chapter x

. Sec. 1.

[19] F. S. Oliver, _Alexander Hamilton_, 142.

[20] The standard is, of course, lower among the negroes and mean whites in the South than in the North and West.

[21] F. Beauclerk, "Free Trade in India," in _Economic Review_ (July 1907), xvii. 284.

[22] A. E. Murray, _History of the Commercial and Financial Relations between England and Ireland_, 294.

[23] For the tariff reform movement in English politics see the article on CHAMBERLAIN, J. Among continental writers G. Schmoller (_Grundriss der allgemeinen Volkswirtschaftslehre_, ii. 641) and A. Wagner (Preface to M. Schwab's _Chamberlains Handelspolitik_) pronounce in favour of a change, as Fuchs did by anticipation. Schulze-Gaevernitz (_Britischer Imperialismus und englischer Freihandel_), Aubry (_Etude critique de la politique commerciale de l'Angleterre a l'egard de ses colonies_), and Blondel (_La politique Protectionniste en Angleterre un nouveau danger pour la France_) are against it.

FREGELLAE, an ancient town of Latium adiectum, situated on the Via Latina, 11 m. W.N.W. of Aquinum, near the left branch of the Liris. It is said to have belonged in early times to the Opici or Oscans, and later to the Volscians. It was apparently destroyed by the Samnites a little before 330 B.C., in which year the people of Fabrateria Vetus (mod. Ceccano) besought the help of Rome against them, and in 328 B.C. a Latin colony was established there. The place was taken in 320 B.C. by the Samnites, but re-established by the Romans in 313 B.C. It continued henceforward to be faithful to Rome; by breaking the bridges over the Liris it interposed an obstacle to the advance of Hannibal on Rome in 212 B.C., and it was a native of Fregellae who headed the deputation of the non-revolting colonies in 209 B.C. It appears to have been a very important and flourishing place owing to its command of the crossing of the Liris, and to its position in a fertile territory, and it was here that, after the rejection of the proposals of M. Fulvius Flaccus for the extension of Roman burgess-rights in 125 B.C., a revolt against Rome broke out. It was captured by treachery in the same year and destroyed; but its place was taken in the following year by the colony of Fabrateria Nova, 3 m. to the S.E. on the opposite bank of the Liris, while a post station Fregellanum (mod. Ceprano) is mentioned in the itineraries; Fregellae itself, however, continued to exist as a village even under the empire. The site is clearly traceable about 1/2 m. E. of Ceprano, but the remains of the city are scanty.

See G. Colasanti, _Fregellae, storia e topografia_ (1906). (T. As.)

FREIBERG, or FREYBERG, a town of Germany in the kingdom of Saxony, on the Muenzbach, near its confluence with the Mulde, 19 m. S.W. of Dresden on the railway to Chemnitz, with a branch to Nossen. Pop. (1905) 30,896. Its situation, on the rugged northern slope of the Erzgebirge, is somewhat bleak and uninviting, but the town is generally well built and makes a prosperous impression. A part of its ancient walls still remains; the other portions have been converted into public walks and gardens. Freiberg is the seat of the general administration of the mines throughout the kingdom, and its celebrated mining academy (_Bergakademie_), founded in 1765, is frequented by students from all parts of the world. Connected with it are extensive collections of minerals and models, a library of 50,000 volumes, and laboratories for chemistry, metallurgy and assaying. Among its distinguished scholars it reckons Abraham Gottlob Werner (1750-1817), who was also a professor there, and Alexander von Humboldt. Freiberg has extensive manufactures of gold and silver lace, woollen cloths, linen and cotton goods, iron, copper and brass wares, gunpowder and white-lead. It has also several large breweries. In the immediate vicinity are its famous silver and lead mines, thirty in number, and of which the principal ones passed into the property of the state in 1886. The castle of Freudenstein or Freistein, as rebuilt by the elector Augustus in 1572, is situated in one of the suburbs and is now used as a military magazine. In its grounds a monument was erected to Werner in 1851. The cathedral, rebuilt in late Gothic style after its destruction by fire in 1484 and restored in 1893, was founded in the 12th century. Of the original church a magnificent German Romanesque doorway, known as the Golden Gate (_Goldene Pforte_), survives. The church contains numerous monuments, among others one to Prince Maurice of Saxony. Adjoining the cathedral is the mausoleum (_Begraebniskapelle_), built in 1594 in the Italian Renaissance style, in which are buried the remains of Henry the Pious and his successors down to John George IV., who died in 1694. Of the other four Protestant churches the most noteworthy is the Peterskirche which, with its three towers, is a conspicuous object on the highest point of the town. Among the other public buildings are the old town-hall, dating from the 15th century, the antiquarian museum, and the natural history museum. There are a classical and modern, a commercial and an agricultural school, and numerous charitable institutions.

Freiberg owes its origin to the discovery of its silver mines (c. 1163). The town, with the castle of Freudenstein, was built by Otto the Rich, margrave of Meissen, in 1175, and its name, which first appears in 1221, is derived from the extensive mining franchises granted to it about that time. In all the partitions of the territories of the Saxon house of Wettin, from the latter part of the 13th century onward, Freiberg always remained common property, and it was not till 1485 (the mines not till 1537) that it was definitively assigned to the Albertine line. The Reformation was introduced into Freiberg in 1536 by Henry the Pious, who resided here. The town suffered severely during the Thirty Years' War, and again during the French occupation from 1806 to 1814, during which time it had to support an army of 700,000 men and find forage for 200,000 horses.

See H. Gerlach, _Kleine Chronik von Freiberg_ (2nd ed., Freiberg, 1898); H. Ermisch, _Das Freiberger Stadtrecht_ (Leipzig, 1889); Ermisch and O. Posse, _Urkundenbuch der Stadt Freiberg_, in _Codex diplom. Sax. reg._ (3 vols., Leipzig, 1883-1891); _Freibergs Berg- und Huettenwesen_, published by the Bergmaennischer Verein (Freiberg, 1883); Ledebur, _Ueber die Bedeutung der Freiberger Bergakademie_ (_ib._ 1903); Steche, _Bau- und Kunstdenkmaeler der Amtshauptmannschaft Freiberg_ (Dresden, 1884).

FREIBURG, a town of Germany in Prussian Silesia, on the Polsnitz, 35 m. S.W. of Breslau, on the railway to Halbstadt. Pop. (1905) 9917. It has an Evangelical and Roman Catholic church, and its industries include watch-making, linen-weaving and distilling. In the neighbourhood are the old and modern castles of the Fuerstenstein family, whence the town is sometimes distinguished as Freiburg unter dem Fuerstenstein. At Freiburg, on the 22nd of July 1762, the Prussians defended themselves successfully against the superior forces of the Austrians.

FREIBURG IM BREISGAU, an archiepiscopal see and city of Germany in the grand duchy of Baden, 12 m. E. of the Rhine, beautifully situated on the Dreisam at the foot of the Schlossberg, one of the heights of the Black Forest range, on the railway between Basel and Mannheim, 40 m. N. of the former city. Pop. (1905) 76,285. The town is for the most part well built, having several wide and handsome streets and a number of spacious squares. It is kept clean and cool by the waters of the river, which flow through the streets in open channels; and its old fortifications have been replaced by public walks, and, what is more unusual, by vineyards. It possesses a famous university, the Ludovica Albertina, founded by Albert VI., archduke of Austria, in 1457, and attended by about 2000 students. The library contains upwards of 250,000 volumes and 600 MSS., and among the other auxiliary establishments are an anatomical hall and museum and botanical gardens. The Freiburg minster is considered one of the finest of all the Gothic churches of Germany, being remarkable alike for the symmetry of its proportions, for the taste of its decorations, and for the fact that it may more correctly be said to be finished than almost any other building of the kind. The period of its erection probably lies for the most part between 1122 and 1252; but the choir was not built till 1513. The tower, which rises above the western entrance, is 386 ft. in height, and it presents a skilful transition from a square base into an octagonal superstructure, which in its turn is surmounted by a pyramidal spire of the most exquisite open work in stone. In the interior of the church are some beautiful stained glass windows, both ancient and modern, the tombstones of several of the dukes of Zaehringen, statues of archbishops of Freiburg, and paintings by Holbein and by Hans Baldung (c. 1470-1545), commonly called Gruen. Among the other noteworthy buildings of Freiburg are the palaces of the grand duke and the archbishop, the old town-hall, the theatre, the _Kaufhaus_ or merchants' hall, a 16th-century building with a handsome facade, the church of St Martin, with a graceful spire restored 1880-1881, the new town-hall, completed 1901, in Renaissance style, and the Protestant church, formerly the church of the abbey of Thennenbach, removed hither in 1839. In the centre of the fish-market square is a fountain surmounted by a statue of Duke Berthold III. of Zaehringen; in the Franziskaner Platz there is a monument to Berthold Schwarz, the traditional discoverer here, in 1259, of gunpowder; the Rotteck Platz takes its name from the monument of Karl Wenzeslaus von Rotteck (1775-1840), the historian, which formerly stood on the site of the Schwarz statue; and in Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse a bronze statue was erected in 1876 to the memory of Herder, who in the early part of the 19th century founded in Freiburg an institute for draughtsmen, engravers and lithographers, and carried on a famous bookselling business. On the Schlossberg above the town there are massive ruins of two castles destroyed by the French in 1744; and about 2 m. to the N.E. stands the castle of Zaehringen, the original seat of the famous family of the counts of that name. Situated on the ancient road which runs by the Hoellenpass between the valleys of the Danube and the Rhine, Freiburg early acquired commercial importance, and it is still the principal centre of the trade of the Black Forest. It manufactures buttons, chemicals, starch, leather, tobacco, silk thread, paper, and hempen goods, as well as beer and wine.

Freiburg is of uncertain foundation. In 1120 it became a free town, with privileges similar to those of Cologne; but in 1219 it fell into the hands of a branch of the family of Urach. After it had vainly attempted to throw off the yoke by force of arms, it purchased its freedom in 1366; but, unable to reimburse the creditors who had advanced the money, it was, in 1368, obliged to recognize the supremacy of the house of Hapsburg. In the 17th and 18th centuries it played a considerable part as a fortified town. It was captured by the Swedes in 1632, 1634 and 1638; and in 1644 it was seized by the Bavarians, who shortly after, under General Mercy, defeated in the neighbourhood the French forces under Enghien and Turenne. The French were in possession from 1677 to 1697, and again in 1713-1714 and 1744; and when they left the place in 1748, at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, they dismantled the fortifications. The Baden insurgents gained a victory at Freiburg in 1848, and the revolutionary government took refuge in the town in June 1849, but in the following July the Prussian forces took possession and occupied it until 1851. Since 1821 Freiburg has been the seat of an archbishop with jurisdiction over the sees of Mainz, Rottenberg and Limburg.

See Schreiber, _Geschichte und Beschreibung des Muensters zu Freiburg_ (1820 and 1825); _Geschichte der Stadt und Universitaet Freiburgs_ (1857-1859); _Der Schlossberg bei Freiburg_ (1860); and Albert, _Die Geschichtsschreibung der Stadt Freiburg_ (1902).

_Battles of Freiburg, 3rd, 5th and 10th of August 1644._--During the Thirty Years' War the neighbourhood of Freiburg was the scene of a series of engagements between the French under Louis de Bourbon, due d'Enghien (afterwards called the great Conde), and Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne, and the Bavarians and Austrians commanded by Franz, Freiherr von Mercy.

At the close of the campaign of 1643 the French "Army of Weimar," having been defeated and driven into Alsace by the Bavarians, had there been reorganized under the command of Turenne, then a young general of thirty-two and newly promoted to the marshalate. In May 1644 he opened the campaign by recrossing the Rhine and raiding the enemy's posts as far as Ueberlingen on the lake of Constance and Donaueschingen on the Danube. The French then fell back with their booty and prisoners to Breisach, a strong garrison being left in Freiburg. The Bavarian commander, however, revenged himself by besieging Freiburg (June 27th), and Turenne's first attempt to relieve the place failed. During July, as the siege progressed, the French government sent the duc d'Enghien, who was ten years younger still than Turenne, but had just gained his great victory of Rocroy, to take over the command. Enghien brought with him a veteran army, called the "Army of France," Turenne remaining in command of the Army of Weimar. The armies met at Breisach on the 2nd of August, by which date Freiburg had surrendered. At this point most commanders of the time would have decided not to fight, but to manoeuvre Mercy away from Freiburg; Enghien, however, was a fighting general, and Mercy's entrenched lines at Freiburg seemed to him a target rather than an obstacle. A few hours after his arrival, therefore, without waiting for the rearmost troops of his columns, he set the combining armies in motion for Krozingen, a village on what was then the main road between Breisach and Freiburg. The total force immediately available numbered only 16,000 combatants. Enghien and Turenne had arranged that the Army of France was to move direct upon Freiburg by Wolfenweiter, while the Army of Weimar was to make its way by hillside tracks to Wittnau and thence to attack the rear of Mercy's lines while Enghien assaulted them in front. Turenne's march (August 3rd, 1644) was slow and painful, as had been anticipated, and late in the afternoon, on passing Wittnau, he encountered the enemy. The Weimarians carried the outer lines of defence without much difficulty, but as they pressed on towards Merzhausen the resistance became more and more serious. Turenne's force was little more than 6000, and these were wearied with a long day of marching and fighting on the steep and wooded hillsides of the Black Forest. Thus the turning movement came to a standstill far short of Uffingen, the village on Mercy's line of retreat that Turenne was to have seized, nor was a flank attack possible against Mercy's main line, from which he was separated by the crest of the Schoenberg. Meanwhile, Enghien's army had at the prearranged hour (4 P.M.) attacked Mercy's position on the Ebringen spur. A steep slope, vineyards, low stone walls and abatis had all to be surmounted, under a galling fire from the Bavarian musketeers, before the Army of France found itself, breathless and in disorder, in front of the actual entrenchments of the crest. A first attack failed, as did an attempt to find an unguarded path round the shoulder of the Schoenberg. The situation was grave in the extreme, but Enghien resolved on Turenne's account to renew the attack, although only a quarter of his original force was still capable of making an effort. He himself and all the young nobles of his staff dismounted and led the infantry forward again, the prince threw his baton into the enemy's lines for the soldiers to retrieve, and in the end, after a bitter struggle, the Bavarians, whose reserves had been taken away to oppose Turenne in the Merzhausen defile, abandoned the entrenchments and disappeared into the woods of the adjoining spur. Enghien hurriedly re-formed his troops, fearing at every moment to be hurled down the hill by a counter-stroke; but none came. The French bivouacked in the rain, Turenne making his way across the mountain to confer with the prince, and meanwhile Mercy quietly drew off his army in the dark to a new set of entrenchments on the ridge on which stood the Loretto Chapel. On the 4th of August the Army of France and the Army of Weimar met at Merzhausen, the rearmost troops of the Army of France came in, and the whole was arranged by the major-generals in the plain facing the Loretto ridge. This position was attacked on the 5th. Enghien had designed his battle even more carefully than before, but as the result of a series of accidents the two French armies attacked prematurely and straight to their front, one brigade after another, and though at one moment Enghien, sword in hand, broke the line of defence with his last intact reserve, a brilliant counterstroke, led by Mercy's brother Kaspar (who was killed), drove out the assailants. It is said that Enghien lost half his men on this day and Mercy one-third of his, so severe was the battle. But the result could not be gainsaid; it was for the French a complete and costly failure.

