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 A MANUAL OF FRENCH PROSODY. 
 
MANUAL OF FRENCH PROSODY 
 
 FOR THE USE OF ENGLISH 
 
 STUDENTS. 
 
 ARTHUR GOSSET, 
 
 FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFOKD. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET, 
 
 COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 1884. 
 s 
 
Gr 
 
 CHISWICK PRESS:— t, WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, 
 CHANCERY LANE. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IT has for some time seemed to me singular that English 
 boys should be expected to read and appreciate French 
 verse by the light of the intelhctus sibi permissus ; while no 
 one dreams of applying the same system, or rather want of 
 system, to the study of Sophocles or Catullus. Doubtless the 
 Greek and Latin metres are more intricate than the French ; 
 yet it may be questioned, on the other hand, whether they 
 are not more natural to the English ear. At any rate, it may 
 safely be asserted that French prosody, being untaught, re- 
 mains in most cases unknown, and French verse continues 
 to be to the French-reading and French-speaking English- 
 man a mysterious kind of prose. 
 
 There are excellent French treatises on versification, 
 notably those of Pierre Richelet, M. Napoleon Landais, 
 M. de Banville, and M. Mainard, on which the present 
 little book is principally based. But from the standpoint 
 of an Englishman, still more of an English boy, these 
 books are at once inadequate and over-elaborate. They 
 lack the explanations required by the foreigner, whose ear 
 is attuned to other combinations; they enter into details 
 of taste unnecessary to a beginner ; and they are tainted 
 with the party spirit of the controversy between Classicism 
 and Romanticism. 
 
 This little book pretends to no originality save in its 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 object, which is to teach English readers of French poetry 
 what the rules of that poetry are. 
 
 If any critic should object, that I am too dogmatic about 
 controverted points, especially of current French pronun- 
 ciation, I must plead the limited space, which did not 
 admit of my stating in full views I did not accept, however 
 long I may have hesitated, or however doubtful I may have 
 felt in deciding against them. 
 
 Arthur Gosset. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Chap. I. Quantity 
 
 II. Accent 
 
 III. Definition of a French Verse . 
 
 IV. Of the Assonant Vowel 
 
 V. Of the Terminations of Verses, and of Masculine and 
 
 Feminine Verses and Rhymes 
 VI. Termination continued. Sequel. Consonance 
 
 VII. Support. Resonance 
 
 VIII. Further remarks on Rhyme 
 
 IX. How to Count the Syllables in the Body of the Verse 65 
 
 X. The Scanning of Diphthongs .... 
 XI. The Different Verses possible in French . 
 XII. Of certain fixed Forms of French Poetry . 
 XIII. On some Miscellaneous Points of Pronunciation, Die 
 tion, and Style 
 
 ERRATUM. 
 P. 89, last line, for Cariiies read Camles. 
 
 3 
 10 
 
 13 
 
 19 
 
 34 
 45 
 61 
 
 78 
 84 
 95 
 
 108 
 
MANUAL OF FRENCH PROSODY FOR THE 
 USE OF ENGLISH STUDENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 QUANTITY. 
 
 THE differences of quantity between French syllables 
 are far too slight to admit of metres being founded on 
 them, as in Greek and Latin. Therefore it may be laid 
 down, that French Versification is not Quantitative. 
 The difference of length between two French syllables 
 containing the same vowel sound is not sufficient to prevent 
 their rhyming. Thus the second syllables of the words 
 abaisse, promesse, contain the same vowel sound, open e, 
 but the spelling ai is supposed to indicate a slightly longer 
 pronunciation than the spelling e. Yet the following is a 
 good rhyme (Racine, Andromaque, iv. 5) : — 
 
 Est-il juste, apris tout, qu'un conquerant s'abajsse 
 Sous la servile loi de garder sa prom/fsse? 
 
 Some theorists forbid rhymes between syllables, whose 
 difference of length is marked by a circumflex accent. The 
 distinction of quantity between the vowel sound a in the first 
 syllables of &me and femme is greater than that between 
 
Manual of French Prosody. 
 
 abaisse and promesse. However, the practice of poets of 
 
 every school sanctions such rhymes. 
 
 La peur d'un vain remords trouble cette grande &ras : 
 EUe flotte, elle hesite ; en un mot, elle est femme. 
 
 Racine, Atkalie, iii. 3. 
 
 Si je ne vous vois pas comma une belle fcmme 
 
 Marcher, vous bien porter, 
 Rire, et si vous semblez etre une petite dms 
 
 Qui ne veut pas rester, 
 
 V. Hugo, V Annie Terrible. Novemlre, x. 
 
 The French distinguish the quantity of different vowel 
 sounds by calling them more or Issifull. Thus oti, ui, and 
 open e are more full than oi ; oi is more full than i, or a, 
 or u ; and these last than acute e, which is the thinnest of 
 the French sonorous vowels. This distinction leads to 
 certain differences in the amount of support which these 
 vowels require to enable them to form rhymes. See 
 Chapter VII. 
 
 Mute e, even when fully pronouncedj as in the pronoun le 
 after imperatives {donnez-le, rendez-le, Sic), is short compared 
 with all sonorous vowels, and absolutely incapable of forming 
 a rhyme. However, the differences in pronunciation caused 
 by the mute syllables fall rather under the head of accent, 
 to which we will pass. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 ACCENT. 
 
 THERE are two opinions as to the accentuation of 
 French words, which has nothing to do with the signs 
 
 ", called accents in French grammars, and used to supply the 
 want of letters to express all the actual vowel sounds. One is, 
 that there is no distinction in point of accent between diffe- 
 rent French syllables, except (a) the great difference between 
 a mute syllable, as the first of serai and the second of park, 
 and a sonorous syllable, as the second of serai and the first 
 oiparle ; (b) the much smaller difference between a syllable 
 followed by a sonorous, and a syllable followed by a mute 
 syllable. Thus inje te park parfois, the mute syllable je is 
 accented as compared with the mute te, because /« is, and te 
 is not followed by a mute syllable. For the same reason the 
 sonorous syllable par is accented rather in park than in 
 parfois. 
 
 The other opinion admits between sonorous syllables 
 not followed by mute ones a difference in favour of those 
 which end words. According to this, in parfois the second 
 syllable fois is accented rather than the first par. As a 
 matter of history this is, no doubt, correct, but it may be 
 questioned whether this accent really survives in modern 
 French. 
 
 What is much more important for our purpose, than to 
 
Manual of 
 
 decide between these opinions, is to remark that the fact of 
 disagreement is the best possible proof of the vagueness and 
 slightness of the French tonic accent. An Englishman 
 accustomed to what the French call the violent English 
 accent, and to a system of versification depending on it, 
 will go little, if at all, wrong in accepting the simple state- 
 ment of some authors, that French is une langue homotone, 
 an accentless language. At any rate, unlike English verse, 
 French Verse is not Accentual. 
 
 It follows from this, that French Verse is properly 
 measured not 'Wj feet or beats, but by syllables. And it must 
 be possible to say of any French line with certainty, how 
 many metrical syllables it contains. This is best shown by 
 actual comparison. 
 
 Mr. Swinburne's Hymn to Proserpine, and La Fontaine's 
 Dedication of his Fables to the Dauphin are both written 
 in couplets, or as the French say rimes plates, in which 
 every line is of the same metrical length. But Mr. Swinburne 
 would never think of telling us how many syllables there 
 were in his lines, but only how many beats or metrical accents 
 — in this case six. And in fact the first line of his poem 
 contains sixteen, the second fourteen syllables. 
 
 I have lived long enou'gh, having se'en one thi'ng, that lov'e has an 
 
 e'nd : 
 Go'ddess and mo'ther and que'en, be ne'ar me noV and befri'end. 
 
 On the other hand, La Fontaine would have told us that 
 he was writing in Alexandrines or twelve-syllabled lines. 
 And his Dedication must therefore contain nothing but lines 
 in which neither more nor less than twelve metrical syllables 
 
French Prosody. 
 
 (according to the rules of Prosody to be given hereafter) 
 are to be found. 
 
 Je I chan- 1 -te ] les | W- 1 -ros | don- 1 -t E- 1 -so- 1 -pe est | le ] pere ; 
 Trou- 1 -pe 1 de I qui | This- 1 -toi-| -re, en- 1 -cor | que 1 men- 1 -son- 1 -gire, 
 Con- 1 -tient [des | v^- 1 -ri- 1 -tds ] qui,| ser- 1 -vent | de | le- 1 -90ns. 
 Tout|par-|-le en|mon|(n)ou-]-vra-|-ge, et|niS-|-me|les|pois-l-sons : 
 
 If a verse could be found containing eleven or thirteen 
 metrical syllables, the whole poem would fall to the ground 
 and collapse into prose. 
 
 A French poem need not be written throughout in lines 
 of the same metrical length. Thus the Fables of La Fon- 
 taine are written in what are called Vers Litres, and the very 
 first of them contains a line of three syllables, — 
 
 Tout I'et^ 
 
 which has no line of corresponding length in the whole 
 fable. Wordsworth's poem, " My heart leaps up when I 
 behold," has also the line, — 
 
 A ra'inbow i'n the sk'y, 
 
 without any other of corresponding metrical length, three 
 beats. 
 
 But the same line preceded by and— 
 
 And a ra'inbow i'n the sk'y, 
 
 would Still be a verse of the same metrical length ; whereas 
 Et tout r^t^, 
 
 is a four-syllabled line, and essentially and inevitably diffe- 
 rent in metrical length from 
 
 Tout I'ete. 
 
Manual of 
 
 It is true that the words, " And a rainbow in the sky," may 
 
 be so pronounced as to make a verse of different metrical 
 
 length, — 
 
 A'nd a ra'inbow i'n the sk'y- 
 
 But this only brings out more clearly the difference of French 
 or syllabic, and English or accentual verse. For the new 
 verse differs from "A ra'inbow i'n the sk'y," not only in 
 metrical length, but in quality; it is trochaic, instead of 
 iambic. Now this difference cannot in any way be repre- 
 sented in French verse ; the genius of the language is utterly 
 repugnant to it. 
 
 Add a syllable like et to the beginning, or a syllable like 
 
 fuit to the end of 
 
 Tout I'ete, 
 
 which it would be nearly impossible to do to 
 
 A ra'inbow i'n the sk'y ; 
 
 and all you can say of the new line, 
 
 Et tout I'ete, 
 
 or the new line, 
 
 Tout I'ete fuit, 
 
 is that it is a line of four instead of three syllables, and 
 that you like or dislike its sound. Neither can be called 
 trochaic or iambic. 
 
 However, as the principal metre for long English poems 
 is an iambic pentameter, or verse of five beats, and this 
 metre favours in a peculiar degree a regular number of 
 syllables, namely, two to a beat — and a.s, on the other hand 
 long French poems are generally written in metres with an 
 even number of syllables — there is a temptation to speak of 
 
French Prosody. 
 
 these latter metres by what Cardinal Newman happily calls 
 an accommodation, as verses of six feet or five feet, instead 
 of twelve or ten syllables. And the French themselves some- 
 times speak of feet (meaning combinations of two syllables), 
 by accommodation to the phraseology of Greek and Latin 
 verse. But the use of the words feet or iambs in writing of 
 French verse is very misleading to readers accustomed to the 
 quantitative feet of Greek and Latin and the accentual feet 
 of English and German. Let the reader therefore cast away 
 all thought in French Prosody oi feet and iambs, and speak 
 like M. de Banville (Petit Traite de Poesie Fran(aise) of 
 syllables only. French Versification, then, is Syllabic. 
 
 Because syllabic, French verse is essentially rhyming or 
 assonant, and all attempts at French blank verse are to be 
 eschewed. It may be said that English rhyming poetry is 
 in three dimensions, rhythm, rhyme, and metre; hence it 
 can drop one dimension, rhyme, and remain, as it were, 
 visible. But French verse has only two dimensions, rhyme 
 and metre ; so that, if one takes away the rhyme, it becomes 
 invisible^in other words, indistinguishable from prose. 
 
 The reader must beware of supposing that rhythme in 
 French ever means rhythm in the sense in which we talk of 
 an anapasstic, a trochaic, or an iambic rhythm. Rhythme 
 and its adjective rhythmique are used to describe ingenious 
 combinations of long and short words, alliteration, and so 
 on. But in a strict and technical sense, as when M. de 
 Banville speaks of a poem as written " sur un beau rhythme 
 empruntd a Ronsard," rhythme is merely the French for 
 . metre. 
 
 From this fundamental distinction between French and 
 
8 Manual of 
 
 English verse flow innumerable consequences, which the 
 reader will find out for himself. 
 
 Here we will only mention a few. (a) A scrap of French 
 verse, free from alliteration and inversion, and not exhibit- 
 ing a rhyme, is good prose; whereas a similar scrap of 
 English verse would probably be called "sing-song" on 
 account of its regular accents, (b) French verse is much 
 more easily set to music or written to music than English, 
 because the longer and shorter notes may be applied in- 
 differently to any syllables except the rhyming ones, and vice 
 versa. In English the musical and metrical rhythm must 
 coincide, instead of which, in French, the verses receive 
 their rhythm from the music for the first time. The French 
 are often said to attach more importance to time in singing 
 than other nations : is not this because they find in it the 
 rhythm, which other nations have already in their accen- 
 tual verse, before it is sung? (c) French verse lends 
 itself far more readily to recitation and acting than English 
 or Latin or Greek, because the reciter or actor has far more 
 scope for his personality in dfealing with French syllables, 
 than he can have with syllables which differ from one another 
 essentially in value, apart from his own choice. One may 
 almost compare a French actor to an Oriental king whose 
 subjects are all equal, the Englishman to a mediaeval one 
 constantly checked by the intrinsic importance of this or 
 that powerful vassal. It is therefore natural enough that the 
 one homotonic language of Europe should be admittedly 
 that, which has been most distinguished by acting, (d) 
 As all syllables in modern French verse are in a sense equal, 
 it is natural that it tends to assimilate itself more and more 
 
French Prosody. 
 
 to the plastic arts, in which a whole is formed out of homo- 
 geneous materials. The old assonant poetry, in which there 
 lingers much of the Latin accent, is in this respect nearer 
 English verse, in which, by the force of the tonic accent, a 
 word other than a particle is a separate organism, with a 
 history and character of its own. But these comparisons 
 would lead us too far. Let us come back to the definition 
 of French verse. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 DEFINITION OF A FRENCH VERSE. 
 
 MDE BANVILLE'S admirable definition (Petit 
 . Traite, Chapter I.) leaves nothing to be desired. 
 "A French Verse is merely the union of a certain regular 
 number of syllables, divided in some sorts of verse by a 
 pause called csesura, and always terminated by a sound 
 which only exists at the end of one verse on condition of 
 being reproduced at the end of one or more other verses, 
 which repetition is called Rhyme." 
 
 I. Observe, that a " regular " number of syllables does 
 not mean a number equal to that in the rhyming verse, for 
 two verses of very different lengths may rhyme together. 
 
 Je demeure immobile, et mon ame abat^«e 
 CMe au coup qui me tue. 
 
 CoRNEILLE, Le Cid, i. 7. 
 
 L'espoir vers Dieu se tourne et Dieu I'entend crier. 
 Laissez tout ce qui pleure 
 Vrier. 
 V. Hugo, Qtiatre Vents de I' Esprit, iii. 10. 
 
 A " regular " number means (a) a number less than four- 
 teen; .(b) a number distinctly intended by the author and 
 known to the reader ; (c) a number which, except in Vers 
 Libres, corresponds to that in some other line in the same 
 
Manual of French Prosody. 1 1 
 
 poem. Thus the unequal rhyming lines quoted above cor- 
 respond in length to those in the same part of every other 
 stanza of the respective poems. 
 
 II. Notice, above all, that every line of French verse must 
 have another to rhyme (or in the old assonant poetry to be 
 assonant) with it; whereas, in English rhymed poetry, it 
 is not necessary for every verse to rhyme. For instance, 
 the first line of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner does not 
 rhyme : — 
 
 It is an ancient mariner, 
 
 And lie stoppetli one of three. 
 
 " By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, 
 
 Now \yherefore stopp'st thou me ? " 
 
 However, this kind of half-rhymed metre is not very 
 fashionable now in England, and has always been considered 
 rather appropriate to ballads and hymns than to more am- 
 bitious flights. In France, too, there are popular ballads 
 and songs with next to no rhyme or assonance, like the cele- 
 brated " Malbrouk s'en va t'en ' guerre.'' 
 
 The reason is, that the tune is here simultaneous with or an- 
 tecedent to the words, and supplies the rhythm which is lack- 
 ing in written French poetry. But this popular ballad verse 
 is entirely separate from the literary poetry of France, and 
 does not enter into our subject. See Dr. Scheffler's " Fran- 
 zosische Volks-dichtung und Sage." Leipzig, 1884. 
 
 In La Fontaine's Fables there is an instance of a line 
 without a rhyme in La Cour du Lion, vii. 7 : — 
 
 Et, flatteur exessif, illoua la colere. 
 
 ' The t in va fen is really the Latin t of vadit, which in literary 
 French only appears in the interrogative form, va-t-il. 
 
12 Manual of French Prosody. 
 
 But this is an exception, which by its extreme rarity proves 
 the rule. La Fontaine is in every respect the freest of the 
 French poets, and that he should only once have transgressed 
 this rule is the best proof of its stringency. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OF THE ASSONANT VOWEL. 
 
 THE correspondence of termination, which constitutes 
 rhyme, may exist in very different degrees. The two 
 English words " beak," " meet," and the two French words 
 " arbre," " cadavre," have respectively a certain similarity of 
 termination, because in the English pair the vowel sound 
 represented by ea or ec, and in the French pair the vowel 
 sound a in the last sonorous syllable, is common to both. 
 Such a similarity is called assonance ; and it may be said 
 that as rhyme is V unique harmonic (Sainte-Beuve) of French 
 verse, so is assonance the soul of rhyme. In the Chanson 
 de Roland (eleventh century), and in other poetry of the 
 first French period which has not survived in its original 
 form, the versification is merely assonant The Chanson de 
 Roland consists of a number of strains of unequal length. 
 Each strain is composed of a number of ten-syllabled lines 
 with a strong caesura at the end of the fourth syllable, 
 corresponding only in the fact that they are either all mas- 
 culme or all feminine (see next chapter), and that the last 
 sonorous vowel sound in each line is the same. Probably 
 the chants to which the poem was sung changed at the end 
 of every strain. 
 
 Here are some lines of a feminine strain assonant in /, 
 from the third canto : — 
 
14 Manual of 
 
 RoUans ferit 1 1 en une perre bise, 
 Plus en abat | | que jo ne vos sai dire 
 L'espee cruist, [ ] ne fruisset ne ne brise, 
 Cuntre le ciel | | amunt est resoriie, 
 
 and so on, with such assonances as reliques, Denise, 
 Marie, &c. 
 
 However, by the thirteenth century this assonant poetry 
 had given place to a rhymed poetry essentially the same in 
 character as the modem, and mere assonance was relegated 
 to popular, or rustic verse. It may be remarked that Spain 
 is the country where assonant poetry has best succeeded in 
 maintaining a recognized position in literature. 
 
 A mistake in assonance is worse than any other, and 
 such rhymes as love, grove, move, are more grievous to the 
 ear than love, mud, cut. The perpetual changes of vowel 
 sound which have characterized the whole history of the 
 English language, have served to excuse in our modern 
 poetry a host of non-assonant rhymes, in other words, of no- 
 rhymes, by the example of poets in whose time the words 
 in question were really assonant. 
 
 French vowels have changed much less in historical times. 
 Nasals are much more differentiated from their correspond- 
 ing simples, than when it was sung of the dying Roland : — 
 
 Seint Gabriel de sa main il W&pris, 
 Desur sun braz teneit le chef enclin, 
 
 and so on, where the simple i and the nasal in are assonant. 
 
 Consequently nasal and simple vowels never rhyme to- 
 gether in modern French. 
 
 There are also a number of rhymes, common till the 
 eighteenth century, which have become impossible, owing 
 
French Prosody. 1 5 
 
 to the change of the diphthong^/, which represents either the 
 attraction of an i by an in another syllable, testimonium, 
 ttmoin ; or the Latin long accented e, regent, roi; or short 
 accented /', mihi, moi. This digraph was pronounced some- 
 times I, sometimes ou'e, sometimes oue, according to the 
 letters surrounding it. But the Parisian pronunciation, 
 vulgar in the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth 
 century, was nearer oUa, and this has triumphed over the 
 old pronunciation, except in the word roide or raide, which 
 is usually pronounced ride, and in the terminations of verbs 
 and adjectives where it was pronounced I, and through 
 Voltaire's influence is now written at: aimait, aiviaient, 
 franfais, anglais, &c. No one can now rhyme crottre with 
 tnattre, that is, make oua assonant to i. But in the seven- 
 teenth century the pronunciation was critre. 
 
 Quel plaisir d'elever un enfant qu'on voit crottre 
 Non plus comme un esclave elev^ pour son mattre, 
 
 Racine; Andromaquc, iv. i. 
 
 The number of possible assonances in modern French is 
 pretty nearly that of the vowel sounds. Omitting e mute, 
 which can never form a rhyme, and all distinctions of short 
 and long, we have a, acute e, open e, i, 0, u, oi, ou, eu, and the 
 nasals an, in, on, un, oin, ten. 
 
 Of course these fifteen vowel sounds may be written in 
 many different ways. A is written as e in femme. Acute e 
 is written without an accent in the terminations of aimer, 
 aimez; as aimgai, serai. Open e has no accent in elle, and 
 is written ei in veine, in which cases it is considered short ; 
 it is also written with a circumflex in rcve, and as ai in 
 aimais. O is often found in the form au or eau. Nasal en 
 
1 6 Manual of 
 
 and nasal an are generally accounted the same for purposes 
 of rhyme. Eu is written as ue in cueillir, as <zu in caur, as 
 (z in ail. Nasal in is written aim mfaim, ain in certain, and 
 (Sz>z in dessein. 
 
