[From The Week, 24th Nov., 1893.] 



FRENCH IN A BRITISH COLONY. 



LES ETATS DE JERSEY ET LA LANGUE FRANCAISE. 



Under the above suggestive caption, M. Faucher de 

 Saint-Maurice, F. E. S. C, has added an other to his 

 interesting and elegantly written volumes on Canadian 

 history and others kindred subjects ; the safe-guarding 

 of the French tongue in Canada, M. Faucher evidently 

 thinks a live issue. Dear indeed, to every nationality 

 is its language, even in places where, through lapse of 

 time, isolation or political exigency, it has became cor- 

 rupted from its pristine purity. Jersey and Guernsey 

 are no exceptions. The industrious islanders, though 

 staunch and loyal subjects of Britain, and, as protestants, 

 one with her in faith, have not by any means forgotten 

 or eschewed the language of their forefathers in old 

 France. They are still, as Ansted .says. " Normans, 

 but Normans of the old school, though a Jerseyman 

 would not like to be called a Norman. " 



A few years ago they plainly showed their earnest 

 attachment to Norman customs, long since obsolete 

 elsewhere, by resuscitating the famous " Clameur de 

 Uaro" of the days of Charlemagne, to obstruct a 

 scheme of public improvement. 



Mr. Faucher's book goes to show how they have very 

 recently evinced their partiality, between the two 

 spoken languages of the islands, for that of their near 

 neighbor, France ; he does not, however, allude to the 

 not very distant epoch, after the barbarous raid in the 



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