FRANCE. (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.) 



287 



account of the state, it is now very simple. The mu- 

 nicipal constitutions remained, as we have already 

 mentioned, in entire and intentional neglect under 

 the Bourbons. From 1814, the councils of the com- 

 munes were not regularly appointed. (See De I' Or- 

 ganisation de la Puissance Civile dans Unteret Mo- 

 narcAique, Paris, 1820.) The old laws were silently 

 permitted to become obsolete, and new ones were 

 not substituted. Ministers could never agree on this 

 nice point, as it necessarily brought aristocratic or 

 democratic principles into collision. No impartial 

 observer can overlook the great difference between 

 the French before the revolution and after it, the 

 frivolity of the ancien regime, and the manly spirit 

 of the French of the present day, so clearly mani- 

 fested during the long struggle, which they have 

 maintained ever since the restoration of the Bour- 

 l>ons, and most strikingly during the glorious days of 

 July, 1830. Language, manners, literature, every 

 thing, has taken a more manly character. 



French Language. The Celtic, remnants of which 

 were long preserved in Brittany, was the language of 

 the Gauls. After the conquest of the country by the 

 Romans, under Julius Caesar, Latin became the pre- 

 dominant language. On the overthrow of the West- 

 ern Roman empire, this language was corrupted 

 partly in its pronunciation by Teutonic organs, and 

 partly by the mixture of words and expressions ori- 

 ginally Prankish, Burgundian, Ostrogothic, or Visi- 

 gothic. This corrupt language was called the Ro- 

 mance, and was divided into two branches. They 

 are denominated from their respective terms for ex- 

 pressing yes. The Southern, or langue d'Oc (dialect 

 of Oc, Occitanic dialect), and the Northern, spoken 

 north of the Loire, or langue d'Oui or d Oil, from the 

 latter of which the modern French language is de- 

 rived. In the beginning of the twelfth century, 

 Raymond de St Gilles, count of Provence, united the 

 south of France under one government, and gave the 

 whole the name of Provence. From that period, 

 the two dialects were called the Provencal and the 

 French. The former, though much changed, is still 

 the dialect of the common people in Provence, Lan- 

 guedoc, Catalonia, Valencia, Majorca, Minorca, and 

 Sardinia. In the thirteenth century, the northern, or 

 Norman French dialect, which was much more pro- 

 saic than the former, gained the ascendency. This 

 was partly owing to the influence of the Conteurs, 

 who roamed into all parts of the country, but chiefly 

 to the circumstance that Paris became the centre of 

 refinement, philosophy, and literature for all France. 

 The langue d'Oui was deficient, from its origin, in 

 that rhythm, which exists in the Italian and Spanish 

 languages. It was formed rather by an abbreviation 

 than by a harmonious transformation of the Latin. 

 The Franks and Normans deprived the Latin words 

 of their characteristic terminations, substituting, in 

 their stead, the obscure German vowel, which was 

 afterwards entirely dropped in conversation, and re- 

 tained only in singing and orthography. With the 

 exception of these differences, the French Romance 

 dialect was formed on the same grammatical model 

 as the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. A regular 

 accentuation of syllables, according to their quantity, 

 was at first preserved ; but the metrical character of 

 the language was gradually lost. The French thus be- 

 came more accustomed to a rhetorical measure than 

 to poetical forms. The nature of the language itself 

 led them to eloquence rather than poetry, and their 

 natural liveliness contributed essentially to encourage 

 nice dialectics. Francis I. established a professor- 

 ship of the French language at Paris, in 1539, and 

 banished Latin from the courts of justice and public 

 documents. Cardinal Richelieu, by establishing the 

 (Academic Francaise, or des Qnarante), in 



1635, carried the language to a higher degree of 

 perfection. The French academy became the su- 

 preme tribunal both for the language and literature. 

 It put an end to the arbitrary power of usage, and 

 fixed the standard of pure French ; but it deprived 

 genius of its prerogative of extending the dominion 

 of the mind over the language. Nothing was ap- 

 proved by the academy unless it was received at 

 court, and nothing was tolerated by the public which 

 had not been sanctioned by the academy. The lan- 

 guage now acquired the most admirable precision, 

 and thus recommended itself, not only as the lan- 

 guage of science and diplomacy, but of society, ca- 

 pable of conveying the most discriminating observa- 

 tions on character and manners, and the most deli- 

 cate expressions of civility which involve no obliga- 

 tion. Hence its adoption, as the court language, in 

 so many European countries. But when fancy or 

 deep feeling sought utterance, then genius was com- 

 pelled to yield to the despotic laws wliich rejected 

 every turn that was proscribed at court and by the 

 courtly academy. In the reign of Louis XIV., the 

 superiority of the French writers, the custom of visit- 

 ing France, and the great number of refugees and 

 French instructers in other countries, contributed to 

 render the language universal. From 1735, it also 

 became the common language of diplomacy on the 

 continent of Europe. During and since the revolu- 

 tion of 1789, new words and turns have been intro- 

 duced, many of which have become a part of the 

 language (of the revolutionary words and phrases, a 

 particular dictionary exists by Snetlage). Among 

 the dictionaries of the French language, tliat of the 

 academy holds the first rank. It first appeared in 

 1694 (two vols. folio), and has since been repeatedly 

 republished (last edition, 1825, 2 vols. 4to). Those 

 of Richelet (new edition by Goujet), Fureti&re (new 

 edition by Basnage, Beauval, and La Riviere), Tre- 

 voux, and Boiste, deserve to be mentioned. For the 

 inquirer into the old French dialect, the Recherches 

 des Antiquites de la Langue Francaise, ou Diction- 

 naire Gaulois, par P. B. (Pierre Borelle, Paris, 

 1667, 4to), is interesting. Among the best gram- 

 matical treatises are the grammars of Wailly, Re- 

 staut, De Laveaux, Mozin, Levizac, Le Tellier, and 

 Duvivier's Grammaire des Grammaires, &c. Gi- 

 rard's Dictionary of Synonymes (new editions by 

 D' Olivet, by Bauzee, and considerably augmented by 

 Roubaud), is an excellent work. 



French Literature. Although Charlemagne liad 

 done much for the advancement of learning, yet, at 

 the time when Dante was laying the foundation of a 

 classical national literature in Italy, the French had 

 made less progress hi literature than the Spanish and 

 Portuguese. The north and south of France were 

 entirely distinct in their literatures until the sixteenth 

 century. The Normans, who contributed much to 

 give a new impulse to the imagination of the Euro- 

 pean nations in general, exercised a decided influ- 

 ence upon the north of France ; they carried the love 

 of the wonderful along with them from their native 

 land ; their imagination was bold and inventive, 

 rather than tender and glowing. They were va- 

 liant, rather than enthusiastic. They were fond of 

 heroic, wonderful, and merry tales, and their songs 

 were composed in quite a different style and metre 

 from those of the southern French. In these the 

 Provengals preserved a character akin to that of the 

 Italians. The art of the Troubadours flourished long 

 before poetry awoke in the north of France. But 

 when the French monarchy fixed its centre in the 

 metropolis of Paris, the north acquired the ascend- 

 ency, while the poetry of the Provencals sank into 

 oblivion. Their literature belongs to the history of 

 the middle ages. The same romantic spirit, which 



