the kings without committing an offence more hateful to God than
the most execrable parricide."[172] Dr. Gauden's _Eikon Basiliké_ had a
great success in France, two translations penned by Huguenots appearing,
that of Denys Cailloué[173] in 1649, that of Porrée[174] a year later.
Lastly, all students of English literature remember that Claude de Saumaise
wrote the _Defensio regia pro Carolo Primo_, and Pierre Du Moulin the
_Clamor sanguinis regiæ ad coelum contra parricidas Anglicanos_ (1652).
The Huguenots showed zeal not only in condemning the King's execution and
in vindicating his memory from the charges of the Commonwealthsmen, but in
furthering the Restoration of his son, Charles II., by proclaiming his
title to the Crown of England.[175]
The Restoration coincided with the majority of Louis XIV. The Synod of
Loudun, whose moderator was Daillé, then an old man, proclaimed the duty
of passive obedience: "Kings depend immediately on God; there is no
intermediate authority between theirs and that of the Almighty."[176]
"Kings in this world are in the place of God, and are His true living
portrait on earth, and the footstool of their throne exalts them above
mankind, only to bring them nearer Heaven. Such are the fundamental
principles of our creed."[177]
Significant it is to see the divine of world-wide repute, whose youth was
spent with Du Plessis-Mornay, the co-author, most probably, of the
_Vindiciæ contra Tyrannos_,[178] solemnly recalling the duty of subjects to
princes on the threshold of an era of absolutism in Europe, supposed by
every one except some Fifth-Monarchy men to be of long duration.
Yet the Huguenots, with all their submissiveness, were not thought sincere.
Public opinion had not forgotten the lessons of the sixteenth century. "To
be candid," wrote Richard Simon to Frémont d'Ablancourt, "most of your
ministers were not born for a monarchy such as that of France. They take
liberties permissible only in a Republic, or in a State where the King is
not absolute."[179]
The factious individualism latent in every Huguenot only awaited
favourable circumstances to come to light. The concessions of a vanquished
party to their victors explain how political thought depended on
theological thought. But among the refugees in England, the
passive-obedience doctrine imbibed in the mother-country did not endure.
Pierre Du Moulin, who, at the invitation of James I., had twice visited
England, in 1615 and in 1623, left two sons, Peter and Lewis, who both
settled in England. The elder, who accepted the living of Saint John's,
Chester, and became at the Restoration chaplain to Charles II. and
Prebendary of Canterbury, is the author of _Clamor sanguinis_, wrongly
attributed by Milton to another French pastor, of Scottish descent,
Alexander Morus. A staunch Royalist, he published in 1640 a _Letter of a
French Protestant to a Scotsman of the Covenant_, and also in 1650 a
_Défense de la Religion réformée et de la monarchie et Eglise Anglicane_,
and after the Restoration _A Vindication of the Protestant Religion in the
Point of Obedience to Sovereigns_ (1663). The younger brother, Lewis, threw
in his lot with the Commonwealthsmen, was appointed Camden Professor of
Ancient History at Oxford (September 1648), and deprived on the accession
of Charles II. He remained, in spite of the idle story of his recanting on
his death-bed in presence of Burnet, a sturdy Independent, publishing the
very year of his death an apology for Independency.[180] A more striking
instance of the discord which rent England during the Civil War could
hardly be found. Party spirit ran high among the refugees, Jean de la
Marche, the pastor of the French congregation in Threadneedle Street, being
violently opposed by his flock for becoming an Independent,[181] while
Hérault, the minister of Alençon, having during a stay in London vented his
Royalist opinions, was compelled to seek safety in flight.[182] Another
minister, Jean d'Espagne, sided with the Protector, who granted him
permission to preach in Somerset House, and graciously accepted the
dedication of a book.[183] At an earlier date, three French divines had sat
in the Westminster Assembly.[184] About the same time, some active,
intelligent Huguenot was busy publishing in London for Continental readers
a French newspaper.[185]
The refugees thus took part in the internal dissensions of their adopted
country. As a rule, to be favourable to the Stuarts they need be dependents
on the Court or the Church; if merchants, they would usually side with the
opposition, thus revealing the revolutionist ever lurking in the Calvinist.
When Shaftesbury, at the time of the agitation on the Exclusion Bill,
thought of making London a Whig stronghold, in view of a possible _coup
d'état_, his main coadjutors seem to have been the elected sheriffs for
Middlesex, Papillon and Dubois, two refugees. The battle fought and lost,
Papillon fled to Amsterdam; but not before the thought crossed his mind of
returning to the beloved mother-country: "I should not," he wrote from
Holland, "have taken refuge here if I could go to France and worship there
freely."[186]
Such a letter helps us to realise the loss suffered by France from the
exile of men like Papillon. Their talents were not uncommon; in their own
country, unmolested, they would have led useful, obscure lives, open-minded
enough withal to welcome the inevitable change sooner or later to take
place in European politics.
In spite of the efforts of the French King[187] and the disfavour shown the
Huguenots by the exiled Anglicans,[188] the intercourse between England and
the Huguenots continued after the Restoration. The French churches in
England formed a natural link which survived the Act of Uniformity. The
Huguenots, as well as Louis XIV., had their ambassadors in London, and, in
some cases, these unofficial envoys were better informed than Colbert de
Croissy or Barillon, for they could speak and write English and showed
little reluctance to become Churchmen. Some obtained high preferment. This
explains how Jurieu, called to England on leaving college by the Du
Moulins, was ordained in the Church.[189]
In the precincts of the Court gathered some men of letters, refugees and
scholars, Catholics and Protestants, the best known of whom is
Saint-Evremond. Vossius, his "ami de lettres,"[190] was then Canon of
Windsor, and to the latter's uncle Du Jon (Junius), librarian to the Earl
of Arundel, who though born at Heidelberg was of Huguenot descent, England
owes some of the earliest studies in Anglo-Saxon. These literati gathered
round the Duchess of Mazarin, the Cardinal's niece, at her little court at
Windsor, when Vossius, a pedant like most scholars in his age, would
discourse on Chinese civilisation and the population of ancient Rome,[191]
Saint-Evremond read a paper of verses, the Duchess speak of her
interminable lawsuit with the bigoted, doting old Duke, her husband; and
the company would be merry upon her recounting how he directed his
grandchild's nurse to make the infant fast, in literal accordance with the
Church commandments, on Fridays and Saturdays.[192] The librarian to
Archbishop Sancroft, Colomiès, may have been admitted to the circle. On his
arrival in England, he had found Vossius a useful friend, and through the
latter's exertions was ordained in the Church of England, became a thorough
Episcopalian, and was, like his patron, strongly suspected of Socinianism.
Their friendship for Dr. Morales, a Jew of Amsterdam and one of this
literary circle, only confirmed the suspicion. But in Madame de Mazarin's
salon theological disputes were infrequent. For France, anti-Protestantism
then was not an "article of exportation." Far from being fanatical, the
temper of these literati savours somewhat of a much later indifferentism.
Perhaps the courtly scepticism of the Restoration proved contagious. For
Saint-Evremond a system of ethics did very well in place of a Confession of
Faith. "The Faith is obscure, the Law clearly expressed. What we are bound
to believe is above our understanding, what we have to do is within every
one's reach."[193]
Most of his friends were Protestants, and he never felt bitterness against
them: "I never experienced that indiscreet zeal that makes us hate people,
because they do not share our opinions. That false zeal takes its rise in
conceit, and we are secretly inclined to mistake for charity towards our
neighbour what is only an excessive fondness for our private
opinions."[194]
This paragraph strikes the keynote of the temper that reigned in the French
circle at Windsor. On foreign land, out of the reach of Gallican maxims of
policy and priestly intrigue, the two Frances, Catholic and Huguenot, not
without an admixture of "libertinage," met, a picture of what might have
been, had the dream of Michel de l'Hôpital and De Thou, maybe of Henri IV.,
been realised.
The most notable Huguenot in this circle was Louis XIV.'s ex-secretary,
Henri Justel, a "great and knowing virtuoso,"[195] as Evelyn calls him,
whom Charles II. appointed King's librarian in 1681. He seems to have been
a very grave, courteous, and modest scholar. Having no literary
ambition,[196] he went through life exciting no envy, free from envy
himself. His religious convictions were sincere, and he made sacrifices to
ensure them. Martyrdom, Renan said, is not so difficult after all. With
nerves strung to a high pitch, fearful lest the jeering crowd should
discern a sign of weakness, the victim of the Roman emperors stepped forth
into the arena without the slightest tremor. Physical pain, the
apprehension of death, were lost in the light of the glorious crown which
the witness of Christ's word felt already encircling his brow. Some such
feeling may have stirred the humble preacher that the Intendant sentenced
to be hanged, or the obscure peasant whom the dragoons dragged away to the
Toulon galleys. But nothing short of a very rare uprightness of mind, a
sound probity towards self, could drive Justel to forsake all that a man
and a scholar loves--his books, his friends, his ease, his beloved
country. Saint-Evremond failed to understand Justel's higher motives of
conduct. "Allow me," he wrote to him, "not to approve your resolution to
leave France, so long as I shall see you so tenderly and so lovingly
cherish her memory. When I see you sad and mournful, regretting Paris on
the banks of our Thames, you remind me of the poor Israelites, lamenting
Jerusalem on the banks of the river Euphrates. Either live happily in
England, with a full liberty of conscience, or put up with petty severities
against religion in your own country, so as to enjoy all the comforts of
life."[197]
So the tempter spoke, and, to support his hard lot, Justel had none of the
martyr's incentives. To those of his own faith, his constancy must have
seemed surprising. Far from encouraging him to keep within the fold, the
Consistory of Charenton had grossly insulted him.[198] The great value to a
country of men like that faithful scholar is their love of spiritual
independence. A letter that he wrote to Edward Bernard, professor of
astronomy at Oxford, on February 16, 1670, shows what a price he paid to
keep his fathers' faith. After stating that Claude is preparing an answer
to a book of Arnault, and wishes to adduce against transubstantiation the
evidence of some modern Greeks, he says that all the libraries in France
being closed to the religionists, he must perforce have recourse to the
Bodleian Library and its rich collection of oriental manuscripts.[199] In
this appeal of a scholar I find as much pathos as in any account of
dragonnades.
[Illustration: A SCHEME OF THE PERSECUTION]
Yet Saint-Evremond could not understand that the prize was worth the fight.
His sense of equity was undisturbed by the Revocation. The King's method of
dealing with heretics was rough, but justifiable. Instead of resisting
openly, the Protestants should more or less sullenly acquiesce, and count
on their sharpness of wits to evade the ordinances. "Churches are opened or
closed according to the Sovereign's will, but our hearts are a secret
church where we may worship the Almighty."[200] "Be convinced," he wrote to
Justel, "that Princes have as much right over the externals of religion as
their subjects over their innermost conscience."[201]
In its far-reaching consequences, the Revocation can be compared only to
the French Revolution. Both events excited in England a profound pity for
the victims and a feeling of execration against their tormentors; both led
to a protracted struggle with France; both, after giving France a temporary
glory, plunged her into misery, humiliation, and defeat. The Huguenots fled
to divers countries, some settling in New England, others in South Africa,
the most considerable portion finding a new home in Holland and England.
In Holland they met the English Whigs, driven from their country upon the
Tory reaction following the defeat of the Exclusion Bill. A close
relationship was established between the Huguenots in England and in
Holland, and when the crown of England was given to a Prince of Orange, the
refugees in both countries formed one colony whose thoughts and aims were
the same, and whose sympathy and interests were with the more liberal party
in England. The sentimental impression made by the persecution strikes one
the most: "The French persecution of the Huguenots," wrote Evelyn, "raging
with the utmost barbarity, exceeded even what the very heathens used....
What the further intention is, time will show, but doubtless portending
some revolution."[202] Several accurate accounts of the persecution,
besides Claude's famous book, appeared in England, written or inspired by
the refugees, and printed in a form suitable for speedy circulation.[203]
The people showed themselves as eager for news from France as, at a later
date, for Bulgarian or Armenian atrocities. "The people in London,"
Ambassador Barillon reported, "are eager to believe what the gazettes have
to say on the measures resorted to in order to further the conversions in
France."[204] When James II. ascended the throne, the Whigs made capital
out of the treatment of Protestants by a Catholic Prince. Loyal as he was,
Evelyn could not help blaming the King for the scant charity extended to
the Huguenots and the silence of the _Gazette_ about the persecution. When
at the instance of the French ambassador, Claude's book was burned by the
common hangman, Evelyn ominously exclaimed: "No faith in Princes." The
innate anti-popish feeling of the English was easily roused, and
contributed in 1687 to the unpopularity even among the higher clergy of a
Royal Indulgence. "This (Repeal of the Test)," said a contemporary
pamphlet, "sets Papists upon an equal level with Protestants, and then the
favour of the Prince will set them above them."[205] Allusions to the
persecution are innumerable. "Witness," says the anonymous hack-writer
after setting forth the dangers of tolerating Popery, "the mild and gentle
usage of the French Protestants by a King whose conscience is directed by a
tender-hearted Jesuit." When Ken, suspected of leaning towards Roman
Catholicism, preached on the persecution, Evelyn remarked that "his sermon
was the more acceptable, as it was unexpected."[206]
But the official Press tried to counteract the bad impression made by the
Revocation; then it was that an extreme member of the Court party roundly
asserted that persecution was the only remedy that Louis XIV. could devise
against losing his crown, and inferred the expediency of persecuting the
equally seditious English dissenters.[207] A few years later, a change
coming over the policy of the Court towards the dissenters, His Majesty's
intentions derived an advantageous construction from his granting relief to
the French Protestants, "a kind of Presbyterians, who, because they would
not become Papists, are fled hither."[208]
In rousing England against Popery, the Revocation dealt a blow at arbitrary
government. The sequel to the Revocation was the English Revolution.
Weakened by the Tory reaction, the Whig party, on the accession of William
III., found welcome allies in the Huguenot immigrants. It was remarked that
the refugees generally sided with the Whigs. The Low Church party also
found recruits in the numerous Huguenot ministers, the best known of whom
are Allix, Drelincourt, Samuel de l'Angle, who all three took Anglican
orders. William III., and especially Mary, showed them great favour. While
the Prince of Orange was with the Dutch fleet on the way to England, in the
most anxious time of her life, Mary every day attended prayers said by two
refugees, Pineton de Chambrun and Ménard.[209]
The refugees enthusiastically adopted the dogmas of the Whig party, or
rather of William III.; they furthered his system of Church settlement,
declaimed against Popery, hated France as cordially as he.
During the debates on the Toleration and Comprehension Bills, Dr. Wake, the
future Archbishop of Canterbury, published a letter in which the dissenters
were blamed by French ministers for approving James II.'s Declaration of
Indulgence. "The dissenters," he adds, "ought by no means to have separated
themselves for the form of ecclesiastical government nor for ceremonies
which do not at all constitute the fundamentals of religion. On the other
side, the Bishops should have had a greater condescension to the weakness
of their brethren."[210] Even on a question of internal policy, the opinion
of the persecuted Church bore weight.
Popery of course was the arch-enemy to the refugees, some of whom refused
to the last to believe that the King persecuted them, ascribing their
misery to the evil counsels of the Jesuits. One of the worst consequences
in England of the Revocation was an intensified hatred to Popery. The
policy pursued by Louis XIV. made James II.'s indulgence impossible and
thwarted all the attempts of William III. to relax the penal laws. When the
Act of 1700 was passed, making confiscation of Catholic estates a rule in
England, as kind a man as Evelyn wrote: "This indeed seemed a hard law,
but the usage of the French King to his Protestant subjects has brought it
on."[211]
The enmity that the English bore to France is a well-known fact. "The
English have an extraordinary hatred to us," observed Henri IV.[212] "They
hate us," said Courtin, the French envoy, at a time when French literature
and French fashions were in highest favour in England. As Spain in the
sixteenth century, so France in the seventeenth, embodied the power of
darkness in Europe. This feeling was fostered by the refugees. A little
after the Revocation, Louis XIV. received from Barillon a dispatch on the
harm done him in London "by the most violent and insolent French Huguenots,
minister Satur, minister Lortié, minister De l'Angle, above all a dangerous
man named Bibo, who plays the philosopher, Justel, Daudé, La Force, Aimé,
Lefèvre and Rosemond, and a vendor of all the wicked pamphlets printed in
Holland and elsewhere against religion and the French Government. His name
is Bureau, who provides every one with them and is now printing[213] in
French and English a supposed letter from Niort relating a hundred
cruelties against the Protestants. People talk quite freely in the London
coffee-houses of all that is happening in France, and many think and say
loudly that it is the consequence of England having a Catholic King and
that the English are thus unable to help the pretended Reformed their
brethren." In England, as in Holland, the Huguenot pamphleteers organised
an anti-French agitation. No doubt the ambassador was right in a sense in
stating that the charges against France were exaggerated. The English
during all the eighteenth century imagined the French monarch was a Western
grand-signior. The stories of the Bastille, popularised by the refugee
Renneville, gave an incorrect idea of the French administration.[214] This
popular prejudice is ridiculed by Pope in his attack upon Dennis the
critic, whom he describes as "perpetually starting and running to the
window when any one knocks, crying out 'Sdeath! a messenger from the French
King; I shall die in the Bastille.'"[215] With his keen eye for absurdity,
Voltaire noticed the prejudice. "In England, our government is spoken of as
that of the Turks in France. The English fancy half the French nation is
shut up in the Bastille, the other half reduced to beggary, and all the
authors set up in the pillory."[216]
The Revocation was turned to good use by the Whigs against France, James
II., and later against the Pretender. "You shall trot about," says a
pamphlet almost contemporary with the advent of William III., "in wooden
shoes, _à la mode de France_, Monsieur will make your souls suffer as well
as your bodies. These are the means he will make use of to pervert
Protestants to the idolatrous Popish religion. He will send his infallible
apostolic dragoons amongst you.... If you fall into French hands your
bodies will be condemned to irretrievable slavery, and your souls (as far
as it lies in their power) shall be consigned to the Devil."[217] At the
height of the Tory reaction that marked the closing years of Queen Anne's
reign, the same argument was urged against a Popish successor. The _Flying
Post_ (7th March 1712-3) published one day a list of persecuted Huguenots
"to convince Jacobite Protestants what treatment they are to expect if ever
the Pretender should come to the throne, since he must necessarily act
according to the bloody House of B(ourbon), without whose assistance he can
never be able to keep possession, if he should happen to get it."
That the Whigs fully endorsed their pamphleteers' opinions seems evident
from what such a judicious man as Locke once wrote to Peter King, the
future Lord Chancellor, advising him as a Member of Parliament to aid
William in his designs of war against France: "The good King of France
desires only that you would take his word, and let him be quiet till he has
got the West Indies into his hands and his grandson well established in
Spain; and then you may be sure that you shall be as safe as he will let
you be, in your religion, property, and trade."[218]
The influence of the refugees was due less to the weavers of Spitalfields,
to the army of seventy or eighty thousand Huguenots who fled to England
after the Revocation, than to the intelligent sergeants of that army, the
men of letters, journalists, and pamphleteers. They usually met in London
at the Rainbow coffee-house, near the Inner Temple Gate, in Fleet Street.
Unlike the Casaubons and Scaligers of the early Stuart period and the
Justels and Colomiès of the Restoration, they were no dependents on either
Court or Church, and, earning a journalist's living or with a calling
exclusive of literary patronage, they forestalled more or less the modern
type of the man of letters. Over their meetings presided Pierre Daudé, a
clerk in the Exchequer; round that doyen gathered the traveller Misson,
Rapin Thoyras, then planning his _History of Great Britain_, Newton's
friend, Le Moivre, and a Fellow of the Royal Society, Cornand La Croze, a
contributor to Le Clerc's _Bibliothèque universelle_.
In those convivial meetings many a project was sketched for the advancement
of learning. When Le Clerc, then a young man, was preaching at the Savoy,
he took part in them. Later on, Pierre Coste came as tutor to the Mashams,
with whom Locke then lived; later still, for the company grew less select
as the years rolled by, Thémiseul de Saint-Hyacinthe, a converted dragoon,
to whom France owes at least in part her translation of _Robinson
Crusoe_;[219] and lastly, in 1726, the elder Huguenots who still repaired
to the familiar tavern, beheld, fresh from the Bastille, his conversation
sparkling with wit that must have taught them what a change had come over
France since the death of the old persecuting King, M. de Voltaire.
In coffee-houses such as this, in Rotterdam and in London, during the
eventful period between the Revocation and the death of William the Third,
all the eighteenth century was thought out. Alone the refugees were able to
establish a fruitful exchange of ideas between England and the Continent.
Men of greater learning would not have done the work so well. These alone
were possessed of the indispensable qualities: the journalist's curiosity,
eager to know, little caring about the relative importance of what he
knows, and the teacher's lucidity, not unmixed with shallowness. Thanks to
them, the literary journals of Holland circulated in England and English
thought found its way into France. The correspondents of those papers
anticipated the modern reporter's methods to the extent that Locke one day
read a private conversation of his printed in full in the _Nouvelles de la
République des Lettres_.[220] Coste, of course, had written down the
conversation and thought it worthy of publication. Better than Bayle and Le
Clerc, indefatigable Desmaizeaux corresponds with most European scholars,
advertises their opinions, reviews their books, writes their obituary
notices, and edits their posthumous work, being withal incapable of
uttering a single original idea.
One defect the refugees shared with the English Puritans, a supreme
contempt of art. When Bossuet's _Histoire des Variations_ appeared, they
thought it long and tedious. "The book," exclaimed Jurieu, "will lie buried
under its bulk and ruins."[221] Their knowledge, like a good reviewer's, is
universal. Bayle, their leader, never wrote a veritable book, but cast his
revolutionary thoughts in the mould of an encyclopædia. The masterpiece of
refugee speculation is the _Critical Dictionary_. Nor was it the only
dictionary that they produced--witness Chaufepié's _Dictionary_, Ancillon's
_Mémoires_, Desmaizeaux's _Lives_, Le Clerc's _Eloges_. Their newspapers
collect material for encyclopædias and their encyclopædias compile anas.
Now that was exactly how the eighteenth century writers worked: neither
Voltaire, Montesquieu nor Diderot cared about composing a book, as a
skilful architect builds a house, to stand alone, imposing and complete.
They jotted down ideas, dashed off a chapter or two, then passed on to
another subject. You cannot compare the _Spirit of Laws_ and the _History
of Variations_, for while the latter forms a harmonious whole, whose
splendid proportions inspire every one with admiration, the former is an
indigested mass of research, brilliant wit, and profound criticism. To
usher in the nineteenth century, a readjustment of traditional doctrines
was necessary, and this the eighteenth century effected by leaving in the
background literature and works of imagination and taking up the foreground
with anecdotes, memoirs, and various disquisitions on philosophy, ethics,
divinity, and politics. But the refugees had made the task easy. To these
seemingly innocent compilers must be ascribed the sudden development in
Europe of the spirit of criticism. When they had made the reading public
familiar with doctrines hitherto confined to the schools, they disappeared,
leaving it to others in England and France to give those now popularised
doctrines a literary expression.
Another trait of the refugees is their cosmopolitism. Some were born in
Geneva, others in France; not unlike a Semitic tribe, they roamed about
Switzerland, Holland, Germany, England. After preaching in London, Le Clerc
settled in Amsterdam. Before living at Oates with the Mashams, Coste had
been a proof reader in Amsterdam, and after an adventurous life in Holland
and Germany, he ultimately died in Paris. A barrister in early life, Rapin
Thoyras fled to England after the Revocation, then to Holland, where he
became a soldier, following first the Prince of Orange in his expedition
against James II., then Marshal Schomberg to Ireland, became tutor to the
Duke of Portland's children, drifted back to the Hague, and ended a
singularly chequered career at Wesel. Through the medium of the refugees
the learned societies could correspond. Such refugees as had remained on
the Continent showed their desire to have information about England.
"England," wrote Bayle, "is the country in the world where metaphysical and
physical reasonings, spiced with erudition, are the most appreciated and
the most in fashion."[222] For Jurieu, England was "the country in the
world the most replete with unquiet-minded men, fond of change and aspiring
to new things."[223] The refugee seeking, Narcissus-like, to see himself in
his adoptive country, credited England with his own characteristics,
turbulency and the thirst for scientific information.
An important fact is that these men, as their predecessors had done under
the early Stuarts and the Commonwealth, learned English. No stronger
contrast can be imagined than the indifference that courtly Catholic
Saint-Evremond exhibited towards the language of his adoptive country, and
the eagerness with which the French pastors, compelled now to read prayers
and preach in the Church of England, studied English. And yet, it was after
all natural that the Huguenots who took part in all the internal conflicts
of their new Fatherland, should be ready to further their religious and
political ideals by the tongue and the pen as well as the sword.
FOOTNOTES:
[140] _Rousseau et le cosmopolitisme littéraire_, 1895.
[141] _Shakespeare en France sous l'ancien régime_, 1898.
[142] _Littérature française à l'etranger_, 2 vols., Geneva, 1853.