 Before most of these vowels an i may stand, as in diacre, 
 del, vieux, pioche, ancien. This use of i is so characteristic of 
 the French language, and we shall have so often occasion to 
 speak of these composite vowels, that it will be convenient 
 to use the general term iotized vowels. lotized vowels are 
 assonant with their corresponding simples. 
 
 Pour le faire expliquer tendons-lui quelque ^uge, 
 Mais quel indigjie emploi moi-meme m'impos^^'i? ! 
 
 Racine, Bajazet, iv. 4. 
 
 Chevaux et chevaliers sont des armures vides, 
 Mais debout, lis ont tous encor le geste fzVr, 
 L'air fauve, et quoiqu'etant de I'ombre, ils sont du ier. 
 
 V. Hugo, Legende des Siicles. Emrculnus, viii. 
 
 The student must distinguish between the iotized form of 
 the nasal an or en, which is sometimes written ien, especially 
 before t or ce, as 0-ri-ent, pa-ti-en-ce, and the iotized form of 
 the nasal in, which is always written ien, except in words 
 like Li-by-en, where y = i. 
 
 The former ien is dissyllabic, and can be assonant with its 
 simple, as in Racine's Bajazet, i. i :— 
 
 Que ton retour tardait k mon impati-««« ! 
 
 Et que d'un oeil content je te vois dans Byz«K« ! 
 
 This ien is a mere transcript from the Latin, ori-entem, 
 pati-entiam, &c. 
 
 The other ien never represents the Latin letters i-en is 
 often monosyllabic, and never rhymes with its simple. 
 
French Prosody. 17 
 
 Faisons nos interets de ceux de leur famille ; 
 En I'une je suis femme, en I'autre je suis fiUe, 
 Et tiens 4 toutes deux par de si forts \i-ens, 
 Qu'on ne pent triompher que par les bras des raiens. 
 
 CORNEILLE, Horace, iii. i. 
 
 In the same way, in virtue of the u sound patent in ou 
 and ti and latent in o, we get what may be called the hypsi- 
 lonized vowels, out, ui, oe, &c., as in out, nuit, moelle. These 
 are assonant not only with themselves, but with their simples, 
 and with the other kind of hypsilonized vowel. 
 
 Considere, Phenix, les troubles que j'ev//^ ; 
 Quelle foule de maux I'amour tralne k sa %uite 
 
 Racine, Andromaque, ii. 5. 
 
 Le Ti3.yire 
 
 Est i I'eau : 
 
 Entends tire 
 
 Ce gros flot 
 
 Que fait \uire 
 
 Et hiu-ire 
 
 Le vieux sire 
 
 Aquilo. 
 
 Swinburne, Chastelard. 
 
 Quand, liguee et terrible et rapportant la miit, 
 Toute I'Europe accourt, gronde et s'iva.nou-it. 
 
 V. Hugo, VAnnk Terrible. Prologue. 
 
 However, the vowels oi and nasal oin, or hypsilonized a 
 and nasal in, never rhyme with their simple forms, nor does 
 oi rhyme with the dissyllable ou-a. In oin, and still more in 
 oi, the simple vowel is somewhat altered in character. Per- 
 haps the only false assonance that French poets of any im- 
 portance permit themselves, is that between acute and open e 
 in such words as chercher, cher ; aimer, mer ; lever, hiver. 
 This most unpleasant discord, though rare in Racine, is 
 
 c 
 
i8 Majtual of French Prosody. 
 
 found often in Ronsard ; but in his case, as with our own 
 old poets, we must remember that he may have been justi- 
 fied or excused by the pronunciation of his time. 
 
 Et, quand tu porterais, en lieu d'humaine chair, 
 Au fond de I'estomac, pour un coeur un \ocher ; 
 
 Voyage de Tours. 
 
 These rhymes are sometimes called Norman rhymes, because 
 according to the pronunciation of that province they are 
 really assonant. The Norman origin of a large proportion 
 of the older poets may help to account for their prevalence. 
 However, this false assonance may be also found in modern 
 poets, though with them inexcusable. Still this is nothing 
 to the hosts of false rhymes current in modem English 
 poetry, under the pretence of a similarity of spelling. There 
 is no point in which French verse is more superior to our 
 own rhymed verse than in the purity of its assonances. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF THE TERMINATIONS OF VERSES, AND OF MASCULINE 
 AND FEMININE VERSES AND RHYMES. 
 
 THE assonant vowel and all that part of the verse, if 
 any, which follows it, form the termination, which is 
 treated in quite a different manner from the rest of the 
 line. 
 
 The assonant vowel either stands in the last syllable of the 
 verse, or is followed by one mute syllable. 
 
 In the former case the line is called a Masculine Verse, 
 and the rhyme a Masculine Rhyme ; in the latter the Verse 
 and Rhyme are called Feminine. For instance, in the 
 Souvenir of Alfred de Musset is the following stanza : — 
 
 Oui, jeune et belle encor, plus belle, osait-on Aire, 
 Je I'ai vue, et ses yeux brillaient comma autrefoz'j, 
 Ses levres s'entrouvraient, et c'etait un sour«r, 
 Et c'etait nne \oix. 
 
 Here the second and fourth lines are masculine verses, be- 
 cause the assonant vowel in autrefois, voix, is not followed 
 by a mute syllable ; and for the same reason the rhyme in 
 ois, oix, is called a masculine rhyme. The derivation of the 
 expressions masculine verse, masculine rhyme, is of course 
 from the fact, that substantives not ending in a mute syllable 
 are generally of the masculine gender ; but this derivation 
 does not affect the use of the terms masculine verse, mascu- 
 
20 Manual of 
 
 line rhyme, for in the present case the verses and rhyme are 
 rightly called masculine, though the words autrefois, voix, 
 are respectively an adverb and a feminine substantive. 
 
 In like manner, the first and third lines of this stanza are 
 called feminine verses, and the rhyme in -ire a feminine 
 rhyme, though the words dire and soiirire, which contain 
 that rhyme, are respectively a verb and a masculine sub- 
 stantive. 
 
 As feminine lines must end in one of three ways, in e 
 mute alone, in e mute followed by s, or in e mute followed by 
 the nt of the third personal plural, and as in each of these 
 three cases it may be either supported or not by a consonant 
 intervening between it and the assonant vowel, there are six 
 classes Qi feminine terminations, of each of which we will take 
 an example. 
 
 Class I., e mute alone, supported by a consonant : — 
 
 J'entreprends de center I'annee ipmvantable, 
 Et voila que j'hesite, accoude sur ma table. 
 
 V. Hugo, L' Annie Terrible. 
 
 Class II., e mute alone, unsupported by a consonant : — 
 
 lis sont, graces aux dieux, digues de \s\s.x patrie ; 
 Aucun etonnement n'a leur gloireyfAnV ; 
 
 CORNEILLE, Horace, iii. 5. 
 
 Class III., e mute followed by s, and supported by a con- 
 sonant : — 
 
 Et moi, qui sur le trone ai suivi mes ancitres, 
 IVJ^oi, fille, femme, soeur, et mere de vos maitres. 
 
 Racine, Brittanicus, i. 2. 
 Class IV., e mute followed by s, and unsupported by a 
 consonant : — ■ 
 
French Prosody. 2 1 
 
 J'entends chanter de Dieu les grandeurs infinies ; 
 Je vois I'ordre pompeux de ses cirhnonies. 
 
 Racine, Athalie, ii. 7. 
 
 Class v., e mute followed by the nt of a third person 
 plural, and supported by a consonant : — 
 
 Les forets de nos cris moins souvent retentissent : 
 Charges d'un feu secrft, vos yeux i appesantissent 
 
 Racine, Pkidre, i. i. 
 
 Class VI., e mute followed by the nt of a third person 
 plural, and unsupported by a consonant : — 
 
 II en parle tout has aux princes, qui sourient. 
 La priere — le peuple aime que les rois prient — 
 
 V. Hugo, Ligende des Siicles. Ratbert, Les Conseiilers. 
 
 But the third persons plural of the present subjunctive of 
 the verbs avoir and itre, aient, soient, and the terminations 
 -aient, -raient, of the third person plural of the imperfect 
 indicative and conditional of all verbs are monosyllabic, and, 
 if employed at the end of a verse, the rhyme and verse are 
 considered masculine. 
 
 Si nos eflforts te i.(\viraient, (imperfect) 
 Tes baisers ressuscite)-a;V«^ (conditional) 
 Le cadavre de ton vampire. 
 
 Baudelaire, Le Vampire. 
 
 Six percherons egaux, Wanes et nourris d'avoine, 
 Trainaient un chene entier dont les cimes pendaienf ; 
 Et les larges paves du faubourg Saint- Antoine 
 A chaque tour de roue en rerauant grondaien/. 
 
 Sully-Prudhomme, Dans la Rue. 
 
 However, this kind of rhyme is generally avoided as heavy 
 
2 2 Manual of 
 
 and awkward. In the latter passage it is probably chosen 
 
 to paint the lumbering movement described. And the same 
 
 may perhaps be said of this couplet from Boileau's Art 
 
 Poetiqtce, describing the building of Thebes : — 
 
 Qu'aux accords d'Amphion les pierres se mouvaient, 
 Et sur les murs Thebains en ordre s'Bevaieni. 
 
 Art Pokiqiie, iv. 249. 
 
 It should be observed, that in the Chanson de Roland 
 these terminations are dissyllabic. But they ceased to be so 
 at a very early date. 
 
 Rules for the employment of Masculine and Feminine Verses. 
 
 Rule I. There can be no rhyme, nor in the old assonant 
 poetry assonance, between a masculine and a feminine verse, 
 though their terminations may be so similar as to be hardly 
 distinguishable from each other in ordinary conversation, as 
 in the masculine and feminine participles, aime, enflammke, 
 or to constitute puns, as in the words mere, mer. 
 
 II. Since the beginning of the seventeenth century mas- 
 culine and feminine verses must be so intermingled, that in 
 no poem, or at least in no stanza, shall two masculine verses 
 or two feminine verses meet without rhyming. 
 
 Thus, one of Thdophile Gautiefs best known songs begins 
 with the quatrain : — 
 
 Dites, la jeune belle, (feminine) 
 Ou voulez-vous aller ? (masculine) 
 La voile ouvre son aile, (feminine) 
 La brise va souffler. (masculine) 
 
 Now, if the poet had wished to continue on the same 
 masculine rhyme ler, there would have been nothing to 
 
French Prosody. 23 
 
 prevent him ; but wishing to change the rhyme, he could 
 
 only continue with a feminine verse thus : — 
 
 L'aviron est d'ivoire, (feminine) 
 Le pavilion de moire, (feminine) 
 
 but here wishing to change the rhyme he must introduce 
 
 a masculine line — 
 
 Le gouveraail d'or fin ; (masculine) 
 
 he is now able to introduce a new feminine rhyme — 
 
 J'ai pour lest une orange, (feminine) 
 Pour voile une aile d'ange, (feminine) 
 Pour mousse un seraphin. (masculine) 
 
 But the apparent line formed by the repetition in the 
 poem called Rondeau of the first words after the eighth line, 
 and again at the end, is not counted as a line for the pur- 
 poses of this rule, or of that which requires that every line 
 should have a line to rhyme with it. 
 
 Thus, in one of Alfred de Musset's Rondeaux the eighth 
 
 line and refrain are — 
 
 Moi, je li berce ; un plus charmant metier 
 Fnt-il jamais! 
 
 Here, Fut-il jamais is repeated from the beginning of the 
 
 Rondeau — 
 
 Fut-il jamais douceur de coeur pareille — 
 
 Short epigrams and other fugitive scraps of verse are 
 
 exempt from this rule. Thus, Corneille's lines on the death 
 
 of Richelieu are all masculine — 
 
 Qu'on parle mal ou bien du fameux cardinal, 
 Ma prose ni mes vers n'en diront jamais rien ; 
 II m'a fait trop de bien pour en dire du mal, 
 II m'a fait trop de mal pour en dire du bien. 
 
24 Mamtal of 
 
 And so areBoileau's lines on Corneille's senile tragedies: — 
 
 Apres VAgSsilas, 
 
 Helas ! 
 Mais apres VAttila, 
 
 Hola! 
 
 A few modern poets, and notably Baudelaire, have written 
 whole poems in masculine verses, or in feminine verses 
 respectively, without any mixture of the other kind. But 
 when they combine the two sorts, they observe the rule 
 strictly. Sometimes the rule is broken, as by Victor Hugo 
 once or twice in the Chatiments, for the sake of the tune to 
 which the words are written. 
 
 But down to the time of Ronsard (1524-1585) and his 
 six friends, Belleau, Jodelle, Baif, Daurat, du Bellay, and de 
 Thiard, the Pleiad of the sixteenth century, this rule was 
 not strictly enforced. 
 
 Douce maltresse, louche, 
 Pour soulager mon mal, 
 Ma bouche de ta bouche 
 Plus rouge que coral ; 
 Que mon col soil presse 
 De ton bras enlace. 
 
 Ronsard. 
 
 I 
 
 Like most other rules of French Prosody, it owes its firm 
 and final establishment to Malherbe (1556-1628), but it 
 had been growing up gradually for a long time, and such 
 an arrangement as the above is quite exceptional in Ronsard. 
 
 III. Different masculine or different feminine rhymes 
 may not cross one another, even if the lines containing them 
 are prevented from meeting by the interposition of lines of 
 the other kind. 
 
French Prosody. 25 
 
 Thus (to return to Th^ophile Gautier's song) the follow- 
 ing arrangement of the lines would be impossible : — 
 
 Dites, la jeune belle, 1. (feminine) 
 
 Oil voiilez-vous aller ? 
 
 L'aviron est d'ivoire, 2. (feminine) 
 
 Le pavilion de moire, 2. (feminine) 
 
 La brise va souffler, 
 
 La voile ouvre son aile. I. (feminine) 
 
 For (of course apart from the sense) this would involve 
 the cutting of the feminine rhyme in -elk by the feminine 
 rhyme in -aire. And the same objection would apply to a 
 similar crossing of masculine rhymes. 
 
 Hence a French poet can never have more than two 
 rhymes, so to speak, on hand at the same time, one mascu- 
 line and one feminine. Such a combination of rhymes as 
 this from Wordsworth would be impossible in French. 
 
 Now. while the birds thus sing a joyous song. 
 
 And while the young lambs bound 
 
 As to the tabor's sound, 
 
 To me alone there came a thought of grief : 
 
 A timely utterance gave that thought relief. 
 
 And I again am strong. 
 
 The older poets, who allow the contact of two masculine 
 or of two feminine lines on a different rhyme, also allow the 
 crossing of two masculine or of two feminine lines, as in the 
 celebrated lines of Villon (fifteenth century) : — 
 
 La pluie nous a debues et "^avis 
 Et le soleil desseches et noinrzj- ; 
 Pies, corbeaux, nous ont les yeux c^xiis, 
 Et arraches ' la barbe et les sounrz'/j-. 
 
 ' In modern French thisparticiple would be in the singular, because 
 it precedes the direct object of the sentence " la barbe et les spurcils." 
 
26 Manual of 
 
 But the rule that not more than two rhymes can be in 
 hand at the same time, or, to put it in different words, that 
 when two rhymes are running together, one of them must be 
 finished with before a third is introduced, is of universal 
 application, in spite of the experiments of Fabri. 
 
 IV. In singing, the e mute at the end of a feminine verse 
 is always sounded as eu, and distinctly pronounced as a sepa- 
 rate syllable, to which a separate note (generally short) is 
 assigned. Hence, in poetry intended to be sung, the dis- 
 tinction between a masculine and feminine verse is much 
 the same as that between an English verse ending in an 
 accented syllable and an English verse with an accent on 
 the last syllable but one, as will appear by comparing the 
 first verse of the Marseillaise with the current EngUsh ver- 
 sion, which illustrates this point as well as if it were a master- 
 piece. 
 
 AUons ! enfants de la patri-e, (feminine) 
 Le jour de gloire est arrive ; (masculine) 
 Centre nous de la tyranni-e (feminine) 
 L'itendard sanglant est lev^. (masculine) 
 
 At last has broke the day of glory, (accent on last syllable but one) 
 Then rise to meet it, sons of France ; (accent on last syllable) 
 See the fatal flag, black and gory, (accent on last syllable but one) 
 Which the tyrant hosts advance, (accent on last syllable) 
 
 However, there is this difference between a feminine 
 rhyme and an English double rhyme as -tri-e and glory, that 
 the French e mute, whether alone, as in Classes I. and II. of 
 feminine terminations, or followed by s or nt (Classes III. to 
 VI.), has always exactly the same sound in singing, eu ; 
 whereas in such words as glory, gory ; fated, hated ; sunder, 
 thunder^ the unaccented final syllables differ from one 
 
French Prosody. 2 7 
 
 another both in their vowel sound and in the sound of their 
 final consonants. Hence the English complain of the monotony 
 of French singing, in which every feminine line ends with eu. 
 
 V. The mute syllable at the end of a feminine line is not 
 pronounced in reading, reciting, or acting, save in so far as 
 a very faint sound may be necessary to bring out the full pro- 
 nunciation of the consonants (if any) supporting it. Thus, 
 with such a feminine termination as ombre or asire, the final 
 e mute is a little more audible than with endings in ite or ie. 
 
 VI. When we speak of the number of metrical syllables 
 in verses, we never count the final mute syllable of feminine 
 rhymes. Thus the two lines, 
 
 L'aviron est d'ivoire, 
 Le gouvernail d'or fin ; 
 
 are both said to be of six syllables, though the sixth syllable 
 of the former, voi^ is in fact followed by .the mute syllable, 
 re. 
 
 VII. The letters j and «/at the end of feminine verses re- 
 ceive no pronunciation whatever, either in singing, reading, 
 reciting, or acting. Thus, in this line of the Marseillaise, 
 
 Tremblez, tyrans, et vous, perfides, 
 
 the last word is sMng per-fi-dete, and xz'aAperfid', without any 
 regard to the s. So the lines from Fhhdre, page 21, are re- 
 cited : — 
 
 Les forets de nos cris moins souvent retentiss' ; 
 Charges d'un feu secret, vos yeux s'affesantiss '. 
 
 We are now in a position to form some opinion as to how 
 far the distinction between masculine and feminine verses is 
 
28 Mmiual of 
 
 conventional. In singing, the difiference is dearly real. A 
 rhyme with an eu attached to it is obviously not the same as 
 a monosyllabic rhyme. 
 
 Next, if we take the beginning of (say) Racine's Andro- 
 maqtie, and read the first sixteen lines, we shall see that the 
 usual distinction between masculine and feminine verses in 
 reading is that the former end in a vowel, the latter in a con- 
 sonantal sound. The mute terminations of the feminine 
 lines are here marked by apostrophes, and the mute con- 
 sonants at the ends of the masculine lines are bracketed. 
 
 Oreste. 
 Oui, puisque je retroiive un ami si fidH', 
 Ma fortune va prendre une face nouvell' ; 
 Et deji son courroux semble s'etre a douci, 
 Depuis qu'il a pris soin de nous rejoindre ici. 
 Qui I'eilt dit, qu'un rivage a mes vceux si funest' 
 Presenterait d'abord Pylade aux yeux d'Orest'; 
 Qu'apr^s plus de six mois, que je t'avais perdu, 
 A la cour de Pyrrhus tu me serais rendu. 
 
 Pylade. 
 J'en rends graces au ciel, qui m'arretant sans cess' 
 Semblait m'avoir ferme le chemin de la Grec', 
 Depuis le jour fatal que la fureur des eau(x) 
 Presque aux yeux de I'Epire ecarta nos vaisseau(x). 
 Combien dans cet exil ai-je souffert d'alarm', 
 Combien a vos malheurs ai-je donne de larm' ; 
 Craignant toujours pour vous quelque nouveau dange(r). 
 Que ma triste amitie ne pouvait partage(r). 
 
 In Other words, in a long piece of poetry the terminations of 
 the majority of feminine lines belong to Classes I. III. 
 V. ; and those of a still larger majority of masculine lines 
 end in sonorous vowels not followed by sonorous con- 
 
French Prosody. 29 
 
 sonants. But at the seventeenth line we are brought up by 
 a feminine couplet (with the termination of Class II.), in 
 which the last sounds are vowels, followed by a masculine 
 couplet, in which the last sounds are consonants : — 
 
 Surtout j'ai redout^ cette melancoli' 
 
 Oil j 'ai vu si longtemps votre 6me enseveli' ; 
 
 Je craignais que le ciel par un cruel secour(s) 
 
 Ne vous offrlt la mort, que vous cherchiez toujour(s). 
 
 The feminine terminations of Classes II., IV., VI., are thus 
 an exception to the general consonantal sound of a feminine 
 rhyme in reading. These terminations can only be dis- 
 tinguished from analogous masculine ones, as ensevelie from 
 enseveli, by a slight stress in pronunciation. 
 
 However, such terminations cguld till the seventeenth 
 century be counted as forming two syllables in the body of 
 a verse ; and we may remark that they often correspond to 
 a .y in some other inflection, as envoie, envoyons, envoyez. 
 Hence it is not unlikely, that they once had a y sound, 
 enseveli-f, distinguishing them clearly to the ear from the 
 similar masculine rhyme. 
 
 In the old assonant poetry, which, it must be remembered, 
 was mainly oral, a facultative d could be inserted in the 
 feminines of participles when metrically convenient. Aim'ee 
 could be at?;ie-de (Spanish amada, Latin mnataiii). Com- 
 pare il aime with aime-t-il, where the t corresponds to the d 
 in aime-de. It is only in words of modern formation, /«- 
 cendie, impie, &c., that the feminine termination does not 
 correspond to a Latin desinence with a consonant ; pie is 
 pica, louent lau-dant, &c. 
 