For three days after this the armies lay in position without fighting, the French well supplied with provisions and comforts from Breisach, the Bavarians suffering somewhat severely from want of food, and especially forage, as all their supplies had to be hauled from Villingen over the rough roads of the Black Forest. Enghien then decided to make use of the Glotter Tal to interrupt altogether this already unsatisfactory line of supply, and thus to force the Bavarians either to attack him at a serious disadvantage, or to retreat across the hills with the loss of their artillery and baggage and the disintegration of their army by famine and desertion. With this object, the Army of Weimar was drawn off on the morning of the 9th of August and marched round by Betzenhausen and Lehen to Langen Denzling. The infantry of the Army of France, then the trains, followed, while Enghien with his own cavalry faced Freiburg and the Loretto position.

[Illustration: Map-Battle of Freiburg.]

Before dawn on the 10th the advance guard of Turenne's army was ascending the Glotter Tal. But Mercy had divined his adversary's plan, and leaving a garrison to hold Freiburg, the Bavarian army had made a night march on the 9/10th to the Abbey of St Peter, whence on the morning of the 10th Mercy fell back to Graben, his nearest magazine in the mountains. Turenne's advanced guard appeared from the Glotter Tal only to find a stubborn rearguard of cavalry in front of the abbey. A sharp action began, but Mercy hearing the drums and fifes of the French infantry in the Glotter Tal broke it off and continued his retreat in good order. Enghien thus obtained little material result from his manoeuvre. Only two guns and such of Mercy's wagons that were unable to keep up fell into the hands of the French. Enghien and Turenne did not continue the chase farther than Graben, and Mercy fell back unmolested to Rothenburg on the Tauber.

The moral results of this sanguinary fighting were, however, important and perhaps justified the sacrifice of so many valuable soldiers. Enghien's pertinacity had not achieved a decision with the sword, but Mercy had been so severely punished that he was unable to interfere with his opponent's new plan of campaign. This, which was carried out by the united armies and by reinforcements from France, while Turenne's cavalry screened them by bold demonstrations on the Tauber, led to nothing less than the conquest of the Rhine Valley from Basel to Coblenz, a task which was achieved so rapidly that the Army of France and its victorious young leader were free to return to France in two months from the time of their appearance in Turenne's quarters at Breisach.

FREIDANK (VRIDANC), the name by which a Middle High German didactic poet of the early 13th century is known. It has been disputed whether the word, which is equivalent to "free-thought," is to be regarded as the poet's real name or only as a pseudonym; the latter is probably the case. Little is known of Freidank's life. He accompanied Frederick II. on his crusade to the Holy Land, where, in the years 1228-1229, a portion at least of his work was composed; and it is said that on his tomb (if indeed it was not the tomb of another Freidank) at Treviso there was inscribed, with allusion to the character of his style, "he always spoke and never sang." Wilhelm Grimm originated the hypothesis that Freidank was to be identified with Walther von der Vogelweide; but this is no longer tenable. Freidank's work bears the name of _Bescheidenheit_, i.e. "practical wisdom," "correct judgment," and consists of a collection of proverbs, pithy sayings, and moral and satirical reflections, arranged under general heads. Its popularity till the end of the 16th century is shown by the great number of MSS. extant.

Sebastian Brant published the _Bescheidenheit_ in a modified form in 1508. Wilhelm Grimm's edition appeared in 1834 (2nd ed. 1860), H. F. Bezzenberger's in 1872. A later edition is by F. Sandvoss (1877). The old Latin translation, _Fridangi Discretio_, was printed by C. Lemcke in 1868; and there are two translations into modern German, A. Bacmeister's (1861) and K. Simrock's (1867). See also F. Pfeiffer, _Ueber Freidank_ (_Zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte_, 1855), and H. Paul, _Ueber die urspruengliche Anordnung von Freidanks Bescheidenheit_ (1870).

FREIENWALDE, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Prussia, on the Oder, 28 m. N.E. of Berlin, on the Frankfort-Angermuende railway. Pop. (1905) 7995. It has a small palace, built by the Great Elector, an Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, and manufactures of furniture, machinery, &c. The neighbouring forests and its medicinal springs make it a favourite summer resort of the inhabitants of Berlin. A new tower commands a fine view of the Oderbruch (see ODER). Freienwalde, which must be distinguished from the smaller town of the same name in Pomerania, first appears as a town in 1364.

FREIESLEBENITE, a rare mineral consisting of sulphantimonite of silver and lead, (Pb, Ag2)5Sb4S11. The monoclinic crystals are prismatic in habit, with deeply striated prism and dome faces. The colour is steel-grey, and the lustre metallic; hardness 21/2, specific gravity 6.2. It occurs with argentite, chalybite and galena in the silver veins of the Himmelsfuerst mine at Freiberg, Saxony, where it has been known since 1720. The species was named after J. K. Freiesleben, who had earlier called it _Schilf-Glaserz_. Other localities are Hiendelaencina near Guadalajara in Spain, Kapnik-Banya in Hungary, and Guanajuato in Mexico. A species separated from freieslebenite by V. von Zepharovich in 1871, because of differences in crystalline form, is known as diaphorite (from [Greek: diaphora], "difference"); it is very similar to freieslebenite in appearance and has perhaps the same chemical composition (or possibly Ag2PbSb2S5), but is orthorhombic in crystallization. A third mineral also very similar to freieslebenite in appearance is the orthorhombic andorite, AgPbSb3S6, which is mined as a silver ore at Oruro in Bolivia.

FREIGHT, (pronounced like "weight"; derived from the Dutch _vracht_ or _vrecht_, in Fr. _fret_, the Eng. "fraught" being the same word, and formerly used for the same thing, but now only as an adjective = "laden"), the lading or cargo of a ship, and the hire paid for their transport (see AFFREIGHTMENT); from the original sense of water-transport of goods the word has also come to be used for land-transit (particularly in America, by railroad), and by analogy for any load or burden.

FREILIGRATH, FERDINAND (1810-1876), German poet, was born at Detmold on the 17th of June 1810. He was educated at the gymnasium of his native town, and in his sixteenth year was sent to Soest, with a view to preparing him for a commercial career. Here he had also time and opportunity to acquire a taste for French and English literature. The years from 1831 to 1836 he spent in a bank at Amsterdam, and 1837 to 1839 in a business house at Barmen. In 1838 his _Gedichte_ appeared and met with such extraordinary success that he gave up the idea of a commercial life and resolved to devote himself entirely to literature. His repudiation of the political poetry of 1841 and its revolutionary ideals attracted the attention of the king of Prussia, Frederick William IV., who, in 1842, granted him a pension of 300 talers a year. He married, and, to be near his friend Emanuel Geibel, settled at St Goar. Before long, however, Freiligrath was himself carried away by the rising tide of liberalism. In the poem _Ein Glaubensbekenntnis_ (1844) he openly avowed his sympathy with the political movement led by his old adversary, Georg Herwegh; the day, he declared, of his own poetic trifling with Romantic themes was over; Romanticism itself was dead. He laid down his pension, and, to avoid the inevitable political persecution, took refuge in Switzerland. As a sequel to the _Glaubensbekenntnis_ he published _Ca ira!_ (1846), which strained still further his relations with the German authorities. He fled to London, where he resumed the commercial life he had broken off seven years before. When the Revolution of 1848 broke out, it seemed to Freiligrath, as to all the liberal thinkers of the time, the dawn of an era of political freedom; and, as may be seen from the poems in his collection of _Politische und soziale Gedichte_ (1849-1851), he welcomed it with unbounded enthusiasm. He returned to Germany and settled in Duesseldorf; but it was not long before he had again called down upon himself the ill-will of the ruling powers by a poem, _Die Toten an die Lebenden_ (1848). He was arrested on a charge of _lese-majeste_, but the prosecution ended in his acquittal. New difficulties arose; his association with the democratic movement rendered him an object of constant suspicion, and in 1851 he judged it more prudent to go back to London, where he remained until 1868. In that year he returned to Germany, settling first in Stuttgart and in 1875 in the neighbouring town of Cannstatt, where he died on the 18th of March 1876.

As a poet, Freiligrath was the most gifted member of the German revolutionary group. Coming at the very close of the Romantic age, his own purely lyric poetry re-echoes for the most part the familiar thoughts and imagery of his Romantic predecessors; but at an early age he had been attracted by the work of French contemporary poets, and he reinvigorated the German lyric by grafting upon it the orientalism of Victor Hugo. In this reconciliation of French and German romanticism lay Freiligrath's significance for the development of the lyric in Germany. His remarkable power of assimilating foreign literatures is also to be seen in his translations of English and Scottish ballads, of the poetry of Burns, Mrs Hemans, Longfellow and Tennyson (_Englische Gedichte aus neuerer Zeit_, 1846; _The Rose, Thistle and Shamrock_, 1853, 6th ed. 1887); he also translated Shakespeare's _Cymbeline_, _Winter's Tale_ and _Venus and Adonis_, as well as Longfellow's _Hiawatha_ (1857). Freiligrath is most original in his revolutionary poetry. His poems of this class suffer, it is true, under the disadvantage of all political poetry--purely temporary interest and the unavoidable admixture of much that has no claim to be called poetry at all--but the agitator Freiligrath, when he is at his best, displays a vigour and strength, a power of direct and cogent poetic expression, not to be found in any other political singer of the age.

Freiligrath's _Gedichte_ have passed through some fifty editions, and his _Gesammelte Dichtungen_, first published in 1870, have reached a sixth edition (1898). _Nachgelassenes_ (including a translation of Byron's _Mazeppa_) was published in 1883. A selection of Freiligrath's best-known poems in English translation was edited by his daughter, Mrs Freiligrath-Kroeker, in 1869; also _Songs of a Revolutionary Epoch_ were translated by J. L. Joynes in 1888. Cp. E. Schmidt-Weissenfels, _F. Freiligrath, eine Biographie_ (1876); W. Buchner, _F. Freiligrath, ein Dichterleben in Briefen_ (2 vols., 1881); G. Freiligrath, _Erinnerungen an F. Freiligrath_ (1889); P. Besson, _Freiligrath_ (Paris, 1899); K. Richter, _Freiligrath als Uebersetzer_ (1899). (J. G. R.)

FREIND, JOHN (1675-1728), English physician, younger brother of Robert Freind (1667-1751), headmaster of Westminster school, was born in 1675 at Croton in Northamptonshire. He made great progress in classical knowledge under Richard Busby at Westminster, and at Christ Church, Oxford, under Dean Aldrich, and while still very young, produced, along with Peter Foulkes, an excellent edition of the speeches of Aeschines and Demosthenes on the affair of Ctesiphon. After this he began the study of medicine, and having proved his scientific attainments by various treatises was appointed a lecturer on chemistry at Oxford in 1704. In the following year he accompanied the English army, under the earl of Peterborough, into Spain, and on returning home in 1707, wrote an account of the expedition, which attained great popularity. Two years later he published his _Prelectiones chimicae_, which he dedicated to Sir Isaac Newton. Shortly after his return in 1713 from Flanders, whither he had accompanied the British troops, he took up his residence in London, where he soon obtained a great reputation as a physician. In 1716 he became fellow of the college of physicians, of which he was chosen one of the censors in 1718, and Harveian orator in 1720. In 1722 he entered parliament as member for Launceston in Cornwall, but, being suspected of favouring the cause of the exiled Stuarts, he spent half of that year in the Tower. During his imprisonment he conceived the plan of his most important work, _The History of Physic_, of which the first part appeared in 1725, and the second in the following year. In the latter year he was appointed physician to Queen Caroline, an office which he held till his death on the 26th of July 1728.

A complete edition of his Latin works, with a Latin translation of the _History of Physic_, edited by Dr John Wigan, was published in London in 1732.

FREINSHEIM [FREINSHEMIUS], JOHANN (1608-1660), German classical scholar and critic, was born at Ulm on the 16th of November 1608. After studying at the universities of Marburg, Giessen and Strassburg, he visited France, where he remained for three years. He returned to Strassburg in 1637, and in 1642 was appointed professor of eloquence at Upsala. In 1647 he was summoned by Queen Christina to Stockholm as court librarian and historiographer. In 1650 he resumed his professorship at Upsala, but early in the following year he was obliged to resign on account of ill-health. In 1656 he became honorary professor at Heidelberg, and died on the 31st of August 1660. Freinsheim's literary activity was chiefly devoted to the Roman historians. He first introduced the division into chapters and paragraphs, and by means of carefully compiled indexes illustrated the lexical peculiarities of each author. He is best known for his famous supplements to Quintus Curtius and Livy, containing the missing books written by himself. He also published critical editions of Curtius and Florus.

FREIRE, FRANCISCO JOSE (1719-1773), Portuguese historian and philologist, was born at Lisbon on the 3rd of January 1719. He belonged to the monastic society of St Philip Neri, and was a zealous member of the literary association known as the Academy of Arcadians, in connexion with which he adopted the pseudonym of Candido Lusitano. He contributed much to the improvement of the style of Portuguese prose literature, but his endeavour to effect a reformation in the national poetry by a translation of Horace's _Ars poetica_ was less successful. The work in which he set forth his opinions regarding the vicious taste pervading the current Portuguese prose literature is entitled _Maximas sobre a Arte Oratoria_ (1745) and is preceded by a chronological table forming almost a social and physical history of Portugal. His best known work, however, is his _Vida do Infante D. Henrique_ (1758), which has given him a place in the first rank of Portuguese historians, and has been translated into French (Paris, 1781). He also wrote a poetical dictionary (_Diccionario poetico_) and a translation of Racine's _Athalie_ (1762), and his _Reflexions sur la langue portugaise_ was published in 1842 by the Lisbon society for the promotion of useful knowledge. He died at Mafra on the 5th of July 1773.

FREISCHUeTZ, in German folklore, a marksman who by a compact with the devil has obtained a certain number of bullets destined to hit without fail whatever object he wishes. As the legend is usually told, six of the _Freikugeln_ or "free bullets" are thus subservient to the marksman's will, but the seventh is at the absolute disposal of the devil himself. Various methods were adopted in order to procure possession of the marvellous missiles. According to one the marksman, instead of swallowing the sacramental host, kept it and fixed it on a tree, shot at it and caused it to bleed great drops of blood, gathered the drops on a piece of cloth and reduced the whole to ashes, and then with these ashes added the requisite virtue to the lead of which his bullets were made. Various vegetable or animal substances had the reputation of serving the same purpose. Stories about the Freischuetz were especially common in Germany during the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries; but the first time that the legend was turned to literary profit is said to have been by Apel in the _Gespensterbuch_ or "Book of Ghosts." It formed the subject of Weber's opera _Der Freischuetz_ (1821), the libretto of which was written by Friedrich Kind, who had suggested Apel's story as an excellent theme for the composer. The name by which the Freischuetz is known in French is Robin des Bois.

See Kind, _Freyschuetzbuch_ (Leipzig, 1843); _Revue des deux mondes_ (February 1855); Graesse, _Die Quelle des Freischuetz_ (Dresden, 1875).

FREISING, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, on the Isar, 16 m. by rail N.N.E. of Munich. Pop. (1905) 13,538. Among its eight Roman Catholic churches the most remarkable is the cathedral, which dates from about 1160 and is famous for its curious crypt. Noteworthy also are the old palace of the bishops, now a clerical seminary, the theological lyceum and the town-hall. There are several schools in the town, and there is a statue to the chronicler, Otto of Freising, who was bishop here from 1138 to 1158. Freising has manufactures of agricultural machinery and of porcelain, while printing and brewing are carried on. Near the town is the site of the Benedictine abbey of Weihenstephan, which existed from 725 to 1803. This is now a model farm and brewery. Freising is a very ancient town and is said to have been founded by the Romans. After being destroyed by the Hungarians in 955 it was fortified by the emperor Otto II. in 976 and by Duke Welf of Bavaria in 1082. A bishopric was established here in 724 by St Corbinianus, whose brother Erimbert was consecrated second bishop by St Boniface in 739. Later on the bishops acquired considerable territorial power and in the 17th century became princes of the Empire. In 1802 the see was secularized, the bulk of its territories being assigned to Bavaria and the rest to Salzburg, of which Freising had been a suffragan bishopric. In 1817 an archbishopric was established at Freising, but in the following year it was transferred to Munich. The occupant of the see is now called archbishop of Munich and Freising.