[143] See Gairdner, _Lollardy and the Reformation_, iii. pp. 118-122; and
for a bibliography of the translations of Calvin's works, Upham, _French
Influence in English Literature_, App. A.
[144] Schickler, _Eglises du refuge_, i. pp. 5, 13.
[145] _Ibid._ i. p. 259 n.
[146] _Life of Parker_, i. p. 276.
[147] Sidney Lee, _French Renaissance in England_, p. 301. In 1586,
Recorder Fleetwood warned Burghley of an intended apprentices' riot against
Dutch and French settlers. See _N. and Q._, 1st July 1871.
[148] See Chapter VII.
[149] Théophile de Viau, for instance.
[150] _Lettres choisies_, iii. p. 9.
[151] _Letter to the Synod of Alençon_, 1637.
[152] _Lettre à M. Morley_, p. 4 (1650).
[153] Collier, _Church History_, ii. p. 399. "The French Protestants,"
wrote Pierre Du Moulin in the same spirit, "keepe their zeale of religion
for higher matters than a Surplice or a Crosse in Baptisme" (_A Letter of a
French Protestant to a Scotsman of the Covenant_, 1640, p. 35).
[154] Allusion, of course, to Descartes.
[155] _Réunion du Christianisme_, pp. 117-19.
[156] _Réunion du Christianisme_, p. 173.
[157] _Op. cit._ p. 198.
[158] _Avis aux réfugiés_, pp. 128, 129.
[159] _Ibid._ p. 155.
[160] Aymon, _Actes des Synodes_, 2 vols., La Haye, 1710, ii. pp. 38, 39.
[161] _Ibid._ ii. p. 106.
[162] _Actes des Synodes_, ii. p. 636.
[163] _Ecclesiasticæ Disciplinæ; et Anglicanæ Ecclesiæ ... dilucida
Explicatio._
[164] Penry's _Appellation_ and Throckmorton's _M[aster Robert] Some laid
open in his Colours_, 1590. Cf. Sir Sidney Lee, _French Renaissance in
England_, p. 303.
[165] _Mémoires de Lenet_, p. 599. and Ch. Normand, _Bourgeoisie
française_, pp. 400 _ssq._ See also Chapter VIII.
[166] _Lettre à M. Morley_, p. 112.
[167] _Eikon Basiliké_, Preface to translation.
[168] There had already appeared pamphlets by Vincent, minister at La
Rochelle, and Hérault, minister at Alençon. Bochart, _op. cit._ p. 113.
[169] _Discours sur la Souveraineté des Rois_, Saumur, 1650.
[170] _Lettre à M. Morley._
[171] Bochart, _op. cit._ p. 23.
[172] _Discours sur la Souveraineté_, p. 117.
[173] [Greek: Eikôn Basilikê], _ou Portrait Royal de sa Majesté de la
Grande Bretagne dans ses souffrances et sa solitude_, La Haye, 1649.
[174] [Greek: Eikôn Basilikê], _Le Portrait du Roy de la Grande Bretagne
durant sa solitude et ses souffrances_, Orange, 1650.
[175] _Prédiction où se voit comme le Roy Charles II. doit estre remis aux
royaumes d'Angleterre, Ecosse, et Irlande après la mort de son père_,
Rouen, 1650.
[176] Aymon, _Actes_, ii. p. 723.
[177] _Ibid._ p. 734.
[178] Written 1574, published 1579. Under the pseudonym of Stephanus Junius
Brutus, the author argues that the royal title coming from the people, the
king who is idolatrous or defies his subjects' rights must be deposed.
[179] _Lettres choisies_, i. p. 420.
[180] _The Conformity of the Discipline and Government of the Independents
to that of the Ancient Primitive Christians_, London, 1680.
[181] Schickler, _Eglises du refuge_, ii. pp. 110 _ssq._
[182] Bochart, _op. cit._ p. 115.
[183] _Shibboleth ou réformation de quelques passages de la Bible_, dédié
au Protecteur, 1653.
[184] Schickler, _op. cit._ ii. p. 93.
[185] See Chapter VIII.
[186] Schickler, _Eglises du refuge_, ii. p. 318 n.
[187] The foreign letters addressed to the Synods are commanded to be given
up, with unbroken seals, to the King's commissioner. Aymon, _Actes_, ii. 5,
571, 636, 719, 740, etc.
[188] Bochart, _op. cit._ p. 2.
[189] He married the daughter of Cyrus du Moulin, sometime French pastor in
Canterbury, and thus retained family ties in England. So much it is
necessary to know to understand the minute knowledge of English affairs
displayed in his polemical works.
[190] Saint-Evremond, _Oeuvres_, i. p. 87 (1753).
[191] _Ibid._ iv. p. 323.
[192] _Ibid._ iv. p. 146.
[193] Saint-Evremond, _Oeuvres_, iii. p. 272.
[194] _Ibid._ iii. p. 265.
[195] _Diary_, 13th March 1691.
[196] His only published work is the _Bibliothèque de Droit canonique_,
edited by Guillaume Voet in 1661. See Ancillon, _Mém. hist. et crit._,
Amst. 1709. P. 221.
[197] Saint-Evremond, _Oeuvres_, iv. p. 309.
[198] For details on this affair, so singularly suggestive of the arrogance
in the seventeenth century of the most important Consistory in France, see
Ancillon, _op. cit._ 223.
[199] _Smith MSS._, viii. f. 25-27.
[200] Saint-Evremond, _Oeuvres_, iii. pp. 266-267.
[201] _Ibid._ iv. pp. 319-320.
[202] _Diary_, 1st November 1685.
[203] Such is _An Abstract of the Present State of the Protestants in
France_, Oxford, 1682.
[204] Schickler, _op cit._ ii. p. 356.
[205] _A Letter to a Dissenter in England by his friend at the Hague_,
1688.
[206] _Diary_, 14th March 1686.
[207] _Toleration proved Impracticable_, 1685.
[208] _Some Expostulations with the Clergy of the Church of England_, 1688.
[209] _Lettres et Mémoires de Marie_, pp. 84, 89.
[210] _A Letter of Several French ministers fled into Germany upon the
Account of the Persecution in France, to such of their Brethren in England
as approved the King's Declaration touching Liberty of Conscience_, 1689.
[211] _Diary_, April 1700.
[212] Writing to M. de Beaumont, 21st March 1604.
[213] He was printing at the same time: _Cruelties at Montauban_, and _The
Present Misery of the French Nation compared with that of the Romans under
Domitian_.
[214] _Inquisition françoise ou histoire de la Bastille_, Amst. 1715, 2
vols.
[215] _Narrative of the Frenzy of Mr. John Dennis._
[216] _Letter to Thieriot_, 24th February 1733.
[217] _Jacobites' Hopes Frustrated_, 1690.
[218] King, _Life of Locke_, p. 261.
[219] See Chap. XI.
[220] _Original Letters_, pp. 68-69.
[221] _Pastoral Letters_, III. 1. vi. p. 122.
[222] _Lettres choisies_, ii. p. 706.
[223] _Pastoral Letters_, IV. 1. xiv. p. 329.
CHAPTER VI
HUGUENOT THOUGHT IN ENGLAND
SECOND PART
The foreign land to which the Huguenot was compelled to fly acted upon him
as a mental stimulus. With such an incitement, the progress of Huguenot
thought after the Revocation becomes profoundly interesting. We shall
examine it from the threefold point of view of theology, political
speculation, and toleration, the last question being intimately connected
with the two former, and all three questions being moreover inseparably
related.
Most of the men of letters with whom we are now dealing being pastors or
having been trained for the ministry, theology occupied a foremost place in
their thoughts. In France, the Calvinistic discipline, though it had not
suppressed heterodoxy, at least made its expression very guarded. When
Locke was staying at Montpellier, he remarked that there was in the land
room only for Roman Catholicism or Calvinism, no other creed being
tolerated. A Toleration Act in the most narrow sense of the word, the Edict
of Nantes recognised but one dissenting Communion. But in Holland and even
in England, before the Revolution, the refugees could indulge in a certain
freedom of thought. The charge of Socinianism brought against Colomiès does
not seem to have indisposed against him his patron, the Archbishop.
Heterodoxy spread so easily among the Huguenots in England that their
orthodox brethren in Holland were alarmed: "We have learned from the good
and excellent letter addressed to us by Messieurs our dearest brethren the
Pastors of the dispersion at the present moment in London, that the evil
has crossed the seas and spreads in England amongst the brethren of our
communion and tongue."
These words are an extract from the debates of a Synod convened at Utrecht
in 1690 to remedy the spread of heresy among the refugees. Not being backed
by civil authority, its freely-distributed and strongly-worded anathemas
fell flat. The efforts of the orthodox party were spent in petty intrigues
like that which deprived Bayle of his Professorship. They endeavoured to
lay a gravestone upon a living tree and were surprised to find the stone
split.
This freedom in theology was exerted in two directions: the latitudinarian
tenet that the Bible was the religion of the Protestants, now commonly
repeated,[224] led to much regard being paid to textual criticism, and in
this close study of the divine message all parties were united; the
heterodox in their search after truth, the orthodox in their controversy
with the Catholic doctors. It was the age when Richard Simon, the Catholic
founder, according to M. Renan, of modern exegesis, flourished, and Le
Clerc wrote his first book to dispute his conclusions. A more dangerous
method was that of Bayle. The first to lead the life of an absolute
free-thinker, whose mind is entirely severed from traditional theology,
dispassionate to the verge of inhumanity, a perfect example of the abnormal
development of the reasoning faculty to the detriment of sensitiveness, he
must not be mistaken for a Pyrrhonist albeit he poses for one from time to
time.[225] The contemporary Pyrrhonist would write in the spirit of
Pascal's _Pensées_, and showing up the futility of man's effort to fathom
transcendental mysteries, submit to a higher spiritual reason "the reason
of the heart that reason knoweth not." With the subtlest dialectician's
skill, Bayle merely opposes reason and faith. In every Christian dogma he
delights in showing up the latent logical absurdity; not sneering, however,
as Voltaire was soon to do, not even hinting at the consequences of his
method. The little intellectual exercise over, he passes on to another
subject. In spite of his destructive criticism, once out of the
professorial chair, he leads the life of a good Christian and a righteous
Huguenot. In the outward expression of his faith he never wavered. Unlike
Montaigne, a sceptic of a different stamp, he never gave undue advantage to
his personal comfort. To this day he remains, Sphinx-like, a faint smile
lighting up his countenance, a psychological enigma.
In 1709 the great _Dictionary_ was translated into English by J. P.
Bernard, La Roche, and others, and again in 1739-41 by Bernard, Birch,
Lockman, and others; already long familiar to English readers, who were not
slow in recognising a very high literary merit in its lucidity of style and
its extraordinary interest, it had thus been greeted almost on its
appearance by a good judge, Saint-Evremond: "Monsieur Bayle clothes in so
agreeable a dress his profound learning, that it never palls."[226] A
direct influence could be traced of Bayle upon Shaftesbury, the author of
the _Characteristics_.
But the influence of the heterodox Huguenot weighed little when compared
with that of the orthodox. Much led to annul the effect of the _Critical
Dictionary_ on the mass of readers. For one thing, it came a little too
late; then, a bomb exploding in the open does less damage than a bomb
exploding in a closed room. Though looked upon as suspicious by an
Archbishop who had never read them,[227] Bayle's works were allowed to
circulate freely in England. On the other hand, a larger portion of the
English public read treatises of devotion bearing the names of learned and
illustrious sufferers in the cause of religion. Bishop Fleetwood's
translation of Jurieu's _Traité de la dévotion_ went through no less than
twenty-six editions, and Drelincourt's _Consolations d'une âme fidèle_ was
a success before Defoe appended to it as a vivid commentary the story of
the ghost of Mrs. Veal. In the struggle against deism that marked the first
quarter of the eighteenth century, the widespread influence of such books
told against infidelity.
Politics were then a part of theology. In the same way as the Revocation
helped to break up the traditional Calvinistic theology, it shattered the
system of politics most in accordance with the French reformer's political
creed. As long as the Huguenots enjoyed the liberties granted them by Henri
IV., their doctors had preached passive obedience. When the wave of
persecution broke, some faltered, while others obstinately upheld the
doctrine that had then become part of their Church divinity. No doubt in
showing the glaring insufficiency of the old creed to meet the facts, the
Revocation had a demoralising effect. To the reflective few the sudden
change of doctrine of many illustrious theologians must have seemed very
distressing. One bulwark of their faith, as they had been often told,
passive obedience, was being swept away. What destruction might not
threaten their faith itself?
Modern Protestant writers, especially in our democratic age, glory in those
obscure predecessors of 1789 who asserted in the teeth of absolutism, the
rights of the people; yet had the Edict of Nantes never been repealed, and
the Huguenots suffered to live on, the hardy victims of petty vexations, it
is highly probable that the same doctors who in Holland asserted the
sovereignty of the people, would in their French Synods have hurled
excommunication at any "followers of the Independents."
Jurieu's apology for his new opinion was frank and ingenuous: obedience was
due to Louis XIV. as long as the Protestants were his subjects; compelled
by persecution to renounce his allegiance, they obeyed another Prince who
allowed them to profess other political opinions.[228] A little
demoralisation must pay for every readjustment of conviction due to
progress.
Up to the eve of the Revocation, the duty of passive obedience was set
forth by the Huguenots. In the absence of solemn declarations issued by
Synods, the last being held in 1660, we may record the individual sayings
of the luminaries of the party. "Any Huguenot," Jurieu had written in 1681,
"is ready to subscribe with his blood to the doctrine that makes for the
safety of kings, viz., that temporally our kings depend on no one but on
God, that even for heresy and schism kings may not be deposed, nor may
their subjects be absolved from their oath of allegiance."[229] Acting as
spokesman for his co-religionists, he added: "Our loyalty is proof against
any temptation, our love for our Prince is unbounded."[230] Another pastor,
Fétizon, opposing the factious doctrines of the Roman Church to the loyalty
of the Huguenots, showed how they supported the King's absolute powers:
"Where is it commonly taught that kings depend only on God and have a
divine power that may be taken away by no ecclesiastical person, no
community of people? Is it not in the Protestant religion? Where is it at
least allowed to believe that royalty is only a human authority that always
remains subject to the people that have granted it, or to the Church that
may take it back? Is it not in the Roman Church?"[231] In his famous
dispute with Bossuet, Claude maintained the divine right of kings.[232]
Writing in the _Nouvelles de la République des Lettres_ for April 1684,
Bayle censures Maimbourg for charging Protestantism with sedition, and
alleges the Oxford decree of the preceding year condemning Buchanan and
Milton. The subject visibly haunts him; again and again he reverts to it,
suggesting difficulties, arguing on both sides according to his wont, but
clearly inclining to obedience. The persecution shakes his political faith
a little; must the Huguenots in France go to their forbidden assemblies in
"the Desert"? If it be true that it is better to obey God than man, who is
to determine what the will of God is?[233] And again, the accession of
James II. is a good opportunity for Protestantism to show its true spirit;
because the King frankly avows his Catholicism, his Protestant subjects are
in honour bound to obey him. "The Protestants have never had so good an
opportunity of showing that they are not wrong in boasting of their loyalty
to their sovereign, whatever the religion he should follow."[234] The very
year of the Revocation, Elie Merlat, a pastor who after suffering
imprisonment had fled to Lausanne, published a treatise on the absolute
power of sovereigns, written four years before, and which he, in spite of
persecution, felt no disposition to cancel or modify. The subjects owe
their king "civil adoration," and far from dictating to him, may not
question his decisions. "If it is permitted to the subjects in certain
cases to examine their rulers and ask them to render an account of their
actions, the bond of public union is snapped asunder and the door opened to
all kinds of sedition."[235] A faint echo is perceptible of Hobbes's
teaching. All men are in the origin equal and free, but sin engendering a
state of war, a few men, by God's design, have been instrumental in saving
through their ambition mankind, whom they have reduced to obedience.[236]
Absolute power, though not good in itself, is the supreme remedy devised by
God to save man. The Calvinist's sombre teaching finds here its proper
expression.
[Illustration: JEAN CLAUDE]
In contradistinction with the Catholic doctrine, the Huguenot divines do
not admit of an exception to the rule of obedience which they have laid
down, not even that of an insurrection with religion as a motive. We have
already quoted Jurieu's sweeping assertion. Like the early Christians, they
wished to oppose only silent resignation to their tormentors. "The Prince,"
said Jurieu, "is the master of externals in religion; if he will not allow
another religion besides his own, if we cannot obey, we may die without
defending ourselves, because true religion must not use weapons to reign
and be established."[237] "We deny," said Merlat, "that rebellion is
justifiable to-day for religion's sake."[238] The same feeling of loyalty
impelled the French congregation of Threadneedle Street, on 26th May 1683,
to reject Lambrion, a minister at Bril, in Holland, because it was reported
that he had said that "persecuting tyrants might be looked upon as wild
beasts, and that any one might fall upon them."[239]
After the Revocation, a different opinion speedily obtained among the
refugees. No doubt they were influenced in Holland, as Jurieu stated, by
public opinion. The political education of both England and Holland was far
in advance of that of France. Then the question, which before had seemed
merely a theme for academic discourses, became a pressing reality. By most
Huguenots the Revocation was looked upon as a temporary measure due to the
intrigues of some Jesuits at the Court; the King, they repeated, would not
fail to revoke his reactionary decrees when better informed about his
faithful subjects; once more the refugees would be allowed to return to the
homes of their childhood and enjoy their restored estates. As the months
went by without bringing relief, they fell into two parties: on the one
side, the peaceful men of letters and diplomatists by nature advocated
temporising; on the other, the great mass of the people bearing the brunt
of the persecution, the fiery ministers, the army and navy officers who had
forfeited their commissions, relied only on the strength of arms and
entertained wild hopes of a successful insurrection. As the fall of James
II. appeared imminent, the violent party more openly discovered their
sentiments. Among them, the Prince of Orange recruited his soldiers and
pamphleteers, who, like sharpshooters in front of an army, spread
consternation among the upholders of arbitrary power in England a few years
before the Dutch actually landed at Torbay. The advent of William III. and
the war that followed helped only to strengthen the party of resistance,
insomuch that Protestantism has hitherto stood in France for a synonym of
Republicanism.
On all sides the pamphleteers have received scant consideration: Bayle
attacked them violently,[240] Jurieu declined to acknowledge them as
allies;[241] yet their influence on the issue of the struggle carried on in
England between the house of Stuart and the Whigs was far from
inconsiderable. A press war was waged between the Prince of Orange and his
father-in-law long before the official war broke out. "Several libels,"
reports Luttrell in the early spring of 1688, "and pamphlets have been
lately printed and sent about; many are come over from Holland."[242] These
were not the able productions of the London clergy, the Stillingfleets and
Tenisons and Tillotsons, raising the standard of a holy war against the
Catholic divinity that was pouring forth from the King's press. Scurrilous,
libellous, violent leaflets came over from Holland to be eagerly devoured
by the same credulous mob that believed both the Popish and the
Presbyterian plots. Short, pithy, coarse, they may be read to-day, if not
with the interest born of warfare in which one takes part, at least without
wearisomeness. The most popular are issued in English and in French, so as
to sting at one blow James II. and Louis XIV. Such is the letter of Père de
la Chaise, father-confessor to the French King, to Father Petre, James's
notorious privy councillor (1688). A scheme being set on foot by the
Jesuits to murder all the Protestants in France the same day, the King, to
obtain absolution from his confessor for a horrible crime, grants the
commission to execute the design. The letters duly sealed are about to be
dispatched in the provinces when Louis XIV., whose conscience smites
him,--because, after all, the most blood-thirsty tyrant relents where a
priest remains obdurate,--confides the secret to Prince de Condé. The
latter lays a trap into which the confessor falling, must needs give up the
commission. Five days later, the Jesuits poison the Prince, and the
Huguenots, deprived of their protector, are delivered over to the tender
mercies of the dragoons. "In England," adds La Chaise by manner of
conclusion, "the work cannot be done after that fashion ... so that I
cannot give you better counsel than to take that course in hand wherein we
were so unhappily prevented"--that is, to cut the throats of the
Protestants.[243] Another production, the offspring of a kindred pen, was
the _Love Letters between Polydorus, the Gothic King, and Messalina, late
Queen of Albion_. The struggle over, and James II. beaten, the victor,
instead of lending him murderous projects against his former subjects,
makes him the butt of coarse sarcasm.
To the same period belong more serious productions, due to the fact that
both parties in England were anxious to appeal to some French authority. In
a _Catalogue of all the Discourses published against Popery during the
Reign of King James II._ (1689), out of two hundred and thirty-one tracts
noticed, there are no less than eleven answers to Bossuet. If Bossuet was
the Catholic champion, the Protestants elected Jurieu to enter the lists
against him. To the devotional works already mentioned may be added the
political writings, especially the _Seasonable Advice to all Protestants in
Europe for uniting and defending themselves against Popish Tyranny_ (1689),
and the _Sighs of France in Slavery breathing after Liberty_ (1689), with
the quaint information, "written in French by the learned Monsieur Juriew."
The violent party, headed by Jurieu and the moderate by Bayle, found in the
fall of James II. the occasion of fully publishing their several systems of
political theology. "Formerly," said Bayle, "your writers, either in good
or in bad faith, were careful not to approve of the pernicious teaching of
Hubert Languet.... What are they thinking about now to publish so many
books where, without circumlocution or reserve, they vent the same dogmas
and push them still further?"[244] Under the same political necessities,
the same doctrines, after an interval of a century, were reappearing.
Religious leaders are inclined to advise their followers not to attack the
secular powers, but when the inevitable conflict breaks out, a wholly
different sentiment prevails. The early Christians, who had heard Saint
Paul teach them to obey the Roman Emperor, soon found the denunciations of
the seer of Patmos against the tyrant better suited to their feelings. In
spite of Calvin, the Huguenots, when persecution became violent, were
prepared to listen to the _Vindiciæ contra Tyrannos_. Circumstances
favoured a revival of the "republican" doctrines of the sixteenth century:
the English Revolution needed apologists on the Continent; the Protestant
hero, William III., although a King, held his title by the will of the
English people; for once Protestantism and a liberal doctrine were
confronted and impugned by Catholicism and absolutism. Apologies were
accordingly written, by which must be understood abler, less scurrilous
works than the productions of the hired pamphleteers, but pamphlets
nevertheless, because the furtherance of a political cause was their
immediate pretext. For years already had Jurieu been engaged upon the task
of answering the numerous controversial works issued in France, in
_Pastoral Letters_, the circulation of which the French police were unable
to stop. Together with the controversial argument, each letter contained
some new information, the account of a dragonnade, the prophecy of a
shepherdess, the testimony delivered by a preacher with the halter round
his neck, or a galley-slave dying under the lash. With the year 1689 new
tidings came every fortnight to the Huguenots who read these letters,
tidings of hope after so much gloom; under the rubric _affaires
d'Angleterre_, their spiritual comforter recounted them the wonderful fall
of the popish tyrant and the triumph of the hero of Protestantism and
liberty. Yet the joy of some was not unmixed with scruples; was not James,
after all, the Lord's anointed, and William the usurper? Was the
deliverance only a snare and a pitfall into which the Saints must be wary
of stumbling? To all which questions Jurieu had a ready answer.[245]
In principle all men are free and equal, but their sins make authority
needful. They have chosen kings and governors to whom they have yielded
sovereignty their birthright; not without reservations, however. In all
cases a contract, either avowed or tacit, intervenes between rulers and
subjects, the former swearing to govern according to law, and the latter to
obey their governors. If the rulers break their word, the contract becomes
void, and, sovereignty reverting to the people, the king forfeits his
crown. If the king dies, the contract is void also, and the people have to
choose another ruler. Monarchy, and in particular the French Monarchy, is
therefore in its essence elective.
The origin of kingly right is popular, not divine; but God sanctions the
popular choice, and, as long as the contract stands, it is sinful to
disobey the sovereign. "The kings are the vice-regents of God, His vicars,
His living images," and he goes on to use the comparisons of man who,
though made in the likeness of God, is the son of man; in the same manner
the king instituted by the people is God's representative upon earth.
Why, then, has James lost his crown? because he attempted to "violate
consciences," usurping a power that no man could give him, since "no man
hath the right to do war unto God."
With his usual impulsiveness, there is no doubt but Jurieu, had he not been
chaplain to the Prince of Orange, would have become a republican. He is
ever trying to give the kings with the one hand what he withholds with the
other.
As early as 1682 Shaftesbury won his admiration: "He has perhaps," he said
of him in an admirable character-portrait, "a soul a little too republican
to live in a monarchy, but we do not think him guilty of the cowardice
which is imputed to him."[246]
The _Soupirs de la France esclave_, published in 1690, attacks the absolute
government of Louis XIV., whom he accuses of being a usurper, sovereignty
belonging to the States-General. Historically such a position is untenable,
but it is a significant fact that a little before the Revolution of 1789
the same book was reprinted under the title _Voix d'un patriote_. Jurieu
proved a century in advance of his time.