 If we turn to mascuHne terminations in which there is a 
 
Manual of 
 
 sonorous consonant after the assonant vowel, we may ob- 
 serve that of such consonants the commonest are the liquids 
 / and r. These letters are capable of a longer or shorter 1 
 pronunciation, distinguishing feminine from masculine 
 rhyvaes, fafale, fatal ; soupire, soupir. However, even here 
 there is reason to suspect that such finals were formerly in 
 many instances mute. For, as Littrd remarks (Preface to 
 his Dictionary), the modern tendency is towards sounding 
 final consonants formerly only heard in liaison. And the 
 late M. G6nin, in his preface to the Chanson de Roland, lays 
 down, that the final consonants in early French were nroer 
 pronounced out of liaison. Besides, it is otherwise difficult to 
 explain how the vicious rhyme between chair and rocher, 
 noticed on page i8, could ever have suggested itself. 
 Ronsard very likely did not pronounce the r in chair, in 
 which case the sound would approximate much more to 
 that of chi in rocher. 
 
 At any rate, it is remarkable that the Southern French, 
 who have always had a love for sonorous final consonants, 
 have for some time been reversing, especially in literature, 
 the old historic predominance of the North, where final 
 consonants are generally suppressed. 
 
 The tendency to pronounce mute finals is most marked in 
 the case of the letter s, which is now sounded, except by a 
 few purists, in fils, mceurs, sens, &c., quite against the usage 
 of the seventeenth century. Other words, such as alors, gens, 
 are passing through the transition period. To these mis- 
 pronounced words have joined themselves a number of 
 classical names, and a variety of neologisms from all lan- 
 guages, Venus, Pallas, rebus, omnibus, alols, &c. These words 
 
French Prosody. 31 
 
 ought to have been pronounced according to the genius of 
 the old French language, Venu\ Palla', r'ebti, &c., out of 
 liaison, and Vknu-z, Palla-z, rkbu-z, &c., in liaison — ^just as 
 Thomas or femmes are not pronounced Thomass' ,femm^ , in 
 spite of the j representing in them as much as in Venus ' a 
 Latin s, Thomas, feminas. 
 
 However, if the pronunciation Vcnusse, Pallasse, &c., was 
 to obtain, it would have been better to have adopted a cor- 
 responding spelling, and treated the endings as feminine in 
 poetry. But this was not done; and all these words in 
 sonorous f form an unpleasant class of hybrids, masculine by 
 their spelling, and to be distinguished from such feminine 
 terminations as connusse, lasse, by as rapid a pronunciation 
 as the necessity of sounding the x allows. The ear certainly 
 receives a shock, when these terminations strike on it, instead 
 of the expected final vowel or slight / or r. Rhymes in other 
 sonorous final consonants are also masculine, but they are 
 not common nor marked enough to affect the general 
 relation of masculine to feminine rhymes in reading and 
 recitation ; which is, that the masculine represent to the ear 
 a fainter and usually vowel sound, the feminine a stronger 
 and usually consonantal one. Since in French the rhyme 
 is, as has been said by Sainte-Beuve, 
 
 ■ I'unique harmonie 
 
 Du Vers. (Poesies de Joseph Delorme. ) 
 
 this distinction, and the rules founded on it, seem to contri- 
 bute variety to that harmony, and, on the whole, not to merit 
 the blame of being merely conventional. 
 
 ^ In point of fact, the purest French for the Latin Venus would be 
 Vendre, as in Vendredi, Port- Vendres. 
 
3 2 Manual of 
 
 M. Landais {Didionnaire des Rimes) calls masculine lines 
 sourds, dull or flat, compared with feminine, and notices as 
 a consequence, that they are rarely suffered to stand three 
 together, or to exceed in number the feminine lines combined 
 with them in a stanza. Thus, in the six-lined stanza quoted 
 from Thdophile Gautier, " L'aviron est d'ivoire," &c., there 
 are four feminine and two masculine lines. But the contrary 
 arrangement would be neither usual nor pretty. In stanzas 
 meant for singing, the last line is almost invariably mascu- 
 line, because the short eu of the feminine line as sung seems 
 to demand something to follow it. The same may be ob- 
 served of English songs with a mixture of dissyllabic and 
 monosyllabic rhymes. Each stanza generally ends with a 
 monosyllabic rhyme. 
 
 It is important to remember that not only the final s and 
 
 nt of feminine lines, but the final consonants of masculine 
 
 rhymes, are never sounded in liaison with the beginning of 
 
 the following line, though the latter may have an initial 
 
 vowel, and be closely connected in sense with the final word 
 
 of the former line. There is an absolute gulf fixed between 
 
 the two lines by the pause necessary to bring out the rhyme 
 
 at the end of the former. For the same reason there can be 
 
 neither elision nor hiatus (Chap. IX.) between two verses. 
 
 In singing 
 
 Dites, la jeune belle 
 Oil voulez-vous aller ? 
 
 the pronunciation, bel-leu, is not affected by the vowel otc at 
 the beginning of the second line. 
 
 And the following sequence of lines from V. Hugo's Le 
 ^oi ^ Amuse, i. 3, is not liable to any objection : — 
 
French Prosody. 33 
 
 Une chose \ brouiller le plus sage cervi?a« ! 
 Une chose admirable ! une chose risible 1 
 Une chose amoureuse ! une chose impossible ! 
 
 In this respect the termination is absolutely unlike the 
 rest of the verse. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 TERMINATION CONTINUED. SEQUEL. CONSONANCE. 
 
 IN order that two assonant syllables may rhyme in English, 
 it is necessary that the assonant vowel should not be fol- 
 lowed by different sequels in the words in question. Thus, 
 though "beak" and " meet" are assonant, they do not rhyme, 
 because the assonant vowel has in one word the sequel k, in 
 the other the sequel t. To rhyme with " beak," a word with 
 the same sequel as " meek " is required. In the same way, 
 to rhyme with "me,'' we need a -word in which, as in "me," 
 the assonant vowel has no sequel — " sea," " thee," &c. Let 
 us call this agreement of sequel, or of want of sequel, conso- 
 nance. 
 
 The general principles of consonance are the same in 
 English and French, but the actual rules are more compli- 
 cated in detail and uncertain in application in the latter 
 language, owing to its mute final consonants and its liaison. 
 
 I. The simplest case of consonance is the absence of all 
 sequel, as in the English "me," "sea." This, in French, can 
 only occur in a masculine rhyme — 
 
 N'iraporte : poursuivons. Elle peut, comme moi, 
 Sur des gages trompeurs s'assurer de sa ioi. 
 
 Racine, Bajazd, iv. 4. 
 
 The letter h being essentially mute does not constitute a 
 sequel — 
 
Manual of French Prosody. 35 
 
 Tout se mele, Irmensul lessemble i 1A\(yvah : 
 
 Le sage stup^fait balbutie et s'en va. 
 
 V. Hugo, Quatre Vents de F Esprit. Livre Satirique, iv. 
 
 And though in the abstract any true consonant is capable 
 of sounding sometimes at the ends of words, yet if at the end 
 of a particular word it is never sounded — as the g inpoing, 
 coing, or the/ in clef, or only in a few special liaisons, as the 
 i mpied, — such a word can be consonant to a word without 
 a sequel. Some of these words can also be written without 
 the consonant, as clL 
 
 Je n,'ai pas de miracle en bouteille %ous cli ; 
 Mon vetement n'est pas de diamants homU. 
 
 V. Hugo, V Annie Terrible. Juin. 
 
 Le cheval s'approchant lui donne un coup de pied ; 
 Le loup, un coup de dent ; le boeuf, un coup de come. 
 Le malheureux lion, languissant, triste, et moine, 
 Peut ^ peine rugir, par I'age tsUopi-i. 
 
 La Fontaine, Fables, iii. 14. 
 
 II. Every sound in the sequel of a verse must exist in the 
 sequel of the rhyming verse, and in the same place in the 
 sequel, just as in English. The spelling of the sound is 
 indifferent. Thus, in the following couplet — 
 
 Quand avec les Trois-cents, hommes fails ou -pupilles, 
 Leonidas s'en va tomber aux Thtimopyles, 
 
 ' V. Hugo, V Annie Terrible. Prologue. 
 
 there is an excellent consonance, though the sound / is 
 ■wxiVifa. U 'vs\ pupilles 3Xi.d. I'm Thermopyles. But though the 
 sequel in pupille and in famille is written in the same way, 
 pupilk cannot rhyme with famille, because in famille the 
 letters // represent not /, but the sound called mouille. To 
 
Manual of 
 
 rhyme with famiUe we require a sequel with the mouille 
 sound, such s&fille} 
 
 Noble et briliant auteur d'une triste i2.raille, 
 Toi, dont ma m^re osait se vanter d'etre iille, 
 
 Racine, PhMre, i. 3. 
 
 Here are some more instances of consonances with a 
 sonorous sequel. With/^- 
 
 II se donnait en tout vingt coups de nerfs de hceuf, 
 Mon pere pour sa part en emboursait dix-neief. 
 
 Racine, Plaideurs, i. 5. 
 With tr— 
 
 Pour bannir I'ennemidont j'etais iAoldtre, 
 J'affectai les chagrins d'une injuste razxdtre. 
 
 Racine, Phidre, i. 3. 
 With gn — 
 
 Sa main Aigne, 
 Quand il iigne, 
 "Egratigfie 
 Le velin. 
 V. Hugo, Odes et Ballades. Pas d'Armes du Roijean. 1^ 
 
 The consonance oi gn with n is false, at least according 
 to modern pronunciation. Such a rhyme as this from a 
 sonnet of Ronsard would not now be permitted : — 
 
 Un ris, qui I'ame aux astres achemtW, 
 Una vertu de telle beaute Aigne, 
 
 The rhymes in open and acute «r condemned in Chap. IV. 
 are as false in consonance as in assonance, for the r of the 
 open termination (nier, &c.) is pronounced always, while that 
 of the acute termination (aimer) is never pronounced except in 
 
 ' The reader may generally expect that 11 from a Latin // will sound 
 like /; Tranquillum, tranquille ; pupillum, pupille ; mille, mille • vil- 
 lain, vUle. Latin li becomes mouilU: Filiam, fille ; familiam, famille. 
 
French Prosody. 37 
 
 liaison, in which the termination of a verse can never be. 
 See end of last chapter. 
 
 So cerf (mut&f) cannot rhyme with saf, nor dot (s6no- 
 rous t) with mot. 
 
 A word ending in sonorous s, like Vknus, ought not to 
 
 rhyme with a word in mute s, as nus. However, this being, 
 
 according to our absurd English expression, a good rhyme 
 
 to the eye, is freely used by many of the best modern 
 
 poets, — 
 
 Agrafe autour des seins nus 
 De Vimts, 
 
 Sainte-Beuve. 
 
 Son pouce et son index faisaient dans les tenebres 
 S'ouvrir ou se fevmer les ciseaux d'Atro/oj ; 
 La radieuse paix naissait de son xefos 
 
 V. Hugo, Ligende des Siicles. Le Saiyre. 
 
 This is no more a rhyme than " dose " and " grow " 
 would be in English. Similar instances may be found in 
 earlier poets : — 
 
 Jeune beaute, mais trop outrecuidee ' 
 
 Des presents ^ de Winus, 
 Quand tu veiras ta peau toute ridee 
 
 Et tes cheveux chsntis. 
 
 RONSARD, Odes, 
 
 Hermione. Tov^f vos retardements sent pour moi des xeius. 
 
 Courez au temple. II faut immoler — 
 Oreste. Qui ? 
 
 Hermione. PyrrhzM. 
 
 Racine, Andromaque, iv. 3. 
 
 But we cannot be certain that Ronsard and Racine said 
 Vinuss', Pyrrhuss\ like modern Parisians, as we know they 
 
 ' Overweening. 
 
 ' Our English word " presents ; " modern French cademtx or dons. 
 
38 Manual of 
 
 did not say /w', or sensi, or mxurss'. If they really did say 
 Venuss', Pyrrhuss', they would probably have excused the 
 bad* rhyme by the scarcity of masculine rhymes in sono- 
 rous s. But the reason why they were rare was that they 
 were opposed to the genius of the language. At any rate this 
 excuse is no longer valid for modern poets with omnibuss', 
 lotoss\ jadiss' , helass', alohs', &c. It is now generally recog- 
 nized that masculine terminations in sonorous j can only 
 rhyme with propriety among themselves : — 
 
 Andromaque, des bras d'un grand epoux tombee, 
 
 Vil betail, sous la main du superbe PyrrhjM, 
 
 Aupres d'un tombeau vide en extase courbee ; 
 
 Veuve d'Hector, helas ! et femme d'HeIen«j ! 
 
 Baudelaire, Le Cygne. 
 
 M. Leconte de Lisle is very strict in observing this rule, 
 which he has often occasion to do, as his poems are chiefly 
 on classical or foreign subjects. In his lines on Hypatia, in 
 Poemes Antiques, he rhymes lotos (ss') with Paras (ss'), and 
 Hellas (ss') with Helas ! (ss'). 
 
 III. Mute consonants not absolutely final do not affect 
 
 consonance. The following rhyme from Ronsard's Voyage 
 
 de Tours is excellent : — 
 
 Puis, au Soleil penchant, nous conduirons nos bmufs 
 Boire le haut sommet des ruisselets \exbeux. 
 
 for the/ in the plural haufs is mute. Compare the following 
 couplets : — 
 
 Tous ces Normands voulaient se divertir de tlous ; 
 On apprend i liurler, dit I'autre, avec les \oufs. 
 
 Racine, Plaideurs, i. i. 
 Le jour fuit, la paix saigne, et I'amour est prosirrz^ 
 Et Ton n'a pas encor decloue ^i%v&-Christ. 
 
 V. Hugo, V Annie Terrible. Fivrier. 
 
French Prosody. 39 
 
 On en vient au partage, on conteste, on chicane ; 
 Le juge sur cent points tour k tour les condamne. 
 
 La Fontaine, Fables, iv. i8. 
 
 IV. But a word ending in a mute consonant capable of 
 forming a liaison cannot rhyme with a word that does not 
 end either with the same letter, or with another that would 
 have the same sound in liaison, though actual liaison is 
 absolutely out of the question at the end of a line. 
 
 Thus, final s, x, or z requires s, x, or z : — 
 
 Je suis jeune, il est vrai ; mais aux ames bien n^es 
 La valeur n'attend point le nombre des annees. 
 
 CORNEILLE, Cid, ii. z. 
 
 Aricie. Quel charme I'attirait sur ces bords xedouthl 
 Ismine. Thesee est mort, madame, et vous seule en doutcz. 
 
 Racine, Phidre, ii. i. 
 
 Faut-il qu'en sa faveur j'embrasse vos genffz«? 
 Pour la dernifere fois, sauvez-le, sauvez-vuKj. 
 
 Racine, Andromaque, iii. 7. 
 
 Tax d requires t or d: — 
 
 Toujours le m^me fait se ripite ; il \efaut. 
 Le trone abject s'adosse k I'illustre ichafaud; 
 
 V. Hugo, VArmic Terrible. Juin. 
 
 Moi je suis seul, et rien au monde 
 
 Ne me \ipond, 
 Rien que ta voix morne et profonde, 
 Sombre l^cWespont ! 
 
 Th^ophile Gautier. 
 C or ^ requires c o\ g: — 
 
 II mSle avec I'orgeuil, qu'il a pris dans leur sang, 
 La fierte des Nerons, qu'il puisa dans mon Ram. 
 
 Racine, Bntianicus, i. i. 
 
 The other consonants need no illustration, as each re- 
 quires itself. 
 
40 Mamial of 
 
 V. It follows from Rule IV., that, as the s and the t of 
 Classes III. to VI. of feminine rhymes admit in the abstract of 
 liais&n, there can be no feminine rhyme between a word of 
 one class and a word of another ; e.g., Retentissent (Class V.) 
 cannot rhyme with s' appesantisse (Class I.), nor yii\.h. factices 
 (Class III.). AncUres (Class III.) cannot rhyme with 
 maitre (Class I.). Soiirient (Class VI.) cannot rhyme with 
 prie (Class II.), nor with pries (Class IV.). Ceremonies 
 (Class IV.) cannot rhyme with infinie (Class II.). See 
 p. 20. 
 
 This corollary of Rule IV. is rigorous, and admits of no 
 exception. 
 
 VI. However, in masculine terminations. Rule IV. is 
 sometimes neglected, especially where the consonant has no 
 grammatical value, as- the s of corps and the t of effort. But 
 when final mute s, xjox z are the signs of a grammatical in- 
 flection, as in the plural of nouns, adjectives, and participles, 
 and in the second persons of verbs. Rule IV. is peremptory, 
 and has been so since the thirteenth century. Thus cottps 
 und/ous make a good rhyme, coup and fous are never allowed 
 to rhyme, coup and fou are admitted occasionally and by 
 some poets, but under protest. A grammatical termination 
 in / is less rigorously treated than one in z; one in r hardly 
 less so than one in s. The scarcity of such words as rant^ 
 sang, flam, and the fact that the liaison with the k sound is 
 not very common in conversation, have induced most 
 authors, except the great classical poets, Comeille, Racine, 
 Boileau, and the modern Parnassians, M. de Banville M. 
 CatuUe Mendfes, &c., to let them rhyme freely with parti- 
 ciples in t. As regards Rule IV., as in every other case 
 
French Prosody. 41 
 
 La Fontaine in the seventeenth, and Alfred de Musset in 
 the nineteenth century, exhibit the extreme of license. 
 The Parnassians and the great classic poets, as we have 
 said, meet on this point as rigorists. The followers of the 
 classical school, as Voltaire, and the non-Parnassian modern 
 poets, as Baudelaire, Th^ophile Gautier, M. Leconte de 
 Lisle, M. Sully- Prudhomme, and V. Hugo himself, occupy 
 intermediate positions. Baudelaire is rather lax, Gautier 
 strict. 
 
 A few instances of exceptions to Rule IV. are subjoined; 
 but it must be remembered that they are exceptions, and 
 that all poets /r^^r to conform to the rule. 
 
 Tant s'en faut : de sa forme il se loua tres iort ; 
 Glosa sur I'elephant, dit qu'on pourrait enrcr 
 Ajouter i sa queue, oter i ses oreilles. 
 
 La Fontaine, Fables, i. 7. 
 
 Mais le peuple voudra des combats de ta.\ireau 
 * » » » * 
 
 ***** 
 
 Mais on fait comme Escousse, ou allume un rechaui/. 
 
 Alfred de Musset, /^aUa. 
 
 C'est le Samson cliretien, qui survenant k point, 
 N'ayant pour enfoncer la porte que son poing, 
 
 V. Hugo, Ligende des Slides . Eviradnus. 
 
 II reve d'echafauds en fumant son hou/^a. 
 Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre delica^. 
 
 Baudelaire. 
 On voit tout cela dans les lignes 
 De cette paume, livre blanc 
 Oil Venus a trace des signes 
 Que I'amour ne lit que txexablani. 
 
 Th. Gautier, Emaux et Camies. 
 
 The letter s at the end of the first prson singular of verbs, 
 
42 Manual of 
 
 crois, dots, aimais, &c., has no etymological justification, and 
 was introduced there in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 
 when the language was passing from its first to its second 
 period, and was in confusion. Hence the classical poets and 
 Victor Hugo drop this s frequently for the sake of the 
 rhyme. 
 
 Oui, je vous ai promis et j'ai donne ma ioi 
 De n'oublier jamais tout ce que je vous &oi : 
 
 Racine, Bajazet, iii. 5. 
 Le Roi, Au cul-de-sac Bussy. 
 
 M. de la Tour-Landiy. Pres de rh6tel Cosx/? 
 
 Le Roi, Dans I'endroit ou Ton trouve un grand mur. 
 M. de la Tour-Landry. Ah ! je sai. 
 
 V. Hugo, Le Roi s' Amuse, i. i. 
 
 By a similar license an s with no etymological meaning is 
 occasionally dropped in feminine terminations of Class III. 
 to bring them within Class I. 
 
 II a pour fonction, i Paris comme i \jondre, 
 De faire le progres, et d'autres d'en ri]pondre. 
 
 V Annie Terrible. Prologue. 
 
 But the following rhyme, where the English name Hobbes 
 is deprived of its j- to bring it into Class I., is perhaps rather 
 an illustration of the freedom with which the French treat 
 foreign words : — 
 
 Et Tespoir sur le front de Hobbe ; 
 
 ♦ » » » 
 
 * * * * 
 Toute la clemence de Vaube. 
 
 Ligende des Siicles. Plein Ciel. 
 
 Rule IV. is a stumbling-block to foreigners. " How," 
 they ask, "can the most logical people in the 'world abso- 
 lutely exclude liaison between two different lines, and then' 
 
French Prosody. 43 
 
 require such a consonance of rhyme as would only become 
 audible in liaison ? " It must be remembered that poetry 
 is above all arts at the mercy of association, A French- 
 man who is accustomed . to pronounce grands hotnmes, 
 gran-zommes, may feel a shock to his ideas at grands being 
 offered him as a rhyme to different, tyran, rang, which a 
 foreigner unaccustomed to liaison cannot appreciate, but 
 which may be very real and very deserving of respect. In 
 the case of a plural, moreover, the j' often, and perhaps in 
 old times generally, represents a lengthening of the asso- 
 nant vowel. 
 
