‡I was on board of a train rol­ling through the coun­try­side and had the firm inten­tion of giving a book back. As I knew the land­scape quite well, I deci­ded to give the men­tio­ned book ano­ther look : it was a fac­si­mile of Geof­froy Tory’s Champ­fleury, prin­ted in 1529.

‡The book had been lent to me by the typo­phile col­league I was paying a visit to, typo-colleague who must have thought my typo­ma­nia was a rea­son good enough for me to enjoy its content. The exact title, in french, is: Art et science de la vraie pro­por­tion des lettres, or in english: Art and science of the tru­th­ful pro­por­tion of let­ters. Even for someone accus­to­med to old prints, the type­set­ting and ortho­gra­phic irre­gu­la­rity are quite deman­ding to read. And before the author goes on the sub­ject of what makes per­fect let­ters to his mind, he tries to demons­trate how the french lan­guage has all the attri­butes of a per­fect expres­sion of excel­lence, which must be quite natu­ral, obviously.

‡This mar­ve­lous demons­tra­tion can be read with some irony as the french wiel­ded by the author, for which he him­self has great esteem, can look a bit anar­chic to contem­po­rary eyes.

‡To his defense, we can add that the Aca­dé­mie Fran­çaise (an ins­ti­tu­tion entit­led to give, adapt and pre­serve the rules of french lan­guage), to which Riche­lieu has given the autho­rity to resolve the pro­blem of irre­gu­lar typo­gra­phic and ortho­gra­phic wri­ting, was foun­ded only a cen­tury later. Confir­ming the role Riche­lieu had dreamt for this ins­ti­tu­tion, it is not unu­sual to read in french books prin­ted bet­ween 1600 and 1800 that french has to be the right­ful heir of latin, as the French nation is sup­po­sedly des­cen­ding directly from the Roman Empire. A very old fan­tasy that was a foun­da­tion to most of the wars France has been impli­ca­ted in until the end of the nine­teenth century.

‡So proud are we, french­men, of our Repu­blics, our Senates; ano­ther dwarf even reins­ta­ted the roman title of Tri­bune, shorly before inven­ting the Legion of Honor (a deco­ra­tion still pined on proud citizen’s torso nowa­days). All this has become quite com­mon to us, thanks to a quite Frank edu­ca­tion, but the way this book’s author demons­trates this rela­tion bet­ween french and latin is even brigh­ter than that. With the cre­dit of some faith-worthy authors, he explains that the Romans, and even the Greeks, were nice people but they could only be simi­lar to cheap wine when France has natu­rally the qua­lity of a Saint-Émilion. And to give weight to this decla­ra­tion, he refers to the myth of Hercules.

‡I’ll spare the details on why Her­cules a dee­ply wise & rea­so­ned man is, thus having to be french, and I’ll sim­ply point the fact on which the demons­tra­tion is based, that is to say that Her­cules, when named by latin & greek authors is always cal­led Her­cules Gal­li­cus, and not Her­cules Lati­nus nor Her­cules Græ­cus. Anyone has to admit this is a proof that can’t be doubted…

‡Per­son­naly, I’m quite amu­sed by such details, and I can bear to be the only one in this case. Such ele­ments high­light some roots of a french men­ta­lity and pride that often exas­pe­rates me but that I mostly laugh about.

‡And to those that His­tory les­sons haven’t killed yet, I sug­gest a lit­tle com­pa­red rea­ding to see what lin­guis­tic and typo­gra­phic changes have hap­pe­ned throu­ghout five hun­dred years.