Behind the chief press a band of lesser officers. Jacques Abbadie, after
preaching up passive obedience in Prussia, wrote at the desire, it appears,
of William III., an apology of the Revolution. "Kings," he began, "are the
lieutenants of God ... to offend them is to show no respect for the glory
of God whose image they are, and for the majesty of the people in which
they are clothed."[247] A subordinate's authority can never extend to a
chief's. Unlike God's power, that of the king is limited. Even a conqueror,
becoming the king of a conquered nation, enters upon a treaty by which he
undertakes to protect their lives and property. The compact gives the king
only the rights possessed by the individual free man, and these are by no
means absolute. The people choose their kings, but God deposes them if they
betray their trust. The desertion and abdication of James was brought about
by God's Providence, and the English people freely accepting William for
king, William's title is even better than that of his predecessor. Several
restrictions are brought to bear upon the exercise of the right of
insurrection, the most important being the denial of that right in cases of
individual injustice. Limited monarchy is proclaimed the best and most
perfect of governments.
The theories on which the political writers in the seventeenth century
founded limited monarchy rapidly became popular among the refugees,[248]
the dissentients being in small numbers. The most famous of these is Pierre
Bayle, the author of the _Dictionary_. The development of his political
theory is characteristic of his whole enigmatic mental nature. Brought up
by the French Jesuits, as Voltaire was to be a few years later, afterwards
a student of divinity in Geneva, and a Professor in the very orthodox
Academy of Sedan, with Jurieu for colleague and friend, he accepted a chair
of philosophy in a small Dutch college in Rotterdam (the _schola
illustris_). The greater part of his life was thus spent among republicans,
and under republican government; in Holland his best friends were the few
republicans that piously venerated the memory of the unfortunate De Witts,
so much so that the Prince of Orange suspected his loyalty. Yet his faith
in absolutism remained unshaken. With the aversion of the man of letters
for the mob, an incapacity of sharing the general enthusiasm for William,
and a very great and genuine affection for his country, he could not
sympathise with the violent party. Some imperfectly known private
resentment urged him to contradict Jurieu, a leader that had the completest
faith in his own infallibility. Lastly, Bayle's cast of mind lent flavour
to the design of exposing the error ever lurking in accepted truths,
insomuch that for any one who has carefully read Bayle, the authorship of
the _Avis aux réfugiés_ is not doubtful. The famous answer to the political
doctrine of the _Pastoral Letters_, the last able defence of absolutism,
was penned by Bayle and no other. In the number of the _Nouvelles de la
République des Lettres_ for September 1684, some words about the fiction of
the decision of the majority standing for that of the whole contains in
germ an important argument of the _Avis aux réfugiés_.[249] An English
dissenter is supposed to be the author of the _Philosophical Commentary_,
yet when speaking of sovereignty he leaves it an open question whether its
origin is divine or popular; for, even under his disguise, Bayle did not
care to renounce entirely his personal convictions.
The _Avis aux réfugiés_ falls into two divisions: in the former, the
refugees are reproached with writing libellous pamphlets against the French
King; in the latter, the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, "that
pet chimera," is confronted with some weighty arguments. From the doctrine
must be inferred the right of the people to revolt against their Prince,
the individual being in all cases entitled to criticise the decisions of
the executive. Anarchy must necessarily ensue: "If the people reserved unto
themselves the right of free inquiry and the liberty of obeying or not,
according as they found just or unjust the orders of those that commanded,
it would not be possible to preserve the public peace."[250] The right of
the majority to overrule the minority cannot obtain if the people are
sovereign; should the majority use coercion, they act unjustly; nothing can
be reproached the minority if they call foreign soldiers to their aid. The
oath of allegiance is a farce, since the safety of the people is the
supreme law. No one can deny the force of these arguments. The liberal
doctrines are two-edged swords striking the tyrant down, it is true, but
not without inflicting wounds on the people. France in the nineteenth
century experienced some of the evils resulting from the continual
presence in the minds of the people of their right to remedy sometimes
slight evil by insurrection. It remained, of course, to the Anglo-Saxon
race to contradict the too general statement of Bayle by showing how masses
under favourable circumstances could be taught the exercise of
self-government.
Next to the general argument are some minor arguments drawn from the
immediate events. Jeremy Collier, the non-juror, would have used them with
great effect had he known them. Are the Irish Jacobites rebels or no? The
refugees under Schomberg treat them as such, and yet the King of England is
at their head. The answer, of course, is that Ireland, being a country
added to England by conquest, is bound to acknowledge the sovereign chosen
by England. If the Emperor in becoming a Calvinist were deposed by the
Electors, would not the Protestants throughout Europe once again preach up
passive obedience? History justifies the charges of this remarkable little
book, to which there only lacks the proposition that large sections of
mankind are constantly reshaping their political doctrines to meet the
pressure of unforeseen events. As the expected advent to the throne of
France of Henri de Navarre made the sovereignty of the people acceptable to
Ultramontanes, so the English Revolution appeared to Huguenots a convincing
argument in favour of the same doctrine.
Between Bayle and Voltaire, more than one striking analogy can be noticed.
Both in respect to French internal politics held the same opinion.
Persecuted by fanatical Huguenot ministers and Catholic priests, they
dreamed of an impossible alliance between the King and the free-thinking
tolerant men of letters. It is certain that Bayle corresponded with
Pélisson, Secretary of State to Louis XIV. In the _Avis aux réfugiés_ he
probably stretched to their utmost his concessions to the French Court.
Nothing short of going to Mass was deemed sufficient to allow him to reside
in France, so he brushed aside the temptation. But public opinion in France
treated him well. Boileau, then a kind of sovereign magistrate in the
Republic of Letters, expressed high approval of the _Dictionary_, and the
French courts of law, contrary to the King's edicts, admitted Bayle's will
to be valid.
For reasons different from Bayle, Basnage kept shy of the liberal
doctrines. Although Jurieu's son-in-law, he was essentially for moderate
courses. Saumaise, Amyraut, Claude, he thought, had gone too far in
extolling divine right,[251] but Bayle was right in the main. Held in high
esteem by the States-General, Basnage exerted himself in different
diplomatic missions to wring some concessions from the French Court.
Wishing his co-religionists to return to France, he thought it expedient to
publish his thoughts on the subject of obedience. Like his father-in-law,
he wrote, but in a less heroic strain, _Pastoral Letters_ to the Huguenots
remaining in France. "Remember," he said, "only the teachings of the
Gospel and the principles that we derive from Holy Scripture, and that we
shall inculcate till the end of our life without change, that loyalty to
the sovereign must be inviolable, not only through fear, but for conscience
sake."[252] He warns them against holding large noisy assemblies in the
"desert," advising family prayers in the stead: "Do not call down upon
yourselves by tumultuous assemblies and indiscreet zeal, fresh misfortunes
which in the present time would appear to be due to justice rather than to
hatred and difference of religion." On no account are they to bear arms:
"You ought to be alive to the honour of your religion ... that never
authorises any one to bear and use arms for his preservation."[253]
Those diplomatic words do not reflect the general feeling of the refugees;
in England they adopted, as we have seen, current Whig theories; for them
the French and the Tory interest coincided. Later on, they supported the
house of Hanover. In an address presented to the King a little before the
rebellion of 1745 by the merchants of the City of London, out of 542 names,
Rev. D. Agnew identified no less than 99 refugees. The Tories, feeling the
danger accruing to them from this active Whig element, brought against them
several measures. The Act of Settlement passed by a Tory administration had
a clause that, ostensibly directed against the Dutch favourites of the
King, was detrimental to the refugees. In 1705, the Tory majority in the
Commons rejected a Naturalization Bill, for fear the new-made subjects
should return Whig members.[254]
The problem of toleration interests politics as well as religion. For the
refugees who, driven from France, settled in England or Holland, civil
toleration was in question only in so far as it referred to the French
King's policy. But in the French churches abroad, the question of
ecclesiastical toleration arose from the intolerance displayed by the
Synods to the heterodox preachers. From those various discussions two
dissimilar theories presently took shape, in which once more Bayle and
Jurieu were pitted together.
Bayle, hearing how his brother had died for his religion in a French
prison, dashed off against the persecutors a virulent pamphlet[255] out of
which there soon grew a theory of toleration. The chief argument of the
Catholic clergy was Christ's words in the parable: "Compel them to come
in." Bayle set to work to show how the literal meaning of the words must be
rejected, because force cannot give faith; it is contrary to Christ's
meekness, it confounds justice and injustice, and is the cause of civil
wars; it makes Christianity hateful in the eyes of the pagans, and is a
temptation to sin, the dragoons losing their souls in carrying out their
master's commands; it makes the persecution of the early Christians
justifiable, and entitles every sect to persecute in the name of truth,
which to their belief they possess.
After that preliminary passage of arms, comes the capital argument in the
book. Conscience in each individual is the sovereign judge whom he is bound
to obey. Since invincible causes often prevent us from discovering truth,
all that God asks of us is sincerity. If a pagan is guilty before Heaven,
it is not because he is an idolater, but for crimes committed against the
dictates of his conscience. The greatest crime is to disobey one's
conscience, to be insincere. A heretic of good faith is entitled from a
human point of view to the same respect as a sincere believer. Persecution
being contrary to the order of things established by God, is not only
criminal but absurd.[256]
A reply to the _Commentary_ was dashed off by Jurieu, who always wrote at
white-heat.[257] When there is, as often happens, a conflict between the
revealed law of God and the dictates of the individual conscience, if our
conscience is the sovereign judge, God's word is in vain. Justice, equity
depending on individual caprice, the responsibility of the criminal
logically disappears. A murderer like Ravaillac, who, in stabbing Henri
IV., obeys his conscience, must not in strict justice be put to death. No
happier state there is, according to the _Commentary_, than that of a
cannibal innocent, because his conscience is not enlightened, and free to
follow the lowest instincts of man's nature. Erring conscience to Jurieu's
mind has the power, not the right, to command; the fountain-head of right
is justice and truth, not their counterfeit.
In a supplement to the _Commentary_, published in 1687, Bayle met Jurieu's
attack. On the question of toleration no distinction can be drawn between
orthodoxy and heresy. Suppose that, in obedience to Christ's command to
give alms, a man relieves a fellow-creature feigning to be poor, he has
none the less obeyed the command; therefore a heretic compelling an
orthodox to renounce his belief obeys Christ's command "compel them to come
in." The Protestant has the same right as the Catholic to persecute, the
Pagan as the Christian, and the whole argument of the upholders of
intolerance rests on worthless distinctions.
This objection Jurieu had foreseen by expounding a bold uncompromising
theory. The right to persecute is a right granted by God to the Christian
magistrate. No Church of Christ can hold its own in the struggle going on
in this world against darkness and sin without the use of force. Early
Christianity would never have won ascendancy without the help of the
Christian Emperors who destroyed the Pagan temples and forbade the worship
of the false deities. "It is God's will that the Kings of the world should
despoil the Beast and smite down its image." The King of France has no
right to persecute the Huguenots, they being Christians "confessing God and
Jesus Christ according to the three Creeds." Bossuet had already flung into
his adversary's face the fate of Servetus. Servetus, Jurieu readily
answered, was no Christian: professing "damnable errors," he was justly
burned at the stake.
A complete account of the battle that raged round these two treatises it is
unnecessary to give here.[258] The drift of the argument is sometimes hard
to follow, as civil toleration and ecclesiastical toleration are constantly
confounded. The discussion must have unsettled the convictions of the
refugees. One of the best instances of the difficulties which beset a
sincere believer when examining the question, is a treatise written by a
minister at Utrecht, Elie Saurin,[259] who endeavoured to steer a middle
course between Jurieu and Bayle. The magistrate, he urged, has received a
commission from God to procure eternal happiness to his people and promote
the interests of religion. But the religion thus promoted must be the true
religion and none but legitimate means employed to further it. Some of
these he proceeds to enumerate: the true Church is more or less a State
Church, the magistrate assists the Church in carrying out her decisions,
particularly in depriving heretical ministers. And, further, the magistrate
exterminates atheism and immoral religions. But he has no right to the
individual conscience. The most honest men in the world entertain errors
impossible to eradicate, they may be tolerated. "The magistrate," sums up
Saurin, "must do, to establish and propagate the true doctrine and
extinguish error, all that he can without offering violence to the
conscience, or depriving his subjects of their natural or civil rights." A
hard programme to carry out![260]
An influence might be traced of these debates on the minds of the
contemporary English political writers. But Bayle's _Commentary_ had a
greater influence on French thought. While its philosophical argument
appealed to Frenchmen, its lack of a political basis robbed it of
popularity in England. That these refugees, with their unmistakable Gallic
love for general ideas irrespective of any practical application, should
end in gaining regard in their own country is not to be wondered at, but it
is surprising that their opinions became popular in France only after
Voltaire's visit to England. A few conversations at the Rainbow
Coffee-House revealed to him what France had given up with the Edict of
Nantes. The originality stamped upon the refugees' works showed that their
political teaching was not entirely due to England or Holland. In truth,
they either stopped short of English liberty or overstepped the bounds that
the prudent Whigs had set to the sovereignty of the people. While Bayle
pretty accurately represented the yet to come French eighteenth-century
gentleman, a cultured free-thinking monarchist, an enemy to the priests and
a conservative Gallican, with a dangerous tendency to allow seductive
reasoning to run away with his judgment, Jurieu strangely anticipated the
fanatical Jacobin. Under Louis XIV. France was a country in which Bayle
would have chosen to live. In 1793, in the Public Safety Committee, Jurieu
might have been considered by Robespierre as a trustworthy patriot.
[Illustration: LOUIS XIV DESTROYS HERETICAL BOOKS]
And withal, these refugees are practically unknown in France. Lacking the
needed passport to fame--the graces of style--they are forgotten; and the
melancholy impression one feels in unearthing in the great public libraries
their dust-eaten pamphlets, is that of disturbing the dead. The men that
live in French literature are the contemporary prose-writers, Bossuet, La
Bruyère; but turn to England, compare the influence of those men with that
of Bayle or Jurieu, or even Drelincourt. After 1688 the influence in
England of French official literature sinks to nothing, while that of the
refugee literature is immense. No better justification there is of the
necessity of comparative literature to discover the errors of familiar
assertions, and dispel common optical illusions.
FOOTNOTES:
[224] By Lecène and Le Clerc, for instance, in _Conversations sur diverses
matières de religion_, 1687, p. 216.
[225] See Renouvier, _Philosophie analytique de l'histoire_, iii. 537. On
Bayle may be read with profit, besides Sayous, _op. cit._ i., studies by
Sainte-Beuve, _Port. Litt._ i.; Faguet, _Etudes du XVIIIe Siècle_;
Brunetière, _Etudes critiques_, 5e série; Delvolvé, _La Philosophie de
Bayle_, 1906; Lenient's work, _Etude sur Bayle_, 1855, is worthless.
[226] _Oeuvres_, vi. p. 292.
[227] "He said there was one Bayle had wrote a naughty book about a comet,
that did a great deal of harm ... he said he had not read it."--Burnet,
_Own Time_, vi. p. 55 n.
[228] _Pastoral Letters_, III. 1. xv. p. 355.
[229] _Politique du clergé de France_, p. 133.
[230] _Ibid._ p. 75.
[231] _Apologie pour les réformés_, La Haye, 1683, p. 177.
[232] _Avis aux réfugiés._
[233] _Nouv. Rép. Lettres_, vol. i. p. 141.
[234] _Ibid._ p. 466.
[235] _Traité du pouvoir absolu des souverains_, Cologne, 1685, p. 159.
[236] _Ibid._ p. 25.
[237] _Derniers efforts de l'Innocence affligée_, 1682, pp. 177, 178.
[238] P. 249, cf. "Aux rois appartient le gouvernment extérieur de l'Eglise
de Dieu," Bochart, _op. cit._ p. 23.
[239] Schickler, quoting _Bull. Soc. Prot. Franç._, V. 43.
[240] _Avis aux réfugiés_; _Lettres choisies_, ii. p. 376.
[241] _Droits des deux souverains_.
[242] _Diary_, i. p. 634.
[243] _The Jesuit Unmasked_, 1689.
[244] _Avis aux réfugiés_, pp. 83, 84.
[245] _Lettres Pastorales_, III. ll. xv.-xviii. (1st April-16th May 1689).
[246] _Derniers efforts de l'innocence affligée_, p. 214.
[247] _Défense de la nation britannique_, La Haye, 1693, p. 107.
[248] _Bayle, Lettres choisies_, ii. p. 453.
[249] Vol. ii. pp. 699, 700 (the first fifteen volumes only are by Bayle).
[250] _Avis aux réfugiés_, p. 88.
[251] _Histoire des ouvrages des savans_, April 1690, p. 368.
[252] _Instruction pastorale_, Rotterdam, 1719, p. 29.
[253] _Ibid._ pp. 21, 24.
[254] Burnet, _Own Time_, v. p. 199.
[255] _Ce que c'est que la France toute catholique sous le règne de Louis
le Grand_, Rotterdam, 1686.
[256] _Commentaire philosophique sur les paroles de Jésus-Christ,
Contrains-les d'entrer_, 1686.
[257] _Du droit des deux souverains en matière de religion, la conscience
et le prince_, 1687.
[258] See Puaux, _Précurseurs français de la tolérance_.
[259] Not to be confounded with Jacques Saurin, the preacher.
[260] _Réflexions sur les droits de la conscience_, Utrecht, 1697.
CHAPTER VII
SHAKESPEARE AND CHRISTOPHE MONGOYE
Viewed in the light of the most recent critical research, what we know of a
certainty about Shakespeare amounts to very little. According to Professor
George Saintsbury,[261] "almost all the commonly received stuff of his
life-story is shreds and patches of tradition, if not positive dream work";
and he goes on to say that we know nothing either of the poet's father or
wife; that it is impossible to affirm that he ever married; that the
beginning of his career as a dramatist and the dates of the first
production of most of his plays are still shrouded in mystery. Therefore
when a scholar proclaims that he has discovered some new well-authenticated
fact about Shakespeare, he deserves at least a hearing.
This is how the most significant discovery made since the time of Malone
was hailed by a literary paper of wide circulation and undoubted influence:
"Interesting as is this new notice of Shakespeare, it has attached to it a
number of casual assumptions and a dose of sentiment which makes no appeal
to the serious student. The legal proceedings to which the signature is
appended throw little light, if any, on Shakespeare's literary
personality."[262] Those for whom the _Athenæum_ is a guide must have come
to the conclusion that they need not worry about what seemed to amount to
little more than an idle story; the new signature excepted, which, after
all, would merely provide an engraving for some yet unwritten book, the
papers might as well have been suffered to slumber on undisturbed in their
pigeon-hole at the Record Office.
Luckily for the author of the discovery, there is a spell in Shakespeare's
name so potent that it is impossible to mention it, even coupled with Mrs.
E. W. Gallup or Mr. W. S. Booth's conjectures, without attracting some
attention.
At first the discovery was noticed in the reviews, particularly in the
_Observer_ and the _National Review_,[263] then scholars and critics turned
their attention to it, Sir Sidney Lee mentioning the Mountjoys in a
footnote to his _French Renaissance in England_ and the _Cambridge History
of English Literature_ honouring them with a line in the bibliographical
appendix. To M. Jusserand it was reserved to point out in his lecture
before the British Academy the real significance of Shakespeare's intimacy
with a French family living in London.
It was in _Harper's Magazine_ that Professor C. W. Wallace of the
University of Nebraska gave the first account of the documents that he had
just unearthed. They consist in a bundle of papers relating to a lawsuit
brought before the Court of Requests. One Christopher Mountjoy, a wig-maker
in the City of London, had given his daughter Mary in marriage to his
apprentice Stephen Bellott. A few months after, upon the wig-maker's wife
dying, her estate was claimed at once by her husband and by her son-in-law,
who, being unable to come to an agreement, brought the cause before the
Court.
Stephen Bellott, it appears, had taken lodgings with the Mountjoys as early
as 1598. A year after, at the request of his step-father Humphrey Fludd,
the youth became an apprentice, served Christopher Mountjoy six years,
then, having vainly sought to make his fortune in Spain, drifted back to
his master's house, where Mary Mountjoy was awaiting him. An amusing little
comedy now took place. As Stephen remained irresolute, Mary's mother
decided to bring matters to a pitch: duly instructed by her, a mutual
friend, then lodging with the Mountjoys, none other of course than
Shakespeare, met the too shy young man, showed him the advantages of the
match, persuaded him to accept, and in November 1604 the pair were married.
When the case came before the Court in 1612, a number of witnesses were
called upon to give evidence. The first to be examined was Joan Johnson, a
former servant, who testified to Shakespeare's part in the match; then came
Daniel Nicholas, apparently one of Shakespeare's friends and companions.
The third whose interrogatory was taken down by the clerk was Shakespeare.
"Wm. Shakespeare of Stratford upon Avon in the Countye of Warwicke
gentleman of the age of forty yeres or thereabouts sworne and
examined--sayeth,
"To the first interrogatory this deponent sayeth he knowethe the partyes
plaintiff and deffendant and hathe knowne them bothe as he now remembrethe
for the space of tenne yeres or thereabouts.
"To the second interrogatory this deponent sayethe he did know the
complainant when he was servant with the deffendant and that during the
time of his the complainantes service with the said deffendant he the said
complainant to this deponentes knowledge did well and honestly behave
himselfe, but to this deponentes remembrance he hath not heard the
deffendant confesse that he had gott any great profitt and commoditye by
the service of the said complainant, but this deponent sayeth he verily
thinkethe that the said complainant was a very good and industrious servant
in the said service and more he cannott depose to the said interrogatory."
And the clerk goes on recording questions and answers in this dull
unemotional style for some time, then the witness having duly signed his
deposition--a most precious signature, that!--withdraws.
A question naturally arises while we read these depositions, Who were these
artisans thus thrust suddenly into prominence? The issue of the suit has
provided the answer. After a protracted inquiry, the Court, in accordance
with the law of England that left the Ecclesiastical Courts to decide
testamentary causes, referred the parties to the Consistory of the French
Church. Both Mountjoy and Bellott, in spite of their names being Englished,
were Huguenot refugees. There only remains to search the registers of the
French Church. Sure enough, on 14th April 1603, the name of Christophe
Mongoye appears as a witness to a christening, and so it should evidently
be spelt.
Moreover the name of Christophe Montioy occurs in the lists of aliens
resident in London in the early seventeenth century. And, finally, on 27th
May 1608, Christopher Monioy, "subject of the King of France, born in
Cressy," was naturalized English.[264] The humble wig-maker's life is thus
quite vividly outlined.
And, again, why should Shakespeare have selected Mongoye's house to lodge
in? The explanation suggested by Mr. Plomer seems acceptable. In 1579,
Richard Field, a native of Stratford-on-Avon, came to London and
apprenticed himself to Thomas Vautrollier, a printer in Blackfriars. This
Vautrollier and his wife were Huguenot refugees like the Mountjoys, "and
we may well believe that the members of the French colony within the walls
of the city at that time were more or less acquainted with each other." In
1586 or 1587, Vautrollier died and Richard Field, then a freeman of the
Stationers' Company, married the widow and became a master printer.[265]
His friendship with Shakespeare is a well-attested fact: both _Venus and
Adonis_ and _Lucrece_ were issued by Field's press, in 1593 and 1594. What
wonder then that Shakespeare should have known the Mountjoys through his
friend's wife.
How long did Shakespeare lodge with the Mountjoys? In his deposition, dated
11th May 1612, he states, as we have just seen, that he has known them for
the space of ten years or thereabouts, therefore since 1602.
Thanks to Professor C. W. Wallace, the site of the Mountjoys' house has
been identified. It stood in Aldersgate, at the corner of Silver Street and
Monkwell Street (formerly Mugwell Street). Let us add that lovers of
Shakespeare need not try to summon up visions of the past before the
commonplace building taking the place of what might have been a sacred
pile. A passing reflection, just a rapid recollection of poor Yorick, is
enough. Modern London, grey, noisy, colossal, and vulgar, ill suits the
brightness and the distinction of Elizabethan England.
Does the discovery throw any light on Shakespeare's character? M. Jusserand
thinks so. "It shows us," he says, "Shakespeare unwittingly thrown by
events into a quarrel; his efforts to minimise his rôle and to withdraw and
disappear are the most conspicuous trait in the new-found documents."[266]
In conclusion, the chief fact to be remembered is that Shakespeare lived
with French artisans during the most important period of his literary life.
_Macbeth_, _Othello_, _King Lear_, perhaps _Hamlet_, were most probably
written in the house at the corner of Silver Street. The mystery of the
scene in French in _Henry V._ is now cleared up: the Vautrolliers, the
Mongoyes and their circle taught Shakespeare French.
And yet there is about Professor C. W. Wallace's discovery something
unsatisfactory that will be readily understood. The voice that reaches us
over the bridge of time seems terribly disappointing: known only by the
illuminating utterances in his works, the poet lived on in our memory
surrounded with a halo of idealism; he was as an eagle soaring on high and
whose wings were never soiled by touching earth. A pity it is that, instead
of a formal deposition before a judge's clerk, chance did not bring to
light a conversation with Ben Jonson. The veil is just lifted, we draw
near, and the god we had figured dwindles into a mere man.