See C. Meichelbeck, _Historiae Frisingensis_ (Augsburg, 1724-1729, new and enlarged edition 1854).

FREJUS, a town in the department of the Var in S.E. France. Pop. (1906) 3430. It is 281/2 m. S.E. of Draguignan (the chief town of the department), and 221/2 m. S.W. of Cannes by rail. It is only important on account of the fine Roman remains that it contains, for it is now a mile from the sea, its harbour having been silted up by the deposits of the Argens river. Since the 4th century it has been a bishop's see, which is in the ecclesiastical province of Aix en Provence. In modern times the neighbouring fishing village at St Raphael (21/2 m. by rail S.E., and on the seashore) has become a town of 4865 inhabitants (in 1901); in 1799 Napoleon disembarked there, on his return from Egypt, and reembarked for Elba in 1814, while nowadays it is much frequented as a health resort, as is also Valescure (2 m. N.W. on the heights above). The cathedral church in part dates from the 12th century, but only small portions of the old medieval episcopal palace are now visible, as it was rebuilt about 1823. The ramparts of the old town can still be traced for a long distance, and there are fragments of two moles, of the theatre and of a gate. The amphitheatre, which seated 12,000 spectators, is in a better state of preservation. The ruins of the great aqueduct which brought the waters of the Siagnole, an affluent of the Siagne, to the town, can still be traced for a distance of nearly 19 m. The original hamlet was the capital of the tribe of the Oxybii, while the town of Forum Julii was founded on its site by Julius Caesar in order to secure to the Romans a harbour independent of that of Marseilles. The buildings of which ruins exist were mostly built by Caesar or by Augustus, and show that it was an important naval station and arsenal. But the town suffered much at the hands of the Arabs, of Barbary pirates, and of its inhabitants, who constructed many of their dwellings out of the ruined Roman buildings. The ancient harbour (really but a portion of the lagoons, which had been deepened) is now completely silted up. Even in early times a canal had to be kept open by perpetual digging, while about 1700 this was closed, and now a sandy and partly cultivated waste extends between the town and the seashore.

See J. A. Aubenas, _Histoire de Frejus_ (Frejus, 1881); Ch. Lentheric, _La Provence Maritime ancienne et moderne_ (Paris, 1880), chap. vii. (W. A. B. C.)

FRELINGHUYSEN, FREDERICK THEODORE (1817-1885), American lawyer and statesman, of Dutch descent, was born at Millstone, New Jersey, on the 4th of August 1817. His grandfather, Frederick Frelinghuysen (1753-1804), was an eminent lawyer, one of the framers of the first New Jersey constitution, a soldier in the War of Independence, and a member (1778-1779 and 1782-1783) of the Continental Congress from New Jersey, and in 1793-1796 of the United States senate; and his uncle, Theodore (1787-1862), was attorney-general of New Jersey from 1817 to 1829, was a United States senator from New Jersey in 1829-1835, was the Whig candidate for vice-president on the Clay ticket in 1844, and was chancellor of the university of New York in 1839-1850 and president of Rutgers College in 1850-1862. Frederick Theodore, left an orphan at the age of three, was adopted by his uncle, graduated at Rutgers in 1836, and studied law in Newark with his uncle, to whose practice he succeeded in 1839, soon after his admission to the bar. He became attorney for the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Morris Canal and Banking Company, and other corporations, and from 1861 to 1867 was attorney-general of New Jersey. In 1861 he was a delegate to the peace congress at Washington, and in 1866 was appointed by the governor of New Jersey, as a Republican, to fill a vacancy in the United States senate. In the winter of 1867 he was elected to fill the unexpired term, but a Democratic majority in the legislature prevented his re-election in 1869. In 1870 he was nominated by President Grant, and confirmed by the senate, as United States minister to England to succeed John Lothrop Motley, but declined the mission. From 1871 to 1877 he was again a member of the United States senate, in which he was prominent in debate and in committee work, and was chairman of the committee on foreign affairs during the Alabama Claims negotiations. He was a strong opponent of the reconstruction measures of President Johnson, for whose conviction he voted (on most of the specific charges) in the impeachment trial. He was a member of the joint committee which drew up and reported (1877) the Electoral Commission Bill, and subsequently served as a member of the commission. On the 12th of December 1881 he was appointed secretary of state by President Arthur to succeed James G. Blaine, and served until the inauguration of President Cleveland in 1885. Retiring, with his health impaired by overwork, to his home in Newark, he died there on the 20th of May, less than three months after relinquishing the cares of office.

FREMANTLE, a seaport of Swan county, Western Australia, at the mouth of the Swan river, 12 m. by rail S.W. of Perth. It is the terminus of the Eastern railway, and is a town of some industrial activity, shipbuilding, soap-boiling, saw-milling, smelting, iron-founding, furniture-making, flour-milling, brewing and tanning being its chief industries. The harbour, by the construction of two long moles and the blasting away of the rocks at the bar, has been rendered secure. The English, French and German mail steamers call at the port. Fremantle became a municipality in 1871; but there are now three separate municipalities--Fremantle, with a population in 1901 of 14,704; Fremantle East (2494); and Fremantle North (3246). At Rottnest Island, off the harbour, there are government salt-works and a residence of the governor, also penal and reformatory establishments.

FREMIET, EMMANUEL (1824- ), French sculptor, born in Paris, was a nephew and pupil of Rude; he chiefly devoted himself to animal sculpture and to equestrian statues in armour. His earliest work was in scientific lithography (osteology), and for a while he served in times of adversity in the gruesome office of "painter to the Morgue." In 1843 he sent to the Salon a study of a "Gazelle," and after that date was very prolific in his works. His "Wounded Bear" and "Wounded Dog" were produced in 1850, and the Luxembourg Museum at once secured this striking example of his work. From 1855 to 1859 Fremiet was engaged on a series of military statuettes for Napoleon III. He produced his equestrian statue of "Napoleon I." in 1868, and of "Louis d'Orleans" in 1869 (at the Chateau de Pierrefonds) and in 1874 the first equestrian statue of "Joan of Arc," erected in the Place des Pyramides, Paris; this he afterwards (1889) replaced with another and still finer version. In the meanwhile he had exhibited his masterly "Gorilla and Woman" which won him a medal of honour at the Salon of 1887. Of the same character, and even more remarkable, is his "Ourang-Outangs and Borneo Savage" of 1895, a commission from the Paris Museum of Natural History. Fremiet also executed the statue of "St Michael" for the summit of the spire of the Eglise St Michel, and the equestrian statue of Velasquez for the Jardin de l'Infante at the Louvre. He became a member of the Academie des Beaux-Arts in 1892, and succeeded Barye as professor of animal drawing at the Natural History Museum of Paris.

FREMONT, JOHN CHARLES (1813-1890), American explorer, soldier and political leader, was born in Savannah, Georgia, on the 21st of January 1813. His father, a native of France, died when the boy was in his sixth year, and his mother, a member of an aristocratic Virginia family, then removed to Charleston, South Carolina. In 1828, after a year's special preparation, young Fremont entered the junior class of the college of Charleston, and here displayed marked ability, especially in mathematics; but his irregular attendance and disregard of college discipline led to his expulsion from the institution, which, however, conferred upon him a degree in 1836. In 1833 he was appointed teacher of mathematics on board the sloop of war "Natchez," and was so engaged during a cruise along the South American coast which was continued for about two and a half years. Soon after returning to Charleston he was appointed professor of mathematics in the United States navy, but he chose instead to serve as assistant engineer of a survey undertaken chiefly for the purpose of finding a pass through the mountains for a proposed railway from Charleston to Cincinnati. In July 1838 he was appointed second lieutenant of Topographical Engineers in the United States army, and for the next three years he was assistant to the French explorer, Jean Nicholas Nicollet (1786-1843), employed by the war department to survey and map a large part of the country lying between the upper waters of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. In 1841 Fremont surveyed, for the government, the lower course of the Des Moines river. In the same year he married Jessie, the daughter of Senator Thomas H. Benton of Missouri, and it was in no small measure through Benton's influence with the government that Fremont was enabled to accomplish within the next few years the exploration of much of the territory between the Mississippi Valley and the Pacific Ocean.

When the claim of the United States to the Oregon territory was being strengthened by occupation, Fremont was sent, at his urgent request, to explore the frontier beyond the Missouri river, and especially the Rocky Mountains in the vicinity of the South Pass, through which the American immigrants travelled. Within four months (1842) he surveyed the Pass and ascended to the summit of the highest of the Wind River Mountains, since known as Fremont's Peak, and the interest aroused by his descriptions was such that in the next year he was sent on a second expedition to complete the survey across the continent along the line of travel from Missouri to the mouth of the Columbia river. This time he not only carried out his instructions but, by further explorations together with interesting descriptions, dispelled general ignorance with respect to the main features of the country W. of the Rocky Mountains: the Great Salt Lake, the Great Basin, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and the fertile river basins of the Mexican province of California.

His report of this expedition upon his return to Washington, D.C., in 1844, aroused much solicitude for California, which, it was feared, might, in the event of war then threatening between the United States and Mexico, be seized by Great Britain. In the spring of 1845 Fremont was despatched on a third expedition for the professed purposes of further exploring the Great Basin and the Pacific Coast, and of discovering the easiest lines of communication between them, as well as for the secret purpose of assisting the United States, in case of war with Mexico, to gain possession of California. He and his party of sixty-two arrived there in January 1846. Owing to the number of American immigrants who had settled in California, the Mexican authorities there became suspicious and hostile, and ordered Fremont out of the province. Instead of obeying he pitched his camp near the summit of a mountain overlooking Monterey, fortified his position, and raised the United States flag. A few days later he was proceeding toward the Oregon border when new instructions from Washington caused him to retrace his steps and, perhaps, to consider plans for provoking war. The extent of his responsibility for the events that ensued is not wholly clear, and has been the subject of much controversy; his defenders have asserted that he was not responsible for the seizure of Sonoma or for the so-called "Bear-Flag War"; and that he played a creditable part throughout. (For an opposite view see CALIFORNIA.) Commodore John D. Sloat, after seizing Monterey, transferred his command to Commodore Robert Field Stockton (1795-1866), who made Fremont major of a battalion; and by January 1847 Stockton and Fremont completed the conquest of California. In the meantime General Stephen Watts Kearny (1794-1848) had been sent by the Government to conquer it and to establish a government. This created a conflict of authority between Stockton and Kearny, both of whom were Fremont's superior officers. Stockton, ignoring Kearny, commissioned Fremont military commandant and governor. But Kearny's authority being confirmed about the 1st of April, Fremont, for repeated acts of disobedience, was sent under arrest to Washington, where he was tried by court-martial, found guilty (January 1847) of mutiny, disobedience and conduct prejudicial to military discipline, and sentenced to dismissal from the service. President Polk approved of the verdict except as to mutiny, but remitted the penalty, whereupon Fremont resigned.

With the mountain-traversed region he had been exploring acquired by the United States, Fremont was eager for a railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and in October 1848 he set out at his own and Senator Benton's expense to find passes for such a railway along a line westward from the headwaters of the Rio Grande. But he had not gone far when he was led astray by a guide, and after the loss of his entire outfit and several of his men, and intense suffering of the survivors from cold and hunger, he turned southward through the valley of the Rio Grande and then westward through the valley of the Gila into southern California. Late in the year 1853, however, he returned to the place where the guide had led him astray, found passes through the mountains to the westward between latitudes 37 deg. and 38 deg. N., and arrived in San Francisco early in May 1854. From the conclusion of his fourth expedition until March 1855, when he removed to New York city, he lived in California, and in December 1849 was elected one of the first two United States senators from the new state. But as he drew the short term, he served only from the 10th of September 1850 to the 3rd of March 1851. Although a candidate for re-election, he was defeated by the pro-slavery party. His opposition to slavery, however, together with his popularity--won by the successes, hardships and dangers of his exploring expeditions, and by his part in the conquest of California--led to his nomination, largely on the ground of "availability," for the presidency in 1856 by the Republicans (this being their first presidential campaign), and by the National Americans or "Know-Nothings." In the ensuing election he was defeated by James Buchanan by 174 to 114 electoral votes.

Soon after the Civil War began, Fremont was appointed major-general and placed in command of the western department with headquarters at St Louis, but his lack of judgment and of administrative ability soon became apparent, the affairs of his department fell into disorder, and Fremont seems to have been easily duped by dishonest contractors whom he trusted. On the 30th of August 1861 he issued a proclamation in which he declared the property of Missourians in rebellion confiscated and their slaves emancipated. For this he was applauded by the radical Republicans, but his action was contrary to an act of congress of the 6th of August and to the policy of the Administration. On the 11th of September President Lincoln, who regarded the action as premature and who saw that it might alienate Kentucky and other border states, whose adherence he was trying to secure, annulled these declarations. Impelled by serious charges against Fremont, the president sent Montgomery Blair, the postmaster-general, and Montgomery C. Meigs, the quartermaster-general, to investigate the department; they reported that Fremont's management was extravagant and inefficient; and in November he was removed. Out of consideration for the "Radicals," however, Fremont was placed in command of the Mountain Department of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. In the spring and summer of 1862 he co-operated with General N. P. Banks against "Stonewall" Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, but showed little ability as a commander, was defeated by General Ewell at Cross Keys, and when his troops were united with those of Generals Banks and McDowell to form the Army of Virginia, of which General John Pope was placed in command, Fremont declined to serve under Pope, whom he outranked, and retired from

## active service. On the 31st of May 1864 he was nominated for the

presidency by a radical faction of the Republican party, opposed to President Lincoln, but his following was so small that on the 21st of September he withdrew from the contest. From 1878 to 1881 he was governor of the territory of Arizona, and in the last year of his life he was appointed by act of congress a major-general and placed on the retired list. He died in New York on the 13th of July 1890.

See J. C. Fremont, _Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, 1842, and to Oregon and North California, 1843-1844_ (Washington, 1845); Fremont's _Memoirs of my Life_ (New York, 1887); and J. Bigelow, _Memoirs of the Life and Public Services of John C. Fremont_ (New York, 1856).

FREMONT, a city and the county-seat of Dodge county, Nebraska, U.S.A., about 37 m. N.W. of Omaha, on the N. bank of the Platte river, which here abounds in picturesque bluffs and wooded islands. Pop. (1890) 6747; (1900) 7241 (1303 foreign-born); (1910) 8718. It is on the main line of the Union Pacific railway, on a branch of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy system, and on the main western line of the Chicago & North-Western railway, several branches of which (including the formerly independent Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley and the Sioux City & Pacific) converge here. The city has an attractive situation and is beautifully shaded. It has a public library and is the seat of the Fremont College, Commercial Institute and School of Pharmacy (1875), a private institution. There is considerable local trade with the rich farming country of the Platte and Elkhorn valleys; and the wholesale grain interests are especially important. Among the manufactures are flour, carriages, saddlery, canned vegetables, furniture, incubators and beer. The city owns and operates its electric-lighting plant and water-works. Fremont was founded in 1856, and became the county-seat in 1860. It was chartered as a city (second-class) in 1871, and became a city of the first class in 1901.

