INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH EDITION 15

have been asking too much, and indeed an impossibility. They have been, too, the two European literatures whose value is undisputed, and whose splendours have passed and re-passed with the greatest facility and the smallest loss from the one to the other. Consequently the saying of Pliny the Younger may be appropriately quoted: "O pulchras vices."

E. F.

Literary History of France

PART I

THE MIDDLE AGES

CHAPTER I

THE ORIGINS OF FRENCH LITERATURE

FRENCH Literature dates its birth from the hour that the French race, after having spoken the Celtic tongue for a prolonged period and the Latin for a somewhat briefer one, began once again to use a tongue, or rather many tongues, distinguishable from the speech in common use in Germany, England, Italy, and Spain, that gradually developed into the French language. This moment of transformation must be assigned to the ninth century, certainly not earlier. At the same time we must go still further back and note how, from the first invasion of the barbarians, the language spoken in Gaul began gradually to detach itself from Latin, therein taking the first step in its evolution into a national language; and in this evolution we have the beginnings of French Literature. In 400 A.D. the Gauls, even in the country districts, spoke only the Latin tongue, the only exceptions being the Armoricans (Bretons) and some of the cantons in the Pyrenees. Gaul had been completely Romanised in this as in many other respects. The great universities, com

pletely Latinised, of Lyons, Bordeaux, Autun, and Rheims, had spread the Latin tongue and the Latin literature throughout the whole nation.

Some of the most celebrated of the Latin writers during the first four centuries after Christ were Gauls. Domitius Afer, the master of Quintilian, came from Nîmes; Marcus Aper, author of "The Dialogue of Orators," was a Gaul; Favorinus, the master of Aulus Gellius, was a native of Arles; Ausonius, of Bordeaux; Numantianus was a Gaul; St. Paulin de Nole came from Bordeaux; Sulpicius Severus, from Aquitaine; St. Hilaire, from Poitiers; St. Prosper, from Aquitaine; and Sidonius Apollinaris, who preached in Latin at Bourges, was a native of Lyons. St. Avitus, preaching once at Lyons, apologised for having made a false quantity.

In this way was developed the language known as Low Latin, which was not a corrupt Latin, but a Latin that was a mingling of the classical Latin with which we are familiar and the speech, also Latin, of the soldiery, the veterans, and the Roman working people, with the addition in Gaul of several Celtic words, the remains of the ancient national idiom.

This language was not destroyed, and was scarcely altered, by the German invasion. The Franks, as a rule, showed themselves quite ready to assimilate the common Latin tongue. The Teutonic Franks in the North were somewhat inimical to it; but the Neustrian Franks, who were far more numerous, quickly yielded to its influence. The Germanic element has given to our language some seven hundred and fifty words only, to which number must be added about five hundred introduced at a later period by the Normans.

Low Latin was was not destroyed. It died out gradually because the civilisation of which it was the expression no longer flourished amongst us, or, indeed, anywhere. St. Gregory of Tours in the sixth century, and Mamert Claudius even earlier, in the fifth, had deplored the decay of noble Latin. But at the end of the sixth century Gregory the Great almost prides himself that he does not speak pure Latin, and he refuses to submit to the rules of philology laid down by the grammarian Donat. By the beginning of the

SOURCES OF FRENCH LITERATURE

19

seventh century the last rhetoricians (professors of the Latin language and literature) are merely schoolmasters (præceptores), and pure Latin has been given an asylum in the monasteries.

But, unlike the universities, the monasteries were closed bodies which preserved traditions but diffused nothing. Moreover, "Romance" soon took the place of "Low Latin." "Romance" itself was corrupt Latin, and developed into a new language, having its own rules, idioms, and syntax, in the same way that the Teutonic language on the other side of the Vosges Mountains had. It was said in the eighth century of a polyglot of that time that he spoke three tongues equally well-" Romana," or the Roman tongue; "Latina," or Low Latin; "Teutonica," or old Germanwhich shows clearly that Romance was distinguished equally from Low Latin and from German. The oldest records of this Romance tongue are found in the "Glossary of the Abbey of Reichenau," the "Oath of Louis the German" at Strasbourg in 842 A.D., and the Cantilène of St. Eulalia (about 880 A.D.). Under the Carlovingian dynasty Romance developed still more, and rapidly eliminated the Teutonic element. The scholars were compelled to go to Germany to study the Teutonic language. Hugh Capet, a little later, is obliged to have an interpreter to negotiate with Otho II., and probably he owed his crown largely to the fact that he could only speak the national language, and knew nothing of any other.

It must be remembered—indeed, it is a familiar fact—if we wish to distinguish precisely between Latin and Teutonic, that "Romance" was not one language; it was composed of many dialects-Italian, Spanish, Provençal, Languedoc, French, Burgundian, &c. And among all the dialects spoken in the territory of France itself, two large main groups are distinguishable—those dialects spoken north of the Loire, in which "oui" was pronounced as "oil," and those spoken south of the Loire, in which "oui" was pronounced as "oc." Dante, in his work "De Vulgari Eloquio," reviewing these two great groups and also Italian, says some say "oil," some “oc,” and others "si" (for the word "yes"). Henceforth we get the