FOOTNOTES:
[261] _Cambridge History of English Literature_, vol. v. chap. viii.
[262] _Athenæum_, 26th February 1910.
[263] Nor let us omit Professor Morel in _Bulletin de la Société pour
l'étude des langues et littératures modernes_, March 1910.
[264] W. A. Shaw, _Denizations and Naturalizations of Aliens_, 1911, p. 11.
[265] Letter to the _Athenæum_, 26th March 1910.
[266] _What to Expect of Shakespeare_, p. 14.
CHAPTER VIII
FRENCH GAZETTES IN LONDON (1650-1700)
By a strange coincidence, Milton as well as Shakespeare had the opportunity
of meeting Frenchmen in London. His connection with William Du Gard,
schoolmaster and printer, dates from the time of the Civil War.
Born in 1606 in Worcestershire, William Du Gard came, as his name implies,
of a family of French or Jerseyan extraction.[267] His father, Henry Du
Gard, was a clergyman; his uncle, Richard, a tutor in Cambridge; his
younger brother, Thomas, took orders and became rector of Barford. William
devoted himself to teaching and was appointed in 1644 headmaster of
Merchant Taylors' School.
The minds of the people were then in an extraordinary ferment, as ever
happens when a crisis is at hand. A far-reaching change loomed over
England. No sheet-anchor could long withstand the heaving seas. Both in
Church and State, the old Elizabethan settlement was breaking up. No wonder
that new, unlooked-for thoughts rose in the minds of men and that pamphlets
unceasingly flowed from the printers' presses. Perhaps the prevalent rage
of idealism caught Du Gard in his turn, or maybe he acted out of ambition
or mere vulgar hope of gain. About 1648, schoolmaster as he was, he set up
a private press.
His first venture in this new capacity was that of a royalist. After
helping to print _Eikon Basiliké_, he undertook to publish in England
Claude Saumaise's treatise against the regicides, _Defensio Regia pro
Carolo Primo_. But the authorities quickly took alarm and the Council of
State on the same day (1st February 1649-50) deprived Du Gard of his
headmastership, confined him to Newgate, confiscated his press, imprisoned
his corrector Armstrong.[268]
Then the unforeseen happened: a few weeks only had elapsed when Du Gard was
set free, reinstated at Merchant Taylors' School, and, having recovered
press, forms, and type, professed himself a Puritan and assumed the title
of "printer to the Council of State." It is alleged that his freedom was
due to the friendship of Secretary Milton. We think it more simple to
believe that the Council wished to conciliate the only printer at the time
whose literary attainments entitled him to publish abroad the answer to
Saumaise's treatise which Milton was then commissioned to write. That the
Council were anxious to counteract the efforts of the royalist party to
inflame Continental opinion against the Parliament, we repeatedly gather
from the State Papers; nor is it venturesome to assert that, when compared
with the printers of Amsterdam, Cologne, or Rouen, the printers of London
were mostly hacks.[269]
The sudden conversion of Du Gard seems to have had lasting effects. In
1659, the Council still trusted him.[270] In ten years' time, he had made
only one mistake when, in 1652, overlooking Parliamentary zeal for
orthodoxy, he printed the Racovian Catechism. Needless to add that the book
was burnt by the common hangman.
At the Restoration, William Du Gard was finally deprived of his
headmastership and died in 1662, having after all little cause to regret
his adventures as a printer; he enjoyed a large competence, being wealthy
enough to act as surety for his friend Harrington, the author of _Oceana_,
in no less than £5000.[271]
The books issued from Du Gard's press are of less interest than the weekly
paper which he undertook to publish in French, from 1650 to 1657. A few
numbers are preserved in the British Museum, but the nearly complete set of
the _Nouvelles ordinaires de Londres_ may be consulted at the Bibliothèque
Nationale. It is in that old long-forgotten paper that are to be read the
earliest mentions of Milton's name in a French publication.[272]
Du Gard advertised the _Defensio pro populo Anglicano_ in the following
terms: "The reply to the scandalous and defamatory book of M. de Saumaise
against this State, which has long been wished for by many worthy people
and generally expected by all, is at last near ready, being now under press
and pushed forward" (Feb. 1650-51). Coming from Saumaise's printer, such
humble professions were well calculated to mollify the Council of State.
A few weeks later, in No. 34, we meet again with Milton's name: "The reply
to the insulting book of M. de Saumaise by Mr. John Milton, one of the
Secretaries to the Council of State, appeared last Monday, to the utmost
content and approval of all" (March 2-9, 1650-51).
The following year, Du Gard published the French translation of
_Eikonoklastes_, Milton's reply to _Eikon Basiliké_. It is thus advertised
in the _Nouvelles ordinaires_: "This week has been issued, in this town,
the French translation of Mr. Milton's book confuting the late King of
England's book" (No. 125, Dec. 1652). The translator was John Dury, a
Scottish minister.[273]
The last mention of Milton's name appears in a letter from Paris: "We have
notice from France that M. Morus, a minister opposed to Mr. Milton (who has
just published another book against him, entitled _Defensio pro se_),
having passed through the chief Reformed Churches in France and preached
everywhere to the applause of the people, has gone from Paris, where some
wished to retain him as minister, and come to Rouen, leaving his friends in
doubt as to his return, but that the favour shown him has as promptly
subsided as it was stirred up, many marking the lack of constancy in his
mind, and the ambition and avarice of his pretensions" (No. 298, Feb.
1656-57). The paragraph refers to Alexander More, minister of Charenton,
whom Milton had most vehemently assailed upon mistaking him for the author
of the _Clamor sanguinis regii ad coelum_, which had been published at
the Hague in 1652. The book was by Peter Du Moulin. More replied by a
defence entitled _Fides publica contra calumnias J. Miltoni_, and Milton
then retorted by the pamphlet referred to above: _J. Miltoni pro se
defensio contra A. Morum_.
The fact that Milton's name appears at so early a date in a French
publication would alone excite curiosity about the _Nouvelles ordinaires_.
The collection preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale comprises four
hundred numbers, extending from 21/11 July 1650 to 31/21 January 1657-58;
out of which only six are missing (Nos. 161-63, 202, 237, 238). The paper
came out every Thursday, in one quarto sheet. "Extraordinary" numbers
(entitled _Nouvelles extraordinaires de Londres_), such as No. 185,
printing in full _The Instrument of Government_; No. 202, the treaty with
the Dutch; No. 288, that with France; are on two quarto sheets. At the
close of No. 2 may be read the following curious notice: "and are to be
sold by Nicholas Bourne, at the South Gate of the Old Exchange, Tyton at
the sign of the Three Daggers by Temple Gate, and Mary Constable at the
sign of the Key in Westminster Hall." That Du Gard's paper circulated
abroad may be inferred from the quaint notice appended to No. 44: "The
reader is warned that the author (who up to now has with the utmost care
gathered every week these happenings for the information of the public,
though what he has gained thereby up to now has not given him much
encouragement to go on, on the contrary hardly defraying the cost of the
printing) has received intelligence that an English printer ... issues
every week in The Hague a pirated edition, reprinting the paper in same
size and type, with the name of the author's own printer, which is an
intolerable falsification ... the author will henceforth take care to
provide M. Jean Veely, bookseller, in The Hague, at the sign of the Dutch
Chronicles, with true copies from London." Since no one has ever dreamed of
issuing a pirated edition of an unsaleable book, we must believe the author
to have somewhat exaggerated his complaints.[274]
After all, the author may have been Du Gard himself. However that may be,
the editor of the paper knew English well; that he had long resided in
England is implied by the many English words and idioms in his style.[275]
Names of places often puzzle him, and he deals with the several
difficulties in a rather awkward manner.[276] None but a Frenchman that had
left his country for some time past or, as was actually the case with Du
Gard, an Englishman of French descent, would venture to think of a village
constable as a _connétable_, p. 816; of the _Speaker_ of the House of
Commons as _l'orateur_, p. 253; and calmly translate _Solicitor-General_ by
the absolutely meaningless expression _solliciteur general_, p. 305; and
_writ of error_ by the no less unintelligible _billet d'erreur_, p.
679.[277] Nevertheless, he spells in the most accurate way proper names,
whether French or English.
[Illustration: NOUVELLES ORDINAIRES DE LONDRES, NUMBER 1.]
The gazette begins by a sort of general statement that it is worth while to
quote in full: "The troubles and different revolutions that have taken
place for the last ten or twelve years in England, Scotland, or Ireland,
have provided us such a number of fine deeds, that, though writers,
especially abroad, have unjustly tried either to stifle them by their
silence or to tarnish their lustre by lessening their price or worth,
nevertheless, enough has been seen, though as through a cloud, to move with
admiration the best disposed minds that have heard about them. Now that the
war with Scotland, that with Ireland, and the present differences with
Portugal, are likely to provide us with new ones, I have deemed it not
unacceptable to foreign nations, to impart in a language that extends and
is understood throughout Europe, all the most signal and remarkable
happenings. To that effect, should this account and the following be
favourably received by the public, I propose to carry it on every week, on
the same day, briefly and with what truthfulness can be obtained in things
of that nature out of the several rumours that the passion of every one
disguises according to his temper."
The Council of State could not but acquiesce in an endeavour to enlighten
public opinion on the Continent. Du Gard kept his promise to say the truth:
his paper is as unimpassioned as could well be a paper published "by
authority."
If the newswriter was anxious to keep his readers well informed, he did not
at the same time conceal his admiration for Cromwell. Maybe he was sincere.
It was difficult not to be impressed by the soldier who had won Dunbar and
Worcester.
Readers in Paris and Brussels did not only peruse the accounts of these
Puritan victories, they learned also all about the flight of the Lord's
anointed, young Charles II.
Such sufferings and trials were not enough: impossible to read even now
without some emotion the bare paragraph in which Du Gard, with official
coldness and hard-heartedness, tells about the death of little Princess
Elizabeth.
"Princess Elizabeth Stuart, daughter to the late King, who you know was
brought together with her brother[278] to the Isle of Wight, having got
overheated while playing at bowls and drenched afterwards by an unexpected
fall of rain, took cold, being moreover of a weak and sickly health, and
fell ill of a bad headache and fever, which increasing, she was obliged to
be abed where she died on December 8th inst., though carefully attended by
Mr. Mayerne, chief physician to her late Father" (September 1650, p. 41).
But the triumphs of the Parliament extend to enemies abroad; Portugal and
Holland are both humbled, Barbadoes and Jamaica forced to surrender. Du
Gard remained true to his promise. All Europe might peruse the famous
letter, "des généraux de l'armée navale du Parlement et de la République
d'Angleterre au très honorable Guil. Lenthal ecuier, orateur dudit
Parlement, écrite à bord du navire le Triomfe en la baie dite de Stoake,"
and signed: Robert Blake, Richard Deane, George Monck. Sprung from the
ranks of the people, those revolutionists used, when occasion needed, the
language of patricians. "M. Bourdeaux (the French envoy) having delivered a
copy of the letters accrediting him and subscribed: To our very dear and
good friends, the people of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England,
it was directed to be returned, for all addresses should be subscribed: To
the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England" (p. 513).
Such patriotic pride must move the writer of the _Nouvelles ordinaires_. So
in one of his very few outbursts of humour he exclaims: "The King of
Portugal being unable to do us harm, had tried to frighten us, but being
unable to do either, on the contrary showing the most egregious cowardice
and poltroonery as ever was seen, without the slightest regard for his
reputation, has tried to conceal his shame by a lying account, signed by
himself; if the said King thinks he has seen what he has written, it must
be said that his spectacles were set awry" (p. 45).
Religious intelligence takes up a great space in the _Nouvelles
ordinaires_. The readers are not spared a single proclamation about days of
fasting and repentance; lengthy abstracts are duly given of the sermons
preached at the Abbey or St. Margaret's; nor are the wordy resolutions of
the several committees on religious affairs omitted. The _quakers_ are
often spoken about. The first risings of the sect are set forth with the
kind of minuteness that appeals to a modern historian. They are
"evil-disposed and melancholy people" (_gens malfaits et mélancoliques_);
most pestilent and persevering proselytisers, with an inordinate appetite
for martyrdom, they appear at the same time in the most unexpected
quarters; driven from Boston, they cause a holy panic in Hamburgh and
Bordeaux (p. 1375). Their leader, or at any rate "the chief pillar of that
frenzied sect," is named George Fox. "Many think the said Fox is a popish
priest, there being several of that garb among the said quakers, and what
makes the opinion plausible is that he is strong for popish and arminian
tenets, such, for instance, as salvation by good works." (p. 981).
With the exception of the poor Piedmont Waldenses, who had found a
strenuous protector in Cromwell, the foreign Protestants interest but
little the editor of the _Nouvelles ordinaires_: he was probably afraid of
offending those in high places by more than casually alluding to the
Huguenots who had shown themselves vehemently opposed to independency. Thus
it would be difficult to find a more explicit piece of news than the
following: "Letters from Paris say that of late divers outrages have been
committed on the Reformed, under frivolous pretences quite contrary to
their privileges, especially at La Rochelle, Metz, Amiens, Langres....
Local quarrels breaking out daily in divers places on the score of
religion, together with the massacres of Protestants in Piedmont, make it
feared lest there be a universal hidden design of the Papists to endeavour
to exterminate all those that make profession of the Reformed religion in
all places in the world" (p. 1057).
Mention is made of the French Churches in London. "This week, the members
of the French and Walloon Churches in this city have petitioned Parliament
to be maintained in the enjoyment of the privileges granted to them of old;
which petition being duly read, was referred to the Council of State" (p.
668); and further on: "This week, the ministers of the French Church in
this city, and six of the elders of the said Church, together with the
Marquis de Cugnac, came to Whitehall to congratulate His Highness" (p.
729).
The Marquis de Cugnac was then in England on behalf of the rebel Prince de
Condé, bidding against Cardinal Mazarin's envoys to gain the friendship of
Cromwell and the help of the English fleet. Many are the allusions in the
_Nouvelles ordinaires_ to the dark intrigues of the Frondeurs. A most
characteristic one may be quoted here; in May 1653 the "city of Bordeaux
sends four deputies to the Commonwealth, a councillor of Parliament
Franquart, a gentleman La Cassagne, a man of the Reformed religion whose
name is not stated, and a tin-potter named Taussin; with them have come a
herald bearing the arms of England as they were when Guyenne was under
English rule, and a trumpeter of the said city" (p. 597).
Many of Du Gard's readers are merchants; for them he prints the resolutions
of Parliament concerning the Customs and Excise, the Post Office
regulations, the treaties with foreign countries. No sooner is peace
proclaimed with Portugal than Du Gard gives information as to sending
letters to Lisbon, by means of frigates building at Woolwich (pp. 1326,
1328, 1333). Warnings are issued as to pirates in the Mediterranean or the
piratical practices of neutrals: "Letters from Leghorn say that Mr.
Longland, an English merchant, having loaded a French ship with a cargo of
tin, the captain of the said ship perfidiously gave notice to the Dutch,
who forthwith came with two men-of-war and seized it" (p. 562).
Pirates and "sea-rovers" (_escumeurs de mer_) meet with short mercy at the
hands of Du Gard: "We have notice from Leghorn that our ships on the
Mediterranean have captured a French ship commanded by Captain Puille,
nicknamed the Arch-pirate" (p. 194).
Robbers must be as summarily dealt with, especially Irish robbers:
"Lieutenant-General Barry was taken prisoner in Ireland by the Tories and
put to death. The Tories are a kind of brigands, of somewhat the same sort
as the Italian banditti; they live in marshes, woods, and hills, neither
till nor sow the earth, do no work, but live only on thieving and robbery"
(p. 15). Fancy Cardinal Mazarin reading about the Tories!
Such is the curious French paper in which Milton's name was mentioned for
the first time. Nor should we think the old forgotten publication unworthy
to record the rising fame of a future epic poet. Though the style of the
_Nouvelles ordinaires_ be as rough and harsh as the manners of Roundheads
and Ironsides, it served to tell in Paris and Brussels and Amsterdam of
lofty thoughts and splendid deeds. The utterings of a Cromwell still ring
with the haughtiness and energy that remind one of Satan's speeches in
_Paradise Lost_.
Du Gard's undertaking was remembered after the Commonwealth. To the
_Nouvelles ordinaires_ succeeded, with but a few years' interval, the
_Gazette de Londres_, the French edition to Charles II.'s _London Gazette_.
The general editor was one Charles Perrot, an Oxford M.A.; the printer, a
friend of Thurloe, as Du Gard had been, was called Thomas Newcombe; and the
task of writing the French translation was entrusted to one Moranville.
Editor, printer, and translator received their inspirations from Secretary
Williamson, who, the better to see his directions obeyed, placed Mrs.
Andrews, a spy, in the printing-house.
Beginning Feb. 5, 1666 (old style), the _Gazette de Londres_ was issued
under the reigns of both Charles II. and James II. Numbers are extant
dating from William III. and Queen Anne.
The few numbers of the _Gazette_ that we were enabled to read, appear of
much less interest than the _Nouvelles ordinaires_. Even a newspaper would
degenerate in the hands of Charles II. and his ministers. Here are
specimens of the vague colourless political news concerning France and
England: "Two of Mons. Colbert's daughters were bestowed--the elder on M.
de Chevreuse, son to the Duc de Luynes, the younger on the Count de
Saint-Aignan, only son to the Duc of the same name" (No. 13, Dec. 1666).
"Mons. de Louvois is ill with a fever" (No. 2248, May 1688). "His Majesty
(James II.) has begun to touch for the King's evil" (No. 1914, March 1684).
Such news the Secretary of State thought would neither stir rebellion nor
cause diplomatic complications.
The _Gazette de Londres_ appeared twice a week, on Monday and Thursday, was
printed on a half-sheet, and cost one penny.
Here is an advertisement that brings one back to the Great Fire: "All that
wish to provide this city with timber, bricks, stones, glass, tiles and
other material for building houses, are referred to the Committee of the
Common Council in Gresham House, London" (No. 12, Dec. 1666). Another may
be quoted: "An engineer has brought to this city the model in relief of the
splendid Versailles Palace, with gardens and waterworks, the whole being 24
feet long and 18 wide" (No. 2222, Feb. 1687).
To Thomas Newcombe succeeded as printer, in 1688, Edward Jones, who till
his death in 1705 published the _Gazette_, which then passed to his widow,
and ultimately to the famous bookseller Tonson.
The French edition met with some mishaps. Volume ix. of the _Journals of
the House of Commons_ records a dramatic incident. On 6th Nov. 1676 a
member rose in the House to point out the singular discrepancies between
the Royal proclamations against the Papists printed in the _London Gazette_
and the French translation in the _Gazette de Londres_. The terms had been
softened down not to cause offence to the French Court.
[Illustration: AT VERSAILLES
_After Bonnart_]
Immediately the House took fire, and summoned Newcombe and Moranville to
appear on the very next day. "Mr. Newcombe being called in to give an
account of the translation of the _Gazette_ into French, informed the House
that he was only concerned in the setting the press, and that he understood
not the French tongue! And that Mons. Moranville had been employed in that
affair for many years and was only the corrector of it. Mons. Moranville
being called in, acknowledged himself guilty of the mistake, but he
endeavoured to excuse it, alleging it was through inadvertency."[279]
Assemblies have abundance of energy, but seldom persevere in one course of
action: since no more is heard of the case, we may suppose that both
delinquents got off at little cost. Moreover, there is nothing very
heroical in the _Gazette de Londres_. Next to the editor of the _Nouvelles
ordinaires_, Moranville sinks into insignificance. He was most probably a
refugee reduced by poverty to write for a bookseller. What could an exiled
Frenchman do but teach or write French? So Moranville found many to follow
his example. As late as Queen Anne's time, French journalists earned a
scanty livelihood in London. The _Postman_ was edited in English, mind! by
Fonvive; the _Postboy_ by Boyer, whom Swift derisively called a "French
dog."[280]
The refugees were but continuators of Théophraste Renaudot, the father of
the modern press. The very name of _Mercury_ given to the early English
papers, came from France; what wonder then that French journalists should
be found in London? Why some should write in French, the forewords to the
_Nouvelles ordinaires_ set forth in an illuminating phrase: French was in
the seventeenth century "a language that extended and was understood
throughout Europe."
FOOTNOTES:
[267] The few extant letters--written in Latin--of William Du Gard bear the
signature: "Guil. du Gard." Now an Englishman would naturally sign "Dugard"
or "Du Gard" (Bodleian MSS. Rawl. A. 9. 123). He certainly knew French and
received intelligence from the Continent. The very slender clue that
relates his family to Jersey is yielded by the mention of one William Du
Gard, born in Jersey in 1677 (Rawl. MSS. T. 4to. 6, 202).
[268] _Calendars of State Papers, Dom._, 1649-1650, p. 500. Three months
before he had been called upon to enter into £300 recognizances. _Ibid._ p.
523.
[269] The following information is yielded by the State Papers: Du Gard
signs an agreement on 7th March 1649-50, _Dom._ 1650, p. 27; the next day
he gives sureties in £1000, p. 514; 2nd April, he recovers his press, pp.
76, 535; but must enter into £500 recognizances, p. 515; 11th September, he
becomes once more headmaster of Merchant Taylors' School, p. 235. The
Council, among other orders concerning the diffusion of Parliamentary
publications abroad, directs the Customs to "permit Mons. Rosin to
transport Customs free the impression of a book in French relating some
proceedings of Parliament against the late king, for dispersion in foreign
parts" (_Dom._ 1650, p. 527).
[270] _Dom._ 1660, p. 223.
[271] Further information on Du Gard may be found in Masson, _Life of
Milton_, Ch. Wordsworth, _Who Wrote Eikon Basiliké?_ and the _Dictionary of
National Biography_. No one, however, seems to have taken the trouble to
read Du Gard's letters in the Bodleian Library and to connect him with the
_Nouvelles ordinaires de Londres_.
[272] To M. Jusserand we owe the appreciation on Milton penned in 1663 by
Ambassador Cominges for his royal master, Louis XIV., _Shakespeare en
France sous l'ancien régime_, p. 107. Two letters of Elie Bouhéreau, a
physician of La Rochelle, asking, in 1672, for information on Milton, were
published in _Proceedings of the Huguenot Society_, vol. ix. pp. 241-42. I
pointed out a few years ago (_Revue critique_, 21st November 1904) Bayle's
severe strictures on Milton in the _Avis aux réfugiés_, 1690. The
appreciation of Cominges alone is quoted both by J. Telleen, _Milton dans
la littérature française_, and J. G. Robertson, _Milton's Fame on the
Continent_.
[273] The book is entitled [Greek: Eikonoklastês] _ou Réponse au Livre
intitulé_ [Greek: Eikôn Basilikê] _ou le Pourtrait de sa Sacrée Majesté
durant sa solitude et ses souffrances_. Par le Sr. Jean Milton. Traduite de
l'Anglois sur la seconde et plus ample édition. A Londres. Par Guill. Du
Gard, imprimeur du Conseil d'Etat. 1652.
[274] Manuscript notes in the margin have recorded the names of two Paris
subscribers: MM. de la Mare and Paul du Jardin. Cardinal Mazarin seems to
have been a reader of the paper, for he writes to the Count d'Estrades,
23rd April 1652: "S'il est vrai, comme les _Nouvelles publiques_ de Londres
le portant, que la République d'Angleterre soit en termes de s'accommoder
avec Messieurs les Etats."
[275] For instance, _eaux fortes_ (strong waters) for _eaux-de-vie_, p.
167; _moyens efficacieux_, p. 633; _toleration_, p. 691; _éjection des
ministres scandaleux_, p. 770; _retaliation_, p. 96; _lever et presser_ (to
press) _des soldats_, p. 169; _sergent en loy_ (sergeant at law), p. 213;
_le récorder seroit demis_ (dismissed) _de sa charge_, p. 221, etc.
[276] _Au parc dit Hide park_, p. 64; _la place dite Tower Hill_, p. 152;
_la rue dite le Strand_, p. 156; _la paroisse dite Martin-des-Champs_, St.
Martin-in-the-Fields, p. 182; _la prison dite la Fleet_, p. 370; _l'île
dite Holy Island_, p. 442, etc.
[277] _Messenger_ he renders by _messager_, instead of _huissier_, p. 749.
More often, through mere indolence, he suffers the English word to stand:
_récorder_, p. 61; _commission d'oyer et terminer_, p. 841; _ranter_, p.
189; _quaker_, p. 1375. He indifferently writes _aldermens_, p. 61, and
_aldermans_, p. 717. He apparently does not know the French word _tabac_,
always preferring the form _tobac_ (tobacco).
[278] The Duke of Gloucester.
[279] _Journal_, _House of Commons_, ix. 534.
[280] See Chapter III.