FREMONT, a city and the county-seat of Sandusky county, Ohio, U.S.A., on the Sandusky river, 30 m. S.E. of Toledo. Pop. (1890) 7141; (1900) 8439, of whom 1074 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 9939. Fremont is served by the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the Lake Shore Electric, the Lake Erie & Western, and the Wheeling & Lake Erie railways. The river is navigable to this point. Spiegel Grove, the former residence of Rutherford B. Hayes, is of interest, and the city has a public library (1873) and parks, in large measure the gifts of his uncle, Sardis Birchard. Fremont is situated in a good agricultural region; oil and natural gas abound in the vicinity; and the city has various manufactures, including boilers, electro-carbons, cutlery, bricks, agricultural implements, stoves and ranges, safety razors, carriage irons, sash, doors, blinds, furniture, beet sugar, canned vegetables, malt extract, garters and suspenders. The total factory product was valued at $2,833,385 in 1905, an increase of 23.4% over that of 1900. Fremont is on the site of a favourite abode of the Indians, and a trading post was at times maintained here; but the place is best known in history as the site of Fort Stephenson, erected during the War of 1812, and on the 2nd of August 1813 gallantly and successfully defended by Major George Croghan (1791-1849), with 160 men, against about 1000 British and Indians under Brigadier-General Henry A. Proctor. In 1906 Croghan's remains were re-interred on the site of the old fort. Until 1849, when the present name was adopted in honour of J. C. Fremont, the place was known as Lower Sandusky; it was incorporated as a village in 1829 and was first chartered as a city in 1867.

FREMY, EDMOND (1814-1894), French chemist, was born at Versailles on the 29th of February 1814. Entering Gay-Lussac's laboratory in 1831, he became _preparateur_ at the Ecole Polytechnique in 1834 and at the College de France in 1837. His next post was that of _repetiteur_ at the Ecole Polytechnique, where in 1846 he was appointed professor, and in 1850 he succeeded Gay-Lussac in the chair of chemistry at the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, of which he was director, in succession to M. E. Chevreul, from 1879 to 1891. He died at Paris on the 3rd of February 1894. His work included investigations of osmic acid, of the ferrates, stannates, plumbates, &c., and of ozone, attempts to obtain free fluorine by the electrolysis of fused fluorides, and the discovery of anhydrous hydrofluoric acid and of a series of _acides sulphazotes_, the precise nature of which long remained a matter of discussion. He also studied the colouring matters of leaves and flowers, the composition of bone, cerebral matter and other animal substances, and the processes of fermentation, in regard to the nature of which he was an opponent of Pasteur's views. Keenly alive to the importance of the technical applications of chemistry, he devoted special attention as a teacher to the training of industrial chemists. In this field he contributed to our knowledge of the manufacture of iron and steel, sulphuric acid, glass and paper, and in particular worked at the saponification of fats with sulphuric acid and the utilization of palmitic acid for candle-making. In the later years of his life he applied himself to the problem of obtaining alumina in the crystalline form, and succeeded in making rubies identical with the natural gem not merely in chemical composition but also in physical properties.

FRENCH, DANIEL CHESTER (1850- ), American sculptor, was born at Exeter, New Hampshire, on the 20th of April 1850, the son of Henry Flagg French, a lawyer, who for a time was assistant-secretary of the United States treasury. After a year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, French spent a month in the studio of John Q. A. Ward, then began to work on commissions, and at the age of twenty-three received from the town of Concord, Massachusetts, an order for his well-known statue "The Minute Man," which was unveiled (April 19, 1875) on the centenary of the battle of Concord. Previously French had gone to Florence, Italy, where he spent a year with Thomas Ball. French's best-known work is "Death Staying the Hand of the Sculptor," a memorial for the tomb of the sculptor Martin Milmore, in the Forest Hills cemetery, Boston; this received a medal of honour at Paris, in 1900. Among his other works are: a monument to John Boyle O'Reilly, Boston; "Gen. Cass," National Hall of Statuary, Washington; "Dr Gallaudet and his First Deaf-Mute Pupil," Washington; the colossal "Statue of the Republic," for the Columbian Exposition at Chicago; statues of Rufus Choate (Boston), John Harvard (Cambridge, Mass.), and Thomas Starr King (San Francisco, California), a memorial to the architect Richard M. Hunt, in Fifth Avenue, opposite the Lenox library, New York, and a large "Alma Mater," near the approach to Columbia University, New York. In collaboration with Edward C. Potter he modelled the "Washington," presented to France by the Daughters of the American Revolution; the "General Grant" in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, and the "General Joseph Hooker" in Boston. French became a member of the National Academy of Design (1901), the National Sculpture Society, the Architectural League, and the Accademia di San Luca, of Rome.

FRENCH, NICHOLAS (1604-1678), bishop of Ferns, was an Irish political pamphleteer, who was born at Wexford. He was educated at Louvain, and returning to Ireland became a priest at Wexford, and before 1646 was appointed bishop of Ferns. Having taken a prominent part in the political disturbances of this period, French deemed it prudent to leave Ireland in 1651, and the remainder of his life was passed on the continent of Europe. He acted as coadjutor to the archbishops of Santiago de Compostella and Paris, and to the bishop of Ghent, and died at Ghent on the 23rd of August 1678. In 1676 he published his attack on James Butler, marquess of Ormonde, entitled "The Unkinde Desertor of Loyall Men and True Frinds," and shortly afterwards "The Bleeding Iphigenia." The most important of his other pamphlets is the "Narrative of the Earl of Clarendon's Settlement and Sale of Ireland" (Louvain, 1668).

The _Historical Works_ of Bishop French, comprising the three pamphlets already mentioned and some letters, were published by S. H. Bindon at Dublin in 1846. See T. D. McGee, _Irish Writers of the 17th Century_ (Dublin, 1846); Sir J. T. Gilbert, _Contemporary History of Affairs in Ireland_, 1641-1652 (Dublin, 1879-1880); and T. Carte, _Life of James, Duke of Ormond_ (new ed., Oxford, 1851).

FRENCH CONGO, the general name of the French possessions in equatorial Africa. They have an area estimated at 700,000 sq. m., with a population, also estimated, of 6,000,000 to 10,000,000. The whites numbered (1906) 1278, of whom 502 were officials. French Congo, officially renamed FRENCH EQUATORIAL AFRICA in 1910, comprises--(1) the Gabun Colony, (2) the Middle Congo Colony, (3) the Ubangi-Shari Circumscription, (4) the Chad Circumscription. The two last-named divisions form the Ubangi-Shari-Chad Colony.

The present article treats of French Congo as a unit. It is of highly irregular shape. It is bounded W. by the Atlantic, N. by the (Spanish) Muni River Settlements, the German colony of Cameroon and the Sahara, E. by the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and S. by Belgian Congo and the Portuguese territory of Kabinda. In the greater part of its length the southern frontier is the middle course of the Congo and the Ubangi and Mbomu, the chief northern affluents of that stream, but in the south-west the frontier keeps north of the Congo river, whose navigable lower course is

## partitioned between Belgium and Portugal. The coast line, some 600 m.

long, extends from 5 deg. S. to 1 deg. N. The northern frontier, starting inland from the Muni estuary, after skirting the Spanish settlements follows a line drawn a little north of 2 deg. N. and extending east to 16 deg. E. North of this line the country is part of Cameroon, German territory extending so far inland from the Gulf of Guinea as to approach within 130 m. of the Ubangi. From the intersection of the lines named, at which point French Congo is at its narrowest, the frontier runs north and then east until the Shari is reached in 10 deg. 40' N. The Shari then forms the frontier up to Lake Chad, where French Congo joins the Saharan regions of French West Africa. The eastern frontier, separating the colony from the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, is the water-parting between the Nile and the Congo. The Mahommedan sultanates of Wadai and Bagirmi occupy much of the northern part of French Congo (see WADAI and BAGIRMI).

_Physical Features._--The coast line, beginning in the north at Corisco Bay, is shortly afterwards somewhat deeply indented by the estuary of the Gabun, south of which the shore runs in a nearly straight line until the delta of the Ogowe is reached, where Cape Lopez projects N.W. From this point the coast trends uniformly S.E. without presenting any striking features, though the Bay of Mayumba, the roadstead of Loango, and the Pointe Noire may be mentioned. A large proportion of the coast region is occupied by primeval forest, with trees rising to a height of 150 and 200 ft., but there is a considerable variety of scenery--open lagoons, mangrove swamps, scattered clusters of trees, park-like reaches, dense walls of tangled underwood along the rivers, prairies of tall grass and patches of cultivation. Behind the coast region is a ridge which rises from 3000 to 4500 ft., called the Crystal Mountains, then a plateau with an elevation varying from 1500 to 2800 ft., cleft with deep river-valleys, the walls of which are friable, almost vertical, and in some places 760 ft. high.

[Illustration: Map of French Congo.]

The coast rivers flowing into the Atlantic cross four terraces. On the higher portion of the plateau their course is over bare sand; on the second terrace, from 1200 to 2000 ft. high, it is over wide grassy tracts; then, for some 100 m., the rivers pass through virgin forest, and, lastly, they cross the shore region, which is about 10 m. broad. The rivers which fall directly into the Atlantic are generally unnavigable. The most important, the Ogowe (q.v.), is, however, navigable from its mouth to N'Jole, a distance of 235 m. Rivers to the south of the Ogowe are the Nyanga, 120 m. long, and the Kwilu. The latter, 320 m. in length, is formed by the Kiasi and the Luete; it has a very winding course, flowing by turns from north to south, from east to west, from south to north-west and from north to south-west. It is encumbered with rocks and eddies, and is navigable only over 38 m., and for five months in the year. The mouth is 1100 ft. wide. The Muni river, the northernmost in the colony, is obstructed by cataracts in its passage through the escarpment to the coast.

Nearly all the upper basin of the Shari (q.v.) as well as the right bank of the lower river is within French Congo. The greater part of the country belongs, however, to the drainage area of the Congo river. In addition to the northern banks of the Mbomu and Ubangi, 330 m. of the north shore of the Congo itself are in the French protectorate as well as numerous subsidiary streams. For some 100 m. however, the right bank of the Sanga, the most important of these subsidiary streams, is in German territory (see CONGO).

_Geology._--Three main divisions are recognized in the French Congo:--(1) the littoral zone, covered with alluvium and superficial deposits and underlain by Tertiary and Cretaceous rocks; (2) the mountain zone of the Crystal Mountains, composed of granite, metamorphic and ancient sediments; (3) the plateau of the northern portion of the Congo basin, occupied by Karroo sandstones. The core of the Crystal Mountains consists of granite and schists. Infolded with them, and on the flanks, are three rock systems ascribed to the Silurian, Devonian and Carboniferous. These are unfossiliferous, but fossils of Devonian age occur on the Congo (see CONGO FREE STATE). Granite covers wide areas north-west of the Crystal Mountains. The plateau sandstones lie horizontally and consist of a lower red sandstone group and an upper white sandstone group. They have not yielded fossils. Limestones of Lower Cretaceous age, with _Schloenbachia inflata_, occur north of the Gabun and in the Ogowe basin. Marls and limestones with fossils of an Eocene facies overlie the Cretaceous rocks on the Gabun. A superficial iron-cemented sand, erroneously termed laterite, covers large areas in the littoral zone, on the flanks of the mountains and on the high plateau.

_Climate._--The whole of the country being in the equatorial region, the climate is everywhere very hot and dangerous for Europeans. On the coast four seasons are distinguished: the dry season (15th of May to 15th of September), the rainy season (15th of September to 15th of January), then a second dry season (15th of January to 1st of March), and a second rainy season (1st of March to 15th of May). The rainfall at Libreville is about 96 in. a year.

_Flora and Fauna._--The elephant, the hippopotamus, the crocodile and several kinds of apes--including the chimpanzee and the rare gorilla--are the most noteworthy larger animals; the birds are various and beautiful--grey parrots, shrikes, fly-catchers, rhinoceros birds, weaver birds (often in large colonies on the palm-trees), ice-birds, from the _Cecyle Sharpii_ to the dwarfish _Alcedo cristata_, butterfly finches, and helmet-birds (_Turacus giganteus_), as well as more familiar types. Snakes are extremely common. The curious climbing-fish, which frequents the mangroves, the _Protopterus_ or lung-fish, which lies in the mud in a state of lethargy during the dry season, the strange and poisonous _Tetrodon guttifer_, and the herring-like _Pellona africana_, often caught in great shoals--are the more remarkable of the fishes. Oysters are got in abundance from the lagoons, and the huge _Cardisoma armatum_ or heart-crab is fattened for table. Fireflies, mosquitoes and sandflies are among the most familiar forms of insect life. A kind of ant builds very striking bent-house or umbrella-shaped nests rising on the tree trunks one above the other.

Among the more characteristic forms of vegetation are baobabs, silk-cotton trees, screw-pines and palms--especially _Hyphaene guineensis_ (a fan-palm), _Raphia_ (the wine-palm), and _Elaeis guineensis_ (the oil-palm). Anonaceous plants (notably _Anona senegalensis_), and the _pallabanda_, an olive-myrtle-like tree, are common in the prairies; the papyrus shoots up to a height of 20 ft. along the rivers; the banks are fringed by the cottony _Hibiscus tiliaceus_, ipomaeas and fragrant jasmines; and the thickets are bound together in one inextricable mass by lianas of many kinds. In the upper Shari region, and that of the Kotto tributary of the Ubangi, are species of the coffee tree, one species attaining a height of over 60 ft. Its bean resembles that of Abyssinian coffee of medium quality. Among the fruit trees are the mango and the papaw, the orange and the lemon. Negro-pepper (a variety of capsicum) and ginger grow wild.

_Inhabitants and Chief Towns._--A census, necessarily imperfect, taken in 1906 showed a total population, exclusive of Wadai, of 3,652,000, divided in districts as follows:--Gabun, 376,000; Middle Congo, 259,000; Ubangi-Shari, 2,130,000; Chad, 885,000. The country is peopled by diverse negro races, and, in the regions bordering Lake Chad and in Wadai, by Fula, Hausa, Arabs and semi-Arab tribes. Among the best-known tribes living in French Congo are the Fang (Fans), the Bakalai, the Batekes and the Zandeh or Niam-Niam. Several of the tribes are cannibals and among many of them the fetish worship characteristic of the West African negroes prevails. Their civilization is of a low order. In the northern regions the majority of the inhabitants are Mahommedans, and it is only in those districts that organized and powerful states exist. Elsewhere the authority of a chief or "king" extends, ordinarily, little beyond the village in which he lives. (An account of the chief tribes is given under their names.) The European inhabitants are chiefly of French nationality, and are for the most part traders, officials and missionaries.

The chief towns are Libreville (capital of the Gabun colony) with 3000 inhabitants; Brazzaville, on the Congo on the north side of Stanley Pool (opposite the Belgian capital of Leopoldville), the seat of the governor-general; Franceville, on the upper Ogowe; Loango, an important seaport in 4 deg. 39' S.; N'Jole, a busy trading centre on the lower Ogowe; Chekna, capital of Bagirmi, which forms part of the Chad territory; Abeshr, the capital of Wadai, Bangi on the Ubangi river, the administrative capital of the Ubangi-Shari-Chad colony. Kunde, Lame and Binder are native trading centres near the Cameroon frontier.

