HISTOIRE DE L'ACADEMIE FRAN?OISE: avec un Abregé des Vies du Cardinal de Richelieu, Vaugelas, Corneille, Ablancourt, Mezerai, Voiture, Patru, la Fontaine, Boileau, Racine Et autres Illustres Academiciens qui la Composent.

A La Haye, MDCLXXXVIII.

It is not often, in these days, when the pastime of bibliography is reduced to a science, that one is rewarded, as one so often was a quarter of a century ago, by picking up an unregarded treasure on the bookstalls. But the other day I really had a pleasant little "find," and it was the reward of virtue. It came of having a tender heart. My eye caught what Mr. Austin Dobson would call "a dear and dumpy twelve," lying open upon other books, face downward, in the most ignominious posture. I saw at a glance, from the tooling on its faded and half-broken back, that it was French and of the seventeenth century, and that somebody had prized it once. I could read the lettering Académ. Franc., and I gave the pence which were wanted for it. It proved a most rewarding little volume. It was published at The Hague in 1688, and it was a new edition of the Histoire de l'Académie Fran?aise. A preface says that "for the honour of our nation" (the French, presumably, not the Dutch), the publisher has thought it proper to issue an edition "more correct and more elegant" than has hitherto been seen, brought down to date with many new and curious pieces. Among other things, the said publisher thinks that "the English will not be displeased to see the Panegyric" of King Louis XIV. "admirably rendered in their language by a Person of their Nation." But what immediately caught my attention, and filled me with delight, was an absolutely contemporary account, written specially for this 1688 edition, of the great quarrel between the French Academy and the Abbé Furetière. Of this I propose to speak to-day.

We live in an age of Dictionaries and Encyclopedias, which we look upon as universal panaceas for culture. There was a similar rage for dictionaries in France two hundred and fifty years ago. We may very rapidly remind ourselves that the French Academy was constituted in 1634 with thirty-five members, who became the stationary and immortal Forty in 1639. One of its original functions was the preparation of a great Dictionary of the French language, under the special care of the eminent grammarian, Vaugelas, who had through his lifetime made collections—"various beautiful and curious observations," as Pellisson calls them—towards a reasoned philological study of French. The poet Chapelain was appointed a sort of general editor of the projected Dictionary, which was solemnly started early in 1638. For the next four years the Academicians were very active, spurred on by Richelieu, but when, in 1642, the Cardinal died, their zeal relented, and when, in 1650, Vaugelas's presence ceased to urge them forward, it flagged altogether. Vaugelas died bankrupt, and his creditors seized his writing-desks, the drawers of which contained a great part of the MS. collections for the Dictionary. It was only after a lawsuit that the Academy recovered those papers, and Mézeray was then set to continue the editing of the work. Still twice a week the Academy met to consult about the Dictionary, but so languidly and with so little fire, that Boisrobert said that not the youngest of the Forty could hope to live to print the letter G. As a matter of fact, not one of those who started the Dictionary lived to see it published.

In this slow fashion, with long Rip Van Winkle slumbers and occasional faint awakenings, the French Academy faltered on with fitful persistence towards the completion of its famous Dictionary. But, as I have said, it was a period of great enthusiasm about all such summaries of knowledge, and Paris was thirsting for grammars, lexicons, inventories of language and the like. The Academy insisted that the world must wait for the approach of their vast and lumbering machine; but meanwhile public curiosity was impatient, and all sorts of brief and imperfect dictionaries were issued to satisfy it. The publication of these spurious guides to knowledge infuriated the Academy, until in 1674 the dog permanently occupied the manger by inducing the King to issue a decree "forbidding all printers and publishers to print any new dictionary of the French language, under any title whatsoever, until the publication of that of the French Academy, or until twenty years have expired since the proclamation of the present decree." This cut the ground from under the feet of all rivals, and the Academy could meet twice a week as before and mumble its definitions with serene assurance. From this false security it was roused by the incident which my "dumpy twelve" recounts.

It was from the very heart of their own body that the great attack upon their privileges unexpectedly fell upon the Academicians. In 1662 they had elected (in the place of De Boissat, a very obscure original member) the Abbé of Chalivoy, Antoine Furetière. This man, born in Paris of poor parents in 1619, had raised himself to eminence as an Orientalist and grammarian, and was welcomed among the Forty as likely to be particularly helpful to them in their Dictionary work. He was probably one of those men whose true character does not come out until they attain success. But no sooner was Furetière an Immortal than he began to distinguish himself in unanticipated ways. He proved himself an adept in parody and satire, and so long as he contented himself with laughing at people like Charles Sorel, the author of Francion, who had no friends, the Academicians were calm and amused, But Furetière was not merely the author of that extremely amusing medley, Le Roman Bourgeois (1666), which still holds its place in French literature as a minor classic, but he was also a real student of philology, and one of those who most ardently desired to see the settlement of the canon of French language. It incensed him beyond words that his colleagues dawdled so endlessly over their committees and their definitions. He began to make collections of his own, no doubt at first with the perfectly loyal intention of adding them to the common store. Meanwhile he lashed the rest of the Academy with his tongue. Other Academicians did this also, such men as Patru and Boisrobert, but they had not Furetière's nasty way of ............