CHAPTER IX
A QUARREL IN SOHO (1682)
It is a comparatively easy task to find out how _Monsieur l'ambassadeur_ of
France or a distinguished foreign author lived in London. In both cases
their dispatches, memoirs, and letters, and sometimes their friends'
letters, are extant. But how about the merchants who had seldom time to
gossip about their private affairs; and the crowd of artisans, working-men,
and servants who did not, nay could not, write? Fortunately others wrote
for them, when actuated by some strong motive. Take, for instance, the
following story preserved in an old pamphlet[281] and which, reprinted,
needs no lengthy commentary to give insight into the life of the poorer
Frenchmen whose lot it was to work and quarrel in and about Soho and Covent
Garden under Charles II.:--
"About five weeks ago, the wife of _Monsieur de la Coste_, a _French_
Taylor, dwelling then at the upper end of _Bow Street_ in _Covent Garden_,
lying upon her death-bed, sent for _Mr. Dumarest_ (here the unknown author
of the pamphlet is wrong, he should have spelt the name _Du Marescq_, as
any one may see who cares to consult Baron de Schickler's learned work on
the French churches in London) that he might comfort and pray with her
before she departed; which the aforesaid minister having accordingly done,
and acquitted himself of the function of his ministry (this phrase sounds
strangely un-English; maybe the writer who knows so much about the French
colony in London is a Frenchman himself), the sick person caused the
company to be desired to withdraw, for that she had something particular to
say to her husband and the minister. The company being withdrawn, she
desired her husband to take care of a daughter she had by a former
marriage, who lived in the house of the widow of one _Reinbeau_, because
that she was a Papist, and that she feared that after her death she would
seduce her daughter. (The construction of the sentence is confusing at
first, and very ungrammatical. By using the verb 'to seduce' with the
meaning of 'to convert to Romanism,' the author betrays a French Protestant
descent.) The husband promised to do what his wife desired; the dying
person, not content with the promise of her husband, made the same request
to the minister, who assured her that he would acquit himself of his duty
(_s'acquitter de son devoir_ literally translated) in that respect.
[Illustration: THE FRENCH TAILOR
After Arnoult]
"The sick party died the day after, and the father-in-law sent immediately
for the young maid, clothed her very handsomely, and told her the last will
of her mother; the young maid made answer that she was born a Protestant,
brought up as such, and that she would be very glad to be instructed in her
religion, that she might resist and prevent falling into error. Her
father-in-law finding her in that resolution, told her that it was
requisite she should live in his house, to which she consented with a
willing heart.
"Some days after, widow _Reinbeau_ caused Mr. _La Coste_ to be fetched
before a Justice of the _Peace_ for detaining from her her apprentice ('an
apprentice is a sort of slave,' wrote the French traveller Misson,[282] 'he
can't marry, nor have any dealings on his own account; all he earns is his
master's.' Apprentices were bound by deed for a term of years, sometimes
sums of money were given with them, as a premium for their instruction. If
they ran away, they might be compelled to serve out their time of absence
within seven years after the expiration of their contract). He appeared
there accordingly and said that his wife's daughter was not an apprentice,
and that though she were so, he was not willing that she should be seduced,
that he knew there was such a design, but the _Justice_, without having
regard to this, redelivered the young maid into her pretended mistress's
hands.
"The father-in-law complained hereof to his friends, and while they were
contriving to remedy this business (imagine the excitement), the young
maid went to Mr. Jehu (this is surely a misprint), a goldsmith dwelling in
the house of the deceased (and no doubt an important member of the
Protestant community), and weeping bitterly, desired him to use the means
of having her instructed in her religion, and of getting her out of the
hands of the Papists. He promised to use his endeavours for that purpose,
and that he might perform his word, he went to Mr. _Dumarest_, a minister,
and told him the business; who assured him of contributing all that lay in
his power to his efforts; and they two together agreed that on Sunday, the
Second of _June_, the young maid should go to the _Greek_ Church (in Hog
Lane, now Crown Street, Soho, a kind of chapel-of-ease to the _Savoy_
Church), and that she should be there examined. Accordingly she went
thither to that intent, but the minister being hastened to go to the
_Savoy_ Church, bid the young maid follow him, that he would discourse her
on the way, and that he would after that present her to the Consistory
(otherwise: the elders); which the young maid agreeing to, followed the
minister (we can trace their way on an old map through the dingy ill-paved
lanes lined with squalid houses and almost hear the minister 'discourse' in
loud French, thus attracting notice), but they were no sooner in Newport
Street, than that widow _Reinbeau_, a niece of hers, three of her nephews,
a vintner and other Papists stopped the maid and minister in the way; and
the widow with an insolent tone asked the minister why he talked to that
maid? The minister asked her by what authority she asked him that question?
To which she said that this maid was her apprentice: The minister told her
that he was assured of the contrary, but that though she were so, he had a
right to instruct her, and that it was only with that intent that he spoke
to her and that she followed him, that it was _Sunday_, and that after she
had been catechized, she should return unto her house (the widow's house,
of course), until it was known if she was under any obligation to her or
not, which after he had said, he bid the young maid continue her way with
him. (We can see Du Marescq standing in wig and gown, vainly trying to
pacify the irate widow, and the small crowd of her gesticulating relations
and friends gathering round.)
"The widow seeing that the young maid followed, seized her with violence,
swore that she should not go with the minister; at the same time three of
her bullies surrounded the minister, and after he had told them that he was
amazed they should commit such violence on the King's highway on a
_Sunday_, when the business was only the instruction of one of his
subjects, being in fear of the _Roman dagger_, he went to a Justice of
Peace called Sir John Reresby, to inform him of the whole matter. (In this
little tragi-comedy, Sir John Reresby, made Justice of the Peace for
Middlesex and Westminster in Nov. 1684, plays the part of the upright
judge; a time-saver he appears to have been, but then he was a strong
anti-papist; at that moment he had just been superintending proceedings
against Thynne's murderers and probably cared very little for the noisy
Frenchmen.)
"The minister was no sooner gone than that Mr. _Jehu_ being desirous to get
near the young maid and speak to the widow _Reinbeau_, this woman without
hearing him, fell upon him, tore his peruke and shoulder-knot off, and she
and her myrmidons began to cry out: _a French Papist_ (a scurvy trick!).
"This piece of malice had like to have cost the Protestant his life, for at
the same time some of the _mobile_ who were crowded about him seized him by
the throat; but the populace being undeceived, and having understood the
_Popish_ trick, let go the Protestant, which the Papists perceiving, they
ran into a house hard by, swearing they would cause the _French_ Protestant
to be stabbed (just after the scare caused by the Popish Plot, there was
not a loyal Protestant, either English or French, who did not believe every
Papist had a knife up his sleeve and was scheming a new Bartholomew's Day).
"After they were got into that house, they immediately contrived how to
secure their prey: for that purpose they sent for a chair and had her
conveyed away (after the manner of the Catholics in France, as every one in
England knew at the time).
"During that interval Mr. _Du Marest_ the minister having discoursed Sir
_John Reresby_ upon this business, this worthy Justice of the Peace sent
for a constable (_deus ex machina!_), and gave him a warrant. The constable
performed his commission, brought the widow and her niece, but the other
Papists prevented his seizing them by making their escape in the crowd.
"The Justice of the Peace examined them concerning the maid, they confessed
that she was not an apprentice, but a maid they set to work, and to whom
they gave twenty shillings a year; upon this, and the declaration which the
young maid made, he discharged her ('apprentices to trades,' said
Blackstone almost a hundred years later, 'may be discharged on reasonable
cause, either at the request of themselves or masters, at the quarter
sessions, or by one justice, with appeal to the sessions'), and recommended
the care of her to the minister, and then proceeded to examine to the
bottom ('au fond' is the French legal term which would naturally occur to
the writer of this pamphlet) the violent action which the women had
committed, and upon their confession, and the depositions of several
witnesses, he bound them to the sessions (here should the story end, but
the writer thinks it needs a moral, and so he proceeds).
"This conduct of the Papists would something startle me, if I did not daily
hear of such-like violences. But when I am assured that a certain Papist
called _Maistre Jacques_ (let us hope Sir John Reresby will have him hanged
at next Middlesex Assizes), upon a dispute of religion, did so wound a
Protestant that he is since dead of it; when people of honour assure me,
that they hear Papists call the illustrious Queen _Elizabeth_ a whore, and
beat those who oppose them upon this subject; when I hear that the Papists
threatened some years since, that they would set the streets a-flowing with
blood (the Popish Plot again!); when that I see people that are perverted
every day, and who are taken from us by force; when I see that the Papists
contemn the King's Proclamations, that, instead of withdrawing according to
his pleasure to some distance from _London_, they crowd to that degree this
City and its suburbs, that one would say they designed to make a garrison
of it; I do not wonder at this last insolence, and I apprehend much greater
if care be not taken."
Such a pamphlet could be the production only of a Frenchman, most probably
of mean condition, certainly no scholar. The interest lies less in the
narrative itself, than in the frame of mind which it reveals among the
humbler Frenchmen then living in London. While the Protestant refugees are
in fear for their safety, their Catholic fellow-countrymen exhibit a
singular arrogance in so small a minority. No doubt the effects of the
French King's policy were being felt even in England, some knowledge of the
secret articles of the Treaty of Dover filtering down, through the medium
of priests and monks, to the ranks of the working people: they now suspect
Charles II. to be in the pay of Louis XIV., and hope that the King of
England will soon proclaim his Catholic faith and call in the aid of the
French dragoons to convert the reluctant heretics. In a similar manner are
the private arrangements between Sultans and European Powers divined and
commented on at the present time by the native population in Persia or
Barbary. The slightest quarrel, the most commonplace street brawl are
pretexts for rival factions to come out in battle array. Among men of the
same race and blood, feelings of hatred and instances of perfidiousness are
manifest. As is always the case in time of civil war, the aid of the
foreigner, be he an hereditary enemy, is loudly called for and order is
finally restored by constable, judge, and gaoler.
FOOTNOTES:
[281] _The Relation of an Assault made by French Papists upon a Minister of
the French Church, in Newport Street, near St. Martin's Lane_, 11th June
1682.
[282] _Mémoires et observations faites en Angleterre_, La Haye, 1698.
CHAPTER X
THE COURTSHIP OF PIERRE COSTE AND OTHER LETTERS
Pierre Coste would be quite forgotten to-day if, by a singular piece of
good luck, he had not translated Locke's _Essay_ into French. Born at Uzès,
in Southern France, in 1668, Coste fled to Holland at the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes. Though accepted as a minister by the Synod of Amsterdam,
he appears never to have fulfilled pastoral duties. He knew Latin, Greek,
and Hebrew; he had studied divinity; so to earn a living, he became a proof
reader. In spite of his precarious condition, he seems to have had friends
in high places, Charles Drelincourt, for instance, professor of medicine at
Leyden University, and physician in ordinary to William of Orange and Mary,
and Jean Le Clerc, the author of the _Bibliothèque universelle_.
On the latter's advice, Coste learned enough English to translate Locke's
_Thoughts concerning Education_. The favourable reception of the work
induced him to undertake a translation of the _Essay on Human
Understanding_: Locke heard of this and, in order to supervise the work,
he invited Coste to come over to England. Locke was then living with Sir
Francis Masham, at Oates, in England. Coste quite naturally became the
tutor to the young Mashams, none being more qualified to apply the
principles of the _Thoughts concerning Education_ than the translator.
Coste lived on at Oates till Locke's death in 1704. He subsequently became
tutor to the son of the Earl of Shaftesbury, the author of the
_Characteristics_. We can trace him to Paris, following the chequered
career of a man of letters; thence he went to Montpellier and Rome,
wandered about Germany and Holland, returned to England, and finally found
his way back to Paris, where he died in 1747.
Like all the "Dutch journalists," with the exception of Bayle and Le Clerc,
he was merely a compiler and translator. Besides Locke, he translated
Newton, Shaftesbury, Lady Masham. He published editions of Montaigne and La
Fontaine; he wrote a life of Condé. Original work he never sought to
achieve. "I have no ambition," he writes, "if I had, I should be unable to
satisfy it." He is no more than a good-tempered, careless Southerner. With
nothing of the Camisard about him, he invincibly recalls one of those
sunny, self-possessed sons of Provence. Surely it was an accident of birth
that made him a native of the Cévennes, he should have come into the world
a little lower down in the valley of the Rhone. Of course he is often
insolvent, but when the duns clamour, a generous patron never fails to
interfere. The great people he meets do not impress him; on the contrary he
laughs at their foibles most indulgently. The background in which these
eminent men live lends piquancy to Coste's letters; but the difficulty of
understanding the allusions is somewhat irritating. The impression is that
of a black void faintly illuminated by intermittent flashes of light. There
is, however, some slight compensation in the recreating work of filling up
the gaps with surmises.
Coste's correspondence we do not intend to publish in full. A selection
must be made. All that concerns the relations between "Dutch journalists"
and English writers interests the history of comparative literature. The
information about Locke and the spread of his philosophy in France, must be
carefully treasured up. But there are also familiar letters which throw the
most vivid light on the life of some French refugees in Amsterdam. Thanks
to them we shall know something about the man as well as about his works.
I
COSTE AND THE ENGLISH WRITERS
One of the letters printed below tells how Coste came to know Locke.
"Speaking of that doctor (Drelincourt), I must say I have had the occasion
to write to a famous English physician named Locke, of whom you have so
often heard me speak. Yesterday I received a book with which he had been
kind enough to present me. I shall thank him at the earliest opportunity."
It appears that the success attending the operation performed by Locke on
the first Earl of Shaftesbury in 1668 was not to be eclipsed by the
publication of the _Essay_. Contemporaries spoke in the same breath of
Locke and Sydenham as great physicians.
Into Coste's life at Oates we can get only a few glimpses, just some
recollections jotted down long after Locke's death. Thus, on 8th January
1740, Coste wrote to La Motte, the "Dutch journalist," to complain about
the "cape" with which the engraver had adorned Locke's portrait, heading an
edition of the _Traité de l'Education_. Locke, he said, had never been a
physician. "He could not bear being called a doctor. King William gave him
the title and Mr. Locke begged an English lord to tell the King that the
title was not his."
The anecdote clears up the mystery contained in a letter of Bayle. In the
first edition of the famous _Dictionary_ (1698) Bayle had mentioned
"Doctor" Locke. For Bayle as for every one in Holland who remembered the
first Earl of Shaftesbury, Locke was a celebrated physician. Locke
corrected the mistake, probably through the medium of Coste; but Bayle
failed to understand. "I am very sorry," he answered, "that he has taken
so ill the granting of a title which will do him no harm in any reader's
mind."[283] Bayle was not aware that Locke had been denied in 1666 his
doctorship by the hostile Oxford authorities. Locke's behaviour is a
characteristic instance of hard-dying resentment.
In February 1705, there had appeared in the _Nouvelles de la République des
Lettres_, an "éloge" or kind of obituary notice on Locke.[284] After a
short account of the philosopher's life, followed some details on his
character, among which it may be read that he was impatient of
contradiction and easily roused to anger. "In general, it must be owned, he
was naturally somewhat choleric. But his anger never lasted long. If he
retained any resentment, it was against himself for having given way to so
ridiculous a passion; which, as he used to say, may do a great deal of
harm, but never yet did the least good. He would often blame himself for
this weakness." The following passage in one of Coste's letters may serve
to illustrate that general statement: "I remember that conversing one day
with Mr. Locke, the discourse happening to light upon innate ideas, I
ventured this objection: what must we think of birds such as the goldfinch
that, hatched in the parents' nest, will fly away at last into the open in
quest of food without either parent taking the least care, and that, a
year later, know very well where and how to find and select the material
necessary for building a nest, which proves to be made and fitted up with
as much or more art than the one in which they were hatched? Whence have
come the ideas of those materials and the art of building a nest with them?
To which Mr. Locke bluntly replied: 'I did not write my book to explain the
actions of dumb creatures!' The answer is very good and the title of the
book 'Philosophical Essay Concerning Human Understanding' shows it to be
relevant." By the way, in alluding to the strange workings of heredity,
Coste had come unawares upon the strongest argument in favour of innate
ideas.
After Locke's death, a quarrel broke out among his friends. Anthony
Collins, the free-thinker, loth to admit of a single objection to his
master's theory such as he conceived it to be, thought that both Le Clerc
and Coste were pursuing a deliberate plan of disparagement and resolved to
denounce them publicly. In 1720, one of his dependents, the refugee
Desmaizeaux, published a volume of Locke's posthumous works, prefaced with
an attack on Coste. Le Clerc, whose explanation had been accepted, was
spared.[285] "M. Coste," wrote Desmaizeaux, "in several writings, and in
his common conversation throughout France, Holland, and England, has
aspersed and blackened the memory of Mr. Locke, in those very respects
wherein he was his panegyrist before."[286] No trace remains of the
written strictures. A hitherto unpublished letter explains and justifies
Collins' resentment. Reviewing a pamphlet of one Carroll against Locke, the
Catholic _Journal de Trévoux_ happened to say: "Such is the idea
entertained in England about Mr. Locke whom a _Letter written to Abbé Dauxi
by Mr. De La Coste_ charges us with slandering. The printed letter has been
circulated in Paris.... We are pleased to see English writers judge their
countrymen in the same way as ourselves. Perhaps the exaggerated praise
that M. Le Clerc heaps upon his friend Mr. Locke, is a more decisive proof
that we have found out the latter's impiety."[287] On receiving the review,
Coste indignantly denied having written the _Letter to Abbé Dauxi_. The
attitude of the Trévoux reviewers he failed to understand. "Their synopsis
of the _Essay_ appeared to me very good, as far as I remember, and Mr.
Locke, to whom I read it, was pretty well satisfied."[288] To show that his
feelings toward his patron were unchanged, Coste reprinted his "éloge" in
the second edition of his translation of the _Essay_ (1729), adding these
words: "If my voice is useless to the glory of Locke, it will serve at
least to witness that having seen and admired his fine qualities, it was a
pleasure for me to perpetuate their memory."
In Coste's papers information abounds on the corrections he made to the
several editions of his translation of Locke. It would be an invidious task
to transcribe the long lists of errata that he sends to faithful La Motte,
who seems to supervise the work of the press, but it may prove interesting
to know the names of great people on the Continent who are to receive
presentation copies of the _Essay_. They are "the nuntio in Brussels, the
Duchesse du Maine, M. Rémond in Paris, Abbé Salier, sub-librarian to the
King."[289] In 1737, he mentions the success of the _Thoughts concerning
Education_, reprinted in Rouen, upon the fourth Dutch edition. But the
_Reasonableness of Christianity_ fell dead from the press, the Paris
booksellers not having a single copy in 1739.
On the spread of Locke's ideas on the Continent, Coste's letters bear out
the evidence to be gathered elsewhere, notably from the Desmaizeaux papers
in the British Museum. While the _Thoughts concerning Education_ and the
_Essay_ were eagerly read, no one seemed to care about the social compact
theory, toleration, or latitudinarian theology. As early as August 1700,
Bernard writes to Desmaizeaux from the Hague that "Mr. Locke's book in
French sells marvellously well." In 1707, according to Mrs. Burnet, the
Bishop of Salisbury's wife, the _Essay_ was extensively read in
Brussels.[290] In 1721, Veissière informed Desmaizeaux that he had
presented the chancellor in Paris with "a miscellaneous collection of
pieces of _Look_, in English," and received profuse thanks. The same year,
another correspondent from Paris congratulated Desmaizeaux upon the
publication of "_M. Look's_" posthumous works, and begged for information
on the meaning of the words _gravitation_ and _attraction_, "the English
language," he added, "not being quite unknown to me." This, of course, was
before Voltaire had "discovered" either Locke or Newton and summed up for
the benefit of his countrymen their respective contributions to the
advancement of anti-clericalism and free thought.
But it must be borne in mind that Peter Coste was not entirely engrossed in
translations of Locke. One day, he gave La Motte his appreciation on
Richard Cumberland's _De legibus naturæ disquisitio philosophica_ "written
in so rude a style one does not know whether it be Latin or English....
Those defects," he added, "have disappeared from Barbeyrac's translation."
But an "English gentleman, a friend of Mr. Locke, with whom he studied in
the same college at Oxford," has undertaken to publish an abridged edition
"ampler than the original one and still less readable."
At another time, Coste was interested in a less serious book, Richardson's
_Pamela_. The famous novel had just appeared unsigned. With Southern
rashness, Coste met the difficulty of authorship with a wild guess. "I
heard about _Pamela_ in Paris, but I never read even a word of the book."
However, he knows who wrote it, "'Tis M. Bernard, the son of our friend
(the editor of the _Nouvelles de la République des Lettres_) and minister
to a French Church in London. I know it as a fact. The success of the work
caused no doubt the author to let out the secret, which he had kept at
first by publishing his work in English."[291] The eagerness with which
these cosmopolitan writers seize upon any successful book, is both amusing
and instructive.
To one of his correspondents Coste wrote about the same time: "I am, have
been, and will remain all my life, to all appearances, in continual
torment." It was a weary old man who talked on in that way. Fortune had
ceased to smile. Now let us turn to another scene: Peter Coste, in all the
confident strength of early manhood, is writing a series of letters of love
which the author of _Pamela_ would have surely appreciated.
II
LETTERS OF COSTE TO MADEMOISELLE BRUN[292]
In 1694, one Brun, a native most probably of Languedoc, in partnership with
a fellow-countryman of the name of Rouvière, established himself as a
trader in Amsterdam. The two merchants took a house in the most busy part
of the city, the Heer-Gracht. They were both married. Madame Rouvière being
still young, speedily became a confidante for the daughters of her
husband's partner. Three of these lived in Amsterdam, the fourth had
married a refugee, her father's business agent in London. To make this home
circle complete, another name must be mentioned, Mademoiselle Durand,
destined to marry a gentleman, M. de Bruguière, and according to the
etiquette of old France to be henceforth styled "Madame."
It appears that Coste, the press-corrector, would be a frequent visitor at
the house in the Heer-Gracht. There he met his friend, the journalist De La
Motte. An intimacy naturally grew up between Coste and one of the
daughters. Whenever they had to part for a time, he used to write either to
her or to her sisters and friends. She answered occasionally. Only one of
her letters is extant.
I
MADEMOISELLE,--(He has been ill, has delayed answering. Compliments: the
letter received has delighted him.) We must love you well to rejoice in
hearing how well you are diverting yourselves at the Hague, while here we
drag on our miserable lives without the least pleasure. You seem slow to
believe us so unhappy, for you speak of our garden and the study therein as
of an earthly paradise. But you are greatly mistaken if you imagine the
place, which appeared so charming when you were there, is still so, when
you are there no longer. It's quite another thing. Your absence has
disturbed everything. Our garden yields no more fruit. Even the weeds no
sooner spring but they wither.... Such desolation is not limited to our
garden, all Amsterdam feels it. Which reminds me of a conversation that
took place over a fortnight ago in a house where I happened to be in good
company.... A Fleming who had come from the Hague two days before, told us
how charming a place it was.... I know the reason well, said I to myself:
"Which proceeds neither from the magnificent throne
Of his British Majesty,
Nor from the Ambassadors that are gathered together here
To appease the upstirred hearts
Of all the princes in Europe.
One speedily sees, unless one be a mole,
That two Iris's have caused the vast change
And therefore
If in our business city
Such charms are not to be found
As in the large Dutch burgh,
It is because those Iris's are not there."
... Ah! had I been able, I should have simply laughed from Leyden to Harlem
and leapt for joy from Harlem to Amsterdam. But that would not have been
more possible than for Mlle Durand to come into the world before Mlle
Rouvière.[293] When I take thought, I reflect that at bottom you do me the
favour to send me your love as well as to Mlle Prades and M. de La
Motte....--COSTE.[294]
II
[The letter is addressed to "Monsieur Convenent, conseiller d'Orange, pour
rendre à Mademoiselle Durand, à la Haye." Written about the same time as
the preceding.]
MESDEMOISELLES,--We thought we had to thank you only for the honour you did
us to inform us on Saturday that you would welcome us with pleasure in your
company to Leyden.... (usual old-fashioned complimentary phrases).
You no doubt wish to know what became of us after the fatal moment of our
parting from you. We went on board feeling very sad, and now talking, now
holding our tongues, lying down, leaning, yawning, dozing and sleeping, we
reached Harlem. Those that did not sleep, heard the nightingale and the
cuckoo sing.[295] I was of the number as well as Mlle Isabeau who, hearing
the cuckoo sing, softly breathed quite a pretty song. She would have sung,
but the glory to gain was too little with a cuckoo for a rival. As to the
nightingale, she dare not try her strength against his, for fear of
failure. There is risk everywhere, yet I believe that, had she had the
courage to enter the lists, she would have come out victorious. As to M.
Rouvière, he woke up only when compelled to leave the boat, and cross the
town of Harlem. Do you know what he did to sleep so soundly? He made me
promise to read him some of Madame Des Houlières'[296] poetry, paying me
for my trouble, of course. He handed me an apple, on condition I should
read until he fell asleep, and I won the apple very soon. I had not read
six lines before I laid down the book to eat my apple, and there was no
further need to take up the book.
