360 THE STUDY OF FRENCH IN FOREIGN UNIVERSITIES. 



Fauchet* and Etienne Pasquierf . Prominent between these two 

 stands the admirable Charles Ducange. the author of the bulky 

 Glossarium mediae et infimae Latinitatis. a work that has been 

 world-famous ever since its publication. 



Nor should we forget that the Benedictines, the only erudites 

 of the Middle Ages, had then been working away for a consider- 

 able time at their monumental " Histoire litterairc dc France." a 

 work the continuation of which was taken in hand as recently as 

 a little over eighty years ago, by the " Academie des Inscriptions 

 et Belles-Lettres." Likewise it deserves mention that towards the 

 end of the eighteenth century, one Barbazan, and after him Meon, 

 Jubinal and others published fragments of ancient texts, selected 

 preferably from popular literature; and that in 1808 the once 

 famous grammarian, Roquefort, personally approached Napoleon 

 I. with his " Lexique roman," of which both title and contents 

 amazed the Emperor to a considerable extent. However, these 

 works went by unnoticed and, neither in the world of letters nor 

 in the University, did they meet with a responsive echo. It is 

 quite probable that the absurd traditions, according to which 

 French was said to be the offspring of Celtic, of Greek, of 

 German, nay, even of Hebrew, were at that time no longer credited 

 in France; but it is a fact that no objection was raised against 

 spreading abroad an obiter dictum of Scaliger, in which this great 

 philologist had confidently asserted that the French. Italian, and 

 Spanish languages were merely " des avortons du latin." And 

 even as late as 1854, Littre, the author of the famous " Diction- 

 naire," actually wrote down: " chez nous beaucoup savent le 

 latin, quelqucs-uns le grcc. trcs peu le vieux francais." J 



This strange indifference in French scholars with regard to the 

 past of their language and literature may find a plausible explana- 

 tion, first, in the constantly revived influence, which the classical 

 renascence has never ceased to exercise in France on both letters 

 and studies ; and, secondly, in the naturally profound and all 

 but exclusive veneration in which the masterworks of the seven- 

 teenth century have ever been held. Further, the great revolu- 

 tion, which, preaching overthrow and renewal in all things, was 

 sadly unfit to carry the popular mind back to the literary glory 

 of the Middle Ages, comes in for its share, as finally does the 

 authority of the brilliant scholars, who represented and con- 



* Claude Fauchet, 1530-1601, creator of the history of literature: 

 Antiquitez Gauloises et Francoises (1579-1601); Recueil de l'Origine 

 de. la Langue et Poesie Franchise. 



t Etienne Pasquier, 1529-1615: Recherches de la France ("1560) 

 especially Book VII. and VIII.: studies on the origin of the language and 

 literary history. 



J J. Perion : Joachimi Perionii dialogorum de linguae GalUcac origine 

 ejusque cum Graec-a cognatione libri quatuor, 1554. Henri Etienne: Trai.fr 

 de la conformite du langage francois avec le grec. Guichard: Harmonie 

 etymologique des langues; and along with him Thomassin : Glossarium 

 universale hebraicum. They derived all modern languages from Hebrew. 

 Duclos and La Ravaliere maintained that French is a mixture of Latin 

 and Celtic. 



