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A Note on a Proposal to Establish a College for the Study of English in the Paris of 1814Author(s): Henry ArmstrongSource: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Jan., 1947), pp. 125-126Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3716961 .
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Miscellaneous Notes Miscellaneous Notes
any longer much engaged for any of these characters now. The picture that came alive for a moment is back upon the wall. And those 'ashes cold', the penitential ashes among which the Beadsman slept, suggest also the coldness of his ashes-and many others-now and 'for aye'.
Though the poem will bear scrutiny of many sorts, I cannot think it will bear the sort of scrutiny Mr Wright turns upon it. Do we even know, indeed, that the two old retainers died that very night ? Does the 'That night' of the Baron's bad dreams carry on into the next two sentences, or not? For in stanza three, the Beadsman
all night kept awake, for sinners' sake to grieve.
Shall we decide with scrupulous care that he must have died exactly at dawn? Or admit that when he died is really immaterial?
To sum up: in the first place, any decision as to significance must rest on the total impression of the poem, and to one reader at least Mr Wright's emphasis on the sinister seems disproportionate. Secondly, the last stanza, while not the king-pin of his argument, is important for it. If Keats here meant to suggest a tragic ending, would he have employed a manner so detached and so summary? The huddling up of events here suits best the looking back on a tale already completed and no longer lived in by poet or reader.
And is the question really so crucial? ('The fate of the lovers is the climax of the story.... The point is therefore all-important.') One would almost be prepared to say that if we have accepted the mood of the last stanza it hardly matters what happened to the lovers. The story is over. The rest-from at least 'aye, ages long ago'-is a postscript: like those final chapters of many Victorian novels, which, as somebody has said, satisfy an interest human and natural but not artistic; a post- script which serves also to frame the picture, and to promote, on contemplation, the elegiac mood.
M. WHITELEY GRAHAMSTOWN
A NOTE ON A PROPOSAL TO ESTABLISH A COLLEGE FOR THE STUDY OF ENGLISH IN THE PARIS OF 1814
By the year 1814, the cataclysmal revolution in education, envisaged by Napoleon and embodied in his Imperial University, had been largely carried out in the letter, if not in the spirit. The whole story is one of absorbing interest and is of profound significance in the educational history of France. Here it is desired merely to record one of those personal documents which are so full of fascination to the student of the period.
It was written during the First Restoration by a distinguished servant of France, the Comte Chasseloup-Laubat, to Louis de Fontanes, Grand Master of the Imperial University, poete courtisan, critique fin, orateur disert, partisan politique de l'autel et du trone'.l It is a modest plea for the provision of some facilities in Paris whereby a practical study of English might be made. The letter runs:2
1 Conrnot, A. A., Des Institutions d'Instruction Publique en France (1864), p. 274. 2 Archives Nationales: F17 7504.
any longer much engaged for any of these characters now. The picture that came alive for a moment is back upon the wall. And those 'ashes cold', the penitential ashes among which the Beadsman slept, suggest also the coldness of his ashes-and many others-now and 'for aye'.
Though the poem will bear scrutiny of many sorts, I cannot think it will bear the sort of scrutiny Mr Wright turns upon it. Do we even know, indeed, that the two old retainers died that very night ? Does the 'That night' of the Baron's bad dreams carry on into the next two sentences, or not? For in stanza three, the Beadsman
all night kept awake, for sinners' sake to grieve.
Shall we decide with scrupulous care that he must have died exactly at dawn? Or admit that when he died is really immaterial?
To sum up: in the first place, any decision as to significance must rest on the total impression of the poem, and to one reader at least Mr Wright's emphasis on the sinister seems disproportionate. Secondly, the last stanza, while not the king-pin of his argument, is important for it. If Keats here meant to suggest a tragic ending, would he have employed a manner so detached and so summary? The huddling up of events here suits best the looking back on a tale already completed and no longer lived in by poet or reader.
And is the question really so crucial? ('The fate of the lovers is the climax of the story.... The point is therefore all-important.') One would almost be prepared to say that if we have accepted the mood of the last stanza it hardly matters what happened to the lovers. The story is over. The rest-from at least 'aye, ages long ago'-is a postscript: like those final chapters of many Victorian novels, which, as somebody has said, satisfy an interest human and natural but not artistic; a post- script which serves also to frame the picture, and to promote, on contemplation, the elegiac mood.