Having crossed Harlem, we went on board once more and met in the boat a
great talker, just back from England, a brother to M. Vasserot; he left us
only the liberty to listen and to ask a question now and then, to compel
him to change his subject. The talk was all about England....
Though I long to see you, I prefer being deprived of your presence to
enjoying it, if your stay at the Hague may help Mlle Durand to recover
health, which with all my heart I wish she will do.... I shall be as
careful to tell you all that happens here as Mlle Durand must be to note
all she feels in order to instruct M. Drelincourt. Talking of that doctor,
I have had occasion to write to a famous English physician, named Locke, of
whom you have heard me so often speak. Yesterday I received a book with
which he was kind enough to present me. I shall thank him at the earliest
opportunity. If Mlle Durand thinks it proper, I shall send him an account
of her sickness, begging him to point out what remedies he thinks fit....
COSTE.
III
[From England, where Coste is staying, he writes a series of letters, by
way of pastime, no doubt, when not engaged in the austerer task of
translating the _Essay_, under Locke's immediate supervision.]
_To Mademoiselle Suson and to Mesdemoiselles Isabeau and Jeannette to beg
them to prevail upon Mademoiselle Suson to take up a pen._
MADEMOISELLE,--You love me little, in spite of your fine protests; or you
know little what true friendship is. 'Tis not punctilious, as you feign to
think. You are not witty enough, you say, to answer my letter. 'Tis untrue,
an't please you; but even if it was so, must we be witty to write to a
friend? Let us only consult our hearts, and utter what they feel. As to
terms, a friend never stops to criticise them. Heavens! whoever amused
himself with reading a letter from a friend with a dictionary and a grammar
in his hand, to find out some obsolete word or sorry turn of phrase?
Friendship is not irksome, and it is one of the finest privileges a friend
has when writing to a friend, to say all he chooses to say in the way he
chooses without fearing anything. He ventures everything and runs no risk.
That freedom is the best part of friendship; without it I should not care a
button (je ne donnerois pas un clou) for that sweet union so boasted of, so
rare, so seldom known.
If this is not enough to induce you to write, I shall have recourse to
three or four intercessors that have more power perhaps over your mind than
I.
I begin with Mlle Isabeau. The worst soldiers are always placed in front of
the army, because, if they run away, all hopes are not lost. I act in the
same way. I do not trust Mlle Isabeau very much. According to her temper,
she will fight for or against me. Maybe she will be neither for nor
against, and should I find her in that fatal frame of mind, it would be
idle for me to say: "Now, Mlle Isabeau, a line or two, please. Take pity on
a poor lonely man who has scarcely lived since your going away. You can
make him spend some sweet moments in writing to him, send him only four
lines, or at least beseech Mlle Suson to write." _She does not answer._ "Is
it possible, Mlle Isabeau, for you to have forgotten me so? Are the
promises"--_She speaks to the wall._ If I become more pressing, I may
elicit a crushing reply. So I turn to Mlle Rouvière who will speak up for
me, I am sure, and in such moving terms that Mlle Suson must surrender.
"Who are you talking about?" she will say. "About that Englishman who would
like perhaps to be with us here. What does he want? A letter from Mlle
Suson. Well, you must write to him to-day, without fail. Give me the
letter, I shall get it posted. Now, there's a merchant just stepping into
the warehouse, I must go and see what he wants, I shall be back in a
moment, excuse me, won't you, business above all." Oh, the fatal motto, the
cursed merchant! the troublesome fellow but for whom I had carried my suit.
Mlle Suson said nothing. She was half convinced by Mlle Rouvière's natural
eloquence, together with that good grace inseparable from whatever she says
and which it is impossible to withstand.
But let us not lose heart! I have still my reserves to bring up. What Mlle
Rouvière has only tried, Mlle Durand will accomplish without so much ado.
"The poor fellow," she will say, "he is right. Let us write to him without
haggling." And immediately, taking a large sheet of paper, she will write
this or something like:
_You are right to blame my sister's carelessness. Since we think of you
sometimes, it is just to tell you so. That will please you, you say; I am
very glad of it, and--well--you may depend upon it._
No doubt Mlle Suson will follow that example and go on with the letter. I
therefore thank Mlle Durand for the four lines and all the others that
Mlle Suson will add, since it is through her intercession that I get them.
If you still resist, Mademoiselle, I shall send Mlle Jeannette forward as a
sharpshooter that, if he dared, would fight furiously for me. But she will
attempt something and say: "Why, certainly, sister, you should write to
him!" She would say more but she is afraid you will reply: "Jeannette, mind
your own business." If you venture as far as that, I shall tell you that
you take an unfair advantage of your birthright and that she is right in
advising you to keep your promise.
But we must not come to that pass. I am sure that Mlle Rouvière, Mlle
Durand, and Mlle Isabeau (I write the name down with trembling) will have
determined you to fulfil your promise, and that you will listen with
pleasure to what Mlle Jeannette says to strengthen you in your resolve.
I had written this when I received Mr. De La Motte's last letter in which
he informs me that you have begun a letter to me. So I have no doubt you
wish to write to me. You have begun. 'Tis half the work. Take up the pen
again and get the work over.... If you have not the leisure to write a long
letter, write a short one. I shall always receive it with profit.
I beg of you to assure Monsieur your father and Mademoiselle your mother of
my humblest regards. I have seen their granddaughter, your niece, a very
pretty child. Whenever I go to London I shall not fail to see her, as well
as Mlle Gigon, whom I ask you to greet from me when you write to her. I am,
etc.--COSTE.
IV
[To congratulate Mlle Durand on her marriage.]
TO MADAME DE BRUGUIÈRE
MADAME,--I shall not want many words to persuade you that I heard the news
of your marriage with much joy (usual florid compliments). You have above
all a kind inclination for your husband. Yes! that last is not wanting, I
have it from good authority, and it was absolutely necessary. 'Tis that
gives relish to marriage, which, without it, would, according to those
skilled in the matter, be only a dull, insipid union.... I present my
compliments to Monsieur and Mademoiselle Rouvière and wish them a happy New
Year. I take part in the joy of Monsieur and Mademoiselle Brun and in that
they will soon have of being once more grandparents.
_N.B._ Pardon me, please, Madame, the liberty I take to inclose a letter to
Mademoiselle Suson.
TO MADEMOISELLE SUSON
MADEMOISELLE,--Though a marriage has deprived me of the so-long-wished-for
pleasure of receiving one of your letters, I am quite ready to write to
you before receiving an answer to this letter and to those that I have
already written to you to congratulate you on an adventure similar to your
sister's.... I received, Mademoiselle, a very courteous letter from your
good London friend, and I answered it two days later. There's a hint for
you! But I wish to have the merit of perfect resignation, to suffer without
complaining. Mlle Gigon mentions Messieurs Malbois and Macé as persons in
good health. I do not know whether I shall be able to see them this winter.
M. De La Motte sends me word that you have received my last letter and
finds I have pretty truly sketched your characters.
I do not withdraw what I said about Mlle Rouvière's natural eloquence. No
one can take it from her, without taking her life too, but I know not
whether she has the goodwill I credited her with in my letter. Had Mlle
Rouvière spoken in my favour, she would have moved you, and the bride would
not have failed to make you take up your pen, had she deigned to set you an
example. But I do not see that you were either stirred by Mlle Rouvière's
persuasive speech or enticed by Mme de Bruguière's example.... I thought
Mlle R. would speak for me, that Mme de B. would take up a pen to encourage
you to write.... As to Mademoiselle Isabeau, she cannot deny it, I have
drawn her portrait after nature.... The heat of passion at seeing my letter
did not last long. Like a heap of straw that blazes up, it cooled down
almost as soon as it burst out....
As to Mademoiselle Jeannette, I am sure she did what she could for me. I am
much obliged to her for her zeal. Please excuse the blots in my letter. I
have not the leisure to copy it out.... Adieu, Mademoiselle, love me always
as I love you or almost.--P. COSTE.
V
[Coste writes twice to complain of her silence.]
TO MADEMOISELLE SUSON DE BRUN, AT AMSTERDAM
MADEMOISELLE,--I see that in friendship as in love (the two passions are
much akin), who loses pays. For the last six months you have been promising
to answer my last letter, and, now I am beginning to despair of seeing the
wished-for answer, you tell me, "Could you not, Monsieur, write to me
sometimes without exacting an answer...." You know too well the price of
your letters not to lavish them upon me. You will not have them match my
own in number.... I was charmed with your letter, I cannot keep silence
about it, I read it over many times and shall read it again....
Your artless compliment upon the New Year, went home. It quite moved me. I
am very glad to see that my tastes quite agree with your own. That makes
me believe I am reasonable. I have no ambition, and if I had, I should be
incapable of satisfying it. I am very little encumbered with money and in
no condition to amass much, however that may be necessary to the regard of
the world. When I dwell on all that, I sometimes fancy it would be as well
for me to leave this world quickly, as to linger on in an everlasting
circle of toilsome vain occupations, but coming soon after to think that I
have a few good friends in this world, I say to myself, that it is worth
while living to enjoy so sweet a pleasure.--COSTE.
VI
TO MADEMOISELLE SUSON BRUN
MADEMOISELLE,--For your intention of writing to me, I owe you at least one
letter. See how much obliged I should be to you if you deigned to carry out
your intention. I do not care to reproach a friend. But I congratulate
myself in mildly rebuking you, if I thereby oblige you to write. Lay your
hand on your conscience. Have I not a right to complain a little? I have
been writing for over a year and you have not once thought of answering me.
I know that friendship does not stand upon ceremony, but can it put up with
such carelessness? No, Mademoiselle. You know too well the delicacy of that
charming passion, which is the keenest pleasure of high-born souls, not to
agree with me....--COSTE.
VII
[Two significant letters follow, one of which is the young girl's answer.]
MADEMOISELLE,--Having opened a few days ago one of the finest books written
in this age, I read these charming words: "To be with those we love is
enough. To dream, talk, keep silence, think of them, think of more
indifferent things, but to be _near them_, is all one."
I could not see those words, Mademoiselle, without thinking of you, and I
could not help adding: "What a torment it is to be far from her whom one
loves." After thinking of that, I could not help writing.
I do not know whether you will take this for sterling truth; I mean to say,
whether you will believe what I say. I am persuaded that you will not be in
the least tempted to doubt my sincerity; but I do not know whether you will
make much account of it. Here you are accused, you Dutch people, of loving
only bills of exchange. As for me, I know a man who would value more highly
than gold, however bright it may be, a compliment from you that would be as
sincere as the one I have just paid you. I am, etc.--COSTE.
OATES, _6th February 1699_, O.S.
Pay the bearer 99,000,000,000 and a few millions,
within six days, on sight.
Mademoiselle Suson Brun, the Her-Gracht, Amsterdam.
VIII
THE ANSWER TO THE ABOVE
MONSIEUR,--I am in receipt of yours of the 6th inst., and seeing you have
drawn on me a bill of 99,000,000,000, I shall not fail to meet it when due;
if there is anything in this city that I can do for you, I am yours to
command. That is, Monsieur, the extent of the business gibberish I have
acquired in five years' time. If you ask me only to acknowledge the receipt
of your letter, you are now satisfied; but I should not be if I did not
speak a language less barbarous and more intelligible than that one to
persons like you and me. So I shall tell you, Monsieur, that of all the
letters that I have received from you, none pleased me more than the last.
You ever love me, you say, and if you read some sweet thing, you remember
me; I own I did not dare expect that from you; not but that I know you to
be a sincere and true friend, but I was afraid of the distance, the fine
ladies you would find in England and the persons of merit[297] you see
every day; but above all I was afraid of human nature, unfit, it is said,
for constancy; I beg your pardon, Monsieur, if I have confounded you with
so many people from whom you deserve to be distinguished, as much on this
score as on others already known to me ere I was convinced of the last.
If the esteem I have for you was not of the highest, it would no doubt
increase on discovering in you so rare a virtue, for I terribly love kind
friends, and though of a sex to whose lot levity falls, nothing would pain
me more than to cease loving one I had loved: what pleasure therefore it is
for me who have loved, love, and will love you all my life, to have a
friend such as I should wish to have! Ever love me, dear Monsieur, and
believe that the brightness of gold, though I am in Holland, will never
cause me such pleasure as the mere thought of having a friend tried by
time. But I know not of what I am thinking. You ask only for a compliment
and I am returning professions of love and lengthily too; no matter,
compliments are only compliments, that is to say speeches generally devoid
of meaning and that are far from expressing the true feelings of the heart,
consequently they would be unfit to express the sincerity of the friendship
I entertain for you; for
Of loyal friends if the fashion is lost,
_I_ still love as women loved of old.
I write down those lines with a trembling hand, not knowing very well how
that sort of thing must be put, but the lines express so fully my meaning
that I thought you might overstep the rules, if the rhythm is not right;
however that may be, you must be persuaded that such are the feelings of
your kind friend.
(From Amsterdam, _3rd March 1699_.)
IX
[A gap in the correspondence. Two years later Coste writes the following
letters.]
TO MADEMOISELLE SUSON
... Last century, you were infatuated with wit, you say, and you thought
yourself bound to write in a sublime style. Don't tell me that,
Mademoiselle. I know you too well to believe that of you. I know that last
century your mind had depth and strength and you were strong-minded; you
wrote well, knowing what tone to assume and never departing from it. If
that be a fault, you are not rid of it at the beginning of this century....
As for me, I fancy that a charming shepherdess who, after talking to her
shepherd about rain and fair weather, suddenly said without regard to
connection in subjects: "Oh, dear Tirtis, how I love thee!" would persuade
him far better than a more witty shepherdess who, coming more skilfully to
the point, said: "See the lamb yonder, how pretty it is, how charmingly it
frisks about the grass, it is my pet, I love it much, but, dear Tirtis,
less than thee!" That is more witty but not so moving, if I am to believe
those skilled in the matter....
"Yes, in my heart your portrait is engraved
So deeply that, had I no eyes,
Yet I should never lose the idea
Of the charming features that Heaven bestowed on thee."
X
TO MADEMOISELLE SUSON BRUN
[The last letter has caused him much disquiet. Suson has fallen ill of
"languor and melancholy".]
A peace-loving creature has brought you back to health; and you think
yourself thereby protected against all the malicious reflections of our
friend. Asses' milk may cool the blood, enliven the complexion and restore
the healthful look that you had lost,
"But its effect reaches not unto the heart."
If the sickness should be in that part, you must needs be wary; you might
still remain ill a long time, in spite of your asses. There are remedies
against love, but none are infallible. Such is a great master's decision.
See whether it would be becoming for an ass to gainsay it.... Proud as you
should be and delicate to the utmost, I do not think you in great danger
in the country where you are. So I deem you quite cured. You may proclaim
your victory, and, since you wish it, I shall proclaim it with you.... As
for me, if I was to discover that you had allowed yourself to be touched by
the merit of a gentleman who would feel some true tenderness for you, I
should not esteem you the less, provided that love did not deprive me of
your friendship. And, between you and me, I have some doubts on that
score....--COSTE.
XI
[There were grounds to the feelings of jealousy shown in the last letter.
No explicit record is left of what happened. But ten years later Coste, now
married to Marie de Laussac, the eldest daughter of M. de Laussac, an army
chaplain in England, writes to his once dear Suson, since become the wife
of one La Coste, a refugee living in Amsterdam.]
TO MADEMOISELLE LA COSTE, IN AMSTERDAM
MADEMOISELLE,--Then it is true that you complain of my not writing. Never
was a complaint more agreeable. I should have accounted it a great favour
at such a moment for you to think of me sometimes and to ask Mr. De La
Motte news of me when you meet him. That is all I had hoped from you till
Mlle. Isabeau's condition changes. But I did not yet know the extent of
your generosity. I hear that, in spite of your ordinary and extraordinary
business, you find time to read my letters and answer them. I own frankly
that I should doubt it, had not Mr. De La Motte taken the trouble to assure
me it was so; and though I dare not suspect him of wishing to make sport of
me in so serious a matter, nothing can reassure me but the sight of one of
your letters.
Then another motive of fear just comes to my mind: in spite of your good
intentions, you might not keep your promise, under pretence that my letters
need no answer....
Much love and many thanks to all your family. I mean thereby the three
houses, nay, the fourth also soon to be founded. I should like to see
little Marion again before setting out for Germany. I kiss her with all my
heart and am, with a most particular esteem, Mademoiselle, your humble and
obedient servant.--COSTE. 20th June 1712. From Utrecht.
* * * * *
These quaint letters call for little comment: is it not better to let the
curtain drop on their mysteries and leave the story its charmingly
indistinct outline? One or two remarks must suffice.
[Illustration: PIERRE BAYLE
After Chéreau]
Pierre Coste seems very anxious to clothe his thoughts in appropriate
literary dress, and his anxiety is shared by Suson. At times the tone
strikes one as so conventional that Coste might be suspected of insincerity
if one did not bear in mind that even the language of true love must follow
the fashion. At any rate Suson is sincere, and nothing is more touching
than her very awkwardness when she tries her hand at the "sublime style."
It is hardly possible to improve upon this very obvious statement without
venturing upon unsafe ground. These old-fashioned lovers' emotions are
tantalisingly unintelligible. Mark that they write to each other quite
openly without even hinting at marriage. No doubt a wealthy merchant's
daughter could not wed a penniless tutor, but then the Bruns, Durands, and
Rouvières are respectable members of the French congregation in Amsterdam
over whom watches a Consistory as strict on questions of morality as a
Scottish Kirk. So we must fall back upon the hypothesis of a platonic
friendship paralleled in England by no less eminent contemporaries than
Locke[298] and Bishop Burnet.[299] Perhaps these letters of Coste shed some
light on Swift's _Journal to Stella_.
Yet another observation may be added: though the tragic element is absent,
there is pathos, if it be pathetic for exiles to sigh after their native
land. Pierre Bayle called Paris the earthly paradise of the scholars,
Barbeyrac said that Amsterdam was fit only for merchants to live in. Coste
could not brook the Dutch, and Suson laughed at them in unison,
instinctively regretting Languedoc and Provence. Such was the way in which
the refugees, though devoid of poetic sentiment, "hanged their harps upon
the willows by the rivers of Babylon."
FOOTNOTES:
[283] _Lettres choisies_, ii. p. 770.
[284] Reprinted in Locke's _Works_, x. pp. 161 ff.
[285] See our _Influence politique de Locke_, p. 346.
[286] Locke, _Works_, x. p. 162. The most amusing detail in this literary
quarrel is that fifteen years before Desmaizeaux had actually offered
Bernard, the editor of the _Nouvelles de la République des Lettres_, a
paper vehemently criticizing Locke. But La Motte interfered, and the offer
was declined. However, La Motte kept Desmaizeaux' letter and threatened to
publish it. _Add. MSS._, 4281, fol. 144, and 4286, fol. 242.
[287] _Mémoires pour l'histoire des Sciences et des Beaux-Arts_ (1707), ii.
pp. 934-945.
[288] Letter dated 30th October 1708.
[289] Letter dated 7th January 1735.
[290] Clarke and Foxcroft, _Life of Burnet_, p. 429.
[291] Letter of 29th July 1743.
[292] The MSS. letters are preserved in the library of the _Société pour
l'histoire du Protestantisme Français_.
[293] Married women, unless of noble birth, were styled before 1789
_Mademoiselle_.
[294] Written September 1697. In this, as in the following letters, the
passages left out are merely of a complimentary nature.
[295] The touch of nature is wholly unexpected at this date.
[296] She was a contemporary writer of insipid pastorals.
[297] _i.e._ Locke and Mrs. Masham.
[298] Mrs. Blomer, then Rebecca Collier the quakeress.
[299] Mrs. Wharton.
CHAPTER XI
THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF THE TRANSLATOR OF ROBINSON CRUSOE, THE CHEVALIER
DE THÉMISEUL
If, in December 1715, a Frenchman had been asked what important events had
happened in the year, he would certainly have replied the death of Louis
the Great and the publication of the _Chef d'oeuvre d'un inconnu_. In a
few weeks that amusing lampoon on the scholars and commentators of the time
had run through four editions. People who knew whispered the name of the
man who sought to hide under the pseudonym of Doctor Matanasius; he was a
cavalry officer, of mysterious birth, the Chevalier de Thémiseul. Hitherto
the life of the author had been an extraordinary web of adventures
diversified by scandals, _lettres de cachet_, imprisonment and exile. After
wandering through Holland, Sweden, and Germany, the young officer had come
back, adorned with a halo of bravery, learning, daring speculation, and
bitter humour. He flaunted notions that the Regency was about to
popularise: deism, the cult of experimental science, contempt of authority,
a lack of reverence for the classics. A man of culture, moreover, he knew
just enough of Latin and Greek to impose upon an average reader. By an
extraordinary stroke of good luck, his success, which was rapid, lasted
long enough for Abbé Sabatier de Castres to exclaim fifty years later,
under the impression of the witty fireworks of the _Chef d'oeuvre_:
"Irony reigns therein from beginning to end; pleasantry is handled with as
much spirit as judgment, and produces effects which eloquence aiming
straight at the point would have been unable to produce."
To say the truth, we know hardly more about the Chevalier de Thémiseul than
the men who lived under Louis XIV. He apparently never contradicted the
idle story that gave him Bossuet for father and Mademoiselle de Mauléon for
mother. As fond of blague as a Paris _gamin_, he must have enjoyed the idea
of mystifying his friends while throwing dirt on a respected prelate's
character. Abbé Sabatier de Castres, wishing to unravel the mystery, went
to Orléans, searched the registers of the Parish of Saint-Victor and found
therein recorded, on 27th September 1684, the christening of the Chevalier,
son to Hyacinthe de Saint-Gelais, master bootmaker, and Anne Mathé, his
wife. Others have read the record in a different manner; _Cordonnier_, they
say, is not the father's trade, but his name, the Chevalier is not even
entitled to a _de_, his name is plebeian Hyacinthe Cordonnier; Paul
Cordonnier, assert the brothers Haag in their _Dictionary_, born on 24th
September, the son not of a master-bootmaker, but of an officer in the
army.
Now this is what one finds to-day in the register, if one takes the trouble
to read it:
"To-day, Tuesday, September 26th, 1684, Hyacinthe, born on Sunday last,
24th said month, son of Jean Jacques Cordonnier, lord of Belleair, and
demoiselle Anne Mathé, his wife, was christened by me Pierre Fraisy; and
had for godfather Anthoine de Rouët, son to the late Antoine de Rouët and
demoiselle Anthoinette Cordonnier and for godmother Marie Cordonnier,
spinster."
And Saint-Hyacinthe's father signed "De Belair." The title thus added to
his father's name must have given rise to the Chevalier's dreams of a noble
birth.
The mystery of the birth extends to the life. In 1701, the Chevalier's
mother resided at Troyes in Champagne, giving her son, thanks to the
bishop's patronage, a gentleman's education that qualified him for an
officer's commission in the _régiment-royal_. Among the noblemen living on
their estates in Chalons and Reims he numbered acquaintances, and they
treated him with due respect. Letters are extant which prove that he was on
terms of friendship with the Pouillys and the Burignys, no mean men in
their province. There is nothing to object to his conduct as a soldier. He
fought bravely in Germany, and, if taken prisoner at Blenheim, it was
together with Marshal de Tallart and many others whose courage no one
dared to question.
His captivity in Holland acted somewhat in the same manner as exile in
England did later on upon Voltaire. The ideas upon which his youth had been
nursed were shattered to pieces. Eventually he got free and came back to
Troyes. In 1709, he turned up in Stockholm, with the intention of fighting
the Moscovites under the Swedish flag, but it was too late: Charles XII.
had just suffered a crushing reverse at Pultava.
Back the Chevalier went to Holland, learning meantime English, Spanish, and
Italian, reading Bayle, Le Clerc, and Locke, and many other books forbidden
in France. At the Utrecht congress he caused a scandal by courting the
Duchess of Ossuna, wife to the Spanish plenipotentiary. The jealous husband
promptly obtained an order of expulsion, and poor Thémiseul needs must take
refuge once more at his mother's in Troyes.
A new scandal soon drove him thence. Being entrusted by an austere abbess
with the task of teaching her young niece Italian, he fell in love with his
fair pupil while they read Dante together, trying maybe to live up to the
story of Francesca da Rimini. To avoid the _lettre de cachet_, he fled to
Holland, and for prudence' sake, exchanged his name of Chevalier de
Thémiseul for the less warlike one of Saint-Hyacinthe.
Under that name his literary career began. Together with the mathematician
S'Gravesande, De Sallengre, and Prosper Marchand the bookseller, he wrote
for the Hague _Journal littéraire_ (1713). Two years later, the sudden
success of the _Chef d'oeuvre d'un inconnu_ acted upon his brain like a
potent liquor, and caused all his subsequent misfortunes.