 There is one letter in English, r, which admits in some 
 cases of a sort of liaison in correct modern pronunciation. To 
 pronounce the final r as a consonant in such a word as beaver 
 before a consonant, or at the end of a sentence, " The beaver 
 sat,'' or " I like that beaver," is a Scotch or Irish fault. Not 
 to pronounce it as a consonant before a vowel, " The beaver 
 is dead," is a cockneyism. Now, some years ago. Punch was 
 very severe on a couplet from the Pall Mall Gazette, in which 
 some such word as " believer " rhymed with " Geneva," 
 and called it a cockneyism. As, however, the unaccented 
 vowels of the last syllables of " Geneva" and "believer" are 
 the same in sound {Genhah instead of Geneveu being an 
 undoubted cockneyism of the club type), and as the r in 
 believer could not be sounded as a consonant at the end of 
 the line in question except by a Scotchman or Irishman, the 
 only objection to the rhyme was, that it made a word with- 
 out a final r rhyme with a word ending in a final r, capable 
 elsewhere, though not in the case in point, of a consonantal 
 pronunciation. But this is precisely the ground of Rule IV. 
 
44 Mamial of French Prosody. 
 
 My object here is neither to justify Punch nor the poet of the 
 Pall Mall Gazette, but to illustrate by the position taken up 
 by the former, how the French have come to acquiesce more 
 or less completely in Rule IV. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SUPPORT. RESONANCE. 
 
 ENGLISH accented terminations which are assonant 
 and consonant to one another are always rhymes, 
 unless they are preceded by the same consonantal sound, 
 or by no consonantal sound. Thus ball and call, or ball and 
 awl, constitute a rhyme, but ball does not rhyme with 
 bawl, nor all with awl. 
 
 But there are many French terminations, assonant and 
 consonant, which are not rhymes, or are, as they say, very 
 weak, poor, or insufficient rhymes, unless they are preceded 
 or supported (appuyer) by the same consonantal or vowel 
 sound, and all French rhymes are better if so preceded. 
 Thus aimer and rocher can hardly be said to rhyme at 
 all ; we require the supporting consonant, or, as the French 
 say, consonne d'appui, to be the same, aimer, ramer, &c., 
 rocher, chercher, &c. Sombre and penombre are good rhymes, 
 but nombre and penombre are better. The French call such 
 rhymes as nombre and penombre rich, because the consonne 
 d'appui is not necessary. But rocher and chercher are not said 
 to rhyme richly, because rocher and aimer are hardly to be 
 called rhymes at all. Nor are choisir and vizir rich rhymes, 
 for such a rhyme as choisir, souvenir, though permissible, 
 would be very poor. The word rich has, therefore, no 
 precise sense, and it will be convenient for us to employ 
 
46 Manual of 
 
 the words resonant and resonance of all rhymes that are 
 supported by the preceding consonant or vowel, whether 
 the same rhyme without support would be good or not. 
 Thus we shall call levt and achev'e resonant, as well as rime 
 and crime, though the latter pair of words make a rich 
 rhyme, and the former do not. 
 
 As resonance is rather puzzling to an English ear, it will 
 be as well to point out, before going further, the extent to 
 which it is prohibited in English verse, which is often 
 exaggerated, and to suggest some explanation of the diver- 
 gence on this point of the two languages. 
 
 A. A resonant rhyme is always permissible in English 
 when in one, or still better both of the words, the resonant 
 sound is immediately preceded by a consonant pronounced 
 with it and not found in the other word. Thus crime in 
 English rhymes with rhyme, gray with ray, and still better 
 with pray. But prey does not rhyme with pray, nor ray 
 with array. Such resonant rhymes as are admitted under 
 this rule seem neither preferred to non-resonant rhymes, 
 nor thought inferior to them. 
 
 B. The Elizabethan poets, and our modern English 
 Parnassians such as the late Mr. Rossetti, are very fond of 
 a pretty kind of resonant rhyme in which one or each of the 
 rhyming syllables has merely a secondary tonic accent, as in 
 this quatrain fro in Shakespeare's Sonnets (Ixvi.) : — 
 
 And art made tongue-tied by authori^j'', 
 And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill, 
 And simple truth miscalled simplicii()/, 
 And captive good attending captain ill : 
 
 C. Down to the seventeenth century, resonant rhymes 
 
French Prosody. 47 
 
 with the primary tonic accent on the rhyming syllables, are 
 pretty common, but they tend to disappear, partly probably 
 because the English ear developed a dislike to resonance, 
 partly because the words themselves through alteration iii 
 accent often ceased to rhyme, or changed their manner of 
 rhyming. This last is especially true of words of more than 
 one syllable from the French, which generally begin their 
 career in English with an accent on the last syllable, and 
 afterwards throw it back. 
 
 Wisdom, largess, estate, and cunning stire 
 In every point so guided her meiisilre. 
 
 King James I. of Scotland (1394-1437). 
 
 Both sleeping, waking, in rest, and in txavdil : 
 Me to recomfort it does most z.vdil, 
 
 William Dunbar, (1460-1520) The Merle and 
 the Nightingale. 
 
 In the same poem comfortdble rhymes with delectdble, and 
 vale with travail. 
 
 Then, if for my love thou my love xeceivest, 
 I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest ; 
 But yet be blamed, if thou thyself ieceivest 
 By wilful taste of what thyself refusest. 
 
 Shakespeare, Sonnet xl. 
 
 Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view 
 Want nothing that the thought of heart can mend ; 
 AH tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due. 
 Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commmd. 
 
 Sonnet Ixix. 
 
 D. The resonant rhyme most repugnant to modern 
 English usage is between monosyllables, constituting a pun. 
 Yet this is found in both Chaucer and Spenser. 
 
48 Manual of 
 
 The holy blissful martyr for to seke. 
 
 That hem hath holpen, when that they were seke> 
 
 Chaucer, Prologue to Canterbury Tales. 
 
 Leapt fierce upon his shield, and her huge train 
 All suddenly about his body wound, 
 That hand or foot to stir he strove in vain : 
 God help the man so wrapt in Errour's endless train. 
 
 Spenser, Faery Queen, i. 18. 
 
 Such a punning resonance as this would indeed be hardly 
 admitted in French, for there is scarcely any difference in 
 sense between train at the end of the stanza and train in 
 the middle. 
 
 However, resonant rhymes of Class C, and still more of 
 Class D, are generally avoided in modern English poetry, 
 though the present tendency is, perhaps, to rehabilitate 
 them. 
 
 It must be observed that the tonic accent accompanying 
 these rhymes makes them unpleasant to the ear, which is 
 satisfied by the complete assonance and consonance forcibly 
 carried to it by the accent. Resonance is thus cloying ; 
 and this is more so in modem English, because the accent 
 is stronger than formerly. 
 
 There are, moreover, comparatively few resonant rhymes 
 that could be formed in modern English except those of 
 Class D. For the tonic accent being generally thrown 
 back, most of our modern single rhymes are monosyllabic 
 words, and our double rhymes dissyllabic words, since the 
 rhyme cannot fall on an unaccented syllable. But punning 
 rhymes, even in French, such as chaine, chene; pas (a step), 
 pas (not) ; porte (he carries), parte (a gate), are especially 
 
 1 Sick. 
 
French Prosody. 49 
 
 appropriated to comic poetry, though freely admitted in a 
 serious and even pathetic style. The mass of French 
 resonant rhymes are not puns at all, because the rhyming 
 syllable is not generally the first of the word ; thus pupilles, 
 Thermopyles, quoted p. 35, form a resonant rhyme, but not 
 a pun. The majority of non-punning resonant rhymes in 
 French has thus helped to excuse the use of the punning 
 minority. The punning majority of English resonances has 
 helped to bring about the disuse of the few non-punning 
 resonances as well. 
 
 In English there are also few etymological and gram 
 matical terminations, and those few are mostly atonic. 
 French, on the contrary, swarms with sonorous terminations, 
 on which the rhyme riiust often fall. The consonne d'appui 
 is, therefore, frequently the only part of the rhyme in which 
 there is any vestige of the root or individual character of the 
 word. 
 
 Compare spedk, speakest, spedking, with parler, parlez, 
 parlons, parlions, &c. In the resonant rhymes miler, milez, 
 m'elons, mUions, the / is the only significant part. In any 
 non-resonant rhyme with the English words (wedk, sedkest, 
 recking), we find both a strongly accented vowel sound and a 
 k, that are individual. And, while the tonic accent 
 strengthens the English rhyme, the general accentual 
 structure of the verse relieves the rhyme from the burden of 
 being V unique harmonie. The French rhyme, naturally 
 weaker, has to do double work. We find, accordingly, that 
 in English verse, in proportion to the regularity and 
 mechanical recurrence of the accentual feet, is the rejection 
 of resonant rhyme. The versification of Pope, 
 
 E 
 
50 Manual of 
 
 For this plain reason ; man is not a fly. 
 
 with its rigid accentual iambs, rejects resonance more ab- 
 solutely than the soft metre of Shakespeare's Sonnets. 
 
 So the versification of the classical French poets, with rigid 
 pauses of sense at the caesura (p. 84), and the end of the line, 
 could and did dispense with resonance very much better than 
 the modern Romantic poetry, because these pauses, to a cer- 
 tain extent, replace the tonic accent. Such a couplet as — 
 
 Rebelle k tous nos soins, ] | sourde k tous nos disco«?-j, 
 Voulez-vous sans pitie 1 1 laisser finir vos pursf 
 
 Racine, Phidre, i. 3. 
 
 needs resonance much less than the following lines : — 
 
 Le Gentilhomme. Comment, due ! dans I'instant 
 
 II etait avec vous. 
 
 M. de Pienne. Le roi chasse ! 
 
 Le Gentilhomme. Sans/ojxj 
 
 Et sans piqueurs alors. Car tous ses i<^\pages 
 Sont la. 
 
 AI. de Pienne (aside). Diable ! 
 (aloud) On vous dit (comprenez-vous ce«?) 
 
 Que le roi ne peut voir personne ! 
 
 Triboulet. EUe est ui ! 
 
 V. Hugo, Le Roi s' Amuse, m.T,. 
 
 We may now turn to consider the extent to which reso- 
 nance is required in French verse, and we shall find that 
 this differs both in respect of the period, the individual poet, 
 the style of poetry, and the particular assonance and conso- 
 nance in question. 
 
 I. In that kind of early rhymed poetry, which is nearest 
 in structure to the assonant metre of the Chanson de Roland 
 that is, composed of long strains upon one rhyme it was 
 
French Prosody. 51 
 
 obviously impossible to pay any attention to resonance, on 
 account of the number of rhymes required with the same 
 assonance and consonance. 
 
 But, as soon as poetry came to be written in couplets 
 and cross rhymes, where a preference, for resonance could 
 be indulged, there is an evident choice, where possible, of 
 such rhymes. Down to the end of the sixteenth century, 
 this preference becomes more and more exclusive, and the 
 sixteenth century itself, with its large vocabulary, and its 
 common use of short lyrical metres free from caesura, carried 
 resonance further than any period but the present. 
 
 Clement Marot, whose life corresponds with the first half 
 of the sixteenth century, perhaps represents the culminating 
 point of this tendency. 
 
 But Malherbe (1555-1628) began a revolution which, in 
 the end, was hostile to resonant rhyme, though Malherbe 
 himself rhymed richly. This revolution, accomplished by 
 Boileau (1636-1711), made the Alexandrine couplet the 
 typical form of French verse, and imposed on the Alexan- 
 drine itself a rigid pause in the sense at the caesura, {ind at 
 the end of the first line of the couplet, and a more complete 
 break in the sense after each couplet. This structure 
 could, as we have said, dispense with resonance better than 
 a freer one, and the necessity of the pauses at the end of 
 the lines imposed such a limitation on the poet's choice of 
 rhyme, that resonance could only be exacted in the com- 
 monest terminations. Side by side with this change in 
 structure, went on, from Malherbe to the French Revolu- 
 tion, a perpetual diminution of the literary and especially 
 the poetical vocabulary, so that the classical poetry of the 
 
5 2 Manual of 
 
 seventeenth, and still more of the eighteenth century and 
 the First Empire, was reduced to a scanty list of frequently 
 recurring rhymes. Even in Racine (1639-1699) this recur- 
 rence is painfully evident. 
 
 However, it is misleading to say simply of this classical 
 versification, that it only uses resonant rhymes accidentally. 
 Corneille, Boileau, Racine, and Voltaire are very conscien- 
 tious in their rhyming. A desinence, such as acute e, which 
 they regard as absolutely insufficient without support, they 
 invariably provide with support ; such desinences as mas- 
 culine terminations in /, or a nasal, they almost always sup- 
 port ; but it was quite impossible, with their small vocabulary 
 and metrical system, to provide any but accidental reso- 
 nances in ince, or ombre, or Aire. They would reject the 
 weak rhymes in k and i which may be found in Alfred de 
 Musset's Souvenir, but they would never rhyme so richly as 
 Alfred de Musset does in his R'eponse d. Charles Nodier. 
 
 Andrd Ch&ier (died 1794) was the first to open the way 
 to the return to the versification of the sixteenth century. 
 The revolution has been completed by Victor Hugo (born 
 1802), and resonant rhyme is more and more rigorously re- 
 quired of the nineteenth century poet. Of course an essen- 
 tial condition of this reaction has been the abandonment of 
 the severe versification of Boileau, and the admission of all 
 the words in the dictionary into the poet's service. 
 
 II. Of the individual French poets before Malherbe, it 
 may be said generally, that in every generation the best 
 poets rhyme the most richly. But this is not so true of the 
 seventeenth century, for La Fontaine, one of its greatest 
 poets, indulges more freely than anyone before or since in 
 
French Prosody. 53 
 
 the use of every kind of non-resonant rhyme. And again, 
 in the nineteenth century, Alfred de Musset often seems to 
 be happiest when he rhymes worst, as in the Souvenir. Some 
 poets make up for some deficiency in resonance by the fre- 
 quent use of alliteration, and by ingenuity of metre. Still, 
 as a rule, the more richly a modern poet rhymes, the better 
 he is, or, at least, the better he is considered. The obliga- 
 tion to rhyme richly is especially stringent in poems depend- 
 ing on their form, such as sonnets, and is not so binding in 
 the case of tales in verse, or comic pieces, which approach 
 nearer to prose. 
 
 III. In considering the degree in which different asso- 
 nances and consonances can dispense with resonance, some 
 weight must be attributed to the fulness or thinness of the 
 sound, some to the rarity or commonness, the characteristic 
 or merely grammatical character of the termination. 
 
 Assonances in acute e, whether masculine or feminine, are 
 those which most urgently need the support of resonance. 
 Acute e is in itself the thinnest of the sonorous vowels, and it is 
 incapable of any sonorous consonance, for in such words as 
 piige, college, &c., the acute accent does not really represent 
 an acute e, but a kind oiopen e, and they are now often written 
 piige, college, &c. It is, moreover, almost always a mere verbal 
 desinence, representing a participle, infinitive, or second per- 
 sonal plural, and as such is exceedingly common. Rhymes 
 in acute e, masculine or feminine, without support, are con- 
 sequently found only in rustic verse, or in such very free 
 writers as La Fontaine or Alfred de Musset. The strict 
 classical poets avoid them as much as the severest modern 
 masters of rhyme, though it may perhaps be alleged against 
 
54 Manual of 
 
 the contemporaries and followers of Boileau, that they use 
 too many rhymes in acute e, which even with the consonne 
 d'apput ought to be employed sparingly. Thus the following 
 three couplets from Racine are very monotonous, in spite of 
 each having the consonne d'appui : — 
 
 Un enfant dans les fers ; et je ne puis songer 
 Que Troie en cet etat aspire \ se yeviger. 
 Ah ! si du fils d'Hector la parte etait ]\iree, 
 Pourquoi d'un an entier I'avons-nous differ/?? 
 Dans le sein de Priam n'a-t-on pu I'immo/w? 
 Sous tant de morts, sous Troie, il fallait Va.ccs.hkr. 
 
 Andromaque, i. 2. 
 
 Since an iotized vowel can never form a resonant rhyme 
 with its simple, iotized aacte e rhymes very badly with simple 
 acute e. However, two terminations in iotized acute e can 
 rhyme without the consonne d^appui, at least in the versifi- 
 cation of the seventeenth century : — 
 
 Pyrrhus. Viens voir tous ses attraits, Phenix, humik'A 
 
 Allons. 
 Phenix. Allez, seigneur, vous jeter i. ses '^ieds. 
 
 Andromaque, ii. 5. 
 
 And this kind of rhyme is very common in La Fontaine 
 and Alfred de Musset. 
 
 La Fontaine generally observes the rule of using resonant 
 rhymes in acute e, but occasionally neglects it : — 
 
 Et je sais que de moi tu medis I'an pass/. 
 
 Comment I'aurais-je fait, si je n'etais pas n/? 
 
 Fables, i. 10. 
 Ne faut-il que deliber^?-? 
 
 La cour en conseillers foisonne, 
 
 Est-il besoin d'execut^r ? 
 
 On ne retrouve plus personne. 
 
 Fables, ii. 2. 
 
French Prosody. 55 
 
 Alfred de Musset generally shows some respect for 
 resonance in his rhymes in acute e. Thus he does not rhyme 
 such desinences when the words have quite different 
 consonnes d'appui, but only when one of them has a vowel 
 and the other a consonant preceding the rhyme, or when 
 both have a vowel, though not the same one, which is an 
 approach to resonance : — 
 
 Gunther, Je ne te verrai plus, mon Frank ! On t'a tu^ 1 
 Frank. Ce pauvre vleux Gunther, je I'avais oubli^ 
 
 La Coupe et Us Lhires, iv. i. 
 
 or when there is a hard consonant before one termination 
 
 and a soft one of the same class before the other : — 
 
 Et c'est k ta Franfoise, i ton ange de gloire. 
 Que tu pouvais donner ces mots \ prononrsr, 
 Elle qui s'interrompt, pour conter son histoire, 
 
 D'un etemel \s^\ser. 
 
 Souvenir. 
 
 In Mardoche he refers to the question of rhymes in ke — 
 
 Les Muses visitaient sa demeure cachee 
 Et quoiqu'il fit rimer idie a.\sc fdchie. 
 On le lisait. 
 
 He had used this rhyme in Les Matrons du Feu. The 
 only excuse for it is, that idk is not a participle, like most 
 words with the desinence ie. 
 
 A very rare desinence, such as ai, excuses a rhyme with 
 another word, where the ^ is supported by a different vowel : — 
 
 Depuis que sur ces bords les dieux ont envoys' 
 La fille de Minos et de Pasipha/. 
 
 Racine, PhMre, i. i. 
 
 The vowel / alone needs support almost as much as acute e; 
 such rhymes as blanchi, chiri, are very bad, combining the 
 
56 Manual of 
 
 faults of a thin assonance and a very common and purely 
 grammatical termination. They are hardly to be found in 
 any good poets after Malherbe, except La Fontaine and 
 Alfred de Musset : — 
 
 Elle vous cherchera : son sexe en use ainsi. 
 
 Certain couple d'amis, en un bourg etabl/, 
 
 La Fontaine, Fables, vii. 12. 
 
 J'ai vu ma seule amie, i jamais la plus chere, 
 Devenue elle-meme un sepuchre blanchz', 
 Una tombe vivante ou flottait la pousslere 
 De notre mort cherj. 
 
 A. DE Musset, Souvenir. 
 
 But in the feminine form ie, or with even a mute con- 
 sonance, rhymes with this assonance are admitted by the ver- 
 sification of the classical school without support, though the 
 resonant rhyme is preferred : — 
 
 Quoi ! votre amour se veut charger d'une faiie 
 Qui vous detestera, qui toute votre vie— 
 
 Racine, Andromaque, iii. 1. 
 Le pauvre homme 1 Aliens vite en dresser un ecrzV : 
 Et que puisse I'envie en crever de depzV. 
 
 MoLiEEE, Tartuffe, iii. 7. 
 
 Rhymes in a alone require support, except in the freest 
 versification : — 
 
 Nenni. — M'y voici done? — Point du tout. — M'y voiW ? — 
 Vous n'en approchez point. — La chetive pecore 
 S'enfla si bien qu'elle creva. 
 
 La Fontaine, Fables, i. 3. 
 
 However, with even a mute consonance, such rhymes are 
 admissible in modern verse : — 
 
 Quant 4 flatter la foule, 6 mon esprit, non par ! 
 Ah ! le peuple est en haut, mais la foule est en bar. 
 
 V. Hugo, L'Annk Terrible. Prologue. 
 
French Prosody. 57 
 
 It may be observed, however, that in this last rhyme the 
 consonnes d'affui p and h are similar, though not the same ; 
 and also that monosyllabic words, when put at the rhyme, 
 dispense more readily with support than others ; for if they 
 have support, they will generally make puns, and these, 
 though good, are not favourite rhymes in serious poetry. 
 
 Rhymes in ant without support are bad. Here we can 
 cite the authority of La Fontaine against himself : — 
 
 Au doux zephyr, et le priant 
 De les porter k son atnani — 
 " Je vous arrete k cette rime " 
 Dira men censeur k Vinstant, 
 "Je ne la liens pour legitime, 
 Ni d'une assez grande vertu." 
 
 Fables, ii. I. 
 
 Non-resonant rhymes in assonances other than acute e, i, 
 a, ant, are admissible ; but the extent to which they are so 
 varies with the fulness of the vowel sound, the sonorousness 
 of the consonance, and the rarity and individuality of the 
 termination. Poets of any strictness in rhyming are very 
 reluctant to admit any non-resonant masculine rhymes, and 
 exclude even non-resonant feminine rhymes, except where 
 the sequel is very sonorous, as ombre, otre, astre. 
 