M. WHITELEY GRAHAMSTOWN
A NOTE ON A PROPOSAL TO ESTABLISH A COLLEGE FOR THE STUDY OF ENGLISH IN THE PARIS OF 1814
By the year 1814, the cataclysmal revolution in education, envisaged by Napoleon and embodied in his Imperial University, had been largely carried out in the letter, if not in the spirit. The whole story is one of absorbing interest and is of profound significance in the educational history of France. Here it is desired merely to record one of those personal documents which are so full of fascination to the student of the period.
It was written during the First Restoration by a distinguished servant of France, the Comte Chasseloup-Laubat, to Louis de Fontanes, Grand Master of the Imperial University, poete courtisan, critique fin, orateur disert, partisan politique de l'autel et du trone'.l It is a modest plea for the provision of some facilities in Paris whereby a practical study of English might be made. The letter runs:2
1 Conrnot, A. A., Des Institutions d'Instruction Publique en France (1864), p. 274. 2 Archives Nationales: F17 7504.
125 125
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126 Miscellaneous Notes
Paris, le 6 juin, 1814 Ionsieur le Comte, J'ai deux gar9ons au Lycee Louis-le-Grand, et dans quelques mois j'en aurai un
troisieme a sortir de ma maison pour achever ses 6tudes; actuellement que nos relations avec l'Angleterre sont rouvertes, et qu'il sera utile au service de S.M. le Roi de France, que plusieurs de ses sujets parlent l'anglais, ne serait-il pas utile qu'il eut a Paris un College anglais, oi l'on ferait ses 6tudes de latin et de grec comme a nos lycees, mais oi tous les eleves, soit entre eux, soit avec leurs maitres, seraient obliges de parler anglais. I1 me semble que pour 6tablir une semblable maison, il suffirait d'avoir pour chaque classe, deux professeurs et deux salles: l'une pour la premiere annee de chaque classe, serait pour les eleves qui commenceraient presque l'anglais et a qui toutes les explica- tions se donneraient en fran9ais et en anglais; l'autre oul l'on ne parlerait plus qu'anglais dans toutes les explications. Un tel college, ou les maitres de quartier veilleraient a ce que les 1eeves de seconde annee de chaque classe ne parlassent plus fran9ais, serait une petite ville anglaise, au milieu de Paris, qui aurait l'avantage sans deplacement, de rendre familiere une langue dont toute la difficulte est dans la prononciation.
Agreez l'assurance de ma haute consideration, le Cte. Chasseloup-Laubat.
A Monsieur le Comte Fontanes, Pair de France, Grand-Maitre de l'Universite.
The replyl is of equal interest:
Paris, le 18 juin, 1814, Le Senateur, Grand-Maitre de l'Universite
a M. le Cte Chasseloup-Laubat, Pair de France. M. le Comte, j'ai lu avec beaucoup d'interet vos observations sur l'utilite d'un college
specialement destine a l'etude de la langue anglaise. J'ignore encore quelles peuvent etre les intentions du Roi a cet egard, mais je vous prie de croire que votre sentiment sera pris en tres grande considol. lorsque les circonstances me permettront de presenter a S.M. un travail sur les ameliorations dont le systeme d'instruction publique est susceptible.
Agreez, je vous prie, M. le Cte, l'assurance de ma haute consid n
FONTANES.
Alas, the supplicant deserved better treatment from the Grand Master of the
Imperial University. The reply of Fontanes is a very precious model of official
politesse and evasion. Chasseloup-Laubat understood little of the ways of centralized administration of education in post-Revolutionary France, which have, incidentally, a moral for our own day and country. We must be content to imagine the pleasure which Chasseloup-Laubat would have to-day were he alive to see the
sturdy Georgian pile which is the College Franco-Britannique of the Cite Uni- versitaire, now able once again, after the nightmare of enemy occupation, to open its doors in welcome to English residents.
HENRY ARMSTRONG READING
1 Archives Nationales: F17 7504.
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