To one who reads the pamphlet to-day, the wit seems rather thin. It is
difficult to realise the enjoyment that our great-grandfathers could take
in laughing in that exaggerated fashion at a German commentator. An
indecent French song beginning _L'autre jour Colin malade_ is supposed to
have been discovered by Doctor Matanasius, a scholar of European renown. He
proclaims it a masterpiece, the work of an unknown poet of genius, and,
with the help of a few hundred notes and comments, strives to gain his
point. Now Doctor Matanasius is no more the laughing-stock of the literary
world. His name is Renan, Gaston Paris, or Skeat. The _Chef d'oeuvre_
gives us the impression of a man loading a blunderbuss to shoot at a
shadow. The productions of Swift and Voltaire, in the same vein, are
infinitely better. Poor Matanasius, with his elaborate reminiscences of
barrack-room raillery, seems sadly out of date; being of the earth, earthy,
his song and his commentary have both crumbled to dust.
Yet he sought to build up a career of glory and wealth on the flimsy
foundation. Fighting in the cause of modern learning with the headlong
rashness of a dragoon charging up to the enemy's guns, he wrote the
_Lettres to Madame Dacier_, he undertook to rival the Dutch literary papers
with his _Mémoires littéraires_; but the public who had appreciated the
_Chef d'oeuvre_, were slow in subscribing to the new paper. Unlucky
Matanasius was doomed to write only one masterpiece, for all his subsequent
productions fell dead from the press.
Once more in France, with brain teeming with schemes and but little money
in his pocket, the man, who was now nearing forty, fell back upon his last
resource, a new love-affair. The victim this time was Suzanne, Colonel de
Marconnay's daughter, with whom he eloped to England (1722).
The duly-married couple remained in England twelve years. What their life
and that of their children must have been, a few scattered letters help us
to understand. The father-in-law declining to help the wanderers,
Saint-Hyacinthe, who decidedly had renounced the Catholic faith, turned to
the Huguenot community. The poorer among them eked out a scant livelihood
by teaching French, writing for Dutch booksellers, translating English
books; the most needy received relief--money and clothing. The brilliant
dragoon, who had been feasted in Paris, did not blush to hold out his hand
and accept the mite doled out by the trustees of the "Fund for the poor
Protestants."
There was still in the man an inexhaustible fund of illusion. He could rail
and boast and dream. He seems never to have given up the hope of attaining
to reputation and competence. In the blackest year of his life, he began
translating _Robinson Crusoe_ (1720), but, wearying of the task, left the
Dutchman Justus van Effen to finish it. A letter of his to M. de Burigny,
dated 6th September 1727, is sweetly optimistic. "Cross the Channel," he
says, to his friend, "but, for Heaven's sake, come alone; don't bring your
man along with you. I can manage to accommodate you with rooms in my house,
and receive you at my table. What you will eat," he adds, with a flourish
of liberality, "with what I am obliged to have for my own family, will not
cost me more than two sous a day."[300]
In London, most probably at the Rainbow Coffee-House, then the resort of
the refugees, Saint-Hyacinthe one day came upon Voltaire. The two men had
met once before in Paris, when Voltaire's _Oedipe_ was being acted. It is
said that, during a performance, the Chevalier de Thémiseul, pointing out
to the full house, exclaimed: "That is the completest praise of your
tragedy." To which Voltaire replied with a bow: "Your opinion, Monsieur,
flatters me more than that of all that audience." But times had changed.
Needy Saint-Hyacinthe was no longer the successful author that a younger
man is naturally anxious not to wound. "M. de Voltaire," Saint-Hyacinthe
repeated later, "led a very irregular life in England; he made many
enemies by proceedings not in accordance with the principles of strict
morality." "Saint-Hyacinthe," Voltaire retorted, "lived in London
principally on my alms and his lampoons. He cheated me and dared to insult
me."
It must be acknowledged that Saint-Hyacinthe struck the first blow. In
1728, having a mind to correct the mistakes that he had noticed in the
_Henriade_, he did the work in the most thoroughly impertinent manner.
Thus, to the following line:
"Aux remparts de Paris les deux rois s'avancèrent,"
he added the comment: "It is not good grammar to say _s'avancer_, but
_s'avancer vers_; so the author should write:
"Vers les murs de Paris les deux rois s'avancèrent."
And further on, in a note on the expression "allés dans Albion," "it is
surprising that a poet who has written tragedies, and an epic, without
mentioning those miscellaneous pieces where an agreeable politeness must
prevail, should not know the use of the prepositions _dans_ and _en_." Then
there was captiousness in some of the remarks; thus Voltaire had written
"Et fait aimer son joug à l'Anglois indompté,
Qui ne peut ni servir, ni vivre en liberté."
"M. de Voltaire," slyly added his enemy, "should not have tried in a vague
and sorry antithesis to give an idea of the English character that is both
insulting and erroneous."
A more striking example of perfidiousness was effectually to stir
Voltaire's resentment a little later. To one of the numerous editions of
the _Chef d'oeuvre_, Saint-Hyacinthe added a postscript entitled _The
Deification of Doctor Aristarchus Masso_, in which he related the
well-known anecdote of Voltaire being set upon by an officer: "'Fight,'
exclaims the officer, 'or take care of your shoulders.' The poet not being
bold enough to fight, the officer handsomely cudgelled him, in the hope
that the sore insult might lend him courage; but the poet's caution rose as
the blows showered down upon him," etc. Though not mentioned by name,
Voltaire was pretty clearly pointed out. Soon after, malicious Abbé
Desfontaines inserted the anecdote in his libellous _Voltairomanie_ (1739),
and all Paris began to make merry over the poet's cowardice. In spite of
the provocation, Voltaire acted with characteristic forbearance, begging
mutual friends to adjust the difficulty, and saying that he should feel
quite satisfied if Saint-Hyacinthe would retract and solemnly declare that
he had taken no part in the abbé's libel. But Saint-Hyacinthe's
stubbornness drove Voltaire to retaliate, and so he threw all his venom in
the following paragraph:--
"Teach the public, for example, he wrote in his _Advice to a Journalist_
(1741), that the _Chef d'oeuvre d'un inconnu_ or _Matanasius_ is by the
late M. de Sallengre and an illustrious mathematician of a consummate
talent who adds wit to scholarship, lastly by all those who contributed in
The Hague to the _Journal Littéraire_, and that M. de Saint-Hyacinthe
provided the song with many remarks. But if to that skit be added an
infamous pamphlet worthy of the dirtiest rogue, and written no doubt by one
of those sorry Frenchmen who wander about foreign lands to the disgrace of
literature and their own country, give due emphasis to the horror and
ridicule of that monstrous alliance."
To that crushing blow Saint-Hyacinthe replied without delay. "Though your
_Temple du goût_," he wrote, "has convinced me that your taste is often
depraved, I cannot believe you can go the length of confounding what is the
work of one with what is the work of many.... I am not so fortunate as to
do honour either to my country or to literature; but I may say that if it
suffices to love them to do them honour, no one surely would do so more
than I.... I have never been vile enough to praise foreign countries at the
expense of my own, and heap eulogies upon their great men, while
undervaluing those that do honour to France."
Bitter as the reply was, it did not appease Saint-Hyacinthe's anger.
Hearing that Voltaire had just been elected a member of the French Academy,
"The Academy," he wrote to a friend, "will be honoured to receive among the
forty a man devoid of either morals or principles, and who does not know
his own tongue unless he has begun learning it these few years past" (17th
February 1743). His _Recherches philosophiques_ he had inscribed to the
King of Prussia and, the latter taking no notice of the work, "Voltaire,"
he complained, "has indisposed the king against me" (10th October
1745).[301]
* * * * *
The latter part of his life Saint-Hyacinthe spent at Geneken, near Breda.
Thence he had launched his indignant reply to the _Advice to a Journalist_.
His literary activity was still great. The two letters, now published for
the first time, show him trying to induce Dutch booksellers to publish the
manuscripts of which he possesses "two chests full." As usual, he is in
dire straits, persecuted by duns and lawyers, yet none the less full of
hopes. The schemes he thinks about are excellent till he is cheated by some
"great rogue." One pictures to oneself an eighteenth-century Mr. Micawber,
buoyant and impecunious. Nor are there missing in the background the wife
and family, whose protest is brought home to us in a startling manner by
the "seduction" of the eldest daughter. Here Saint-Hyacinthe refers to Mlle
de Marconnay, for so she was called, who, under the patronage of the
Duchesse d'Antin, retired to Troyes.[302] The fates of the two other
children are unknown.
I
TO M. DE LA MOTTE, IN AMSTERDAM
SLUYS, _27th June 1742_.
MONSIEUR,--It was with the utmost joy that I heard from M. Mortier that you
were in good health and thought kindly about me. I should have had the
honour to tell you sooner how pleased I was at the news had I not suddenly
fallen very ill just as I was intending to do so. The attack of illness in
which I battled long with death, had seized me for the second time since
last September and it was thought I should not recover, as I suffered in
the meantime from ague, and this has weakened me so that, though out of
danger for the last two months, I can hardly walk from my room to the door
of my house and am unable to attend continuously to anything however
trifling. My state is the cruellest possible. Not only have I been ill ten
months, but my wife and two children are ailing. I left Paris two years ago
and came here to settle some money-affairs, which should have turned out
well I thought, as I was allowing the income to accumulate in order to pay
off a few debts. Those entrusted with the administration of the estate have
contrived to settle matters to their own advantage and are appropriating
all. Besides, the co-heir has brought an action against me and his attorney
here--the greatest rascal I have ever known--will raise quibbles on the
plainest things in the world, evidently to fish in troubled waters, and
have the pleasure of making me detest this country, wherein he has but too
well succeeded. The judges have at last submitted the matter to arbitration
and, though still unable to stand, I had myself carried here to end it. I
shall see how all will turn out in a few days, after which, if my strength
comes back, I shall try to spare a week or ten days to journey to Holland,
especially with a view to meeting you, Monsieur, and two other persons. I
shall tell you all that has befallen me since I left England. I shall tell
how my eldest daughter was perverted, how the old duchess Dantin and two
other ladies coming one day when her mother was dining out, carried her off
to the convent of the New Catholics where the perversion still goes on.
That is why I wrote to her mother to leave Paris promptly with her two
other children, and am debarred from returning there. You shall see in the
tale of my adventures a series of unfortunate occurrences at which one
would wonder if one might wonder at what the malice of men can do.
I have spent much money here, and I can hardly receive any until after
September. I have by me two chests full of MSS. by the best men; a kind
favour you could do me, Monsieur, would be to find me some bookseller
willing to print them. I shall tell you in confidence that I have found M.
Mortier so honest a man that I should very much like him to take them, and
this is what I had purposed to do: to give them to him to clear an account
standing between him and M. de Bavi and for which it is just he should be
requited. I had even thought of proposing that after agreeing on the price
of an MS. he should pay me half in money and keep the other half in
deduction from what is owing to him until entire receipt of the sum, which
is not considerable.
But besides his being busy printing many good books, my present situation
is too pressing to allow me to make the proposal, so I have told him
nothing about it. I shall always have occasion to provide him whenever he
chooses. Thus, Monsieur, you may, if you think fit, offer any bookseller
you like without mentioning my name the select MSS., the list of which I am
taking the liberty of sending you.
I do not know whether a small volume that I printed in Paris under the
title of _Divers Writings on Love and Friendship_, on _Voluptuousness and
Politeness_, the _Theory of Pleasant Feelings_ and some _Miscellaneous
Thoughts_ of the late Marquis de Charost,[303] has reached you. The book
appeared, and Maréchal de Noailles and Duc de Villars complaining that they
thought they had found their characters portrayed in the _Miscellaneous
Thoughts_, the Cardinal[304] tried to stop the sale. Nevertheless, two
editions came out within four months. The book, in fact, has been found
charming--I may well praise it since there are but two pieces of mine, all
the rest being by the best authors. I am told that the book has not been
reprinted in Holland. You might ask some bookseller to do so. I shall send
a revised copy, and the author of the _Theory of Feelings_ having rewritten
the work, I shall write to get what I know is now a very considerable
piece. The bookseller will pay only for what he prints, and I shall send
him wherewith to make up a second and even a third volume of Miscellanies
no less interesting; for instance:
The pamphlet by M. de la Rivierre on his marriage with Mme la Marquise de
Coligny, daughter of Bussi Rabutin, which is admirably written.
The Letters of that Marquise to M. de la Rivierre.
Other Letters of M. de la Rivierre to Mme la Marquise de Lambert and
others, both in verse and prose, which are quite unknown or at least known
only to a few.
Essays by M. de la Rivierre on love.
A Letter of Heloise to Abelard by the same.
Sundry short Treatises and Letters by the late Mme la Marquise de Lambert.
Also:
The complete Translations and Poems of Marquis de la Fare.
The Complete Works of M. de Charlerat.
Poems by M. le Marquis de Saint-Aulaire. He it was who gave them to me,
but, if he is still living, I may not print them, as I am allowed to do so
only after his death.
The Revolutions of the Roman Republic, by M. Subtil.
A Life of Julius Cæsar, by the same. The work is unfinished, but the
fragment is valuable on the score of composition and style. I am alone to
possess it, excepting the family who hold the original.
Several very curious Pieces suppressed in Paris and intended for the
Remarks to the Mémoires of Amelot de la Houssaye. But they have perhaps
found their way into Holland and been printed there, together with the said
Mémoires, which I must find out.
Critical Researches on the vanity of Nations regarding their origins.
The Story of the Loves of Euryalus and Lucrece, translated from Æneas
Sylvius, and compared with the story of Comtesse de Tende, together with a
letter regarding the Latin letters of the Countess de Degenfeldt and Louis
Charles Elector Palatine.
A supposed Letter from Heloise to Abelard by the late M. Raymond Descours,
the translator of the former that caused so much stir.
And many other slighter pieces. If the title does not seem right, the
bookseller may choose another, but as all those pieces are by well-known
authors who wrote admirably, the politeness and variety of the work
guarantee the sale.
[Illustration: JEAN BAPTISTE COLBERT After Mignard]
Should a bookseller want something more serious, I have a precious
collection of letters, proclamations, mémoires, edicts, lists of troops,
etc., illustrating the reigns of Francis I., Henri II., Henri III., Charles
IX., the whole copied from the original letters of those princes, Queen
Catherine, constables, Secretaries of State, generals of armies. Among the
papers are also to be found documents instructing the ambassadors and the
letters wherein they render account of their negotiations, what France then
did at the Court of Rome, and what she did in England regarding the trial
of the Queen of Scotland under Queen Elizabeth. There is also such a fine
series of letters from Duc de Guise that they might be entitled Mémoires.
Two members of the Academy of Belles-lettres in Paris have urged me to
print all this with two quarto volumes that they are publishing on the
history of France, but as there are some pieces that they allege may
prevent them from obtaining the privilege, and must therefore be
suppressed, I have declined the proposal.
I have besides a manuscript entitled _An Abridgment of Civil, Criminal, and
Ecclesiastical Law and of the Principles of Government_,[305] written in
1710 by a minister for M. the Dauphin Duc de Bourgogne. The treatise is
extremely lucid, instructive, and it is the original work, the sole
possessor of which I am.
I have other manuscripts. But it is enough to begin with. I shall send
them to you with all my heart, and you will be master, Monsieur, to dispose
of them. The long experience I have made of your kindness, gives me the
assurance that I cannot trust anything to better hands.
If you honour me with an answer, I beg of you to give me news of M. des
Maizeaux, whom I love and honour, and from whom, however, I have not heard
for the last ten years. Content to love one another, we do not trouble to
tell each other so, and I do not like to make him pay postage. I shall
receive your commands at M. Neungheer, at Sluys in Flanders. I am,
Monsieur, and shall ever be respectfully and gratefully your most humble
and obedient servant,
SAINT-HYACINTHE.
II
TO M. DE LA MOTTE IN AMSTERDAM
I cannot have an opportunity to write to Amsterdam, Monsieur, without
availing myself of it to remind you of a man that neither time nor distance
will cause to forget the gratitude he owes you nor impair the friendship he
has vowed to you. Tell me the state of your health and of your eyes, about
which you used to complain, and add news of M. des Maizeaux and M. Le
Courayer if you have any. I dwell in a wilderness where I have intercourse
only with men that died many centuries ago, and, to tell you the truth, it
would suit me very well if those I can do without did not study to ruin
rather than serve me. That disadvantage will drive me from my refuge, and
maybe I shall remove to some place nearer you.
You must have received my _Philosophical Researches_[306] as soon as they
began to be issued. It is not a book I sent you to read. It is too badly
printed and too full of mistakes. It is only a tribute that I wished to pay
to friendship and esteem. I should like to have the opportunity, Monsieur,
to give you further proofs of this. Hardly affected by the things of this
life, I should feel that keenly. I am and shall always be, Monsieur, with
inviolable devotedness your most humble and obedient servant,
SAINT-HYACINTHE.[307]
Two years after writing the above letter, Saint-Hyacinthe died. We can
guess what the end was. While the duns were crowding at the door, the dying
man dreamed that his latest scheme would infallibly make him wealthy. A few
friends stood firm, however, and honoured the memory of the dashing officer
to whom fortune and Paris had once smiled. Thirty years after his death, a
person of rank, one night in a drawing-room, began speaking ill of him.
"Sir," exclaimed M. de Burigny, who was standing by, "please spare my
feelings; you are hurting me to the quick. M. de Saint-Hyacinthe is one of
the men I loved the most dearly."
His biographers have questioned whether he ever abandoned the Catholic
faith. The former of the two letters published above settles the doubt. But
a few extracts from a very scarce posthumous publication show that the
English Deists had made a lasting impression upon him:
"Diverse opinions, uncertainty of knowledge; diverse religions, uncertainty
of the true one."
"The true religion is entirely contained in the duties prescribed by the
law of Nature, which are within reach of every one."
"Because Jesus Christ called Himself the Son of God, we infer that He is
God as His Father, and, if it be so, all men are gods, since in the strict
meaning of the word we are all children of God, drawing our life from Him
and being created after His likeness."
"Pure Deism is the only religion that truly exists."[308]
Strip him of the glamour of adventures and extravagant opinions, he is
after all a mere journalist. Take away the _Chef d'oeuvre_, whose success
was due to an accident, and Saint-Hyacinthe falls to the level of a Coste
or a Desmaizeaux. Yet he deserved better than he got. In his lust for
vulgar notoriety, he twice lost sight of fame. With his journalist's
insight, he had foreseen the wonderful fortune of _Robinson Crusoe_, and he
allowed a far inferior man to complete the translation. As early as 1715,
in his _Mémoires littéraires_, he had guessed that the time had come for
men of letters to make England known in France, and Voltaire his enemy
reaped all the benefit of the idea. He might well have asked in later years
why he had not signed the _Lettres philosophiques_. And so in the portrait
gallery of Frenchmen who made English literature familiar to their
countrymen in the eighteenth century, Saint-Hyacinthe is only a miniature,
while Voltaire shines forth in all the glory of a full-length picture.
FOOTNOTES:
[300] _Lettre de M. de Saint-Hyacinthe._ Imprimée par la Société des
Bibliophiles. Paris, 1826.
[301] The story of the quarrel between Voltaire and Saint-Hyacinthe is set
forth in two contemporary books: _Tableau philosophique de l'esprit de M.
de Voltaire_, 1771 and _Lettre de M. de Burigny à M. l'abbé Mercier sur les
démêlés de M. de Voltaire avec M. de Saint-Hyacinthe_, 1780.
[302] See Haag, _France Protestante_, art. "Cordonnier."
[303] _Recueil de divers écrits sur l'amour et l'amitié, la politesse, la
volupté, les sentimens agréables, l'esprit et le coeur._ Paris, 1736.
[304] Cardinal Fleury.
[305] _Abrégé des matières civiles, criminelles, ecclésiastiques, et des
principes du gouvernement._
[306] _Recherches philosophiques sur la nécessité de s'assurer soi-même de
la vérité; sur la certitude de nos connaissances; et sur la nature des
êtres._ Par un membre de la Société royale de Londres. Londres, 1743
[307] The two above letters are preserved in the Library of the "Société de
l'histoire du protestantisme français" in Paris.
[308] _Pensées secrettes et observations critiques attribuées à feu M. de
Saint-Hyacinthe_, Londres, 1749.
INDEX
Abadie, d', teacher of French, 30.
Abbadie, Jacques, theologian, 129-130.
Abbadie, Jean, French valet, 36;
letter to Desmaizeaux, 57-58.
Ablancourt, Frémont d', 93.
Agnew, Rev. D., 135.
Aguesseau, Chancellor D', presented with one of Locke's works, 184.
Aimé, a refugee, denounced by Barillon, 106.
Allen, John, tailor, 69.
Allix, minister, 32;
extract from book in English quoted, 51-53.
Ambassadors, French, in England.
See Aumont, Barillon, Bordeaux, Colbert de Croissy, Cominges, Courtin,
Estrades.
Amyraut, latitudinarian theologian, 91.
Ancillon quoted, 19;
his _Mémoires_, 99 _n._, 111.
André, B., teacher of French, 29.
Andrews, Mrs., spy, 163.
Angle, S. De l', minister, his opinion on Episcopacy, 83;
denounced by Barillon, 106.
_Anglia_, 23.
_Angliæ Notitia_ quoted, 10, 15, 25.
Anne, Queen, 108, 165.
Armstrong, Du Gard's proof reader, 150.
Arnoult, engraver, 37.
Ascham, 72.
Asgill, Saint-Evremond reads, 32.
_Athenæum, The_, quoted, 143, 147.
Aubigny, Cardinal D', Queen's almoner, 24.
Aubrey quoted, 59.
Aumont, Duc d', ambassador, quoted, 17.
Aymon, _Actes des Synodes_, quoted, 89, 90, 96.
Babeau, _Voyageurs en France_, quoted, 3 _n._
Ballantyne, 60.
Baluze, letter to Colbert, 26.
Barbeyrac, 184;
learns English in order to read Locke, 29.
Barillon, ambassador, quoted, 106.
Bartas, Du, visits England, 28;
translated by Sylvester, 66.
Basnage, minister, his advice to the Huguenots, 134.
Bassoneau, proprietor of the _Ville-de-Paris_ inn, 12.
Bayle regrets he knows no English, 29;
quoted, 88;
opinion of English writers, 113;
definition of his scepticism, 116;
political opinions, 120, 126, 130-136;
on toleration, 136-137;
authorship of _Avis aux réfugiés_ discussed, 131;
the _Critical Dictionary_ mentions Locke, 179;
eulogised by Saint-Evremond, 117;
translated into English, 117.
Beaulieu, de, 26.
Beaumont and Fletcher quoted, 5, 36, 62, 64, 66, 73.
Bellay, Du, quoted, 22, 75.
Bellerose, the actor, 25.
Bellot, Jacques, teacher of French, 29.
Bellott, Stephen, apprentice, 144.
Bérault, P., teacher of French, 30.
Bernard, Edward, professor of astronomy, Justel's letter to, 100.
Bernard, Jacques, minister, letter to Desmaizeaux, 183.
Bernard, J. P. the younger, 117;
supposed authorship of _Pamela_, 185.
Bernard, Jean, English secretary to Henri III., 11, 19.
Berthelet, printer to Henry VIII., 35.
_Bible, The Great_, printed in Paris, 35.
Birch, 117.
Blake, 158.
Blondeau, engraver, 24.
Blount, 66.
Bochart, scholar and divine, 31, 83, 91, 95.
Boisrobert visits England, 28.
Bordeaux Frondeurs in England, 161.
Bordeaux, President, ambassador, 158-159.
Bossuet, Henrietta of England and, 27;
dispute with Claude, 120;
_Histoire des Variations_ judged by Jurieu, 111;
answered in England, 126;
contrasted with _Esprit des Lois_, 111.
Bouhéreau, Elie, on Milton, 152 _n._
Bourbon, N., teacher of French, 29.
Boyer, Abel, refugee and author, quoted, 53-54, 166.
Brantôme visits England, 28.
Brereton, 30.
Brun, French refugees of that name settled in Amsterdam, 185.
_Bulletin de la Société du Protestantisme Français_, 122 _n._
Bulteel translates Racine, 28.
Bureau, printer, 36, 106.
Burghley, 66, 79 _n._
Burigny, de, friend of Saint-Hyacinthe, 213, 217, 225.
Burnet, Bishop, visits Paris, 75;
at Louis du Moulin's death-bed, 48, 94;
Mrs. Wharton and, 205;
quoted, 117.
Burnet, Mrs., letter of, 183.
Butler ridicules the imitation of the French, 67, 70, 71;
writes an ode to the memory of Du Val the highwayman, 37.
Cailloué translates _Eikon Basiliké_, 32, 92.
Calvin, influence in England, 78.
_Cambridge History of English Literature_, 142.
Cameron, latitudinarian divine, 82.
Casaubon, Isaac, 80.
Casaubon, Méric, prebendary of Canterbury, quoted, 39-41.
Chaise, Père de la, pamphlet concerning, 125;
gets English pamphlets translated, 26.
Chalmers, 65.
Chamberlayne quoted, 10, 15;
continued by Miège, 51.
Chambrun, Pineton de, 104.
