The Anglo-French Entente in the Seventeenth Century

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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 Themiseul, 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 Bibliotheque Nationale, to whose unfailing kindness I owe much; and to M. Weiss, the courteous and learned librarian of the Bibliotheque de la Societe pour l'histoire du protestantisme francais. 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 Francais du dix-septieme Siecle_ 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 THEMISEUL 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 attaches, 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 Roemer: "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 _Traite 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 Fecamp. 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'Orleans 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 archaeologists 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, _Repub. 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 a 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] _Memoires de Gourville_, p. 539 (1663).

[12] _Fidele 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] _Angliae Notitia_, ii. p. 254 (1684).

[23] This Bernard or Benard 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] Sorbiere, _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 _Memoires_ 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 Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth, the King's mistress; Louis de Duras, Earl of Feversham, commanded one of the regiments of guards; Nicolas Lefevre, sometime professor of chemistry in Paris, was at the head of the Royal laboratory; Blondeau engraved the English coins; Fabvolliere 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 Rene Mezandieu, 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: "Pere 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 Abbe 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'Orleans, 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 Grevin, Brantome.[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, Theophile 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 confreres. 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 Sorbiere, 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'universite 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 Andre 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 Miege,[76] Paul Festeau, "maitre de langues a Londres,"[77] d'Abadie,[78] Pierre Berault, "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). Sorbiere 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 Basilike_ was due to Porree and Cailloue, 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, Francois 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 Miege, 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 Miege 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 declinaisons 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 Verard, 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 Francois 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] _Memoires et observations faites par un voyageur en Angleterre_, 1698.

[39] _Adv. and Ref. of Mod. Poetry_, Ep. dedic.

[40] _Bibliotheque 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 litteraire du peuple anglais_, i. p. 149 n.

[44] _Pantagruel_, iii. ch. xlvii.

[45] _L'honnete homme ou l'art de plaire a 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] _Memoires de Mlle de Montpensier_, i. pp. 126, 211.

[53] Jusserand, _French Ambassador_, p. 203.

[54] _Proces de Charles I., traduit de l'anglois, par le Sieur de Marsys, interprete et maistre pour la langue francoise du Roy d'Angleterre._

[55] _Angliae 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, memoires et instructions de Colbert_, vii. p. 372.

[59] Savile, _Correspondence_, p. 112.

[60] A. Villien, _L'abbe 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 Francois 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 a 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, Meric 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.]

Francois 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.

[Francois 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 _Cyropaedia_ 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 Miege

_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 Miege, a refugee who continued, under William III., Chamberlayne's _Angliae 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 Alencon 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 Pere 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 Francais au XVIIe Siecle_, 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 _use_, 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 _Memoires 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 Keroualle 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, fricasses," 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 Miege 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 francaise en Angleterre au XVIIe Siecle_.

[107] _Scornful Lady_, Act I. Sc. 1.

[108] Chalmers, _English Poets_, v. p. 506.

[109] "Et Gallice linguam sonat Britannicam, Et Gallice omnem, praeter unam Gallicam, Nam Gallicam solam sonat Britannice."

_Thomae 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 Britanniae_, Venice, 1548. "Aulae 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 a 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; Miege, _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, Memoires 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 Theodore Mayerne, Pierre Du Moulin, the minister at Charenton. In the train of the scholars came over the men of letters, among them Jean de Schelandre, 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 Cevennes 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, abbes 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 Reunion du Christianisme ou la maniere 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 Daille's attitude towards the Fathers. Published in 1632, his _Traite de l'emploi des Saints-Peres pour le jugement des differends 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 matieres 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 Condes 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 Vitre (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, Porree 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 Basilike_ had a great success in France, two translations penned by Huguenots appearing, that of Denys Cailloue[173] in 1649, that of Porree[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 regiae 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 Daille, 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 _Vindiciae 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 Fremont 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 _Defense de la Religion reformee 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 Herault, the minister of Alencon, 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'etat_, 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, Colomies, 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'Hopital 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 Menard.[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