_Communications._--The rivers are the chief means of internal communication. Access to the greater part of the colony is obtained by ocean steamers to Matadi on the lower Congo, and thence round the falls by the Congo railway to Stanley Pool. From Brazzaville on Stanley Pool there is 680 m. of uninterrupted steam navigation N.E. into the heart of Africa, 330 m. being on the Congo and 350 m. on the Ubangi. The farthest point reached is Zongo, where rapids block the river, but beyond that port there are several navigable stretches of the Ubangi, and for small vessels access to the Nile is possible by means of the Bahr-el-Ghazal tributaries. The Sanga, which joins the Congo, 270 m. above Brazzaville, can be navigated by steamers for 350 m., i.e. up to and beyond the S.E. frontier of the German colony of Cameroon. The Shari is also navigable for a considerable distance and by means of its affluent, the Logone, connects with the Benue and Niger, affording a waterway between the Gulf of Guinea and Lake Chad. Stores for government posts in the Chad territory are forwarded by this route. There is, however, no connecting link between the coast rivers--Gabun, Ogowe and Kwilu and the Congo system. A railway, about 500 m. long, from the Gabun to the Sanga is projected and the surveys for the purpose made. Another route surveyed for a railway is that from Loango to Brazzaville. A narrow-gauge line, 75 m. long, from Brazzaville to Mindule in the cataracts region was begun in November 1908, the first railway to be built in French Congo. The district served by the line is rich in copper and other minerals. From Wadai a caravan route across the Sahara leads to Bengazi on the shores of the Mediterranean. Telegraph lines connect Loango with Brazzaville and Libreville, there is telegraphic communication with Europe by submarine cable, and steamship communication between Loango and Libreville and Marseilles, Bordeaux, Liverpool and Hamburg.

_Trade and Agriculture._--The chief wealth of the colony consists in the products of its forests and in ivory. The natives, in addition to manioc, their principal food, cultivate bananas, ground nuts and tobacco. On plantations owned by Europeans coffee, cocoa and vanilla are grown. European vegetables are raised easily. Gold, iron and copper are found. Copper ores have been exported from Mindule since 1905. The chief exports are rubber and ivory, next in importance coming palm nuts and palm oil, ebony and other woods, coffee, cocoa and copal. The imports are mainly cotton and metal goods, spirits and foodstuffs. In the Gabun and in the basin of the Ogowe the French customs tariff, with some modifications, prevails, but in the Congo basin, that is, in the greater part of the country, by virtue of international agreements, no discrimination can be made between French and other merchandise, whilst customs duties must not exceed 10% _ad valorem_.[1] In the Shari basin and in Wadai the Anglo-French declaration of March 1899 accorded for thirty years equal treatment to British and French goods. The value of the trade rose in the ten years 1896-1905 from L360,000 to L850,000, imports and exports being nearly equal. The bulk of the export trade is with Great Britain, which takes most of the rubber, France coming second and Germany third. The imports are in about equal proportions from France and foreign countries.

_Land Tenure. The Concessions Regime._--Land held by the natives is governed by tribal law, but the state only recognizes native ownership in land actually occupied by the aborigines. The greater part of the country is considered a state domain. Land held by Europeans is subject to the Civil Code of France except such estates as have been registered under the terms of a decree of the 28th of March 1899, when, registration having been effected, the title to the land is guaranteed by the state. Nearly the whole of the colony has been divided since 1899 into large estates held by limited liability companies to whom has been granted the sole right of exploiting the land leased to them. The companies holding concessions numbered in 1904 about forty, with a combined capital of over L2,000,000, whilst the concessions varied in size from 425 sq. m. to 54,000 sq. m. One effect of the granting of concessions was the rapid decline in the business of non-concessionaire traders, of whom the most important were Liverpool merchants established in the Gabun before the advent of the French. As by the Act of Berlin of 1885, to which all the European powers were signatories, equality of treatment in commercial affairs was guaranteed to all nations in the Congo basin, protests were raised against the terms of the concessions. The reply was that the critics confused the exercise of the right of proprietorship with the act of commerce, and that in no country was the landowner who farmed his land and sold the produce regarded as a merchant. Various decisions by the judges of the colony during 1902 and 1903 and by the French _cour de cassation_ in 1905 confirmed that contention. The action of the companies was, however, in most cases, neither beneficial to the country nor financially successful, whilst the native cultivators resented the prohibition of their trading direct with their former customers. The case of the Liverpool traders was taken up by the British government and it was agreed that the dispute should be settled by arbitration. In September 1908 the French government issued a decree reorganizing and rendering more stringent the control exercised by the local authorities over the concession companies, especially in matters concerning the rights of natives and the liberty of commerce.

De Brazza's treaties.

_History._--The Gabun was visited in the 15th century by the Portuguese explorers, and it became one of the chief seats of the slave trade. It was not, however, till well on in the 19th century that Europeans made any more permanent settlement than was absolutely necessary for the maintenance of their commerce. In 1839 Captain (afterwards Admiral) Bouet-Willaumez obtained for France the right of residence on the left bank, and in 1842 he secured better positions on the right bank. The primary object of the French settlement was to secure a port wherein men-of-war could revictual. The chief establishment, Libreville, was founded in 1849, with negroes taken from a slave ship. The settlement in time acquired importance as a trading port. In 1867 the troops numbered about 1000, and the civil population about 5000, while the official reports about the same date claimed for the whole colony an area of 8000 sq. m. and a population of 186,000. Cape Lopez had been ceded to France in 1862, and the colony's coast-line extended, nominally, to a length of 200 m. In consequence of the war with Germany the colony was practically abandoned in 1871, the establishment at Libreville being maintained as a coaling depot merely. In 1875, however, France again turned her attention to the Gabun estuary, the hinterland of which had already been

## partly explored. Paul du Chaillu penetrated (1855-1859 and 1863-1865) to

the south of the Ogowe; Walker, an English merchant, explored the Ngunye, an affluent of the Ogowe, in 1866. In 1872-1873 Alfred Marche, a French naturalist, and the marquis de Compiegne[2] explored a portion of the Ogowe basin, but it was not until the expedition of 1875-1878 that the country east of the Ogowe was reached. This expedition was led by Savorgnan de Brazza (q.v.), who was accompanied by Dr Noel Eugene Ballay, and, for part of the time, by Marche. De Brazza's expedition, which was compelled to remain for many months at several places, ascended the Ogowe over 400 m., and beyond the basin of that stream discovered the Alima, which was, though the explorers were ignorant of the fact, a tributary of the Congo. From the Alima, de Brazza and Ballay turned north and finally reached the Gabun in November 1878, the journey being less fruitful in results than the time it occupied would indicate. Returning to Europe, de Brazza learned that H. M. Stanley had revealed the mystery of the Congo, and in his next journey, begun December 1879, the French traveller undertook to find a way to the Congo above the rapids via the Ogowe. In this he was successful, and in September 1880 reached Stanley Pool, on the north side of which Brazzaville was subsequently founded. Returning to the Gabun by the lower Congo, de Brazza met Stanley. Both explorers were nominally in the service of the International African Association (see CONGO FREE STATE), but de Brazza in reality acted solely in the interests of France and concluded treaties with Makoko, "king of the Batekes," and other chieftains, placing very large areas under the protection of that country. The conflicting claims of the Association (which became the Congo Free State) and France were adjusted by a convention signed in February 1885.[3] In the meantime de Brazza and Ballay had more fully explored the country behind the coast regions of Gabun and Loango, the last-named seaport being occupied by France in 1883. The conclusion of agreements with Germany (December 1885 and February-March 1894) and with Portugal (May 1886) secured France in the possession of the western portion of the colony as it now exists, whilst an arrangement with the Congo Free State in 1887 settled difficulties which had arisen in the Ubangi district.

The advance towards the Nile: Fashoda.

The extension of French influence northward towards Lake Chad and eastward to the verge of the basin of the Nile followed, though not without involving the country in serious disputes with the other European powers possessing rights in those regions. By creating the posts of Bangi (1890), Wesso and Abiras (1891), France strengthened her hold over the Ubangi and the Sanga. But at the same time the Congo Free State passed the parallel of 4 deg. N.--which, after the compromise of 1887, France had regarded as the southern boundary of her possessions--and, occupying the sultanate of Bangasso (north of the Ubangi river), pushed on as far as 9 deg. N. The dispute which ensued was only settled in 1894 and after the signature of the convention between Great Britain and the Congo State of the 12th of May of that year, against which both the German and the French governments protested, the last named because it erected a barrier against the extension of French territory to the Nile valley. By a compromise of the 14th of August the boundary was definitely drawn and, in accordance with this pact, which put the frontier back to about 4 deg. N., France from 1895 to 1897 took possession of the upper Ubangi, with Bangasso, Rafai and Zemio. Then began the French encroachment on the Bahr-el-Ghazal; the Marchand expedition, despatched to the support of Victor Liotard, the lieutenant-governor of the upper Ubangi, reached Tambura in July 1897 and Fashoda in July 1898. A dispute with Great Britain arose, and it was decided that the expedition should evacuate Fashoda. The declaration of the 21st of March 1899 finally terminated the dispute, fixing the eastern frontier of the French colony as already stated. Thus, after the Franco-Spanish treaty of June 1900 settling the limits of the Spanish territory on the coast, the boundaries of the French Congo on all its frontiers were determined in broad outline. The Congo-Cameroon frontier was precisely defined by another Franco-German agreement in April 1908, following a detailed survey made by joint commissioners in 1905 and 1906. For a comprehensive description of these international rivalries see AFRICA, Sec. 5, and for the conquest of the Chad regions see BAGIRMI and RABAH ZOBEIR. In the other portions of the colony French rule was accepted by the natives, for the most part, peaceably. For the relations of France with Wadai see that article.

Following the acquisitions for France of de Brazza, the ancient Gabun colony was joined to the Congo territories. From 1886 to 1889 Gabun was, however, separately administered. By decree of the 11th of December 1888 the whole of the French possessions were created one "colony" under the style of Congo francais, with various subdivisions; they were placed under a commissioner-general (de Brazza) having his residence at Brazzaville. This arrangement proved detrimental to the economic development of the Gabun settlements, which being outside the limits of the free trade conventional basin of the Congo (see AFRICA, Sec. 5) enjoyed a separate tariff. By decree of the 29th of December 1903 (which became operative in July 1904) Congo francais was divided into four parts as named in the opening paragraph. The first commissioner-general under the new scheme was Emile Gentil, the explorer of the Shari and Chad. In 1905 de Brazza was sent out from France to investigate charges of cruelty and maladministration brought against officials of the colony, several of which proved well founded. De Brazza died at Dakar when on his way home. The French government, after considering the report he had drawn up, decided to retain Gentil as commissioner-general, making however (decree of 15th of February 1906) various changes in administration with a view to protect the natives and control the concession companies. Gentil, who devoted the next two years to the reorganization of the finances of the country and the development of its commerce, resigned his post in February 1908. He was succeeded by M. Merlin, whose title was changed (June 1908) to that of governor-general.

_Administration and Revenue._--The governor-general has control over the whole of French Congo, but does not directly administer any part of it, the separate colonies being under lieutenant-governors. The Gabun colony includes the Gabun estuary and the whole of the coast-line of French Congo, together with the basin of the Ogowe river. The inland frontier is so drawn as to include all the hinterland not within the Congo free-trade zone (the Chad district excepted). The Middle Congo has for its western frontier the Gabun colony and Cameroon, and extends inland to the easterly bend of the Ubangi river; the two circumscriptions extend east and north of the Middle Congo. There is a general budget for the whole of French Congo; each colony has also a separate budget and administrative autonomy. As in other French colonies the legislative power is in the French chambers only, but in the absence of specific legislation presidential decrees have the force of law. A judicial service independent of the executive exists, but the district administrators also exercise judicial functions. Education is in the hands of the missionaries, upwards of 50 schools being established by 1909. The military force maintained consists of natives officered by Europeans.

Revenue is derived from taxes on land, rent paid by concession companies, a capitation or hut tax on natives, and customs receipts, supplemented by a subvention from France. In addition to defraying the military expenses, about L100,000 a year, a grant of L28,000 yearly was made up to 1906 by the French chambers towards the civil expenses. In 1907 the budget of the Congo balanced at about L250,000 without the aid of this subvention. In 1909 the chambers sanctioned a loan for the colony of L840,000, guaranteed by France and to be applied to the establishment of administrative stations and public works.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Fernand Rouget, _L'Expansion coloniale au Congo francais_ (Paris, 1906), a valuable monograph, with bibliography and maps; A. Chevalier, _L'Afrique centrale francaise_ (Paris, 1907). For special studies see Lacroix, _Resultats mineralogiques et zoologiques des recentes explorations de l'Afrique occidentale francaise et de la region du Tchad_ (Paris, 1905); M. Barrat, _Sur la geologie du Congo francais_ (Paris, 1895), and _Ann. des mines_, ser. q. t. vii. (1895); J. Cornet, "Les Formations post-primaires du bassin du Congo," _Ann. soc, geol. belg._ vol. xxi. (1895). The Paris _Bulletin du Museum_ for 1903 and 1904 contains papers on the zoology of the country. For flora see numerous papers by A. Chevalier in _Comptes rendus de l'academie des sciences_ (1902-1904), and the _Journal d'agriculture pratique des pays chauds_ (1901, &c.). For history, besides Rouget's book, see J. Ancel, "Etude historique. La formation de la colonie du Congo francais, 1843-1882," containing an annotated bibliography, in _Bull. Com. l'Afrique francaise_, vol. xii. (1902); the works cited under BRAZZA; and E. Gentil, _La Chute de l'empire de Rabah_ (Paris, 1902). Of earlier books of travels the most valuable are:--Paul du Chaillu, _Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa_ (London, 1861); _A Journey to Ashonga Land_ (London, 1867); and Sir R. Burton, _Two Trips to Gorilla Land_ (London, 1876). Of later works see Mary H. Kingsley, _Travels in West Africa_ (London, 1897); A. B. de Mezieres, _Rapport de mission sur le Haut Oubangui, le M'Bomou et le Bahr-el-Ghazal_ (Paris, 1903); and C. Maistre, _A travers l'Afrique centrale du Congo au Niger_, 1892-1893 (Paris, 1895). For the story of the concession companies see E. D. Morel, _The British Case in French Congo_ (London, 1903). (F. R. C.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Berlin Act of 1885; Brussels conference of 1890 (see AFRICA: _History_).

[2] Louis Eugene Henri Dupont, marquis de Compiegne (1846-1877), on his return from the West coast replaced Georg Schweinfurth at Cairo as president of the geographical commission. Arising out of this circumstance de Compiegne was killed in a duel by a German named Mayer.

[3] A Franco-Belgian agreement of the 23rd of Dec. 1908 defined precisely the frontier in the lower Congo. Bamu Island in Stanley Pool was recognized as French.

FRENCH GUINEA, a French colony in West Africa, formerly known as Rivieres du Sud. It is bounded W. by the Atlantic, N. by Portuguese Guinea and Senegal, E. by Upper Senegal and the Ivory Coast, and S. by Liberia and Sierra Leone. With a sea-board running N.N.W. and S.S.E. from 10 deg. 50' N. to 9 deg. 2' N., a distance, without reckoning the indentations, of 170 m., the colony extends eastward 450 m. in a straight line and attains a maximum width N. to S. of nearly 300 m., covering fully 100,000 sq. m., and containing a population estimated at 2,000,000 to 2,500,000.