 Rhymes extending back over more than one syllable are 
 called doubles or surabondantes. The latter term is depre- 
 ciatory, yet if the abundance is not due to a mere gram- 
 matical or etymological desinence, it is a beauty, provided 
 the sense is not sacrificed to it. They are common in 
 Marot in the seventeenth, and Baudelaire in the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 The/ollowing passage, taken at random from Victor Hugo, 
 
58 Manual of 
 
 represents the average resonance of the best nineteenth cen- 
 tury poetry. It is not, [however, so free of non-resonant 
 rhymes as the poems of the Parnassians, nor has it any very 
 ingenious rimes surabondantes like this from Baudelaire — 
 ta.mariniers, mariniers. 
 
 De tout ceci, du gouffre obscur, du fatal sort, 
 Des haines, des fureurs, des tombes, ce qui sort, 
 C'est de la clarte, peuple, et de la cexiitude. 
 Progr^s ! Fraternity ! Foi ! Que la solitude 
 L'afErme, et que la foule y consente i grands cris ; 
 Que le hameau joyeux le dise au grand Pa«V, 
 Et que le Louvre emu le dise i la ciam.mih'e ! 
 La derniere heure est claire, autant que la ■gxtmiire 
 Fut sombre ; et I'on entend distinctement aufond 
 Du del noir la rumeur que les naissances_/BKA 
 On distingue en cette ombre un bruissement d'aiUs 
 Et moi, dans ces feuillets farouches et fidiles, 
 Dans ces pages de deuil, de bataille et d'effroj. 
 Si la clameur d'angoisse eclata malgre moi, 
 Si j'ai laisse tomber le mot de la souSrance, 
 Une negation quelconque A'es^irance, 
 J 'efface ce sanglot obscur qui se 'peidit ; 
 Ce mot, je le rature et je ne I'ai pas dit. 
 
 V Annie Terrible. Juillet. 
 
 Here, in nine couplets, there is but one with a non-reso- 
 nant rhyme — effroi, moi. 
 
 If the reader will compare this with a passage from Racine, 
 exhibiting the average resonance of seventeenth century 
 Alexandrine couplets, he will see the extent of the change, 
 and if he will compare the rest of the versification, and the 
 diction and vocabulary of the two, he will feel that this 
 change is not an arbitrary one, but intimately connected- 
 with others. 
 
French Prosody. 59 
 
 Oui, ma juste fureur, et j'en fais yzmti, 
 
 A venge mes parents sur ma post^riV/. 
 
 J'aurais vu massacrer et mon p^re et mon irirt, 
 
 Du haut de son palais precipiter ma vaire, 
 
 Et dans un m^me jour egorger i la fo/r 
 
 (Quel spectacle d'horreur !) quatre-vingts fils de xois ; 
 
 Et pourquoi ? pour venger je ne sais quels propli^/« 
 
 Dont elle avait puni les fureurs indiscr^^i?^ : 
 
 Et moi, reine sans coeur, fille sans ixaitie, 
 
 Escla've d'une 14che et frivole pzVzV, 
 
 Je n'aurais pas du moins i cette aveugle ragi 
 
 Rendu meurtre pour meurtre, outrage pour oatrag-e, 
 
 Et de votre David traite tous les nev^a^c ' 
 
 Comme on traitait d'Achab les restes malheur^wj; ! 
 
 Oil serais-je aujourd'hui, si, domptant ma (aihlesse, 
 
 Je n'eusse d'une mere ^touffe la tendresse ; 
 
 Si de mon propre sang ma main versant des Bois 
 
 N'eflt de ce coup hardi r^prime vos complois ? 
 
 Aihalie, ii. "J, 
 
 Here, in nine couplets, there are only four resonant 
 rhyiries. 
 
 Observe (i) that liaison can make a good resonance. 
 Thus on a rhymes with donna, vingt ans with temps. 
 
 (2) A supporting vowel should be the same in both words, 
 as in hair, irahir. But hair, obeir, is a much better rhyme 
 than hair, soupir, and the last a little better than soupir, 
 desir, where there are quite different consonants; 
 
 (3) The ear, and not the eye, is the judge of resonance. 
 Therefore, rhymes such as signS, ne, are very bad, in spite of 
 authority to the contrary; and so are brillee, alike, although 
 the spelling is the same. 
 
 On the other hand, //, with the mouille sound, and j, con- 
 
 ' As in old English, descendants, not our modern nefhews. From 
 Latin nepotes. 
 
6o Manual of French Prosody. 
 
 stitute a resonance, and the following rhyme from Baude- 
 laire is really double in spite of the spelling — appam/Z^w, 
 rayons. For, according to ordinary pronunciation, these 
 words are appare-yons, rt-yons, though M. Littr^ rejected as 
 a vulgarism this manner of speaking. 
 
 (4) A double rhyme in French is not the least like a 
 double rhyme in English. As we have said before, the 
 nearest approach to an English double rhyme, as hdted, 
 fated, is a feminine rhyme as sung. Anything like a French 
 double rhyme would be now excluded from English verse 
 on account of its richness. Cre-a-ture and natiire in the 
 fifteenth century make a rhyme somewhat like a French 
 double rhyme. 
 
 Ah ! sweet, are ye a worldly cve-a-itlre, 
 Or heavenly thing in likeness of na-ttire'i 
 
 James I. of Scotland. 
 
CHAPTER VIII, 
 
 FURTHER REMARKS ON RHYME. 
 
 SINCE the rhyme is all-important in French, certain 
 precepts, not of strict necessity, but of perfection, are 
 laid down with regard to it by M. de Banville, which are by 
 no means without application to English verse, and depend 
 on this principle, that the rhyme is intended to excite and not 
 to lull to sleep the ear and attention of the reader. 
 
 1. Rhymes should be, as far as possible, between 
 different parts of speech. Vie (life) rhymes better with 
 
 {I envy 1 
 , '. \ than with the substantive envie, and 
 
 he envies, J 
 
 so on. 
 
 2. This is especially the case with words of a subordinate 
 kind. If an adjective or participle is put at the rhyme at 
 all, there should, if possible, be a different part of speech in 
 the other verse. The difficulty of carrying this out with 
 terminations in 'e and te is one of the objections to that sort 
 of rhyme. 
 
 3. Adverbs rhyme very badly together, even when they 
 are of a different sort, as ainsi, aussi, compared with id. 
 But when the rhyme is formed by the termination ment, 
 which can be attached to almost any adjective, the facility 
 of the jingle increases its poorness. Such words as douce- 
 ment, follement, &c., ought only to rhyme with words like 
 
62 Manual of 
 
 serment, aimant, amant, Allemand, &c. However, in poems 
 like Ballades, where there a great many lines on one rhyme, 
 there is no objection to two or three adverbs separated by a 
 number of lines with the same rhyme formed by other 
 parts of speech. 
 
 4. Rhymes between words of a similar meaning, as mal- 
 keurs, pleiirs, of a contrary meaning as bonheur, malheur, or 
 that have been already used to death, as Jour, amour, all sin 
 against the general principle, for the practised reader is on 
 his guard against them. It is rather odd that the French 
 should be as unlucky in their amour as we are in our love. 
 Amour, derived from ambrent, like hosts of words in -eur 
 from -brem formerly also written -our, has tinfortunately with 
 the settled orthography in -our, become incapable of rhyming 
 with its kindred, rimeur, humeur, clameur, &c. In the same 
 way love has in modem English lost almost all its rhyming 
 power. The French poets must envy their Spanish and 
 Italian brethren, whose rhymes in -or and -ore to amor, 
 amore, can be counted by dozens. 
 
 5. Conjunctions like et, puisque, &c., must never be put 
 at the rhyme. This is a peremptory rule, not a counsel of 
 perfection. 
 
 6. Rhymes between a simple word and its compound or 
 derivative, faire, refaire, or between two compounds and 
 derivatives of the same word, bienfaiteur, malfaiteur, or 
 between the same word in two senses, derived one from the 
 other, as ingrai (ungrateful) and ingrat (barren), or used as 
 two different parts of speech, demeure (verb) and demeure 
 (noun), are theoretically forbidden. But the French show 
 themselves in practice much more lenient here than we 
 
French Prosody. 63 
 
 should expect, especially in the times before Malherbe, and 
 in cases where there is a sufficient difference of sense to veil 
 the etymological identity of the words. In comparing the 
 two languages, we must take into account, here as every- 
 where, the influence of the tonic accent, which informs the 
 most illiterate Englishman of the connection between doUbt 
 and redoiibtable. To Racine, on the contrary, the connec- 
 tion between doutez and redoutks (see p. 39) is merely a 
 matter of knowledge, not of instinct. A great deal, also, is 
 due to the fact that the roots of French are in a dead 
 language, and something to the love of resonance. Thus 
 pas (a step) and pas (not), though etymologically the same 
 word, form a very common rhyme ; and before Malherbe, 
 demeure (substantive) is a good rhyme with demeure (verb). 
 
 It may be said of most of these precepts, that the poetry 
 of the early period of a literature, and of young poets, de- 
 serves especial indulgence, because technical weakness is 
 counterbalanced by freshness and vigour. Plays upon 
 words, which would shock one in Tennyson or Hugo, do 
 not displease in Shakespeare or Rotrou. Thus in Antigone, 
 the heroine, when Cr^on asks her if she has not been sur- 
 prised burying Polynice, answers, 
 
 Non, on -0^2^ prise, Sire, on ne m'a pas surprise. 
 On ne saurait surprendre en si juste entreprise. 
 
 RoTROU, Antigone, iv. 3. 
 
 The modern reader is perhaps pleased by this sort of art- 
 less artifice, but he would not put up with it from a contem- 
 porary poet. 
 
 Alfred de Musget is the best instance of the subordination 
 
64 Manual of French Prosody. 
 
 of all rules to the youth and genius of an individual. But 
 this kind of prerogative has its drawbacks, for a poet cannot 
 always rely on his youth ; and accordingly it will be found 
 that poets who mean to be read when they are fifty or even 
 eighty, and accomplish this intention, have generally begun 
 by a conscientious conformance with rule. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HOW TO COUNT THE SYLLABLES IN THE BODY OF THE 
 VERSE. 
 
 IT has been said already that French versification is 
 essentially syllabic, and that the number of metrical 
 syllables in every line must be precisely ascertainable. 
 
 We have also seen that the rhyming termination, being 
 Vunique harmonic du vers, is isolated from the next verse to 
 give it force and relief. An exactly contrary principle 
 governs the body of the verse, which is, as it were, the 
 handle or vehicle to direct or carry the rhyme. It is neces- 
 sary that this should form a smooth and homogeneous 
 whole, as if it were one word, and the rules as to the count- 
 ing and pronunciation of metrical syllables all flow from this 
 one source. 
 
 I. Every e mute standing unsupported by a consonant, 
 and not forming the last syllable of the word, is suppressed 
 altogether, and does not count as a syllable. This suppres- 
 sion is often represented in print by omitting the e, and 
 putting the circumflex accent on the preceding vowel. Thus 
 fiamboiement, avouerai, count as three syllables each, flam- 
 boi-ment, a-voii-rai ; louerais, nierons, as two syllables each, 
 loA-rais, nt-rons. 
 
 Qu'un grand brasier joyeux cuit ^ son flam-boie-tnent. 
 
 V. Hugo, Ligende des Siicles. Ratbert. 
 F 
 
66 Manual of 
 
 Jamais mon cceur ne t'ou-blie-ra, 
 Jamais la mort ne de-Iie-ra 
 
 RONSARD. 
 
 And this suppression may take place even at the end of the 
 first word of a compound, as in the phrase a tue-tete. 
 
 Nous chantons a tue-tJte ; il faut bien que la terre. 
 
 A. DE MussET, Apris une Lecture. 
 Scan h-tu-tt-til. 
 
 However, till the seventeenth century, these e mutes could 
 also be pronounced as separate syllables. In this line from 
 Molifere's Don Garde, v. 6, both pronunciations are found : — 
 Mais je vous a-voue-rai que cette gai-e-te. 
 
 II. A final e mute, not followed by an s or nt, and thus 
 belonging to Class I. or Class II. of feminine terminations 
 (p. 20), as in the words Ismene, Ure, esdave, quelle, aventure, 
 Aride, Th'es'ee, is elided before an initial vowel or h mute. 
 
 Ismbie. Aricie, h la fin, de son sort est maitresse, 
 Et bientot a ses pieds verra tout la Gr^ce. 
 
 Aricie. Ce n'est done point, Ismine, un bruit mal afifermi ? 
 Je cesse (VHre esclave, et n'ai plus d'ennemi ? 
 
 Ismine. Non, madame, les dieux ne vous sent plus contraires, 
 Et Thhie a rejoint les manes de vos freres. 
 
 Aricie. Dit-on quelle aventure a termine ses jours ? 
 
 Racine, Phidre, ii. i. 
 
 Est-ce li, dira-t-il, cette _/?«« Hermione ? 
 
 Racine, Andromaque, ii. i. 
 
 Scan and pronounce A-ri-d-a, Is-me-nun, de-tres-da-vl, 
 Thk-s'e-a, quel-la-ven-tu-ra, fih-t-er-mi-on' . 
 
 But the elision of the e mute of the pronoun le after an 
 imperative, as in the following lines of Marot, La Fontaine, 
 and Racine : — 
 
French Prosody. 67 
 
 Prenez-le, il a mang^ le lard. 
 
 Marot, Ballade. 
 
 Mettons-le en notre gibeciere. 
 
 La Fontaine, Fables, v. 3. 
 
 Condamner-le k I'amende, ou s'il le casse, au fouet. 
 
 Racine, Les Plaideurs, ii. 13. 
 
 is very harsh, and would not be admitted either in serious 
 or in modern poetry ; for this e is generally pronounced as 
 a separate syllable in ordinary speech. For the same reason 
 it may be observed that it cannot form the supplementary 
 mute syllable of a feminine rhyme, such as battons-le, 
 mettons-le, or mets-le, mele, although there are instances of 
 this in Marot. The pronoun la cannot be elided after an 
 imperative, but it differs from le in that it can form a mas- 
 culine rhyme, though rather a poor one ; prenez-la will rhyme, 
 e.g., with il 0. 
 
 III. E mute supported by a consonant, and occurring 
 either (a) in the middle of a word, as serai, ornement; or (b) 
 in the last syllable of a word ending in x or the nt of the 
 third person plural, that is, in a termination of Class III. or 
 Class V. (p. 20), as Hes, tendent ; or (c) as the last letter of a 
 word (Class I.) followed by an initial consonant or h 
 aspirate, counts as a syllable in the body of a verse. 
 
 Vous Stes bien paye de toutes vos caresses. 
 
 MOLIERE, Tartuffe, iii. 5. 
 
 Scan — 
 
 Vou-ze-te-bien-pe-ie-de-tou-te-vo-ca-ress'. 
 
 Quelle honte pour moi, quel triomphe poor lui, 
 
 Racine, Andromaque, ii. i. 
 
 Scan — 
 
 Quel-le-on-te-pour-moi-quel-tri-om-phe-pour-lui, 
 
68 Manual of 
 
 Nos Pylades Ik-bas tendent leur bras vers nous. 
 
 Baudelaire, La Mart. 
 Scan — 
 
 No-Py-la-de-lk-ba-ten-de-leur-bra-ver-nou. 
 
 Que ces vains ornements, que ces voiles me pisent ! 
 
 Racine, Phldre, i. 3. 
 Scan — 
 
 Que-cJ-vain-zor-ne-ment-que-cfe-voi-le-me-p^s' ! 
 
 The word onze and its derivatives are treated as if they 
 began with an h aspirate. Out has the privilege of being 
 treated either as beginning with a vowel or consonant. 
 
 In the following line from Racine's Plaideurs, \. 7, the final 
 
 e of madame is elided before oui ; — 
 
 Chicaneau. Avez-vous dit, madame ? 
 
 Comtesse. Oui. 
 
 Chicaneau. J'irais sans fa^on 
 
 whereas in this line from the Prologue to V. Hugo's Annk 
 Terrible, the word haute counts as two syllables, hau-ie, before 
 oui. 
 
 Entendra ce tombeau dire a voix haute, Oui. 
 Scan — 
 
 En-ten-dra-ce-tom-beau-di-ra-voi-au-te-oui. 
 
 It must be observed that a mute syllable cannot bear the 
 stress of the cffisura (p. 84) in those verses which have one. 
 Thus Racine could not have written the verse quoted last 
 from Andromaque :— 
 
 Pour moi quelle honte, quel triomphe pour lui 
 because the sixth syllable of an Alexandrine has to bear the 
 cffisura. 
 
 Nor could Voltaire have written the line : 
 
 Jamais n'eurent d'autre objet que moi-meme 
 
 instead of — 
 
French Prosody. 69 
 
 N'eurent jamais d'autre objet que moi-m^me, 
 
 because, in the metre he is writing in, there is a caesura at 
 the fourth syllable, which the mute termination of the word, 
 eurent, cannot bear. 
 
 But this point was not always observed before Malherbe, 
 especially in ten-syllabled verse. Thus in one of Villon's 
 Ballades we find : — 
 
 Blanche tendre || polie et atteint^e 
 and in a translation by O. de St. Gelais from Ovid's £p'siles 
 there are several such lines : — 
 
 Penelope |.| cette lettre t'envoie 
 * * * ♦ 
 
 TaWt haie || des pucelles de Gihce. 
 
 This last line would also transgress Rule V., presently to be 
 stated. 
 
 And in the beginning of the seventeenth century, Rotrou 
 lets the caesura of an Alexandrine rest on the pronoun le after 
 an imperative : — 
 
 Allez, assurez-le || que sur ce peu d'appas 
 There seems no great objection to this last arrangement, 
 as this particular mute syllable is much more substantial than 
 any other. However, it has not found the sanction of 
 modern usage. 
 
 IV. The pronunciation of these mute syllables, which 
 count in the body of a verse, is a matter of some difficulty, 
 in which French practice is by no means uniform. 
 
 A. In singing they are always pronounced fully as ae, and 
 may even be sung to longer notes than adjacent sonorous 
 vowels if the tune requires it. The song on p. 22, from 
 Th&phile Gautier, is sung : — 
 
70 Manual of 
 
 Di-teu-la-jeu-neu-bel-leu 
 Ou-vou-le-vou-zal-ler 
 La-voi-lou-vreu-son-nai-leu 
 La-bri-zeu-va-souf-fler. 
 
 B. In reading and reciting, there is a growing tendency 
 not to give these syllables any pronunciation as syllables, 
 except that which they would have in prose, but merely to 
 indicate their existence to the ear by a slight pause on the 
 previous syllable. According to this system, in the line 
 quoted above : — 
 
 Quelle honte pour moi, quel triomphe pour lui ! 
 
 the second syllable oi quelle would be very faintly pronounced, 
 because such is the best usage in conversation before an 
 initial h aspirate ; but the second syllable of honte and the 
 third of triomphe would not be pronounced, but only sug- 
 gested by a pause on the first syllable of honte, and the second 
 of triomphe. 
 
 C. But the traditional pronunciation of the Theatre Fran- 
 (ais allows to all mute syllables which count in the body of 
 a line, a distinct though rapjd pronunciation, like that of a 
 very short eu. 
 
 Quel-leu-on-teu pour-moi-quel-tri-om-pheii-pour-lui. 
 However, this system is by no means so strictly observed 
 as formerly. In the present decade one cannot but notice 
 at the Franfais, that a great many e mutes are swallowed or 
 strangled (manges, etrangles) which would have been sounded 
 ten years ago. Every now and then there is a complaint in 
 a review against the innovation, but it goes steadily on, and 
 the actual pronunciation of the stage and the platform may 
 be said to be a compromise between the extremes B and C. 
 
French Prosody. 71 
 
 The line is drawn differently by different people ; but the 
 following are the circumstances favourable to the syllabic 
 pronunciation : (a) The support of several accumulated 
 consonants, as in such words as desastre, accablent, prHre, 
 temple, tremble, schisme. (b) The presence in the same 
 verse of a number of mute syllables which count, when they 
 do not touch one another, but fall alternately, as in the line 
 quoted from Brittanicus (p. 20) : — 
 
 Moi, fiUe, femme, scEur, et m^re de vos mattres. 
 
 This fine line, the nearest approach to an accented iambic 
 verse which is possible in French, is quite spoilt when pro- 
 nounced according to system B. Verses which unite a 
 number of consecutive mute syllables, forming such amalgams 
 asyV te le, &c., are ugly, and can only be pronounced by the 
 ■ suppression of the alternate mute syllables, Jeufleu oxfteur, 
 as in prose, (c) A position between two consonants either 
 the same or of the same class, as in the phrases grdces d,, 
 arrUe-toi. Here the hard and soft sibilant, and the two ^'s, 
 can only be distinguished by a syllabic pronunciation of the 
 intervening mute e. (d) A passionate and rhetorical pas- 
 sage. Even in conversation the French, under excitement, 
 often give full syllabic pronunciation to what are ordinarily 
 quite mute syllables, (e) Public acting and recitation. A 
 Frenchman would regard as pedantic a syllabic pronunciation 
 in a casual quotation or a friend's reading at home, which he 
 would expect in a public performance. 
 
 The final s and t of mute terminations of Classes III. and 
 V. are in any case pronounced in liaison before a vowel or 
 h mute. 
 
T2 Manual of 
 
 Graces au del, mes mains ne sont point criminelles. 
 
 Racine, Phidre, i. 3. 
 
 Pronounce Grdrceu-zau. 
 
 lis reyent, etendus sans mouvement, sans voix. 
 
 Sully-Prudhomme, Sonnet. 
 
 Scan Ils-r^-ve-te-ten-du, whatever pronunciation you give to 
 the mute vowel of the third syllable. 
 
 V. A final mute syllable unsupported by a consonant 
 cannot count as a syllable, nor can it be elided except when 
 the e mute stands immediately before an initial vowel or 
 h mute. Consequently all words with a termination of 
 Class II., such as TMs'ee, Aricie, voie, monnaie, are only ad- 
 mitted into the body of a verse before an initial vowel or 
 h mute, as in the examples given above, p. 66. And words 
 with a termination of Class IV., or Class VI., as voies, mon- 
 nates, louent, sourient, are not admitted, except at the end 
 of a feminine line. 
 