Channel-crossings, experiences of, 6;
dangers, 8;
vessels, 5;
charges, 11.
Chapman's _Eastward Hoe_ quoted, 69.
Charlanne, 63.
Charles I. summons French artists to his Court, 23;
stir caused in France by his execution, 91-92.
Charles II., flight to France, 13;
letter to, 41;
knows little French, 24;
his gallomania discussed, 63;
adopts the "Persian vest," 71-72;
his Queen, 24, 67, 75;
his Court, 69-70;
his coronation robes, 69.
Charlett, Dr., letter to, 58-59.
Charost, Marquis de, 220.
Chatillon, Odet de, 79.
Chaufepié, 111.
Cherel, viii.
Clarke and Foxcroft quoted, 75, 184.
Claude, minister, on Episcopacy, 83;
the divine right of kings, 121;
disputes with Bossuet, 120; his
book on the persecution, 102;
how received in England, 103.
Clerc, Le, on the English language, 20;
visits London, 109;
his life, 112;
befriends Coste, 176.
See Lecène.
Coaches, 10.
Cobb, Frederic, viii.
Colbert, ignorance of English, 23;
inquiry about English institutions, etc., 26;
distrusts the English, 26;
his daughters' marriage mentioned in the _Gazette de Londres_, 163;
buys horses in England, 74;
causes a yacht to be built there, 74.
Colbert de Croissy, ambassador, 74.
Collier, 83.
Collins, Anthony, 181.
Collins, J. Churton, 60.
Colomiès, 97.
Cominges, ambassador, 3, 17, 152 _n._
Condé, Prince de, intrigues in England, 161;
pamphlet concerning, 125;
Coste writes his life, 177.
Condom, Bishop of. See Bossuet.
Conti, Prince de, learns English, 74.
Cooks, French, in England, 25, 69.
Cooper, Samuel, portrait-painter, in France, 25.
Corseilles at the Court of Charles I., 23.
Cost of journey from Paris to London, 11.
Coste, his life, 109, 176-178;
his letters about English writers, 178-185;
to Mlle Brun, 185-206.
Cotgrave, 34.
Cougneau, teacher of French, 29.
Coulon, traveller, quoted, 7, 30.
Courayer, Le, 61, 224.
Courtin, ambassador, 106.
Coverdale, 35.
Cranmer, Archbishop, 79.
Croix, De La, fortune-teller, 37.
Cromwell anxious about the safety of Channel packet-boats, 8;
victories recorded in the _Nouvelles ordinaires de Londres_, 157;
book inscribed to, 95.
Croze, Cornand La, 109.
Cugnac, Marquis de, 161.
Culpepper, 42.
Cumberland, Richard, mentioned by Coste, 184.
Customs, English, 8.
Dacier, Mme, ridiculed by Saint-Hyacinthe, 212.
Daillé, divine, influence in England of his work on the Fathers, 86;
accepts the divine right of kings, 93.
Daudé, refugee, mentioned in Barillon's dispatches, 106;
presides over meetings of refugees, 109.
Davenant, 64.
Defoe, 49, 118.
Denisot, teacher of French, 29.
Dennis quoted, 20;
ridiculed by Pope, 107.
Desfontaines, Abbé, 215.
Deshoulières, Mme, soporiferous influence of, 189.
Desmaizeaux, estimate of his work, 110;
attacks Le Clerc and Coste, 182;
letters to, 57-58, 183;
mentioned, 224.
Dover described by Moreau de Brazey, 9.
Drelincourt, Charles, minister, 118.
Drelincourt, Charles, the younger, physician in Leyden, 176, 189.
Drelincourt, Pierre, dean of Armagh, quoted, 48-49.
Dryden, comedy quoted, 67.
Dubois, refugee, sheriff of Middlesex, letter of, 96.
Du Gard, schoolmaster and printer, his life, 149-152;
prints Milton's pamphlets, 152-153;
the _Nouvelles ordinaires de Londres_, 36, 154-163.
Dumoulin, Pierre, visits England, 80, 94;
quoted, 82.
Dumoulin, Pierre (or Peter), the younger, sides with the royalists, 94;
extract from one of his works quoted, 44-45;
blames the Covenanters, 83 _n._
Dumoulin, Louis, Camden professor of history, 94;
writes an apology for the Independents, 94;
remains true to his Huguenot faith, 94;
quoted, 46-48;
Burnet at his death-bed, 48, 94.
Duras, Louis de, 24.
Dury, John, 32, 153.
Edict of Nantes, estimate of, 114.
Effen, Justus van, translates _Robinson Crusoe_, 213.
_Eikon Basiliké_, 153;
translated, 32, 92;
Milton's reply to, 153.
Einstein, L., 19.
Elizabeth, Princess, death recorded, 158.
Elizabeth, Queen, 90.
England, as seen by foreigners, 16-17;
gallomania in, 62-73;
opinion of Jurieu and Bayle on, 113.
English Custom-House officers, 8;
horses in France, 74;
insularity, 71;
opinion of Henri IV. and Courtin, 106;
travellers abroad.
See Burnet, Locke, Moryson.
English idioms in _Nouvelles ordinaires de Londres_, 155-156.
English language not spoken in Europe, 19;
at the French Court, 22-27;
change after the Revolution, 34;
difficult to pronounce, 20;
the refugees learn it, 113.
Erondel, teacher of French, 29.
Eschar, valet to Charles Montague, 73.
Espagne, Jean d', minister, inscribes a book to the Protector, 95.
Estoile, Pierre De l', 31, 34.
Estrades, D', ambassador, 22.
Etheredge quoted, 67, 71, 73.
Evelyn, his _Diary_ quoted, 4, 7, 8, 32, 72, 99, 102, 103.
Fabvollière, engineer, 24.
Fare, Marquis de la, 221.
Faret, 22.
Fayette, Mme de la, quoted, 27.
Festeau, teacher of French, 30.
Fétizon, divine, on the divine right of kings, 120.
Field, Richard, printer, 146-147.
Fonvive, French journalist in London, 165.
Force, La, 106.
Fortune-tellers, French, in England, 37.
Fox, George, mentioned in the _Nouvelles ordinaires de Londres_, 160.
Francis I. furthers the printing of _The Great Bible_, 35.
French, ambassadors.
See Ambassadors;
cooks, 25, 69;
fortune-tellers, 37;
highwayman, 37;
journalists, 163-166;
merchants, 79, 135;
milliners, 70;
players, 23;
printers, 35;
quacks, 36;
tailors, 25, 68-69;
teachers.
See Teachers; travellers.
See Travellers.
French churches in London, 161.
French fashions in England, 68, 70-72.
French language predominant in Europe, 166;
extensively used in England, 66.
French literature, classical, slight influence of, in England, 141.
French wines, 70.
Frenchmen in England. See French, etc.
Fullerton, W. M., viii.
Gachet, Jean, 36.
Gairdner, James, 78.
Gallomania described, 63-70;
ridiculed, 70-73;
its decline, 73.
Gascoigne, 73.
Gauden, 92.
_Gazette de Londres_, 163-166.
Gildersleeve, V. C., 37.
Goupil, Rouen, printer, 36.
Gourville, his _Mémoires_ quoted, 6, 22.
Gramont, 24, 70.
Grévin in England, 28.
Guide-books, 3, 7, 9, 10, 16, 30, 31.
Guizot quoted, 2.
Haag, 209, 217.
Halifax, Earl of, letter to Henry Savile quoted, 73.
Hall, Bishop, 73.
Hamilton, his _Mémoires de Gramont_ quoted, 70.
Harrington, 152.
Harrison, _Description of Britain_ quoted, 20, 68.
Hedgcock, F. A., viii.
Henchman, Bishop, 83.
Henri IV., opinion on the English, 106.
Henrietta of England, her influence at the French Court, 26;
her death, 27.
Henrietta of France, furthers the French influence, 23, 66;
letter to Prince Charles quoted, 41;
meets Charles II. in France, 14.
Henry VII., 23.
Hérault, minister at Alençon, 91 _n._, 95.
Highwayman, French, in England 37.
Hobbes in France, 28.
Holyband. See Saint-Lien.
Horses, English, in France, 74.
Houssaye, Amelot de la, 222.
Howard, 73.
Huguenots, relations with England under Henry VIII., 78;
Elizabeth, 79-80, 90;
the early Stuarts, 80-98;
the Commonwealth, 89-92;
the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and, 101-104;
William of Orange and, 105;
political ideas of, 119-134;
opinion on Episcopacy, 83;
on toleration, 136-139;
become Whigs, 104;
take anglican orders, 104;
bankers and merchants in London, 79, 135;
divine quoted in England, 105.
Huisseau, D', quoted, 85-86, 87-88.
Independents censured by a French Synod, 90.
Inn, interior described, 4;
French inn at Dover, 9;
in London, 12.
James I., 31, 80.
James II., 27, 123, 129.
Jermyn, 23.
Johnson, Dr., on Saint-Evremond, 38.
Jon, Du (Junius), 97.
Jones, Edward, 164.
Journalists, "Dutch," 110;
French, in London, 163-166.
Journey from Paris to London, 3-13.
Jurieu, his life, 97;
opinion on England, 113;
on the Revocation, 129;
on Bossuet, 111;
on toleration, 137-139;
discusses the divine right of kings, 119, 122, 127-129;
his _Pastoral Letters_, 127;
devotional work translated into English, 118;
political works translated, 126.
Jusserand, _French Ambassador at the Court of Charles II._,
quoted, 2, 4, 8, 15, 22, 24;
_Shakespeare en France sous l'ancien régime_ quoted, 19, 77, 152 _n._;
_What to expect of Shakespeare_ quoted, 148;
_Histoire littéraire du peuple anglais_ quoted, 21.
Justel retires to England, 99;
letter to Edward Bernard, 100;
discusses conformity with Saint-Evremond, 100-101;
his character, 99.
Kemps, Englishman, employed by Colbert, 25.
Ken, Bishop, and the Revocation, 103.
Kéroualle, Mlle de, at the Court of Charles II., 24;
a leader of fashion, 70;
what M. Renan thought about her, 70.
King, his _Life of Locke_ quoted, 108.
Lambert, Mme de, 221.
Lambin, viii.
Lanier, N., 23.
Latitudinarians in England and France. See Amyraut, Huisseau, Rationalism,
Saumur.
Lecène, 115.
Lee, Sir Sidney, quoted, 28, 63, 79, 90, 143.
Lefèvre, chemist, 24.
Lefort, inn-keeper, 9.
Leibnitz understands English, 29.
Lenet, his _Mémoires_ quoted, 91.
Lenthal, Speaker, 158.
Libertines in France, 81;
relations with the Huguenots, 82.
Lionne, Hughes de, Secretary of State, 1.
Literature, slight influence in England of French classical, as compared with
devotional and theological literature, 141.
Locke travels in France, 3, 4, 5, 29, 74;
admiration of Barbeyrac for, 29;
conversation of his reported in a Dutch paper, 110;
his works translated by Coste, 176-177;
sale of the _Essay_ in France, 183-184;
anecdotes on, 181-182;
_Original Letters_ quoted, 20;
mentioned by Coste, 190.
Lorthié, minister, denounced by Barillon, 106.
Louis XIV. badly informed by his ambassador, 17;
justified in revoking the Edict of Nantes, according to an
English pamphlet-writer, 103-104;
inquires about England, 75.
Luttrell, _Diary_ quoted, 124.
Luzancy, De, 32, 49-50.
Lyly, 66.
Macaulay, 25.
Maine, Duchesse du, receives presentation copy of Locke's _Essay_, 183.
Maittaire, 34;
letter to Dr. Charlett, 58-59.
Marchand, Prosper, bookseller, 211.
Marconnay, Colonel de, 212.
Marconnay, Mlle de, 207.
Marescq, Du, minister, 168.
Marston, 64.
Marsys, de, 24.
Mary II., 104.
Masham, Lady, 177.
_Mason, La grammaire de_, 34.
Massinger, 69.
Masson, 152 _n._
Mauger, teacher of French, his Grammar quoted, 12, 30, 32, 42-43, 67.
Maupas, teacher of French, 29.
Mayerne, Théodore de, physician to James I. and Charles I., 80, 158.
Mazarin, Cardinal, 2, 26, 74, 155 _n._
Mazarin, Mme de, in England, 97;
her salon at Windsor, 98-99.
Ménard, chaplain to Mary II., 109.
Merlat, Elie, on the divine right of kings, 121-122.
Mersenne, Jesuit, corresponds with Hobbes, 28.
Meurier, Gabriel, teacher of languages, 34.
Mézandieu, René, in the Poultry Office, 25.
Miège, Guy, teacher of French, 30, 72;
extract from _New State of England_, 50-51.
Milliners, French, in England, 70.
Milton, pamphlet translated by John Dury, 32, 153;
mentioned in _Nouvelles ordinaires de Londres_, 152-154;
opinion of Bouhéreau on, 152 _n._;
attacked by Bayle, 152 _n._;
Du Gard prints his pamphlets, 152-153.
Misson, traveller in England, 19, 30, 109, 169.
Moivre, Le, 109.
Montague, Charles, has a French valet, 73.
Montesquieu, 111.
Morales, the Jew, 98.
Moranville writes the _Gazette de Londres_, 163;
in trouble, 165.
More, Sir Thomas, ridicules the imitation of the French, 65.
Moreau de Brazey, author of guide-book, describes Dover, 9;
Rye, 10;
the life of a Frenchman in London, 16.
Morel, Professor L., 143 _n._
Morelli, Cesare, writes to Pepys, 25.
Mornay, Du Plessis, in London, 79;
author of _Vindiciæ contra Tyrannos_, 93.
Mortreuil, viii.
Morus, Alexander, minister, attacked by Milton, 154;
mentioned in _Nouvelles ordinaires de Londres_, 153.
Moryson, Fynes, traveller, 13.
Motte, François de la, letter to Secretary Williamson, 45-46.
Motte, La, "Dutch" journalist, letters to, 178-185.
Mutteux, Pierre, refugee, letter to _Spectator_, 55-56;
song and prologue quoted, 56.
Muralt, traveller, 28.
Nash, 72 _n._
Newcombe, prints _Gazette de Londres_, 163;
in trouble, 165.
Newspapers, "Dutch," 110.
Newspapers, French, in London, 149-166.
Newton, 29, 184.
Normand, Charles, 91.
_Nouvelles ordinaires de Londres_, 154-163.
Ollion, his edition of Locke's _Letters to Thoynard_, 3, 4, 5.
Orange, Prince of. See William III.
Overbury, 69.
Packet-boat, Dover, in the seventeenth century, 5.
Pamphlet-writers, Huguenot, 123;
their influence, 124;
attacked, 124.
Papillon, refugee, sheriff of Middlesex, 96.
Passive obedience, ideas of Huguenots on, 93, 119.
Payen, traveller, 11, 30.
Pays, Le, traveller, 31.
Peletier quoted, 66.
Penry, 90.
Pepys' _Diary_ quoted, 69, 72;
_Correspondence_ quoted, 50.
Perlin, author of guide-book, 30.
Perrot, editor of the _Gazette de Londres_, 163.
Persecuting, Divine right of, 138-139.
Persecutions of Huguenots and Waldenses recorded, 160.
Petre, Father, attacked, 125.
Plomer, letter to _The Athenæum_, 147.
Pope quoted, 107.
Porrée, 32, 91, 92.
Portsmouth, Duchess of. See Kéroualle, Mlle de.
Post-Office in the seventeenth century, 15.
Printers, French, in England, 35.
Prynne, 24.
Puaux, 139.
Puffendorff inquires about an English Dictionary, 29.
Pulton, Andrew, Jesuit, forgets his English, 24.
Puncteus, a French quack, 36.
Puritans, relations with the Huguenots, 90.
Pynson, French printer in England, 35.
Quack, French, in England, 36.
Quakers mentioned by Misson, 30;
in the _Nouvelles ordinaires de Londres_, 159.
Rabelais writes English, 21;
puns in English, 21.
Rainbow coffee-house, 31, 109, 213.
Rationalism in France, 81-88, 115;
in England, 117;
how far encouraged by the refugees, 110, 117.
Refugees, 78-80; 96-100; 104-107;
learn English, 113;
take part in English civil dissensions, 95;
proofs of unpopularity, 79;
why forgotten in France, 141.
Regnault, François, Paris printer, 35.
Renaudot, Abbé, secret agent, 26.
Renneville, refugee, writes about the Bastille, 107.
Reresby, Sir John, and the Frenchmen in Soho, 171.
Revocation of Edict of Nantes, 101;
stir caused in England, 102-104;
far-reaching consequences, 105, 108.
_Revue Critique_, 152 _n._
Reyher, 23.
Richardson, 185.
Robertson, F. G., 152 _n._
Roche, La, 117.
Rohan, Benjamin de, Huguenot leader, 80.
Römer, astronomer, 6.
_Roman de Renart_, 21.
Ronsard visits England, 28.
Rosemond, 106.
Rosin, Frenchman in the employ of the Commonwealth, 151 _n_.
Rousseau, J.-J., quoted, 1, 18.
Rue, De La, gambler, 37.
Sabatier de Castres, Abbé, extols Saint-Hyacinthe, 208.
Sallengre, 211, 215.
Saint-Amant visits England, 28.
Saint-Aulaire, Marquis de, 221.
Saint-Evermond at Windsor, 98-99;
urges Justell to conform, 100-101;
learns no English, 28;
quoted, 33, 117.
Saint-Hilaire writes on England, 26.
Saint-Hyacinthe, birth, 208-209;
adventurous life, 209-227;
in England, 109;
quarrel with Voltaire, 218-217;
letters to La Motte, 218-225;
his _Chef d'oeuvre d'un inconnu_, 211;
becomes a Protestant, 212;
and a Deist, 226;
a posthumous work quoted, 226.
Saint-Lien, teacher of French, 29.
Saintsbury, Professor George, quoted, 142.
Sancroft, Archbishop, interview with Allix, 32;
chooses Colomiès as librarian, 97.
Sandwich, Lord, 69.
Satur, minister, in London, 106.
Saumaise, scholar, attacks the regicides, 92, 150;
answered by Milton, 152.
Saumur, latitudinarian school of, 84-85.
Saurin, divine, on toleration, 139.
_Savile Correspondence_ quoted, 26, 73.
Sayous, 77.
Schélandre in England, writes an epic, 80.
Schickler, _Les églises du refuge_ quoted, 79, 95, 96, 102.
Scott, Eva, quoted, 14, 42.
Sea-sickness, Gourville on, 6;
Locke records unfortunate experiences of a fellow-traveller, 6.
Sedan, orthodox Academy of, 84.
S'Gravesande, 210.
Shadwell, his comedies quoted, 67, 68, 70, 71.
Shaftesbury, the first Earl, 95, 129, 179.
Shaftesbury, the third Earl, 177.
Shakespeare gives evidence before Court of Requests, 145;
lodges in London with the Mountjoys, 146;
his poems printed by Richard Field, 147.
Silvestre helps Saint-Evremond to read Asgill, 32.
Simon, Richard, Hebrew scholar, 82, 93.
Sorbière in England, 16;
relations with Hobbes, 28.
Sourceau, Claude, tailor to the king, 25;
helps to make the coronation robes, 69.
Spenser quoted, 75.
_Spirit of Laws_, Montesquieu's, contrasted with Bossuet's _History of
Variations_, 111.
Suard, 61.
Subtil, 222.
Sully, minister to Henri IV., knows no English, 22.
Swift, 54, 166, 205.
Sylvester translates Du Bartas, 66;
tells how he learned French, 66.
_Synodes, Actes des_. See Aymon.
Tailors, French, in England, 25, 68, 69.
Teachers of French. See Abadie, André, Bellot, Bérault, Bourbon, Boyer,
Cougneau, Denisot, Erondel, Festeau, Mauger, Maupas, Miège, Saint Lien.
Telleen, F., 152 _n._
Texte, 77.
Thoyras, Rapin, 109.
Throckmorton, 90.
Toleration retarded in England by the persecution of the Huguenots, 105;
how practised in France, _c._ 1680, 114;
opinion of Huguenots on, 136-139.
Tonson, 164.
Torcy, 17.
Tories mentioned in _Nouvelles ordinaires de Londres_, 162.
Tourval, L'Oiseau de, teacher of foreign languages, contributes to Colgrave's
_Dictionary_, 34.
Travellers, English, in France. See Burnet, Locke, Moryson (Fynes).
Travellers, French, in England. See Coulon, Muralt, Misson, Moreau de Brazey,
Payen, Pays Le, Perlin.
Upham, A. H., 63, 78.
Val, Du, highwayman, 37.
Valets, French, 73. See also Abbadie, Jean.
Vautrollier, printer, 35, 146.
Vérard, Antoine, printer, 35.
Verneuil, Duc de, ambassador, 8.
Versailles, model of palace exhibited in London, 164.
Veissière, 184.
Viau, Théophile de, 28, 82.
Villien, 27.
Voiture, 28.
Voltaire drags the example of England into his controversies, vii;
at the Rainbow Coffee-house, 31, 213;
quarrels with Saint-Hyacinthe, 213-217;
the latter anticipates him in the use he makes of English models, 227;
letters and verses in English quoted, 59-60;
opinion on the English, 107.
Vossius at Windsor, 67.
Wake, Archbishop, 105.
Waldegrave, 90.
Wallace, Professor C. W., discovers documents on Shakespeare, 144.
Weiss, N., viii.
Wharton, Mrs., 205.
Whigs and refugees, 104, 108.
William III., 105, 123, 127, 131.
Williamson, Secretary, 29, 163;
letter to, 45-46.
Wilmot, accompanies Charles II. in his flight, 13.
Wines, French, 70.
Wordsworth, Ch., 152 _n._
Wyatt, 73.
Yachts, Royal, described, 8.
York, Duchess of (daughter to Lord Clarendon), speaks French, 67.
York, Duke of, 14.
* * * * *
ENGLISH TRAVELLERS OF THE RENAISSANCE
By CLARE HOWARD. With 12 Illustrations. Demy 8vo. Price 7s. 6d. net.
_A good sub-title to this book would be "The Grand Tour
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The Original Memoirs of Elizabeth Baroness Craven, afterwards Margravine of
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_Elizabeth Berkeley, who was born towards the end of the
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wandering through Europe which enabled her to record
personal experiences of Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette,
Frederick the Great, the Empress Catherine, the King and
Queen of Naples, and other Royal and illustrious
personages._
_In 1791 she married the Margrave of Anspach and
Bayreuth. Returning to London she became at
Brandenburgh House and Benham Park, Newbury, the centre
of a great social circle. A little later the Emperor
Francis II. made her a Princess in her own right of the
Holy Roman Empire. For a whole decade the theatricals
and concerts at Brandenburgh House were the talk of the
town. In the year 1806 her husband died. Some fifteen
years later the "Beautiful Lady Craven" settled in
Naples, where she built a delightful palace. There she
died in 1828. Some four years before her death she
published (at the suggestion of Louis XVIII.) her
memoirs. Mr. Broadley and Mr. Melville have discovered
many new facts, a large number of unpublished letters
and MSS. (many of them in Mr. Broadley's collection),
which have enabled them to elaborate an historical
introduction of extraordinary and fascinating
interest._
_The illustrations have been taken from existing
portraits in private and public collections and the
contemporary engravings in Mr. Broadley's possession._
_The authors have received valuable aid from Lady Helen
Forbes--herself a great granddaughter of the Margravine
of Anspach--and many experts in 18th century history.
The book as it now stands forms one of the most
lifelike and absorbingly interesting records of high
life in Europe between 1770 and 1820, which has
appeared during the present century._
MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF ENGLAND IN 1675
By MARIE CATHERINE BARONNE D'AULNOY. Translated from the original French by
Mrs. WILLIAM HENRY ARTHUR. Edited, Revised, and with Annotations (including
an account of Lucy Walter) by GEORGE DAVID GILBERT. With Illustrations.
Demy 8vo. 16s. net.
DAILY TELEGRAPH.--"_The Editor of this work has unearthed a genuine
literary treasure. That it should have lain so long hidden, in its entirety
at least, from English eyes is amazing. The narrative is as graceful as it
is vivid._"
VANITY FAIR.--"_A splendid piece of work, and one that will take high rank
among the best chronicles of the Seventeenth Century._"
WORLD.--"_One of the sprightliest and most entertaining works of the period
that it is possible to read._"
THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH PATRIOTISM
By ESMÉ C. WINGFIELD STRATFORD, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. In 2
vols., with a Frontispiece to each volume (1300 pages). Demy 8vo. 25s. net.
DAILY CHRONICLE.--"_A book which is designed to be a landmark in historical
literature._"
TIMES.--"_Mr. Wingfield-Stratford's book is of great and abiding
interest._"
OUTLOOK.--"_A great achievement, nothing less indeed than the rescue of
history from the hands of the pedant and the archæologist and its
restoration to its true position as a living, emotional art._"
DAILY TELEGRAPH.--"_A work which for fulness at once of range and detail is
little short of astounding._"
JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD
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