Little Chance of Speaking French in France Nowadays

&Quot;It's almost impossible to get anybody to speak French these days abroad; every one insists upon speaking English to you," was the opinion of the four of us — two Americans and one American woman, and an Englishman — as we sat around the tea table in the casino garden of one of the big French resorts the other day discussing a quartet on the language situation in France.

"That used to be the stock phrase. On the contrary one now picks up a varied assortment of accents of one's native tongue that makes you doubt your ability to straighten out your own parts of speech again."

"The French are coddling the Americans these days just for this reason," said the Englishman. "They say that they are more amiable than we in supplying missing words."

"Take the case with the hotel," said the American man. "They supply the missing word and offer to speak French with you. This sounds equitable and ideal, but it does not preserve an even balance."

"You meet in madame's boudoir, madame extended gracefully on her 'chaise longue.' You begin conscientiously, but as skilfully as a clever fencer forces his adversary back from his position she politely but relentlessly keeps you on your own conversational ground and never once are you allowed to encroach upon hers. Then when she winds up with, 'Chérie, how wonderfully you speak our tongue,' what can you do?"

"French and English families are answering advertisements to swap their children 'au pair.' French children spend their vacations in English homes learning to say 'Thank you,' while the English children who have replaced them are shyly picking up and putting together the French alphabet. The advocates of the system claim it is worth a hundred peace congresses."

"It is not confined to the children," said the American girl. "Said a young blond bearded Frenchman across the luncheon table the other day, 'How do you like my accent? Mamma has just engaged a governess for me.'"

"The English governess habit with the French is but a recent vogue, but no French family is without one," said the American woman. "Ostensibly she came for the children, but all the family now profit from her presence to speak English. The English governess is coming in shoals across the Channel, so numerous that the reactionary party in France is taking alarm. In book form a strong indictment has recently been made against this growing habit of the foreign governess as undermining the morale of the French family, assailing her as a spy, a perverter of family peace, a destroyer of French ideals for the young. Meanwhile M. Marcel Prévost's 'Les Vierges Fortes,' which has shaken two nations from end to end, simply emphasizes the growing use of the English language, for it is the English instructress above all others who is most in evidence in French families."

"Everybody in France," said the American man, "appears to be chasing the elusive English word. Pursuing the same tactics indirectly is the French 'jeune fille,' but it is not so much for information or edification that she has taken it up, but rather it is to astonish you that she flashes up her linguistic accomplishments."

"The young French girl, brought up as tenderly as a hothouse plant, can audaciously acquaint an utter stranger with her stock in trade of his language in a very few minutes. Two of these — a sort of a duenna maid in a white cap with a fierce eye and enough hand luggage to have filled a motor van. Remembering all that I had heard about the way they regard us men, I submerged myself in my valise, but unerringly they seized upon my nationality. No sooner had they barricaded me with a stockade of all their plunder, shut tight all the windows and brought out their fancy work than the two dainty buds opened a scattering fire of English words."

"To you?" we asked in surprise.

"No, just at me. 'I love des Englees,' announced one of the demure little things of say seventeen. 'Yes, awfully, jolly good fellow, n'est ce pas?' returned the other unsophisticated infant of sixteen or so, each of them looking out of the corners of her eyes to see how it was affecting me.

"Presently one of them let drop at my feet her handbag. 'Damn,' she murmured nonchalantly, while cold shivers ran down my back. I was bracing myself for anything that might follow when fortunately the train stopped and they all got out and a 'so long' floated back from the most guileless looking one."

"As to shopping," returned the American woman, "it used to be our best opportunity for catching up on French. Now you are made to feel that you have committed an indiscretion if you utter a French word. I am told that it is difficult to get employment in a shop without a working knowledge of the English language and that salaries are going up on account of it. The little shopgirl demands a rise in wages. 'Why this audacity?' frowns the forewoman. 'Mais, I now speak de Engleesh,' is the confident retort, and she gets her rise, every time.

"The star saleswoman is she who can command the greatest number of the honeyed words that attract lavish clients from overseas. Another girl gives you every luxury but the free use of French. It's equivalent to taking a chair of English when you go to one. In the sophomore class you spend your time instructing the manager who is on the lookout for a series of more seductive adjectives for use in his prospectuses. The hall porter is collecting complimentary English expressions, so that he can thereby increase his emoluments, while the maître d'hôtel is perfecting himself in culinary English for the same reason. In the numerous freshman class there is your table waiter who systematically ignores the few modestly hesitating French words in which you couch your demands and answers in English of a cockney flavor that you could not comprehend yourself in the original."

The Englishman smiled. "It is just for our kind, however, that the waiter has spent as much as two years in a West End hotel or a Soho restaurant learning the language. A French waiter will tell you it is useless to apply for a position without some knowledge of English; England is full of French garçons and valets de chambre looking for diplomas."

"Exactly so, and now they are looking forward to taking a post-graduate course in America," said the American man. "As a result your carefully constructed request for milk in French is replied to by 'Yes, sir, the butter? Certainly, sir. Thank you, sir.' All this is really a sinister design to cover you with confusion and force you to resort to your own language for his ultimate benefit."

"In your apartment building the elevator man no sooner encloses you in the 'lift' the size of a telephone [...]"

"Take for example that magnificent garçon in court costume and a silver chain around his neck who has magnanimously just brought our tea. We ordered it in French, but he replied in English. Why should he ignore our lead like that? Is it kindness of heart to help us out? Not at all, he simply wants to improve his English vocabulary."

"Really it is getting to be a national failing," replied the American man. "At the races yesterday I worked off a simple question in French on a distant acquaintance and he not only answered me in English but clung to me all afternoon for the sole purpose of practising on me in my own language. I broke in to ask him to correct my pronunciation just as the field was coming up on the homestretch."

"You are always supposed to at least get enough of a vocabulary with picture post cards," grumbled the American girl, "but the purveyors of these simple objects won't let you construct the slightest phrase to complete their purchase without turning it into English themselves."

"The whole French nation now looks upon an English speaking person as a national asset," said the Englishman. "It is true," and the American man, half an expatriate, took it up, "there was a time when French, and French only, for Frenchmen was considered the patriotic idea. To-day the French government is taking time from the task of trying to adjust the underpinning of the country to the army theme in endeavoring to impress the benefits of learning English; to match the German war machine, learn English; to be a successful businessman, learn English; to catch step in the procession, learn English. To speak English is to gain riches."

"The girls do not seem to be disturbed by that phase of it," said the Englishman, taking a comprehensive survey of the surging crowd whose predominating element was the chic American woman in the smartest of Paris gowns.

"No," promptly responded the American woman, "they are only sorry because they can't learn the language themselves on account of our most nearly watertight excuse for touring abroad has always been the necessity of guilling into the French of our school days — you can't help picking it up."

"No, indeed," returned the American woman, "there is no need for the American girl to be nervous any longer when the Frenchman approaches her with a sociable air. There is not the least reason for her to frown haughtily when the bold young man with the grandfatherly beard (which it is usually black) looks wistfully in her direction. There is no excuse for the withering glance on the part of the touring young 'Américaine' when a smart young man in a bowler hat the size of a thimble and white spats rushes up warmly to her rescue when she is involved in the intricacies of the French language. Are you going to be followed? Is he an Apache disguised as a gentleman? Nothing of the kind. He is an exemplary young man who has simply seized an opportunity to offer his services and improve his accent at the same time, and in good English he sends our taxi on its way comprehendingly."

"As for the lone girl traveller having adventures in France," she continued scornfully, "it's all a myth; you might as well expect adventures in the primary class of a district school."

We laughed. She seemed disappointed.