 But this is a modern rule. Before Malherbe and Boileau 
 had fixed the system of versification, such a mute syllable 
 could either be suppressed or counted. 
 
 'La.pluie nous a debues et laves. 
 
 Villon, Ballade. 
 
 Belleau, I'amour te poind, je teprie, ne I'oublie. 
 
 RONSARD. 
 
 Here suppress the mute e oipluie, prie. 
 
 Pies, corbeaux, nous ont les yeux caves. 
 
 Villon, Ballade. 
 Tydee, de tes jours j'ai la course bomee. 
 
 RoTRou, Antigone, i. 6. 
 Here scan Fi-e, Ty-de-e. 
 
French Prosody. 73 
 
 Baudelaire approaches this ancient liberty in the following 
 line from Llntprhu, where, however, the spelling with y 
 (authorized by the Academy in the feminine terminations 
 of the verb payer only among verbs in -yer) to a certain ex- 
 tent justifies the treatment oipaye as a dissyllable: — 
 
 II faut que le gibier ^aye le vieux chasseur, 
 
 VI. However, since the Middle Ages the termination aient 
 of the imperfect and conditional tenses, and the words aient, 
 soient, are monosyllabic, and admitted freely into the body 
 of the verse, though the masculine rhymes they form at the 
 end of a line are not very good : — 
 
 Et soient vos bons avis suivis de bons effets. 
 
 RoTROU, Antigone, i. 5. 
 Scan l-soi-vo. 
 
 Les saints autels n'kaient h mes regards 
 Qu'un marchepie du troae des Cesars. 
 L'ambition, la fureur, les delices, 
 Mtaient mes dieux, avaient mes sacrifices. 
 
 Voltaire. 
 Scan ni-tai-ta, i-tai-ml-dieu-za-vai-ml-sa-cri-fid. 
 
 But in early times these terminations were dissyllabic, and 
 admitted on that footing into the body of the verse ; since 
 Rule V. is modern. Thus, in the Chanson de Roland^ iv. 
 163:— 
 
 Disaient lui, Sire, rendez-le nous. 
 
 Scan- 
 
 Scan ai-e. 
 
 Di-sai-e-lui-Si-re-ren-dl-le-nou. 
 Si qu'ils aient bonnes nouvelles. 
 
 G. DE LORRIS. 
 
74 Manual of 
 
 Terminations in oient, which do not come under this rule, 
 occupy a rather uncertain place in French prosody. Such 
 word as croient, voient, envoient, &c., feel the influence of two 
 analogies. Sometimes they are treated like the words aient, 
 soient, as in the Marseillaise : — 
 
 Voient ton triomphe et notre gloire, 
 where voient is scanned like voit. 
 
 Sometimes they are used as feminine rhymes of Class 
 VI. :— 
 
 Ne t'etonne done plus, si je veux qu'ils se voient : 
 Je veux qu'en se voyant leurs fiireurs se diploient ; 
 
 Racine, Les Frires Ennemis, iii. 6. 
 
 However, this anomalous situation has caused such words 
 to be generally avoided in modern verse. 
 
 VII. An initial vowel or h mide^ except in the first word 
 of the verse, must be preceded by a consonantal sound 
 capable of being pronounced in liaison with it. A breach of 
 this rule is called hiatus, and happens when the initial vowel 
 or h mute is preceded by a sonorous vowel, .as in this line of 
 Ronsard : — 
 
 Feu I et dards 
 
 or by a consonant that cannot be pronounced in liaison, as 
 in the word et : — 
 
 Et jamais qu'a genoux et|aux pieds des autels. 
 
 ROTROU, Laure Perskutk, i. I. 
 
 or by an n which is only the sign of a nasal vowel, and in- 
 capable of being pronounced as a consonant : — 
 Ainsi soit-il toujours en ton sein | endormi. 
 
 Ronsard. 
 
 These examples, which might be multiplied indefinitely, 
 
French Prosody. 75 
 
 show that the rule against hiatus enforced by Malherbe and 
 Boileau is an innovation contrary to the ancient usage of 
 the language. 
 
 However, there is no doubt that a hiatus after a hard 
 vowel such as a, k, I, is disagreeable. We may observe in 
 our own language a certain aversion to hiatus evinced in 
 the vulgarism of / saw-rim, Maria-rand /, for T saw him, 
 Maria and I. And in French there seems to have been a 
 growing dislike to hiatus after a, hard vowel even in the 
 body of a word, for the dissyllables ma-ur, pa-on, A-oilt, have 
 shrunk either altogether, or in ordinary conversation into 
 the monosyllabic sounds m-&r, pan, oM. But it does appear 
 most incomprehensible that in a language delighting in 
 hypsilonized and iotized vowels, phrases like tu es, il y a, si 
 elk, should be rigorously excluded from verses, though their 
 perfect euphony is proved by their indiscriminate use by 
 poets till Malherbe, by their constant recurrence in prose and 
 conversation, and by the free admission into modem verse 
 of the very same sounds under the forms tuais, il Ha, partiel. 
 
 Accordingly, a few examples of hiatus after /, y, 0, u, ou, 
 
 are to be found in poets contemporary with or subsequent 
 
 to Boileau : — 
 
 O vent done, puisque vent y | a, 
 
 La Fontaine, Fables, ix. 7. 
 
 Tant y I a qu'il n'est rien que votre chien ne prenne ; 
 
 Racine, Les Plaideurs, iii. 3. 
 
 Ah ! foUe que tu|es ! 
 
 A. DE MusSET, Namouna. 
 
 The rule against hiatus, being partly conventional, is not 
 
76 Manual of 
 
 so strictly observed when there is an apparent consonant at 
 the end of the first word : — 
 
 ■3, Souffre/que la raison | enfin vous persuade. 
 
 " Les Plaideurs, i. 4. 
 
 or in the case of interjections, or when the second word is 
 oui : — 
 
 Oh Ik ! 1 Oh ! descendez, que Ton ne vous le dise, 
 
 La Fontaine, Fables, iii. i. 
 
 Chicaneau. On la conseille.' 
 
 Petit-Jean. Oh ! 1 
 
 Comtesse. Oui, de me faire lier. 
 
 Les Plaideurs, i. 8. 
 
 VIII. Till the fourteenth century the elision of the 
 vowels a, t, 0, u, before an initial vowel or h mute was not 
 contrary to the genius of the French language. In the 
 Chanson de Roland such elisions are frequent, and they were 
 not confined to verse. In modem literary French the only 
 remains of this elision are to be found in the case of the 
 article la, the pronoun la except after an imperative, phrases 
 like ma mie for ma amie, and the conjunction si before il or 
 Us. However, some vestiges of this kind of elision, now 
 lost, are to be found in Ronsard : — 
 
 Selle veut me baiser, ne se fera point mal 
 
 for Si elle. 
 
 The loss of the privilege of eliding sonorous vowels, and 
 the rule against hiatus, constitute a great difficulty in French 
 versification. A French poet cannot use the words tu and toi 
 with anything like the freedom that an English poet has with 
 thou and thee ; tu as, tu aimes, tu es, are all forbidden. This is 
 
French Prosody. 77 
 
 one reason which inclines the French to use the plural votis 
 much more than the singular in their verse. 
 
 IX. In general every possible liaison in the body of a 
 verse is fully given in pronunciation, however unusual in 
 prose. 
 
 Regner et de I'^tat embrasser la conduite ? 
 
 Racine, Fhidre, iiL I. 
 
 is recited Re-gn'e-rt-de-le-ta-tem-bra-s'e-la-con-duif, although in 
 prose the liaison after regner and ktat would be very forced. 
 However, there is here also some difference between the 
 usage in singing or acting, and that in domestic reading or 
 reciting, when a very unusual liaison may sound harsh and 
 pedantic. 
 
 We add the scansion of the first speech of Hermione in 
 the fifth scene of the fourth act of Racine's Andromaqiie, as 
 an example of the rules laid down in this chapter : — 
 
 Sei-gneur-dan-cet-ta-veu-de-pou-ye-dar-ti-fic' 
 Jai-ma-voir-que-du-moin-vou-vou-ren-diez-jus-tic' 
 /I, Et-que-vou-lan-bien-rom-prun-noeu-si-so-Wj/-nel 
 Vou-vou-za-ban-don-ne-zau-cri-men-cri-mi-nel 
 E-til-jus-ta-pr^-tou-qu'un-con-que-ran-sa-baiss' 
 Sou-la-ser-vi-le-loi-de-gar-de-sa-pro-mess' 
 Non-non-la-per-fi-di-a-de-quoi-vous-ten-te 
 Et-vou-ne-me-cher-che-que-pour-vou-zen-ven-te 
 Quoi-san-que-ni-ser-men-ni-de-voir-vous-re-tien' 
 Re-cher-ch^-ru-ne-Grec-ca-man-du-ne-Troi-ien' 
 Me-quit-te-me-re-pren-dr^-re-tour-ne-ren-cor 
 De-la-fi-ye-de-l^-na-la-veu-ve-dec-tor 
 Cou-ron-ne-tou-ra-tour-les-cla-v^-Ia-prin-cess' 
 Im-mo-le-Troi-au-Grec-zau-fis-dec-tor-Ia-Grec' 
 Tou-ce-la-par-dun-coeur-tou-jour-mal-tre-de-soi 
 Dun-e-ro-qui-ne-pa-les-cla-ve-de-sa-foi 
 
 and so on. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE SCANNING OF DIPHTHONGS. 
 
 A HARD vowel followed by another in the same word 
 does not make a diphthong. Thus the letters aou in 
 in the word AoM do not make a diphthong, because either 
 the word is pronounced a-ou, in which case there is an un- 
 pleasant collision but not the least mixing of the two syl- 
 lables, or oil, in which case the first vowel is simply omitted 
 for the sake of euphony. No rule can be laid down why 
 aoriste should be pronounced o-ris-ie, 3nAfleau,Jle-au. And 
 of course vowels written in two letters, as at, ou, eu, are not 
 diphthongs. 
 
 But the iotized and hypsilonized vowels are true diph- 
 thongs, because each part of them is separately heard, and 
 yet the i or u sound melts into the following one. It would 
 take a whole volume fully to discuss the history and pro- 
 nunciation of these sounds, but some hints are necessary to 
 enable the reader to scan French verses with any certainty. 
 
 1 . It must not be supposed that in any particular word 
 these sounds may be monosyllabic or dissyllabic at will. 
 Hier may be pronounced hi-er or hier, duel as du-el or 
 duel ; but such liberty is very exceptional. 
 
 2. A diphthong which is dissyllabic in conversation will 
 be dissyllabic in verse. But the converse is not always true, 
 for there are many words like scorpion, nation, diadbne, 
 
Mamial of French Prosody, 79 
 
 which are in conversation scor-pion, na-cion, dia-dhme, but 
 in verse scor-pi-on, na-ci-on, di-a-di-me. A few modern poets, 
 such as A. de Musset and Baudelaire, sometimes import the 
 prose pronunciation into verse, but this is not done by the 
 best authorities, as Victor Hugo, who is very conscientious 
 about his diphthongs. 
 
 3. Certain principles of etymology and euphony may be 
 laid down concerning all diphthongs. 
 
 A. The combination of three sonorous syllables without 
 
 intervening consonants is most repugnant to the ear. La 
 
 Fontaine has the word chi-a-oux, from the Turkish, in his 
 
 Fables, i. 12 : — 
 
 Le chi-a-oux, homme.de sens, 
 
 but this is quite an anomaly. It may be laid down as 
 almost universally true, that an iotized sound must be 
 monosyllabic if the dissyllabic pronunciation would cause 
 three sonorous syllables to stand together without con- 
 sonants. This rule applies to such words z.% pa-ien, fa-ien-ce, 
 but, above all, wherever the letter y represents two «'s. In 
 such cases there can be no doubt, not even when there is a 
 double iotization ; royaume, effrayant, payons, payions, &c., 
 must be scanned roi-iau-me, ef-frk-iant, pt-ions, pe-iions. 
 
 B. Wherever in a verb the first part of a diphthong be- 
 longs to the root, the second to the termination, then, sub- 
 ject to Rule A, the diphthong is dissyllabic. Thus from ri-re, 
 we have ri-ons, from lou-er lou-ons, from con-du-re con- 
 clu-ais. But pronounce Ugayer M-gh'e-ier, begayais bt- 
 ghe-tais, according to Rule A. 
 
 When the whole diphthong belongs to the termination, 
 as in ai-mions, ai-miez, the first and second persons plural 
 
8o Manual of 
 
 of the imperfect indicative or present subjunctive of aimer, 
 it is monosyllabic. In the Middle Ages such terminations 
 were either monosyllabic or dissyllabic, according to the 
 number of Latin syllables represented ; aimioKS, from a-ma- 
 bkmus, was pronounced ai-mi-ons, from a-memus, ai-mions. 
 The diphthong ions in a verbal termination after r, pre- 
 ceded by a non-liquid consonant, is dissyllabic, as vou- 
 dri-ons. 
 
 C. Subject to Rule B, iotized vowels are dissyllabic from 
 the middle of the seventeenth century, when the i sound is 
 preceded immediately by r or /, preceded by a non-liquid 
 consonant. Thus scan san-gli-er, bou-di-er, meur-tri-er, 
 pri-ire, &c., but vou-driez, not vou-dri-ez, because of Rule B. 
 Before the seventeenth century, and by Rotrou and La 
 Fontaine, these words are scanned according to their ety- 
 mology, bou-dierirora. bucculdrium, san-glierhoia singuldrem. 
 
 Vous etiez son bou-cUer au milieu des alarmes. 
 
 Rotrou, Antigone, i. 4. 
 
 Mais beaux et bons san-glkrs, daims et cerfs bons et beaux. 
 
 La Fontaine, Fables, ii. 19. 
 
 This rule does not affect hypsilonized vowels at all ; thus 
 we scan con-strui-re, irois, Blois. 
 
 D. Subject to Rule C, a diphthong. is monosyllabic when 
 it represents in a word of popular derivation the simple 
 vowel of the accented syllable of the Latin original. Thus, 
 from the Latin /i^r^OT,' we \\.zs&fie-vre, from c&lum del, from 
 rem rien, from bene bien, from met miel, from fel fiel, from 
 ferumfier, from cdnem chien. Hence the diphthongs oi and 
 and oin are always monosyllabic, regem roi, testimbnium 
 te-moin. This change of the Latin tonic vowel into a diph- 
 
French Prosody. 8i 
 
 thong is peculiar to the Western Romance languages, and 
 rare in Italian. 
 
 E. In modern words copied from the Latin, like 0-ri-ent 
 from 0-ri-en-teM, a diphthong is generally dissyllabic, because 
 the / or u sound is taken from a Latin syllable. 
 
 F. Words formed on the analogy of, or by inflection 
 from, those which come under Rules D and E, will follow 
 Rules D and E respectively. Thus Egypiianus, gloriosus, 
 gratiosus, officialts, give, according to E, E-gyp-ti-en, glo-ri-eux, 
 gra-ci-eux, of-fi-ci-el ; hence the terminations i-en, i-eux, 
 i-euse, i-el, i-elle, added to a root to make adjectives, are 
 pronounced dissyllabically. But where such diphthongs are 
 part of the root of the word, they will usually be mono- 
 syllabic, cieux, vieux, viei-llard, niel-le. So, subject to C, 
 words formed in ier, iere, conform to the derivation from 
 -irem, -drtum, and the diphthong is monosyllabic, guer-rier, 
 pom-mier. A monosyllabic diphthong, as in dia-ble, Chrk- 
 tien, seems sometimes to represent two Latin syllables, 
 di-db-o-lum, Chris-ti-d-num, but the appearance is often 
 misleading. In old words like these, the short unaccented 
 / of the Latin is not retained. The -ten of Chr'e-tien is not 
 a modern dissyllabic suffix copied from the Latin ianum, as 
 in co-me-di-en, but a monosyllabic iotization of the termina- 
 tion -dnum. In dia-ble we can trace the process. Di-d-bo- 
 lum became dk-a-ble, for the short atonic /, being in the first 
 syllable of the word, was not at once discarded, but passed 
 into e. To soften the hiatus of de-a-ble, a euphonic i was 
 inserted in the second syllable, dk-ia-ble. Afterwards the i 
 was thrown out, and there remained dia-ble. 
 
 4. It is worth observing that, subject to these foregoing 
 
 G 
 
82 Manual of 
 
 rules, iotized acute e and in (written ien) are generally 
 monosyllabic ; iotized open e more often monosyllabic than 
 not, except when written i-ai, which is usually dissyllabic. 
 Iotized a and o are more often dissyllabic than not. Nasals, 
 other than in, are generally dissyllabic when iotized. Thus 
 Mt-rar-chi-e, pied, pi-tie, &c., mien, viens, tiens, &c. Dti-gue, 
 re-lief, but li-ais, ni-ais. Hier and biais may be pronounced 
 in either way. Di-a-mant, mi-au-ler, na-ti-on, sci-en-ce, accord- 
 ing to the general rule ; but dia-ble, dia-cre, vian-de, 
 pio-che. 
 
 5. Oi, oin, uin, are always monosyllabic, and so is ui, ex- 
 cept in bru-i-ne, bru-i-re, and their kindred, and in words 
 copied from the Latin, as ru-i-ne from ru-ina. Other hypsi^ 
 Ionized vowels are generally dissyllabic, even against Latin 
 and English analogy: per-m-a-der, jou-et, mu-et, su-a-ve, &c. 
 Among the commonest exceptions are oui nuAfouet. Louis 
 is better Lou-is, but Louis is permissible. Juan is a mono- 
 syllable. 
 
 In poete and the allied words the diphthong ok is mono- 
 syllabic till Boileau, dissyllabic afterwards ; they are now 
 often written poete, poeme. 
 
 X^poi-te autrefois n'en dut guere, 
 
 La Fontaine, Fables, ix. 6. 
 Un sonnet sans defauts vaut seul un long po-eme. 
 
 Boileau, Art Poetique, ii. 94. 
 
 On the other hand, Ronsard scans mo-el-le, and A. de 
 Musset moel-leux, In poh-le this diphthong has only one 
 syllable. Duel is sometimes monosyllabic, but the other 
 pronunciation is more common. 
 
 6, But the surest way of knowing the quantity of diph- 
 
French Prosody. 83 
 
 thongs is to read Victor Hugo. He uses every word in the 
 dictionary and some others, and M. de Banville complains 
 only, that he scans Hard, contrary to precedent, as a dis- 
 syllable. Even a single poem like Eviradnus in the Legende 
 dts Slides, carefully read, will accustom the reader's ear to 
 a host of diphthongs, and educate it to feel instinctively 
 what the pronunciation of analogous words must be. We 
 give some lines from Part HI. of this poem. 
 
 Oil ? Dans Van-Hen manoir de Corbus. L'herbe verte, 
 Le lier-re, le chien-dent, Vl-glan-tier sauvageon, 
 
 ***** 
 Meurt, comme sous la Upre un san-gli-er malade 
 
 ***** 
 Sur ces vieux pier-riers morts vient becqueter les mflres ; 
 
 ♦ »■*** 
 
 II se refait avec les con-vul-si-ons sombres 
 
 ***** 
 Avec I'eclair qui frappe eXfuil comme un lairon 
 
 ***** 
 Une sorte de vie effrayante (pr. ef-frl-iant') a sa taille. 
 
 ***** 
 R^pond au hurlement de Jan-vier qui s'approche 
 
 » » * ♦ * 
 
 Oh ! les lugubres nuits ! Combats dans la brti-ine ! 
 La nu-t'-e attaquant, farouche, la ru-ine \ 
 Un ruis-sel-le-ment vaste, affreux, tor-ren-ti-el, 
 Descend des -pronAemi fii-ri-eu-ses du del; 
 
 ***** 
 Grondent et les li-ous de pier-rc des remparts 
 
 ***** 
 
 « * * » » 
 
 Le tourbillon A'un/ouet invisible hate, 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE DIFFERENT VERSES POSSIBLE IN FRENCH, 
 
 VERSES may be made of any number of syllables from 
 one to thirteen, but those of one, nine, eleven, and 
 thirteen syllables are little used. A line of more than eight 
 syllables requires a caesura or pause on a given syllable of 
 the line. Thus the Alexandrine or twelve-syllabled line has 
 a cassura at the sixth syllable, and the old epic verse of ten 
 syllables is broken at the fourth syllable. 
 
 The caesura may be formed in two ways : by a word of a 
 masculine termination, whose last syllable is the syllable at 
 which the csesura ought to come, e.g., the sixth syllable of 
 an Alexandrine ; or by a word of feminine termination of 
 Class I. or Class II. whose last sonorous syllable is the 
 caesura syllable, but only on condition that it is followed by 
 an initial vowel or h mute, before which the final e mute can 
 be elided. Thus, in the following three lines from Boileau's 
 Art FoHique, ii. 140, the caesura at the sixth syllable is 
 formed in the first verse by the last syllable of the word 
 Gaulois ; in the second by the last sonorous syllable of the 
 word asservie (of Class II.), and in the third by the only 
 sonorous syllable of the word licstre (of Class I.) ; while the 
 final e mutes of asservie and lustre are elided before cL and 
 ati respectively. 
 
Manual of French Prosody. 85 
 
 Le Rondeau, ne Gaulois 
 La Ballade, asservie 
 Souvent doit tout son lustre 
 
 a la naivete. 
 
 (5 ses vieilles maximes, 
 
 au caprice des rimes. 
 
