20 J- ^- Fontaine, 



use of two auxiliaries also ; but later on they were confined 

 to one, without losing the power of expressing with one 

 auxiliary shades of meaning that seem to require in French 

 the discriminating use of two auxiliaries. Voltaire said in 

 Orphelin de la Chine, II. 3 : — 



Ou serais-je, (irand Dieu ! si ma credulite 

 E(it tombe dans le piege a nies pas presente ! 



Here Voltaire seems to be wrong, because he makes use of 

 the auxiliary avoir with toinber, and toviber cannot take such 

 an auxiliary. So J. J. Rousseau, according to the same gram- 

 marian, was wrong when he said C est aiiisi que la modestie 

 dii sexe est dispariie pen a pen ; because here disparaitre 

 expresses an action, and not a state or condition. The same 

 remarks have been made about the use of auxiliaries with 

 other intransitive verbs, such as perir, echoiier, acconcJier, 

 cesser, dcnienrer, apparaitre, croiti'e, partir, rester, etc. It 

 would take too long to consider these verbs, one by one, and 

 to discuss their special meaning according to the auxiliary 

 with which they are conjugated. I shall only remark that 

 the rules given by the grammarians are not observed in 

 popular usage, where 



II a descendu I'escalier en courant 



or 



II est descendu I'escalier en courant 



.are used indiscriminately, and convey the same meaning. 



The inconsistency of grammarians and the unsatisfactory 

 explanation they have given concerning auxiliaries may serve 

 as an excuse for my trying another explanation, based entirely 

 on the comparison of the modern with the Old French, and 

 for presenting a few considerations on, first, different kinds 

 of verbs ; secondly, the origin of the so-called neuter or 

 intransitive verbs ; and thirdly, the different kinds of neuter 

 verbs. 



First : Different Kinds of Verbs. 



The classification here made of verbs is based on the fol- 

 lowing principle : Every verb is active in its original and 



50 