_Physical Features._--Though in one or two places rocky headlands jut into the sea, the coast is in general sandy, low, and much broken by rivers and deep estuaries, dotted with swampy islands, giving it the appearance of a vast delta. In about 9 deg. 30' N., off the promontory of Konakry, lie the Los Islands (q.v.), forming part of the colony. The coast plain, formed of alluvial deposits, is succeeded about 30 m. inland by a line of cliffs, the Susu Hills, which form the first step in the terrace-like formation of the interior, culminating in the massif of Futa Jallon, composed chiefly of Archean and granite rocks. While the coast lands are either densely forested or covered with savannas or park-like country, the Futa Jallon tableland is mainly covered with short herbage. This tableland, the hydrographic centre of West Africa, is most elevated in its southern parts, where heights of 5000 ft. are found. Near the Sierra Leone frontier this high land is continued westward to within 20 m. of the sea, where Mount Kakulima rises over 3300 ft. East and south of Futa Jallon the country slopes to the basin of the upper Niger, the greater part of which is included in French Guinea. The southern frontier is formed by the escarpments which separate the Niger basin from those of the coast rivers of Liberia. Besides the Niger, Gambia and Senegal, all separately noticed, a large number of streams running direct to the Atlantic rise in Futa Jallon. Among them are the Great and Little Scarcies, whose lower courses are in Sierra Leone, and the Rio Grande which enters the sea in Portuguese Guinea. Those whose courses are entirely in French Guinea include the Cogon (or Componi), the Rio Nunez, the Fatalla (which reaches the sea through an estuary named Rio Pongo), the Konkure, whose estuary is named Rio Bramaya, the Forekaria and the Melakori. The Cogon, Fatallah and Konkure are all large rivers which descend from the plateaus through deep, narrow valleys in rapids and cataracts, and are only navigable for a few miles from their mouth.

_Climate._--The climate of the coast district is hot, moist and unhealthy, with a season of heavy rain lasting from May to November, during which time variable winds, calms and tornadoes succeed one another. The mean temperature in the dry season, when the "harmattan" is frequent, is 62 deg. Fahr., in the wet season 86 deg.. Throughout the year the humidity of the air is very great. There is much rain in the Futa Jallon highlands, but the Niger basin is somewhat drier. In that region and in the highlands the climate is fairly healthy for Europeans and the heat somewhat less than on the coast.

_Flora and Fauna._--The seashore and the river banks are lined with mangroves, but the most important tree of the coast belt is the oil-palm. The dense forests also contain many varieties of lianas or rubber vines, huge bombax and bamboos. Gum-producing and kola trees are abundant, and there are many fruit trees, the orange and citron growing well in the Susu and Futa Jallon districts. The cotton and coffee plants are indigenous; banana plantations surround the villages. The baobab and the karite (shea butter tree) are found only in the Niger districts. The fauna is not so varied as was formerly the case, large game having been to a great extent driven out of the coast regions. The elephant is rare save in the Niger regions. The lion is now only found in the northern parts of Futa Jallon; panthers, leopards, hyenas and wild cats are more common and the civet is found. Hippopotamus, otter and the wild boar are numerous; a species of wild ox of small size with black horns and very agile is also found. The forests contain many kinds of monkeys, including huge chimpanzees; antelope are widespread but rather rare. Serpents are very common, both venomous and non-venomous; the pythons attain a great size. Fights between these huge serpents and the crocodiles which infest all the rivers are said to be not uncommon. Turtles are abundant along the coasts and in the Los Islands. Oysters are found in large numbers in the estuaries and fixed to the submerged parts of the mangroves. Freshwater oysters, which attain a large size, are also found in the rivers, particularly in the Niger. Fish are abundant, one large-headed species, in the Susu tongue called _khokon_, is so numerous as to have given its name to a province, Kokunia. Birds are very numerous; they include various eagles, several kinds of heron, the egret, the marabout, the crane and the pelican; turacos or plantain-eaters, are common, as are other brilliantly plumaged birds. Green and grey parrots, ravens, swallows and magpies are also common.

_Inhabitants._--On the banks of the Cogon dwell the Tendas and Iolas, primitive Negro tribes allied to those of Portuguese Guinea (q.v.). All other inhabitants of French Guinea are regarded as comparatively late arrivals from the interior who have displaced the aborigines.[1] Among the earliest of the new comers are the Baga, the Nalu, the Landuman and the Timni, regarded as typical Negroes (q.v.). This migration southward appears to have taken place before the 17th century. To-day the Baga occupy the coast land between the Cogon and the Rio Pongo, and the Landuman the country immediately behind that of the Baga. The other tribes named are but sparsely represented in French Guinea, the coast region south of the Nunez and all the interior up to Futa Jallon being occupied by the Susu, a tribe belonging to the great Mandingan race, which forced its way seaward about the beginning of the 18th century and pressed back the Timni into Sierra Leone. Futa Jallon is peopled principally by Fula (q.v.), and the rest of the country by Malinke and other tribes of Mandingo (q.v.). The Mandingo, the Fula and the Susu are Mahommedans, though the Susu retain many of their ancient rites and beliefs--those associated with spirit worship and fetish, still the religion of the Baga and other tribes. In the north-west part of Futa Jallon are found remnants of the aborigines, such as the Tiapi, Koniagui and the Bassari, all typical Negro tribes. The white inhabitants number a few hundreds only and are mainly French. Many of the coast peoples show, however, distinct traces of white blood, the result chiefly of the former presence of European slave traders. Thus at the Rio Pongo there are numerous mulattos. South of that river the coast tribes speak largely pidgin English.

_Towns._--The principal towns are Konakry the capital, Boke, on the Rio Nunez, Dubreka, on the coast, a little north of Konakry, Benty, on the Melakori, Timbo and Labe, the chief towns of Futa Jallon, Heremakono and Kindia, on the main road to the Niger, Kurussa and Siguiri, on a navigable stretch of that river, and Bissandugu, formerly Samory's capital, an important military station east of the Niger. Konakry, in 9 deg. 30' N., 13 deg. 46' W., population about 20,000, is the one port of entry on the coast. It is built on the little island of Tombo which lies off the promontory of Konakry, the town being joined to the mainland by an iron bridge. During the administration of Noel Ballay (1848-1902), governor of the colony 1890-1900, Konakry was transformed from a place of small importance to one of the chief ports on the west coast of Africa and a serious rival to Freetown, Sierra Leone. It has since grown considerably, and is provided with wharves and docks and a jetty 1066 ft. long. There is an ample supply of good water, and a large public garden in the centre of the town. In front of Government House is a statue of M. Ballay. Konakry is a port of call for French, British and German steamship companies, and is in telegraphic communication with Europe. It is the starting-point of a railway to the Niger (see below). The retail trade is in the hands of Syrians. The town is governed by a municipality.

_Products and Industry._--French Guinea possesses a fertile soil, and is rich in tropical produce. The chief products are rubber, brought from the interior, and palm oil and palm kernels, obtained in the coast regions. Cotton is cultivated in the Niger basin. Gum copal, ground-nuts and sesame are largely cultivated, partly for export. Among minor products are coffee, wax and ivory. Large herds of cattle and flocks of sheep are raised in Futa Jallon; these are sent in considerable numbers to Sierra Leone, Liberia and French Congo. The trade in hides is also of considerable value. The chief grain raised is millet, the staple food of the people. The rubber is mainly exported to England, the palm products to Germany, and the ground-nuts to France.

The principal imports are cotton goods, of which 80% come from Great Britain, rice, kola nuts, chiefly from Liberia, spirits, tobacco, building material, and arms and ammunition, chiefly "trade guns." The average annual value of the trade for the period 1900-1907 was about L1,250,000, the annual export of rubber alone being worth L400,000 or more. The great bulk of the trade of the colony is with France and Great Britain, the last-named country taking about 45% of the total; Germany comes third. Since April 1905 a surtax of 7% has been imposed on all goods of other than French origin.

_Communications._--The railway from Konakry to the Niger at Kurussa, by the route chosen a distance of 342 m., was begun in 1900, and from 1902 has been built directly by the colony. The first section to Kindia, 93 m., was opened in 1904. The second section, to near Timbo in Futa Jallon, was completed in 1907, and the rails reached Kurussa in 1910. From Kurussa the Niger is navigable at high water all the way to Bamako in Upper Senegal, whence there is communication by rail and river with St Louis and Timbuktu. Besides the railway there is an excellent road, about 390 m. long, from Konakry to Kurussa, the road in its lower part being close to the Sierra Leone frontier, with the object of diverting trade from that British colony. Several other main roads have been built by the French, and there is a very complete telegraphic system, the lines having been connected with those of Senegal in 1899.

_History._--This part of the Guinea coast was made known by the Portuguese voyagers of the 15th century. In consequence, largely, of the dangers attending its navigation, it was not visited by the European traders of the 16th-18th centuries so frequently as other regions north and east, but in the Rio Pongo, at Matakong (a diminutive island near the mouth of the Forekaria), and elsewhere, slave traders established themselves, and ruins of the strongholds they built, and defended with cannon, still exist. When driven from other parts of Guinea the slavers made this difficult and little known coast one of their last resorts, and many barracoons were built in the late years of the 18th century. It was not until after the restoration of Goree to her at the close of the Napoleonic wars that France evinced any marked interest in this region. At that time the British, from their bases at the Gambia and Sierra Leone, were devoting considerable attention to these Rivieres du Sud (i.e. south of Senegal) and also to Futa Jallon. Rene Caillie, who started his journey to Timbuktu from Boke in 1827, did much to quicken French interest in the district, and from 1838 onward French naval officers, Bouet-Willaumez and his successors, made detailed studies of the coast. About the time that the British government became wearied of its efforts to open up the interior of West Africa, General Faidherbe was appointed governor of Senegal (1854), and under his direction vigorous efforts were made to consolidate French influence. Already in 1848 treaty relations had been entered into with the Nalu, and between that date and 1865 treaties of protectorate were signed with several of the coast tribes. During 1876-1880 new treaties were concluded with the chief tribes, and in 1881 the almany (or emir) of Futa Jallon placed his country under French protection, the French thus effectually preventing the junction, behind the coast lands, of the British colonies of the Gambia and Sierra Leone. The right of France to the littoral as far south as the basin of the Melakori was recognized by Great Britain in 1882; Germany (which had made some attempt to acquire a protectorate at Konakry) abandoned its claims in 1885, while in 1886 the northern frontier was settled in agreement with Portugal, which had ancient settlements in the same region (see PORTUGUESE GUINEA). In 1899 the limits of the colony were extended, on the dismemberment of the French Sudan, to include the upper Niger districts. In 1904 the Los Islands were ceded by Great Britain to France, in part return for the abandonment of French fishing rights in Newfoundland waters. (See also SENEGAL: _History_.)

French Guinea was made a colony independent of Senegal in 1891, but in 1895 came under the supreme authority of the newly constituted governor-generalship of French West Africa. Guinea has a considerable measure of autonomy and a separate budget. It is administered by a lieutenant-governor, assisted by a nominated council. Revenue is raised principally from customs and a capitation tax, which has replaced a hut tax. The local budget for 1907 balanced at L205,000. Over the greater part of the country the native princes retain their sovereignty under the superintendence of French officials. The development of agriculture and education are objects of special solicitude to the French authorities. In general the natives are friendly towards their white masters.

See M. Famechon, _Notice sur la Guinee francaise_ (Paris, 1900); J. Chautard, _Etude geophysique et geologique sur le Fouta-Djallon_ (Paris, 1905); Andre Arcin, _La Guinee francaise_ (Paris, 1906), a valuable monograph; J. Machat, _Les Rivieres du Sud et la Fouta-Diallon_ (Paris, 1906), another valuable work, containing exhaustive bibliographies. Consult also F. Rouget, _La Guinee_ (Paris, 1908), an official publication, the annual _Reports_ on French West Africa, published by the British Foreign Office, and the Carte de la Guinee francaise by A. Meunier in 4 sheets on the scale 1:500,000 (Paris, 1902).

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Numerous remains of a stone age have been discovered, both on the coast and in the hinterland. See L. Desplagnes, "L'Archeologie prehistorique en Guinee francaise," in _Bull. Soc. Geog. Comm. de Bordeaux_, March 1907, and the authorities there cited.

FRENCH LANGUAGE. I. _Geography._--French is the general name of the north-north-western group of Romanic dialects, the modern Latin of northern Gaul (carried by emigration to some places--as lower Canada--out of France). In a restricted sense it is that variety of the Parisian dialect which is spoken by the educated, and is the general literary language of France. The region in which the native language is termed French consists of the northern half of France (including Lorraine) and parts of Belgium and Switzerland; its boundaries on the west are the Atlantic Ocean and the Celtic dialects of Brittany; on the north-west and north, the English Channel; on the north-east and east the Teutonic dialects of Belgium, Germany and Switzerland. In the south-east and south the boundary is to a great extent conventional and ill-defined, there being originally no linguistic break between the southern French dialects and the northern Provencal dialects of southern France, north-western Italy and south-western Switzerland. It is formed

## partly by spaces of intermediate dialects (some of whose features are

French, others Provencal), partly by spaces of mixed dialects resulting from the invasion of the space by more northern and more southern settlers, partly by lines where the intermediate dialects have been suppressed by more northern (French) and more southern (Provencal) dialects without these having mixed. Starting in the west at the mouth of the Gironde, the boundary runs nearly north soon after passing Bordeaux; a little north of Angouleme it turns to the east, and runs in this direction into Switzerland to the north of Geneva.

II. _External History._--(a) _Political._--By the Roman conquests the language of Rome was spread over the greater part of southern and western Europe, and gradually supplanted the native tongues. The language introduced was at first nearly uniform over the whole empire, Latin provincialisms and many more or less general features of the older vulgar language being suppressed by the preponderating influence of the educated speech of the capital. As legions became stationary, as colonies were formed, and as the natives adopted the language of their conquerors, this language split up into local dialects, the distinguishing features of which are due, as far as can be ascertained (except, to some extent, as to the vocabulary), not to speakers of different nationalities misspeaking Latin, each with the peculiarities of his native language, but to the fact that linguistic changes, which are ever occurring, are not perfectly uniform over a large area, however homogeneous the speakers. As Gaul was not conquered by Caesar till the middle of the first century before our era, its Latin cannot have begun to differ from that of Rome till after that date; but the artificial retention of classical Latin as the literary and official language after the popular spoken language had diverged from it, often renders the chronology of the earlier periods of the Romanic languages obscure. It is, however, certain that the popular Latin of Gaul had become differentiated from that of central Italy before the Teutonic conquest of Gaul, which was not completed till the latter half of the 5th century; the invaders gradually adopted the language of their more civilized subjects, which remained unaffected, except in its vocabulary. Probably by this time it had diverged so widely from the artificially preserved literary language that it could no longer be regarded merely as mispronounced Latin; the Latin documents of the next following centuries contain many clearly popular words and forms, and the literary and popular languages are distinguished as _latina_ and _romana_. The term _gallica_, at first denoting the native Celtic language of Gaul, is found applied to its supplanter before the end of the 9th century, and survives in the Breton _gallek_, the regular term for "French." After the Franks in Gaul had abandoned their native Teutonic language, the term _francisca_, by which this was denoted, came to be applied to the Romanic one they adopted, and, under the form _francaise_, remains its native name to this day; but this name was confined to the Romanic of northern Gaul, which makes it probable that this, at the time of the adoption of the name _francisca_, had become distinct from the Romanic of southern Gaul. _Francisca_ is the Teutonic adjective _frankisk_, which occurs in Old English in the form _frencise_; this word, with its umlauted _e_ from _a_ with following _i_, survives under the form _French_, which, though purely Teutonic in origin and form, has long been exclusively applied to the Romanic language and inhabitants of Gaul. The German name _franzose_, with its accent on, and _o_ in, the second syllable, comes from _francois_, a native French form older than _francais_, but later than the Early Old French _franceis_. The Scandinavian settlers on the north-west coast of France early in the 10th century quickly lost their native speech, which left no trace except in some contributions to the vocabulary of the language they adopted. The main feature since is the growth of the political supremacy of Paris, carrying with it that of its dialect; in 1539 Francis I. ordered that all public documents should be in French (of Paris), which then became the official language of the whole kingdom, though it is still foreign to nearly half its population.