 Two Other forms were admitted, the first in very ancient 
 times, the second till the sixteenth century, but are now 
 quite passed out of use. In the first the caesura syllable 
 was occupied by the last sonorous syllable of a word of any 
 feminine termination, and the final mute syllable was sup- 
 pressed, whether before a vowel or consonant, as in this 
 line from the Chanson de Roland .- — 
 
 De douce France, || des hommes de son lign 
 
 where the mute syllable of France does not count at all, 
 though followed by a consonant. This seems reasonable 
 enough, as the object of the caesura is to relieve the ear in 
 a long verse by a pause imitating the end of a line, and in 
 some sort making two lines out of one. Now, at the end of 
 a line, it would make no difference whether France were 
 followed by an initial vowel or consonant. However, this 
 kind of caesura has long been abandoned. 
 
 The other obsolete form, which does not seem much to 
 be regretted, is that of which examples were given on 
 page 69, where the actual caesura syllable is occupied by a 
 final mute syllable. 
 
 It may be observed generally, that in grouping verses of 
 different lengths, even-syllabled lines without caesura are 
 more commonly united with other even-syllabled lines, and 
 odd with odd. Lines that have a caesura are most readily 
 combined with short lines of the same length as one of the 
 
86 Manual of 
 
 divisions formed by the CEesura. However, combinations of 
 other kinds are quite usual, and often very harmonious. 
 
 I. Verses of one syllable are uncommon, and their use by 
 themselves, as in a sonnet by Paul de Ressdguier, quoted by 
 M. de Banville, degenerates into a mere tour deforce : — 
 
 Fort 
 
 Belle, 
 
 Ella 
 
 Dort. 
 
 Sort 
 
 Frae, 
 
 Quelle 
 
 Mort ! 
 
 II. The peculiar characters of the other verses without 
 caesura are best studied in Victor Hugo's marvellous poem, 
 Les Djinns, Orientales, xxviii. This piece, which the reader 
 should not fail to master, is composed of fifteen stanzas of 
 eight lines each. Each stanza has the same arrangement of 
 
 rhymes, viz : — 
 
 1. f. 
 
 2. m, 
 
 1. f. 
 
 2. m. 
 3- f. 
 3- f. 
 
 '3-f. 
 2. m. 
 
 The first stanza consists of two-syllabled lines, the second of 
 three-syllabled, and so on up to the seventh; the eighth 
 stanza consists of ten-syllabled lines with the caesura at the 
 fourth syllable. The last seven stanzas decrease in length 
 in the same way as the first seven increase, so that the 
 poem ends with a two-syllabled stanza as it began. This 
 
French Prosody. 87 
 
 arrangement represents the approach and departure of a' 
 swarm of the evil spirits tailed Djinns, under the form of a 
 tempest. 
 
 Here are the first five stanzas, as specimens of lines of 
 twOf three, four, five, and six syllables :— 
 
 Murs, ville, 
 Et port. 
 AsUe 
 De mort, 
 Mer grise 
 Oil brise 
 La brise ; 
 Tout dorL 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Dans la plaine 
 Nalt un bruit, 
 C'est I'haleine 
 De la nuit. 
 KUe brame, 
 Comme une ime 
 Qu'une flamme 
 Toujours suit. 
 
 La voix plus haute 
 Semble un grelot. 
 D'un nain qui saute 
 C'est le galop: 
 II fuit, s'elance, 
 Puis en cadence 
 Sur un pied danse 
 Au bout d'un flot. 
 
 La rumeur approche ; 
 L'echo la redit. 
 C'est comme la cloche 
 ■D'un couvent majidit ; 
 
88 Manual of 
 
 Comme nn bruit de foule. 
 Qui tonne et qui roule, 
 Et tantet s'ecroule 
 Et tant6t grandit. 
 VI. 
 
 Dieu ! la voix sepulchrale 
 
 Des Djinns ! Quel bruit ils font ! 
 
 Fuyons sous la spirale 
 
 De I'escalier profond I 
 
 Deji s'eteint ma lampe ; 
 
 Et I'ombre de la rampe. 
 
 Qui le long du mur rampe, 
 
 Monte jusqu'au plafond. 
 
 VII. Verses of seven syllables are very common, especially 
 in combination with shorter lines. 
 
 In the following song from Victor Hugo's Quatre Vents 
 de r Esprit, Livre Lyrique, the refrain contains one line of 
 two syllables ; the rest are seven-syllabled : — 
 
 Proscrit, regarde les roses ; 
 Mai joyeux de I'aube en pleurs 
 Les refoit toutes ecloses : 
 Proscrit, regarde les ilenrs. 
 
 Je pense 
 Anx roses que je semai ; 
 Le mois de Mai sans la France, 
 Ce n'est pas le mois de Mai. 
 
 Proscrit, regarde les tombes ; 
 Mai, qui lit aux deux si beaux. 
 Sous les baisers des colombes 
 Fait palpiter les tombeaux. 
 
 Je pense 
 Aux yeux chers que je fermai. 
 Le mois de Mai sans la France, 
 Ce n'est pas le mois de Mai. 
 
French Prosody. 89 
 
 Proscrit, regarde les branches, 
 Les branches oil sont les nids ; 
 Mai les remplit d'ailes blanches 
 Et de soupirs infinis. 
 
 Je pense 
 Aux nids charmants oil j'aimai. 
 Le mois de Mai sans la France, 
 Ce n'est pas le mois de Mai. 
 
 The following form of stanza invented by Ronsard or his 
 school is very beautiful. It is composed of six lines : the 
 third and sixth are of seven syllables, and rhyme together ; 
 the first is of seven syllables and rhymes with the second, 
 which is of three syllables; the fourth and fifth rhyme together 
 and correspond in length to the first and second : — 
 
 Rime, ^cho qui prends la voix 
 
 Du hautbois 
 Ou IVclat de la trompette, 
 Dernier adieu d'un ami 
 
 Qu'i demi 
 L'autre ami de loin repete ; 
 
 Sainte Beuve, Poisies de Joseph Delorme. 
 
 VIII. The eight-syllabled line without ccesura has the repu- 
 tation of being the easiest and freest verse, and used by 
 itself forms the commonest of all lyric metres. It was in 
 early times also used in comedy. 
 
 Si nous sommes une statue 
 Sculptee k I'image de Dieu, 
 Quand cette image est abattue, 
 Jetons-en les debris au feu. 
 
 Toi, forme immortelle, remonte 
 Dans la flamme aux sources du beau, 
 Sans que ton argile ait la honte 
 Et les mis^res du tombeau. 
 
 THfiOPHiLE Gautier, Emaux et Carnees. 
 
90 Manual of 
 
 IX. The eight-syllabled line with a ccBSura at the fourth 
 syllable is more vigorous, and is to be preferred, especially in 
 combination with lines of four syllables : — 
 
 Dans un baiser || I'onde au rivage 
 
 Dit ses douleurs. 
 Pour consoler || la fleur sauvage, 
 
 L'aube a des pleurs. 
 Le vent du soir || conte sa plainte 
 
 Au vieux cypres. 
 La tourterelle \\ au terebinthe 
 
 Ses longs regrets. 
 
 THfiOPHiLE Gautier, Pohies, 
 
 X. The nine-syllabled line with two ccBsuras, one at the 
 third, and the other at the sixth syllable, is a favourite metre in 
 opera libretto, and has a detestable jingle. Here are two 
 average lines from the opera of the Noces de Figaro : — 
 
 Oiselet || echappe || de ta cage, 
 Laisse en paix || les minois || alentour. 
 
 However, it cannot be absolutely passed over in silence, 
 on account of the burden of Malbrouck: — 
 
 Mironton ! || Mironton ! |{ Mirontaine, 
 
 which Victor Hugo has imitated in the Chatiments. 
 
 XI. M. de Banville has invented a pretty nine-syllabled 
 line with a ccesura at the fifth syllable: — 
 
 Mais I'ombre toujours 
 Ta plainte qui meurt 
 Et tes verts roseaux 
 
 entend fremir 
 comme etouflfee, 
 tout bas gemir, 
 Fleuve qu'a rougi | le sang d'Orphee. 
 
 Petit Traits de Pohie Franfaise. 
 
 XII. The ten-syllabled line with the ccesura at the fourth 
 
French Prosody. 
 
 91 
 
 syllable is the earliest and only truly epic French line, and 
 is equally suitable for lyric poetry. To the English ear it 
 adapts itself more readily than any other, but the modem 
 French prefer the Alexandrine. 
 
 II connaltra 
 Un doux abus, 
 Un vain espoir, 
 
 qu' Amour est sans raison, 
 
 une belle prison, 
 
 qui de vent nous vient paltre ; 
 
 II connaltra 
 
 Quand, plein d'erreur, 
 
 Pour sa conduite. 
 
 que I'homme se d^yoit, 
 
 un aveugle il re9oit 
 
 un enfant pour son maltre. 
 
 RoNSARD, Sonnet. 
 
 XIII. The ten-syllabled verse with a casura at the ffth. 
 syllable is purely lyric : — 
 
 J'ai dit i mon cceur, 
 N'est-ce point assez 
 Et ne vois-tu pas 
 C'est perdre en desirs 
 
 i mon faible coeur ; 
 d'aimer sa maitresse ? 
 que changer sans cesse, 
 le temps de bonheur ? 
 
 A. DE MussET, Chanson. 
 
 This kind of ten-syllabled verse combines admirably with 
 lines of five syllables, as in the refrain of Victor Hugo's 
 Chasseur Noir. . Here is a less known and very fine passage 
 from M. Sully-Prudhomme :— 
 
 Vous qui m'aiderez || dans mon agonie 
 
 Ne me dites rien : 
 Faites que j'entende || un peu d'harmonie, 
 
 Et je mourrai bien 
 
 La musique apaise, || enchante, et delie 
 
 Des choses d'en bas ; 
 Bercez ma douleur, || je vous en supplie, 
 
 Ne lui parlez pas, 
 
92 Manual of 
 
 Je suis las des mots, || je suis las d'entendre 
 
 Ce qui peut mentir : 
 J'aime mieux les sons |{ qu'au lieu de comprendre 
 
 Je n'ai qu'k sentir. 
 
 Une melodie, || oil I'ame se plonge, 
 
 Et qui sans effort 
 Me fera passer || du delire au songe, 
 
 Du songe a la mort. 
 
 VAgonie. 
 
 XIV. The verse of eleven syllables with a casura at the 
 fifth syllable is chiefly known to the present generation 
 through M. de Banville's excursion into this unfrequented 
 region. It is pretty enough, partaking of the nature of XIII. 
 and XV. 
 
 Les zephyrs sont pleins 
 Et parfois un patre, 
 Aper9oit au loin 
 Sur le vert coteau 
 
 de leur voix etouffee, 
 attire par le cor, 
 Viviane la fee 
 peignant ses cheveux d'or. 
 Petit Traiti de Poisie Franfaise. 
 
 XV. The famous Alexandrine, or verse of twelve syllables 
 with a casura at the sixth syllabic, has become to the modern 
 French the sole vehicle of epic, dramatic, and sustained 
 narrative, or satiric poetry, in the form of couplets or rimes 
 plates. It is also admitted into sonnets, and most other 
 forms of lyric poetry, generally in quatrains, or in combina- 
 tion with shorter verses. 
 
 The Alexandrine couplet has two distinct forms : the classic 
 of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the 
 Romantic of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Boileau is the master, though not the good genius, of the 
 classic Alexandrine couplet, of which Corneille and Racine 
 are the models. In this form of verse, as already mentioned, 
 
French Prosody. 93 
 
 there must be pauses of sense at the caesuras and the end 
 of the first line of each couplet, and a more decided break 
 at the end of the second verse; and all other breaks are 
 avoided. The Romantic Alexandrine couplet of Victor 
 Hugo is free from these rules, and differs from Racine's in 
 the same sort of way that Mr. Morris's heroic couplets differ 
 from Pope's. However, the question is one of type rather 
 than of hard and fast distinction. Most of the classic poets 
 occasionally use enjambement (overflowing of the sense of 
 one verse into the next), weak caesura, and extra pauses, at 
 least in comic passages, as in Racine's comedy, Les Plaideurs. 
 And, on the other hand, the extent to which modern couplets 
 depart from the classic form varies with the subject. For 
 specimens of classic and Romantic Alexandrine couplets, 
 see pp. 58, 59. 
 
 Alexandrine quatrains do not generally deviate very much 
 from the classic form, as the change of rhyme varies them 
 sufficiently ; they catch the English ear much more readily 
 than Alexandrine couplets, especially if the rhymes are 
 crossed (croisks). Unfortunately, the Alexandrine Romantic 
 couplet, in which the greatest part of Victor Hugo's poetry 
 is written, happens to be the form of verse to which the 
 English ear is with most difficulty accustomed, as the weak 
 csesura does not give as much satisfaction as the strong to 
 our national craving for an accent to rest on. One of the most 
 famous examples of crossed quatrains in Alexandrines is 
 Victor Hugo's "Z« conscience humaine est morte;" &c., in the 
 Ch&iiments. The following is from M. Leconte de Lisle, 
 who is one of the poets who use this form with most 
 success : — 
 
94 
 
 Manual of French Prosody. 
 
 O vierge, qui d'un pan 
 Couvris la tombe auguste 
 De leur culte eclipse 
 Chaste et dernier rayon 
 
 Je t'aime et te salue, 
 Quand I'orage ebranla 
 Tu suivis dans I'exil 
 Et tu I'enveloppas 
 
 de ta robe pieuse 
 oil s'endormaient tes dieux : 
 pretresse harmonieuse, 
 detache de leurs cieux ! 
 
 6 vierge magnanime ! 
 le monde paternel, 
 cet CEdipe sublime, 
 d'un amour eternel. 
 
 Hypatie. Po'emes Antiques. 
 
 The natural companion of the Alexandrine among shorter 
 verses is that of six syllables, as in the famous : — 
 
 Mais elle etait du monde, || ou les plus belles choses 
 
 Ont le pire destin, 
 Et, rose, elle a vecu || ce que vivent les roses, 
 
 L'espace d'un matin. 
 
 Malherbe, Consolation (1599). 
 
 XVI. The verse o{ thirteen syllableswith a ccBsura at the fifth 
 foot seems very " long drawn out," since the second portion 
 is equal to the longest verse that can be written without a 
 caesura. However, it is admitted here in deference to its 
 patron, M. de Banville : — 
 
 Le chant de I'orgie 11 avec des cris au loin proclame 
 Le beau Lysios, 1| le Dieu vermeil comme une flamme, 
 
 Petit Traits de Poisie Fran^aise. 
 
 There seems to be no other kind of verse besides these 
 sixteen, which can be said to have established its existence 
 
 in French. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OF CERTAIN FIXED FORMS OF FRENCH POETRY. 
 
 EVEN the present little book would be incomplete with- 
 out some account of the Ballade and other fixed forms, 
 which have played such an important part in the history of 
 French poetry, and are now being so generally naturalized 
 among us by Mr. Swinburne, Mr. Lang, Mr. Gosse, Mr. 
 John Payne, and others. 
 
 To save repetition, it may be stated that all the forms 
 described in this chapter agree in two respects. In all, 
 the lines must be of equal length throughout, and all in 
 their strict form may be considered of French invention. 
 The French Sonnet, however, is derived from the Italian 
 sonnet, though not identical with it, and was not much used 
 till the time of the Pleiad. The other forms are more 
 purely French, and date from the Middle Ages. 
 
 Of sonnets in general it can perhaps only be said, that 
 they are poems of fourteen lines of any length, and contain 
 two quatrains or stanzas of four lines each. 
 
 The regular French sonnet, however, is of one absolutely 
 ■determined form. It is a poem of fourteen lines of any 
 length divided into two parts, the first of eight, the second 
 of six lines. The first eight lines have neither more nor less 
 .than two rhymes, and are disposed in two quatrains in the 
 following order: — 
 
96 Mamial of 
 
 I. 
 2. 
 2. 
 I. 
 
 I. 
 2. 
 2. 
 
 So far there is no difference between the French regular 
 sonnet and its parent, the Italian regular sonnet , 
 
 But the arrangement of the next three rhymes of the 
 Italian regular sonnet, viz. : — 
 
 3- 
 
 5- 
 
 is contrary to the French rules stated in Chapter V. It 
 would have been possible to have chosen that Italian form, 
 in which the last six lines are written on two rhymes only. 
 But this arrangement is hostile to the very essence of the 
 sonnet, which is, that the six last lines should seem longer 
 than the first eight. To produce this effect, it is important 
 that there should be three rhymes at the end to set against 
 the two of the quatrains. Now, given the three rhymes and 
 the rules of French versification, it was necessary that the 
 last six lines should begin or end with a couplet. A final 
 couplet, however, altogether overthrows the peculiar struc- 
 ture of the true sonnet, because it forces the preceding four 
 lines into alliance with the two quatrains, so that the poem 
 divides at the end of the twelfth instead of the eighth line. 
 The couplet was therefore put immediately after the quatrains, 
 and the remaining four lines crossed, to give as much of the 
 
French Prosody. 
 
 97 
 
 effect of the triply-crossed Italian rhymes as possible. So 
 that the formula of the French regular sonnet stands thus : — 
 
 I 
 
 2. 
 2 
 I 
 
 This sonnet has been not unfrequently used in English. 
 It should be noticed, however, that this form is really in- 
 compatible with the distinction of the two tercets. The 
 French regular sonnet ends, in fact, with a quatrain, and the 
 division between the eleventh and twelfth lines is merely 
 typographical. 
 
 In order to remind the reader that sonnets may be 
 written in lines of any length, one in lines of four syllables 
 is given as the example of a regular sonnet : — 
 
 1. Sur la colline, 
 
 2. Quand la splendeuv 
 
 Du ciel en fleur 
 Au soir decline, 
 
 1. L'air illumine 
 
 2. Le front rSveur 
 2. D'une lueur 
 
 I. Triste et divine. 
 
 H 
 
98 Manual of 
 
 3. Dans un beau ciel, 
 
 3. O Gabriel ! 
 
 4. Tel tu rayonnes ; 
 
 5- Telles encor 
 
 4. Sont les madones 
 
 5. Dans les fonds d'or. 
 
 Theodore de Banville. 
 
 The five rhymes here are ine, eur, iel, onnes, or, arid they 
 are arranged in the regular order. 
 
 The following is a fine specimen of an irregular sonnet. 
 The only irregularity in this case is in the last two rhymes, 
 which are arranged thus : — 
 
 4- 
 5- 
 5- 
 4- 
 
 The poet, Joachim du Bellay, was the friend of Ronsard. 
 It is written in Alexandrines : — 
 
 Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage, 
 Ou comme cestui-la qui conquit la toison, 
 Et puis est retourne, plein d'usage et raison, 
 Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son age ! 
 
 Quand reverrai-je, helas ! de men petit village 
 Fumer la cheminee, et en quelle saison 
 Reverrai-je le clos de ma pauvre maison. 
 Qui m'est une province, et beaucoup d'avantage ? 
 
 Plus me plait le s^jour qu'ont bati mes aieux 
 Que des palais remains le front audacieux ; 
 Plus que le marbre dur me plait I'ardoise fine, 
 
 Plus mon Loire gaulois que le Tibre latin. 
 Plus mon petit Lire que le mont Palatin 
 Et plus que I'air marin la douceur angevine. 
 
French Prosody. 99 
 
 The ballade has nothing to do with our English ballad. 
 The ballade now naturalized in English should always be 
 written with a final e. Victor Hugo, who has never shown 
 much inclination for artificial poetry, gave the name of 
 ballades to some of his earlier ballad poems. But the two 
 words ought to be kept quite distinct. 
 
 The ballade is a collection of a number of stanzas called 
 huitains or dizains, written on the same rhymes, and each 
 terminated by the same line or burden. The regular bal- 
 lade, which is far the commonest, consists of three huitains, 
 or three dizains, followed by a half-stanza with the same 
 burden, addressing the person to whom the ballade is dedi- 
 cated by some such title as prince, sire, reine, dame. This 
 half-stanza, which is written on the same rhymes as the last 
 halves of the huitains or dizains, as the case may be, is 
 called the envoi. 
 
 It remains to explain what huitains and dizains are. A 
 huitain is a stanza of eight lines of eight syllables, or of ten 
 syllables, with a caesura at the fourth syllable. However, 
 only eight-syllabled huitains are used in ballades. The 
 rhymes in a huitain are three, arranged as follows : — 
 
 I 
 
 2. 
 I 
 2. 
 
 3 
 
 A dizain is a stanza of ten lines of ten syllables, with a 
 CKsura at the fourth syllable. Eight-syllabled dizains are 
 
lOO 
 
 Manual of 
 
 rare, and not used in ballades. A dizain has four rhymes, 
 arranged as follows : — 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 Here is a ballade of dizains, that written by Villon when 
 he was under sentence of death. It must be remembered 
 that in the fifteenth century the rules against hiatus, and 
 about e mutes unsupported by consonants, and the arrange- 
 ment of masculine and feminine verses, with which modern 
 ballades must comply, were not in existence. The four 
 rhymes are vez, cis, rie, and oudre. 
 
 1. Freres humains, qui apris nous vivez 
 
 2. N'ayez les coeurs centre nous endurcis ; 
 
 1 . Car, si pitie de nous pauvres avez, 
 
 2. Dieu en aura plutot de vous mercis. 
 
 2. Vous nous voyez ci-attaches, cinq, six ; 
 
 3. Quant de la chair, que trop avons nourrie, 
 
 3. Elle est pie9a devoree et pourrie ; 
 
 4. Et nous, les os, devenons cendre et poudre. 
 
 3. De notre mal personne ne s'en rie ; 
 
 4. Mais priez Dieu, que tous nous veuille absoudre. 
 
 Burden. 
 
 1. Si vous clamons frferes, pas n'en devez 
 
 2. Avoir dedain, quoique fflmes occis 
 
 1. Par justice ; toutefois vous savez 
 
 ks. Que tous hommes n'ont pas bon sens assis. 
 
