Cominges, under Louis
XIV., called a street " rue Rose Street," without sus-
pecting that "rue" and "street" meant the same
thing ; the Comte de Broglie, in the following century,
described a curious ceremony at Court which he called
a " drerum." " A French ambassador to England,"
wrote Voltaire in 1727, "does not usually know a
word of English ; he can speak to three-quarters of
the nation only through an interpreter ; he has not
the faintest notion of the works written in the
language ; he cannot see the plays in which the
customs of the nation are represented." The " Journal
des Savants" itself, anxious to justify its title, had
desired to give an account of English books, and
had therefore been obliged to go in quest of an
"interpreter." It published in 1665 the following
note on the Royal Society of London : " This
company produces every day an infinity of fine
works. But because they are mostly written in the
English tongue, we have been unable heretofore to
give an account of them in this Journal. But we
have at last found an English interpreter, by
whose means we shall be able in future to enrich it
with everything worthy of attention produced in
England."

It needs must come to that, since the English persist
in using their own language, causing thereby real grief


to the learned of other countries : " The English are
very clever people," said Ancillon, " their works are
nearly all good, and many are excellent. It is a pity
that the authors of that country write only in their
own language, since bv that means foreigners, for
want of understanding them, cannot profit by their
works, or if they read them it is only in transla-
tions, for the most part faulty." • A third means,
which would consist in learning the language, was
not thought of.