The conquest of England in 1066 by William, duke of Normandy, introduced into England, as the language of the rulers and (for a time) most of the writers, the dialects spoken in Normandy (see also ANGLO-NORMAN LITERATURE). Confined in their native country to definite areas, these dialects, following their speakers, became mixed in England, so that their forms were used to some extent indifferently; and the constant communication with Normandy maintained during several reigns introduced also later forms of continental Norman. As the conquerors learned the language of the conquered, and as the more cultured of the latter learned that of the former, the Norman of England (including that of the English-speaking Lowlands of Scotland) became anglicized; instead of following the changes of the Norman of France, it followed those of English. The accession in 1154 of Henry II. of Anjou disturbed the Norman character of Anglo-French, and the loss of Normandy under John in 1204 gave full play to the literary importance of the French of Paris, many of whose forms afterwards penetrated to England. At the same time English, with a large French addition to its vocabulary, was steadily recovering its supremacy, and is officially employed (for the first time since the Conquest) in the Proclamation of Henry III., 1258. The semi-artificial result of this mixture of French of different dialects and of different periods, more or less anglicized according to the date or education of the speaker or writer, is generally termed "the Anglo-Norman dialect"; but the term is misleading for a great part of its existence, because while the French of Normandy was not a single dialect, the later French of England came from other French provinces besides Normandy, and being to a considerable extent in artificial conditions, was checked in the natural development implied by the term "dialect." The disuse of Anglo-French as a natural language is evidenced by English being substituted for it in legal proceedings in 1362, and in schools in 1387; but law reports were written in it up to about 1600, and, converted into modern literary French, it remains in official use for giving the royal assent to bills of parliament.

(b) _Literary._--Doubtless because the popular Latin of northern Gaul changed more rapidly than that of any other part of the empire, French was, of all the Romanic dialects, the first to be recognized as a distinct language, and the first to be used in literature; and though the oldest specimen now extant is probably not the first, it is considerably earlier than any existing documents of the allied languages. In 813 the council of Tours ordered certain homilies to be translated into Rustic Roman or into German; and in 842 Louis the German, Charles the Bald, and their armies confirmed their engagements by taking oaths in both languages at Strassburg. These have been preserved to us by the historian Nithard (who died in 853); and though, in consequence of the only existing manuscript (at Paris) being more than a century later than the time of the author, certain alterations have occurred in the text of the French oaths, they present more archaic forms (probably of North-Eastern French) than any other document. The next memorials are a short poem, probably North-Eastern, on St Eulalia, preserved in a manuscript of the 10th century at Valenciennes, and some autograph fragments (also at Valenciennes) of a homily on the prophet Jonah, in mixed Latin and Eastern French, of the same period. To the same century belong a poem on Christ's Passion, apparently in a mixed (not intermediate) language of French and Provencal, and one, probably in South-Eastern French, on St Leger; both are preserved, in different handwritings, in a MS. at Clermont-Ferrand, whose scribes have introduced many Provencal forms. After the middle of the 11th century literary remains are comparatively numerous; the chief early representative of the main dialects are the following, some of them preserved in several MSS., the earliest of which, however (the only ones here mentioned), are in several cases a generation or two later than the works themselves. In Western French are a verse life of St Alexius (Alexis), probably Norman, in an Anglo-Norman MS. at Hildesheim; the epic poem of Roland, possibly also Norman, in an A.-N. MS. at Oxford; a Norman verbal translation of the Psalms, in an A.-N. MS. also at Oxford; another later one, from a different Latin version, in an A.-N. MS. at Cambridge; a Norman translation of the Four Books of Kings, in a probably A.-N. MS. at Paris. The earliest work in the Parisian dialect is probably the Travels of Charlemagne, preserved in a late Anglo-Norman MS. with much altered forms. In Eastern French, of rather later date, there are translations of the Dialogues of Pope Gregory, in a MS. at Paris, containing also fragments of Gregory's Moralities, and (still later) of some Sermons of St Bernard, in a MS. also in Paris. From the end of the 12th century literary and official documents, often including local charters, abound in almost every dialect, until the growing influence of Paris caused its language to supersede in writing the other local ones. This influence, occasionally apparent about the end of the 12th century, was overpowering in the 15th, when authors, though often displaying provincialisms, almost all wrote in the dialect of the capital; the last dialect to lose its literary independence was the North-Eastern, which, being the Romanic language of Flanders, had a political life of its own, and (modified by Parisian) was used in literature after 1400.

III. _Internal History._--Though much has been done in recent years, in the scientific investigation of the sounds, inflexions, and syntax of the older stages and dialects of French, much still remains to be done, and it must suffice here to give a sketch, mainly of the dialects which were imported into England by the Normans--in which English readers will probably take most interest, and especially of the features which explain the forms of English words of French origin. Dates and places are only approximations, and many statements are liable to be modified by further researches. The primitive Latin forms given are often not classical Latin words, but derivatives from these; and reference is generally made to the Middle English (Chaucerian) pronunciation of English words, not the modern.

(a) _Vocabulary._--The fundamental part of the vocabulary of French is the Latin imported into Gaul, the French words being simply the Latin words themselves, with the natural changes undergone by all living speech, or derivatives formed at various dates. Comparatively few words were introduced from the Celtic language of the native inhabitants (_bec_, _lieue_ from the Celtic words given by Latin writers as _beccus_, _leuca_), but the number adopted from the language of the Teutonic conquerors of Gaul is large (_guerre_ = _werra_; _laid_ = _laidh_; _choisir_ = _kausjan_). The words were imported at different periods of the Teutonic supremacy, and consequently show chronological differences in their sounds (_hair_ = _hatan_; _francais_ = _frankisk_; _ecrevisse_ = _krebiz_; _echine_ = _skina_). Small separate importations of Teutonic words resulted from the Scandinavian settlement in France, and the commercial intercourse with the Low German nations on the North Sea (_friper_ = Norse _hripa_; _chaloupe_ = Dutch _sloop_; _est_ = Old English _east_). In the meantime, as Latin (with considerable alterations in pronunciation, vocabulary, &c.) continued in literary, official and ecclesiastical use, the popular language borrowed from time to time various more or less altered classical Latin words; and when the popular language came to be used in literature, especially in that of the church, these importations largely increased (_virginitet_ Eulalia = _virginitatem_; _imagena_ Alexis = _imaginem_--the popular forms would probably have been _vergedet_, _emain_). At the Renaissance they became very abundant, and have continued since, stifling to some extent the developmental power of the language. Imported words, whether Teutonic, classical Latin or other, often receive some modification at their importation, and always take part in all subsequent natural phonetic changes in the language (Early Old French _adversarie_, Modern French _adversaire_). Those French words which appear to contradict the phonetic laws were mostly introduced into the language after the taking place (in words already existing in the language) of the changes formulated by the laws in question; compare the late imported _laique_ with the inherited _lai_, both from Latin _laicum_. In this and many other cases the language possesses two forms of the same Latin word, one descended from it, the other borrowed (_meuble_ and _mobile_ from _mobilem_). Some Oriental and other foreign words were brought in by the crusaders (_amiral_ from _amir_); in the 16th century, wars, royal marriages and literature caused a large number of Italian words (_soldat_ = _soldato_; _brave_ = _bravo_; _caresser_ = _carezzare_) to be introduced, and many Spanish ones (_alcove_ = _alcoba_; _habler_ = _hablar_). A few words have been furnished by Provencal (_abeille_, _cadenas_), and several have been adopted from other dialects into the French of Paris (_esquiver_ Norman or Picard for the Paris-French _eschiver_). German has contributed a few (_blocus_ = _blochus_; _choucroute_ = _surkrut_); and recently a considerable number have been imported from England (_drain_, _confortable_, _flirter_). In Old French, new words are freely formed by derivation, and to a less extent by composition; in Modern French, borrowing from Latin or other foreign languages is the more usual course. Of the French words now obsolete some have disappeared because the things they express are obsolete; others have been replaced by words of native formation, and many have been superseded by foreign words generally of literary origin; of those which survive, many have undergone considerable alterations in meaning. A large number of Old French words and meanings, now extinct in the language of Paris, were introduced into English after the Norman Conquest; and though some have perished, many have survived--_strife_ from Old French _estrif_ (Teutonic _strit_); _quaint_ from _cointe_ (_cognitum_); _remember_ from _remembrer_ (_rememorare_); _chaplet_ (garland) from _chapelet_ (Modern French "chaplet of beads"); _appointment_ (rendezvous) from _appointement_ (now "salary"). Many also survive in other French dialects.

(b) _Dialects._--The history of the French language from the period of its earliest extant literary memorials is that of the dialects composing it. But as the popular notion of a dialect as the speech of a definite area, possessing certain peculiarities confined to and extending throughout that area, is far from correct, it will be advisable to drop the misleading divisions into "Norman dialect," "Picard dialect" and the like, and take instead each important feature in the chronological order (as far as can be ascertained) of its development, pointing out roughly the area in which it exists, and its present state. The local terms used are intentionally vague, and it does not, for instance, at all follow that because "Eastern" and "Western" are used to denote the localities of more than one dialectal feature, the boundary line between the two divisions is the same in each case. It is, indeed, because dialectal differences as they arise do not follow the same boundary lines (much less the political divisions of provinces), but cross one another to any extent, that to speak of the dialect of a large area as an individual whole, unless that area is cut off by physical or alien linguistic boundaries, creates only confusion. Thus the Central French of Paris, the ancestor of classical Modern French, agrees with a more southern form of Romanic (Limousin, Auvergne, Forez, Lyonnais, Dauphine) in having _ts_, not _tsh_, for Latin _k_ (_c_) before _i_ and _e_; _tsh_, not _k_, for _k_ (_c_) before _a_; and with the whole South in having _gu_, not _w_, for Teutonic _w_; while it belongs to the East in having _oi_ for earlier _ei_; and to the West in having _e_, not _ei_, for Latin _a_; and _i_, not _ei_, from Latin _e_ + _i_. It may be well to denote that Southern _French_ does not correspond to southern _France_, whose native language is Provencal. "Modern French" means ordinary educated Parisian French.

(e) _Phonology._--The history of the sounds of a language is, to a considerable extent, that of its inflections, which, no less than the body of a word, are composed of sounds. This fact, and the fact that unconscious changes are much more reducible to law than conscious ones, render the phonology of a language by far the surest and widest foundation for its dialectology, the importance of the sound-changes in this respect depending, not on their prominence, but on the earliness of their date. For several centuries after the divergence between spoken and written Latin, the history of these changes has to be determined mainly by reasoning, aided by a little direct evidence in the misspellings of inscriptions the semi-popular forms in glossaries, and the warnings of Latin grammarians against vulgarities. With the rise of Romanic literature the materials for tracing the changes become abundant, though as they do not give us the sounds themselves, but only their written representations, much difficulty, and some uncertainty, often attach to deciphering the evidence. Fortunately, early Romanic orthography, that of Old French included (for which see next section), was phonetic, as Italian orthography still is; the alphabet was imperfect, as many new sounds had to be represented which were not provided for in the Roman alphabet from which it arose, but writers aimed at representing the sounds they uttered, not at using a fixed combination of letters for each word, however they pronounced it.

The characteristics of French as distinguished from the allied languages and from Latin, and the relations of its sounds, inflections and syntax to those of the last-named language, belong to the general subject of the Romanic languages. It will be well, however, to mention here some of the features in which it agrees with the closely related Provencal, and some in which it differs. As to the latter, it has already been pointed out that the two languages glide insensibly into one another, there being a belt of dialects which possess some of the features of each. French and Provencal of the 10th century--the earliest date at which documents exist in both--agree to a great extent in the treatment of Latin final consonants and the vowels preceding them, a matter of great importance for inflections (numerous French examples occur in this section), (1) They reject all vowels, except _a_, of Latin final (unaccented) syllables, unless preceded by certain consonant combinations or followed by _nt_ (here, as elsewhere, certain exceptions cannot be noticed); (2) they do not reject _a_ similarly situated; (3) they reject final (unaccented) _m_; (4) they retain final s. French and Northern Provencal also agree in changing Latin _ue_ from a labio-guttural to a labio-palatal vowel; the modern sound (German _ue_) of the accented vowel of French _lune_, Provencal _luna_, contrasting with that in Italian and Spanish _luna_, appears to have existed before the earliest extant documents. The final vowel laws generally apply to the unaccented vowel preceding the accented syllable, if it is preceded by another syllable, and followed by a single consonant--_matin_ (_matutinum_), _dortoir_ (_dormitorium_), with vowel dropped; _canevas_ (_cannabaceum_), _armedure_, later _armeure_, now _armure_ (_armaturam_), with _e_ = _[schwa]_, as explained below.

On the other hand, French differs from Provencal: (1) in uniformly preserving (in Early Old French) Latin final _t_, which is generally rejected in Provencal--French _aimet_ (Latin _amat_), Provencal _ama_; _aiment_ (_amant_), Prov. _aman_; (2) in always rejecting, absorbing or consonantizing the vowel of the last syllable but one, if unaccented; in such words as _angele_ (often spelt _angle_), the _e_ after the _g_ only serves to show its soft sound--French _veintre_ (now _vaincre_, Latin _vincere_), Prov. _vencer_, with accent on first syllable; French _esclandre_ (_scandalum_), Prov. _escandol_; French _olie_ (dissyllabic, _i_ = _y_ consonant, now _huile_), Prov. _oli_ (_oleum_); (3) in changing accented _a_ not in position into _ai_ before nasals and gutturals and not after a palatal, and elsewhere into _e_ (West French) or _ei_ (East French), which develops an _i_ before it when preceded by a palatal--French _main_ (Latin _manum_), Prov. _man_; _aigre_ (_acrem_), _agre_; _ele_ (_alam_), East French _eile_, Prov. _ala_; _meitie_ (_medietatem_), East French _moitieit_, Prov. _meitat_; (4) in changing _a_ in unaccented final syllables into the vowel _[schwa]_, intermediate to _a_ and _e_; this vowel is written _a_ in one or two of the older documents, elsewhere _e_--French _aime_ (Latin _ama_), Prov. _ama_; _aimes_ (_amas_), Prov. _amas_; _aimet_ (_amat_), Prov. _ama_; (5) in changing original _au_ into _o_--French _or_ (_aurum_), Prov. _aur_; _rober_ (Teutonic _raubon_), Prov. _raubar_; (6) in changing general Romanic _e_, from accented _e_ and _i_ not in position, into _ei_--French _veine_ (_venam_), Prov. _vena_; _peil_ (_pilum_), Prov. _pel_.

As some of the dialectal differences were in existence at the date of the earliest extant documents, and as the existing materials, till the latter half of the 11th century, are scanty and of uncertain locality, the chronological order (here adopted) of the earlier sound-changes is only tentative.