 2. Intercedez doncques de coaur rassis 
 
French Prosody. 
 
 lOI 
 
 3. Envers le Fils de la Vierge Marie ; 
 
 3. Que sa grace ne soit pour nous tarie ; 
 
 4. Nous preservant de I'infemale foudre. 
 
 3. Nous sommes morts. Ame ne nous harie ; 
 Burden. 4. Mais priez Dieu, que tous nous veuille absoudre. 
 
 1. La pluie ' nous a debugs et lavds, 
 
 2. Et le soleil dessech^s et noircis ; 
 
 1. Pies, corbeaux, nous ont les yeux caves, 
 
 2. Et arrachis la barbe et les sourcis. 
 
 2. Jamais, nul temps, nous ne sommes rassis, 
 
 3. Puis ca, puis Ik, comme le vent varie, 
 
 3. A son plaisir, sans cesse il nous charrie, 
 
 4. Plus becquet^s d'oiseaux, que des i coudre. 
 3. Hommes, ici n'usez de moquerie. 
 
 Burden. 4. Mais priez Dieu, que tous nous veuille absoudre. 
 
 Envoi. 
 3. Prince Jesus, qui sur tous seigneurie, 
 
 3. Garde qu'enfer n'ait de nous la maistrie, 
 
 4. A lui n'ayons que faire, ne que soudre. 
 3. Ne soyez done de notre confrerie. 
 
 Burden. 4. Mais priez Dieu, que tous nous veuille absoudre. 
 
 The Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis, which Villon 
 wrote in huitains, is even better known in England, thanks 
 to Mr. Rossetti. The three rhymes are is, aine, and an. 
 In Villon's time ai and oi were assonant, as has been said 
 before. This particular ballade conforms as much to the 
 
 • This line affords a curious instance of the ineptitude of literary 
 revision. Clement Marot, half a century after Villon, was probably 
 offended by the license of scanning pluie as a monosyllable before a 
 consonant. Accordingly his revised version is— 
 
 La pluie nous 1 1 a hues et laves. 
 The new line is inferior to the old, as the csesura between nous and a 
 is very harsh. But the fun of the thing is, that Marot has not saved the 
 line by the change. For " enfin Malherbe vint," and pluie is forbidden 
 altogether before a consonant. A warning to all revisers. 
 
I02 
 
 Manual of 
 
 modem rules about masculine and feminine rhymes as a 
 ballade of huitains can, for if each huitain taken by itself 
 observes the rules, then two huitains following one another 
 must bring together two different rhymes of the same class 
 (in this case two different masculine rhymes). However, 
 the rule is not so strict between different stanzas, as in 
 couplets or in the interior of a stanza. Still, after the 
 establishment of the rules, the ballade of huitains would 
 probably not have been invented, though the rules coming 
 afterwards have not caused its banishment. 
 
 1. Dites-moi ou, n'en quel pays, 
 
 2. Est Flora la belle Romaine, 
 
 1. Archipiada, ne Thais 
 
 2. Qui fut sa cousine germaine ? 
 
 2. Echo parlant quand bruit ou mine 
 
 3. Dessus riviere, ou sus etang, 
 
 2. Qui beaute eut trop plus d'humaine ? 
 Burden. 3. Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan ? 
 
 1. Oil est la tres-sage Helois, 
 
 2. Pour qui fut chatre et puis moine 
 
 1. Pierre Esbaillart a Saint-Denis ? 
 
 2. Pour son amour eut cette essoine. 
 
 2. Semblablement ou est la Reine, 
 
 3. Qui commanda que Buridan 
 2. Fflt jete, en un sac, en Seine ? 
 
 Burden. 3. Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan ? 
 
 1. La Reine blanche comme un lis, 
 
 2. Qui chantait ^ voix de Sirene, 
 
 1. Berthe au grand pied, Bietris, AUys, 
 
 2. Harembonges, qui tint la Maine, 
 
 2. Et Jeanne la bonne Lorraine, 
 
 3. Qu' Anglais brulerent a Rouen ; 
 2. Oil sont-ils, Vierge souveraine ? 
 
 Burden. 3. Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan ? 
 
French Prosody. 
 
 Envoi. 
 
 2. Prince, n'enquerez de semaine, 
 
 3. Oil elles sont, ne de cet an, 
 
 2. Que ce refrain ne vous remtee : 
 Burden. 3. Mais oti sont les neiges d'antan ? 
 
 A rondeau is a poem of thirteen lines of either of the 
 two sorts used in ballades. It is written on two rhymes, 
 and divided into three stanzas or strophes. (The French 
 word stance has often a -depreciatory meaning, and is ap- 
 plied rather to songs and vers de soctete.) 
 
 The order of rhymes and stanzas is as follows : — 
 
 I. 
 I. 
 
 2. 
 I. 
 
 I. 
 I. 
 
 2. 
 
 Refrain. 
 
 I. 
 I. 
 
 2. 
 2. 
 I. 
 
 Refrain. 
 
 The unique peculiarity of the rondeau is its refrain, which 
 consists simply of the first few words. This refrain (gene- 
 rally of four syllables in ten-syllabled, and two in eight- 
 syllabled rondeaux) is added after the second and third 
 stanzas, without counting as a masculine or feminine verse 
 or rhyming at all. The virtue of a rondeau is in its refrain, 
 
I04 Manual of 
 
 which should be introduced naturally, and with some variety 
 of sense. The refrain may even be used punningly. 
 
 In the following rondeau the lines are of ten syllables, 
 with cffisura at the fourth syllable. Eight-syllabled rondeaux 
 have exactly the same arrangement, except that (as has been 
 said) their refrain has generally only two syllables. 
 
 I. All bon vieiix temps, iin train d'amour regnait, 
 
 1 . Qui sans grand art et dons se promenait, 
 
 2. Si qu'un bouquet donne d'amour profonde, 
 2. C'etait donner toute la terre ronde ; 
 
 I . Car seulement au coeur on se prenait. 
 
 1 . Et si par cas a jouir on venait, 
 
 1 . Savez-vous bien comme on s'entretenait ? 
 
 2. Vingt ans, trente ans ; cela durait un monde 
 
 Au bon vieux temps. 
 
 I. Or est perdu ce qu'amour ordonnait, 
 
 1. Rien que pleurs feints, rien que ruses on n'ait ; 
 
 2. Qui voudra done qu'a aimer je me fonde, 
 2. II faut premier que I'amour on refonde, 
 I. Et qu'on la mene ainsi qu'on la menait 
 
 Au bon vieux temps. 
 
 Mr. Swinburne's English roundels are rondeaux, though 
 they do not always conform to the strict type. 
 
 The word rondel is another form of the word rondeau, just 
 as pel is the Guernsey- French, and was good French for 
 peaii. Originally a rondeau or rondel meant almost any 
 kind of short poem with a refrain. Now that the name 
 rondeau is limited to the form just described, the parallel 
 word rondel is also limited to a poem of thirteen eight-syl- 
 labled lines in three stanzas, written on two rhymes in the 
 following order : — 
 
French Prosody. 105 
 
 2. 
 2. 
 I. 
 
 I. 
 2. 
 
 First line repeated. 
 Second line repeated. 
 
 I. 
 
 First line repeated. 
 
 Charles of Orleans, father of Louis XII., is the chief au- 
 thority for rondels, and the following one is the best known 
 of his. Of modern rondels it may be said, that there are 
 few to be recommended. There is nothing easier than to 
 write a bad rondel, nor harder than to write a good one. The 
 limits are so very strict, that modern subtlety has not room 
 to move in them as in the sonnet, ballade, or rondeau ; and 
 ndivetk; which Boileau should have attributed to the rondel 
 rather than to the rondeau, is more easily admired or regretted 
 than recalled. 
 
 Le Renouveau. 
 
 1. Le temps a laiss^ son manteau 
 
 2. De vent, de froidure et de pluie, 
 2. Et s'est vetu de broderie, 
 
 I. De soleil luisant, clair et beau. 
 
 1. II n'y a b^te ni oiseau 
 
 2. Qu'en son jargon ne chante ou crie, 
 (First verse repeated.) " Le temps a laisse son manteau 
 
 (Second verse repeated.) De vent, de froidure et de pluie." 
 
io6 Manual of 
 
 1. Riviere, fontaine et ruisseau 
 
 2. Portent, en livree jolie, 
 
 2. Gouttes d'argent d'orfaverie, 
 I. Chacun s'habille de nouveau, 
 (First verse repeated.) Le temps' a laisse son manteau. 
 
 There is not room to give more than the definition of the 
 triolet, villanelle, and chant royal, the remaining native 
 French forms of any importance. 
 
 A triolet is not a poem, but merely a stanza of eight short 
 equal lines, generally beginning with a masculine verse, and 
 arranged on two rhymes in the following order : — 
 
 2. 
 
 I. 
 
 First verse repeated. 
 
 I. 
 
 2. 
 First verse repeated. 
 Second verse repeated. 
 
 A villanelle is a poem of an indefinite number of tercets 
 beginning with a feminine verse, and written on two rhymes. 
 Each tercet has its rhymes in the following order : — 
 
 I. 
 
 2. 
 I. 
 
 The third verse of the second, fourth, sixth, &c., tercets is the 
 first verse of the poem repeated. The third verse of the 
 third, fifth, seventh, &c., tercets is the third verse of the poem 
 repeated. The last stanza is a quatrain, instead of a tercet, 
 in the following form : — 
 
French Prosody. 
 
 107 
 
 I. 
 
 2. 
 
 First verse of the poem repeated. 
 Third verse of the poem repeated. 
 
 The chant royal is a sort of enlarged and grandiose bal- 
 lade, chiefly used by C. Marot, addressed to a divinity or 
 king. It consists of five stanzas of eleven lines of ten syl- 
 lables, with the caesura at the fourth syllable. All the stanzas 
 are written on the same rhymes, and terminated by the same 
 line, as in a ballade, and they are followed by an envoi of five 
 lines written on the same rhymes as the last five of every 
 stanza, and ending with the same line. The stanza has five 
 rhymes in the following order : — 
 
 I 
 
 2. 
 I 
 
 2, 
 3 
 3. 
 
 Burden. 
 
 In modern French the chant royal has not been so much 
 patronized as the other indigenous forms. Mr. Gosse has 
 written a fine English chant royal with the burden— 
 And deathless praises to the vine-god sing. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ON SOME MISCELLANEOUS POINTS OF PRONUNCIATION, 
 DICTION, AND STYLE. 
 
 ONE of the difficulties in the way of an Englishman's 
 appreciating French poetry is the treatment of words 
 and names from his own and other accented languages. 
 Words from German, English, Italian, Latin, Greek, or 
 Hebrew, if pronounced with the proper accent, are essentially 
 incompatible with French in a way that they are not with 
 other languages. Accordingly, they are in French verse de- 
 prived of the tonic accent, and pronounced as far as possible 
 as if they were French words of similar spelling, except that 
 final consonants are usually sounded. Thus, since ei in 
 peine ■= a short open e, ei in Heine is pronounced in the same 
 way. The aic in Faust is treated as 6, and so is the o in lost. 
 and accordingly these words can rhyme. 
 
 Tom, qu'un abandon scandalise, 
 
 Recite Love's Labour Lost ; 
 
 Et Fritz explique k Cydalise 
 
 Le Walpurgisnichtstraum de Faust. 
 
 Th. Gautier, Emaux et Camees. 
 
 The e mute of English, which is now a mere typographical 
 sign, and the atonic final e of German, which is more of a 
 syllable than the French e mute, are both assimilated entirely 
 to e mute. Thus Lovis is a dissyllable in the stanza just 
 
Manual of French Prosody. 109 
 
 quoted, and Gladstone counts as three syllables in the fol- 
 lowing couplet : — 
 
 Personne pour toi. Tous sont d'accord. Celui-ci, 
 Nomm^ Gladstone, dit k tes bourreaux : Merci. 
 
 V. Hugo, V Annie Terrible. 
 
 In Latin, short e counts as e, urn as omm, and the vowels 
 are generally nasalized before n, as in the ordinary French 
 school-boy pronunciation. 
 
 One result of the removal of the tonic accent is, that final 
 syllables, which would be quite atonic in their own language, 
 are made to bear the caesura and rhyme. Baudelaire even 
 goes so far as to write rhymes in Latin on French principles, 
 so that ludis rhymes with cordis, and the lines are counted 
 by syllables instead of beats. 
 
 Les anges effares viennent voir notre cage, 
 Et se disent : " Vois done celui-ci, celui-la, 
 Voici Tib^re, une hydre au fond d'un marecage, 
 Regai-de le Malthus \\ auprte de I'Attila." 
 
 V. Hugo, Quatre Vents de [Esprit. 
 
 The following lines are all out of the Chatiments : — 
 Tout ! la fois, le serment que Dieu tient sous sa garde, 
 Le saint temple oil mourant tu dis Intro'ilio ; 
 lis livrent tout, pudeur, vertu ! martyr, regarde, 
 Rouvre tes yeux, qu'emplit la lueur du tombeau. 
 » * ♦ ♦ « 
 
 lis vendent ses genoux meurtris, sa palme verte, 
 Sa plaie au flanc, son oeil tout baigne d'infini, 
 Ses pleurs, son agonie, et sa bouche entr'ouverte, 
 Et le cri qu'il poussa : Lamina Sabacthani. 
 
 i. 8. 
 Nous nous promenions parrai les decombres 
 
 A Rozel-Tower, 
 Et nous ecoutions les paroles sombres 
 Que disait la mer. 
 
 vi. 4. 
 
no Manual of 
 
 Qui jouait dans les Hosanna 
 * * * It- 
 
 La pantomime i'lena. 
 
 vii. 2. 
 
 These illustrations could be indefinitely multiplied from poets 
 of every time and school. 
 
 Inversion was frequent, as in English, with early poets, 
 but since the Romantic movement it is looked on as a weak- 
 ness. The only pretty modern inversion is that of the adjec- 
 tive and substantive, or adverb and verb, as verts roseaux for 
 roseaux verts, and tout has gemir for gemir tout bas, in the 
 
 line — 
 
 Et tes verts roseaux tout bas gemir, 
 
 quoted p. go. 
 
 Inversion of phrases is never a beauty. 
 
 Alliteration has not been so common as in English, and 
 Baudelaire's abundant use of it, which is nothing like Mr. 
 Swinburne's in English, was looked on by his countrymen 
 as an Anglicism. It must be remembered that resonant rhyme 
 implies a certain necessary modicum of alliteration, so to 
 speak, and also that there was never a distinct poetry of pure 
 alliteration, as in mediaeval England. However, every 
 school of French verse has furnished fine examples of this 
 ornament. 
 
 Je vais les deplorer. Va, cours, vole, et nous venge. 
 
 CORNEILLE, Cid, i. 3. 
 
 Oui, prince, je languis, je brfile pour Th^see. 
 Je I'aime ; non point tel que I'ont vu les enfers, 
 Volage adorateur de mille objets divers, 
 Qui va du dieu des morts dishonorer la couche ; 
 Mais fidele, mais fier, et meme un peu farouche, 
 
French Prosody. 1 1 1 
 
 Charmant, jeune, trainant tous les coeurs apres soi, 
 Tel qu'on depeint nos dieux, ou tel que je vous voi. 
 
 Racine, Phidre, ii. 5. 
 
 Sache qu'il faut aimer sans faire la grimace 
 Le pauvre, le mdchant, le tortu, I'hebete, 
 Pour que tu puisses faire k J^sus, quand il passe, 
 Un tapis triomphal avec ta charite. 
 
 Baudelaire, Le RebdU. 
 
 Nous voulons voyager sans vapeur et sans voile ! 
 Faites, pour egayer I'ennui de nos prisons, 
 Passer sur nos esprits, tendus comme une toile, 
 Vos souvenirs avec leurs cadres d'hbrizons. 
 
 Baudelaire, La Mart. 
 
 The 7-epetition of whole syllables is a more dangerous arti- 
 fice, but it is very happily employed by Sainte-Beuve in the 
 stanza quoted in Chapter XI., where the return of the syl- 
 lable mi, after it has been used twice to rhyme, has a most 
 pathetic effect. So Alfred de Musset in Rolla : — 
 
 Dors-tu content, Voltaire, et ton hideux sourire 
 VoUige-\.-\!^ encor sur tes os decharnes ? 
 
 The history of poetic diction is much the same in France 
 and England, except that the substitution of circumlocutions 
 and stiff synonyms for the mot propre went much farther 
 
 , under Boileau than under Pope. An English audience 
 would never have been as easily shocked as the first French 
 audience which heard the word tnouchoir instead of tissu 
 
 fatal, or bandeau funeste, or nceuds cruels, in a version of 
 Othello. Moreover, the tyranny lasted longer in France, 
 from Malherbe to Victor Hugo, instead of from Dryden to 
 Wordsworth, or about two centuries instead of one. On the 
 
112 Manual of 
 
 other hand, the French at least did attain some valuable 
 results by what we may consider a disproportionate sacri- 
 fice. Racine is more urbane and refined than Victor 
 Hugo, as well as more monotonous and limited ; whereas 
 Dryden and Pope and Johnson are coarser than Words- 
 worth, for all their orbs and steeds and swains. There is a 
 distinct danger, too, in the use of technical words in poetry, 
 as when eyes are said to be perfants comme une vrille, as 
 sharp as a gimlet ! 
 
 A striking peculiarity of nineteenth century French poetry 
 is its picturcsquetiess. M. de Banville goes so far as to main- 
 tain that the poet can only describe what he has seen. This 
 arises in some measure, as we have suggested, from the lan- 
 guage lending itself readily to plastic treatment, through its 
 want of accent. Much, also is due to the fact that French 
 poets of this century have generally been, or at least hved 
 among sculptors and painters. With the great exception of 
 Victor Hugo, they have kept aloof from politics, and per- 
 haps logically interpreting contempt for politics to include 
 .contempt for history, they have lived chiefly in an atmo- 
 sphere of their own. Mr. Arnold has called this attitude 
 "living in an inn." Consequently patriotic and historic 
 subjects are of much less importance than with us, and, 
 except by Victor Hugo and M. Leconte de Lisle, are chiefly 
 abandoned to popular verse, between which and literary 
 verse there is a much wider gulf than in other countries. 
 There is, therefore, a weak side of artificiality, affectation, 
 and narrow-mindedness about much modern French verse. 
 
 On the other hand, unlike some English verse, it always 
 can be scanned and construed, it calls everything by its 
 
French Prosody. 113 
 
 ^ right name, and has all the national clearness and precision. 
 f Even such a passage as the much abused lines — 
 
 Ne crois pas qu'au magique espoir du corridor 
 J'offre ma coupe vide ou souffre un monstre d'or ! 
 Ton apparition ne va pas me suffire : 
 Car je t'ai mis, moi-meme, en un lieu de porphyre. 
 
 is only unmeaning, not obscure ; the grammar and arrange- 
 ment are correct and simple enough. 
 
 Classic French poetry is generally superior to the poetry 
 of the corresponding English school in finish and elegance. 
 The great charm of Racine is in his tenderness and exquisite 
 delicacy of touch. He is more Virgilian than any other poet 
 in his excellences and weaknesses alike. The most unjust 
 English prejudice against him is that countenanced by 
 Macaulay — that his characters are all French courtiers of 
 Louis XIV. On the same page Macaulay complains, very 
 inconsistently, that his characters are mere names. The truth 
 is, that the diction of Racine's characters is that of Racine's 
 contemporaries ; but this diction is much more applicable to 
 general dramatic purposes than the very peculiar, transient, 
 and affected language of the age in which Shakespeare lived. 
 On the other hand, the characters in Andromaque are as dis- 
 tinct as need be, only they do not announce themselves to a 
 careless and superficial reader by separate catch-words, such 
 as English readers are too much accustomed to, though of 
 little more artistic value than the explanations under a child's 
 drawing. And the manner in which the catastrophe is 
 evolved, purely out of the conflicting passions of the actors, 
 is too refined for tastes that crave for the strong intellectual 
 meat of drums, processions, battles, explosions, patent stage 
 
 I 
 
1 1 4 Manual of French Prosody. 
 
 thunder and rain, dinner parties, cigars, and expensive 
 changes of raiment and scenery. 
 
 However, the classic Alexandrine couplet is not the form 
 of French verse which should be set before English readers 
 first, as it generally is, and that without any explanation. 
 The decasyllabic, octosyllabic, and shorter verses should be 
 read before Alexandrines, and Alexandrine quatrains before 
 Alexandrine couplets. The Romantic Alexandrine couplet 
 should be approached last of all, unless, perhaps, the vers 
 libres of La Fontaine's Fables, which, again, being the most 
 difficult and subtle of French metres, are often recklessly 
 offered to English children with no explanation. 
 
 What, indeed, is the usual course of education in Eng- 
 land as regards French verse ? Girls are taught to repeat, 
 as prose, a, few scraps of Racine and Lamartine detached 
 from the context, and boys are set to translate Tartuffe, 
 with the remark that it must be inferior to L'Avare, as it is 
 in verse. In nine cases out of ten the teacher cannot scan 
 the lines him or herself; and, in the tenth, he or she does not 
 take the trouble to explain the scansion. So taught, pupils 
 pick up a few ready-made falsisms on the subject from 
 Macaulay or the newspaper, and settle down into the com- 
 fortable belief that there is no French poetry worth reading. 
 If Greek were taught in the same way as French, would not 
 the newspapers give us the same jokes about (Ediptis 
 Coloneus, that they now lavish on Horace or Athalie 1 
 
 And yet a knowledge of the rules of French Prosody, 
 sufficient for the appreciation of the latter, can be acquired 
 in a tenth of the time necessary to assure ourselves, that we 
 can have no approximate idea of how Sophocles would 
 have pronounced the former. 
 
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