(1) Northern French has _tsh_ (written _c_ or _ch_) for Latin _k_ (_c_) and _t_ before palatal vowels, where Central and Southern French have _ts_ (written _c_ or _z_)--North Norman and Picard _chire_ (_ceram_), _brach_ (_brachium_), _plache_ (_plateam_); Parisian, South Norman, &c., _cire_, _braz_, _place_. Before the close of the Early Old French period (12th century) _ts_ loses its initial consonant, and the same happened to _tsh_ a century or two later; with this change the old distinction is maintained--Modern Guernsey and Picard _chire_, Modern Picard _plache_ (in ordinary Modern French spelling); usual French _cire_, _place_. English, having borrowed from North and South Norman (and later Parisian), has instances of both _tsh_ and _s_, the former in comparatively small number--_chisel_ (Modern French _ciseau_ = (?) _caesellum_), _escutcheon_ (_ecusson_, _scutionem_); _city_ (_cite_, _civitatem_), _place_. (2) Initial Teutonic _w_ is retained in the north-east and along the north coast; elsewhere, as in the other Romance languages, _g_ was prefixed--Picard, &c., _warde_ (Teutonic _warda_), _werre_ (_werra_); Parisian, &c., _guarde_, _guerre_. In the 12th century the _u_ or _w_ of _gu_ dropped, giving the Modern French _garde_, _guerre_ (with _gu_ = _g_); _w_ remains in Picard and Walloon, but in North Normandy it becomes _v_--Modern Guernsey _vason_, Walloon _wazon_, Modern French _gazon_ (Teutonic _wason_). English has both forms, sometimes in words originally the same--_wage_ and _gage_ (Modern French _gage_, Teutonic _wadi_); _warden_ and _guardian_ (_gardien_, _warding_). (3) Latin _b_ after accented _a_ in the imperfect of the first conjugation, which becomes _v_ in Eastern French, in Western French further changes to _w_, and forms the diphthong _ou_ with the preceding vowel--Norman _amowe_ (_amabam_), _portout_ (_portabat_); Burgundian _ameve_, _portevet_. _-eve_ is still retained in some places, but generally the imperfect of the first conjugation is assimilated to that of the others--amoit, like _avoit_ (_habebat_). (4) The palatalization of every then existing _k_ and _g_ (hard) when followed by _a_, _i_ or _e_, after having caused the development of _i_ before the _e_ (East French _ei_) derived from _a_ not in position, is abandoned in the north, the consonants returning to ordinary _k_ or _g_, while in the centre and south they are assibilated to _tsh_ or _dzh_--North Norman and Picard _cachier_ (_captiare_), _kier_ (_carum_), _cose_ (_causam_), _eskiver_ (Teutonic _skiuhan_), _wiket_ (Teutonic _wik_+_ittum_), _gal_ (_gallum_), _gardin_ (from Teutonic _gard_); South Norman and Parisian _chacier_, _chier_, _chose_, _eschiver_, _guichet_, _jal_, _jardin_. Probably in the 14th century the initial consonant of _tsh_, _dzh_ disappeared, giving the modern French _chasser_, _jardin_ with _ch_ = _sh_ and _j_ = _zh_; but _tsh_ is retained in Walloon, and _dzh_ in Lorraine. The Northern forms survive--Modern Guernsey _cachier_, _gardin_; Picard _cacher_, _gardin_. English possesses numerous examples of both forms, sometimes in related words--_catch_ and _chase_; _wicket_, _eschew_; _garden_, _jaundice_ (_jaunisse_, from _galbanum_). (5) For Latin accented _a_ not in position Western French usually has _e_, Eastern French _ei_, both of which take an _i_ before them when a palatal precedes--Norman and Parisian _per_ (_parem_), _oiez_ (_audiatis_); Lorraine _peir_, _oieis_. In the 17th and 18th centuries close _e_ changed to open _e_, except when final or before a silent consonant--_amer_ (_amarum_) now having _e_, _aimer_ (_amare_) retaining _e_. English shows the Western close _e_--_peer_ (Modern French _pair_, Old French _per_), _chief_ (_chef_, _caput_); Middle High German the Eastern _ei_--_lameir_ (Modern French _l'amer_, _l'aimer_, _la mer_ = Latin _mare_). (6) Latin accented _e_ not in position, when it came to be followed in Old French by _i_ unites with this to form _i_ in the Western dialects, while the Eastern have the diphthongs _ei_--Picard, Norman and Parisian _pire_ (_pejor_), _piz_ (_pectus_); Burgundian _peire_, _peiz_. The distinction is still preserved--Modern French _pire_, _pis_; Modern Burgundian _peire_, _pei_. English words show always _i_--_price_ (_prix_, _pretium_) _spite_ (_depit_, _despectum_). (7) The nasalization of vowels followed by a nasal consonant did not take place simultaneously with all the vowels. _A_ and _e_ before _n_ (guttural _n_, as in _sing_), _n_ (palatal _n_), _n_ and _m_ were nasal in the 11th century, such words as _tant_ (_tantum_) and _gent_ (_gentem_) forming in the Alexis assonances to themselves, distinct from the assonances with _a_ and _e_ before non-nasal consonants. In the Roland _umbre_ (_ombre_, _umbram_) and _culchet_ (_couche_, _collocat_), _fier_ (_ferum_) and _chiens_ (_canes_), _dit_ (_dictum_) and _vint_ (_venit_), _ceinte_ (_cinctam_) and _veie_ (_voie_, _viam_), _brun_ (Teutonic _brun_) and _fut_ (_fuit_) assonate freely, though _o_ (_u_) before nasals shows a tendency to separation. The nasalization of _i_ and _u_ (= Modern French _u_) did not take place till the 16th century; and in all cases the loss of the following nasal consonant is quite modern, the older pronunciation of _tant_, _ombre_ being _tant_, _ombr[schwa]_, not as now _ta_, _obrh_. The nasalization took place whether the nasal consonant was or was not followed by a vowel, _femme_ (_feminam_), _honneur_ (_honorem_) being pronounced with nasal vowels m the first syllable till after the 16th century, as indicated by the doubling of the nasal consonant in the spelling and by the phonetic change (in _femme_ and other words) next to be mentioned. English generally has _au_ (now often reduced to _a_) for Old French _a_--_vaunt_ (_vanter_, _vanitare_), _tawny_ (_tanne_ (?) Celtic). (8) The assimilation of _[~e]_ (nasal _e_) to _a_ (nasal _a_) did not begin till the middle of the 11th century, and is not yet universal, in France, though generally a century later. In the Alexis nasal _a_ (as in _tant_) is never confounded with nasal _e_ (as in _gent_) in the assonances, though the copyist (a century later) often writes _a_ for nasal _e_ in unaccented syllables, as in _amfant_ (_enfant_, _infantem_); in the Roland there are several cases of mixture in the assonances, _gent_, for instance, occurring in _ant_ stanzas, _tant_ in _ent_ ones. English has several words with _a_ for _e_ before nasals--_rank_ (_rang_, Old French _renc_, Teutonic _hringa_), _pansy_ (_pensee_, _pensatam_); but the majority show _e_--_enter_ (_entrer_, _intrare_), _fleam_ (_flamme_, Old French _fleme_, _phlebotomum_). The distinction is still preserved in the Norman of Guernsey, where _an_ and _en_, though both nasal, have different sounds--_lanchier_ (_lancer_, _lanceare_), but _mentrie_ (Old French _menterie_, from _mentiri_). (9) The loss of _s_, or rather _z_, before voiced consonants began early, _s_ being often omitted or wrongly inserted in 12th century MSS.--Earliest Old French _masle_ (_masculum_), _sisdre_ (_siceram_); Modern French _male_, _cidre_. In English it has everywhere disappeared--_male_, _cider_; except in two words, where it appears, as occasionally in Old French, as _d_--_meddle_ (_meler_, _misculare_), _medlar_ (_neflier_, Old French also _meslier_, _mespilarium_). The loss of _s_ before voiceless consonants (except _f_) is about two centuries later, and it is not universal even in Parisian--Early Old French _feste_ (_festam_), _escuier_ (_scutarium_); Modern French _fete_, _ecuyer_, but _esperer_ (_sperare_). In the north-east _s_ before _t_ is still retained--Walloon _chestai_ (_chateau_, _castellum_), _fiess_ (_fete_). English shows _s_ regularly--_feast_, _esquire_. (10) Medial _dh_ (soft _th_, as in _then_), and final _th_ from Latin _t_ or _d_ between vowels, do not begin to disappear till the latter half of the 11th century. In native French MSS. _dh_ is generally written _d_, and _th_ written _t_; but the German scribe of the Oaths writes _adjudha_ (_adjutam_), _cadhuna_ (Greek _kata_ and _unam_); and the English one of the Alexis _cuntretha_ (_contratam_), _lothet_ (_laudatum_), and that of the Cambridge Psalter _heriteth_ (_hereditatem_). Medial _dh_ often drops even in the last-named MSS., and soon disappears; the same is true for final _th_ in Western French--Modern French _contree_, _loue_. But in Eastern French final _th_, to which Latin _t_ between vowels had probably been reduced through _d_ and _dh_, appears in the 12th century and later as _t_, rhyming on ordinary French final _t_--Picard and Burgundian _pechiet_ (_peccatum_) _apeleit_ (_appellatum_). In Western French some final _ths_ were saved by being changed to _f_--Modern French _soif_ (_sitim_), _moeuf_ (obsolete, _modum_). English has one or two instances of final _th_, none of medial _dh_--_faith_ (_foi_, _fidem_); Middle English _cariteț_ (_charite_, _caritatem_), _druteth_ (Old French _dru_, Teutonic _drud_); generally the consonant is lost--_country_, _charity_. Middle High German shows the Eastern French final consonant--_moraliteit_ (_moralite_, _moralitatem_). (11) _T_ from Latin final _t_, if in an Old French unaccented syllable, begins to disappear in the Roland, where sometimes _aimet_ (_amat_), sometimes _aime_, is required by the metre, and soon drops in all dialects. The Modern French _t_ of _aime-t-il_ and similar forms is an analogical insertion from such forms as _dort-il_ (_dormit_), where the _t_ has always existed. (12) The change of the diphthong _ai_ to _ei_ and afterwards to _ee_ (the doubling indicates length) had not taken place in the earliest French documents, words with _ai_ assonating only on words with _a_; in the Roland such assonances occur, but those of _ai_ on _e_ are more frequent--_faire_ (_facere_) assonating on _parastre_ (_patraster_) and on _estes_ (_estis_); and the MS. (half a century later than the poem) occasionally has _ei_ and _e_ for _ai_--_recleimet_ (_reclamat_), _desfere_ (_disfacere_), the latter agreeing with the Modern French sound. Before nasals (as in _laine_ = _lanam_) and _ie_ (as in _paye_ = _pacatum_), _ai_ remained a diphthong up to the 16th century, being apparently _ei_, whose fate in this situation it has followed. English shows _ai_ regularly before nasals and when final, and in a few other words--_vain_ (_vain_, _vanum_), _pay_ (_payer_, _pacare_), _wait_ (_guetter_, Teutonic _wahten_); but before most consonants it has usually _ee_--_peace_ (_pais_, _pacum_), _feat_ (_fait_, _factum_). (13) The loss or transposition of _i_ (= y-consonant) following the consonant ending an accented syllable begins in the 12th century--Early Old French _glorie_ (_gloriam_), _estudie_ (_studium_), _olie_ (_oleum_); Modern French _gloire_, _etude_, _huile_. English sometimes shows the earlier form--_glory_, _study_; sometimes the later--_dower_ (_douaire_, Early Old French _doarie_, _dotarium_), _oil_ (_huile_). (14) The vocalization of _l_ preceded by a vowel and followed by a consonant becomes frequent at the end of the 12th century; when preceded by open _e_, an _a_ developed before the _l_ while this was a consonant--11th century _salse_ (_salsa_), _beltet_ (_bellitatem_), _solder_ (_solidare_); Modern French _sauce_, _beaute_, _souder_. In Parisian, final _el_ followed the fate of _el_ before a consonant, becoming the triphthong _eau_, but in Norman the vocalization did not take place, and the _l_ was afterwards rejected--Modern French _ruisseau_, Modern Guernsey _russe_ (_rivicellum_). English words of French origin sometimes show _l_ before a consonant, but the general form is _u_--_scald_ (_echauder_, _excalidare_), _Walter_ (_Gautier_, Teutonic _Waldhari_); _sauce_, _beauty_, _soder_. Final _el_ is kept--_veal_ (_veau_, _vitellum_), _seal_ (_sceau_, _sigillum_). (15) In the east and centre _ei_ changes to _oi_, while the older sound is retained in the north-west and west--Norman _estreit_ (_etroit_, _strictum_), _preie_ (_proie_, _praedam_), 12th century Picard, Parisian, &c., _estroit_, _proie_. But the earliest (10th century) specimens of the latter group of dialects have _ei_--_pleier_ (_ployer_, _plicare_) Eulalia, _mettreiet_ (_mettrait_, _mittere habebat_) Jonah. Parisian _oi_, whether from _ei_ or from Old French _oi_, _oi_, became in the 15th century _ue_ (spellings with _oue_ or _oe_ are not uncommon--_mirouer_ for _miroir_, _miratorium_), and in the following, in certain words, _e_, now written _ai_--_francais_, _connaitre_, from _francois_ (_franceis_, _franciscum_), _conoistre_ (_conuistre_, _cognoscere_); where it did not undergo the latter change it is now _ua_ or _wa_--_roi_ (_rei_, _regem_), _croix_ (_cruis_, _crucem_). Before nasals and palatal _l_, _ei_ (now = _e_) was kept--_veine_ (_vena_), _veille_ (_vigila_), and it everywhere survives unlabialized in Modern Norman--Guernsey _etelle_ (_etoile_, _stella_) with _e_, _ser_ (_soir_, _serum_) with _e_. English shows generally _ei_ (or _ai_) for original _ei_--_strait_ (_estreit_), _prey_ (_preie_); but in several words the later Parisian _oi_--_coy_ (_coi_, _qvietum_), _loyal_ (_loyal_, _legalem_). (16) The splitting of the vowel-sound from accented Latin _o_ or _u_ not in position, represented in Old French by _o_ and _u_ indifferently, into _u_, _o_ (before nasals), and _eu_ (the latter at first a diphthong, now = German _oe_), is unknown to Western French till the 12th century, and is not general in the east. The sound in 11th century Norman was much nearer to _u_ (Modern French _ou_) than to _o_ (Modern French _o_), as the words borrowed by English show _uu_ (at first written _u_, afterwards _ou_ or _ow_), never _oo_; but was probably not quite _u_, as Modern Norman shows the same splitting of the sound as Parisian. Examples are--Early Old French _espose_ or _espuse_ (_sponsam_), _nom_ or _num_ (_nomen_), _flor_ or _flur_ (_florem_); Modern French _epouse_, _nom_, _fleur_; Modern Guernsey _goule_ (_gueule_, _gulam_), _nom_, _flleur_. Modern Picard also shows _u_, which is the regular sound before _r_--_flour_; but Modern Burgundian often keeps the original Old French _o_--_vo_ (_vous_, _vos_). English shows almost always _uu_--_spouse_, _noun_, _flower_ (Early Middle English _spuse_, _nun_, _flur_); but _nephew_ with _eu_ (_neveu_, _nepotem_). (17) The loss of the _u_ (or _w_) of _qu_ dates from the end of the 12th century--Old French _quart_ (_qvartum_), _quitier_ (_qvietare_) with _qu_ = _kw_, Modern French _quart_, _quitter_ with _qu_ = _k_. In Walloon the _w_ is preserved--_couar_ (_quart_), _cuitter_; as is the case in English--_quart_, _quit_. The _w_ of _gw_ seems to have been lost rather earlier, English having simple _g_--_gage_ (_gage_, older _guage_, Teutonic _wadi_), _guise_ (_guise_, Teutonic _wisa_). (18) The change of the diphthong _ou_ to _uu_ did not take place till after the 12th century, such words as _Anjou_ (_Andegavum_) assonating in the Roland on _fort_ (_fortem_); and did not occur in Picardy, where _ou_ became _au caus_ from older _cous_, _cols_ (_cous_, _collos_) coinciding with _caus_ from _calz_ (_chauds_, _calidos_). English keeps _ou_ distinct from _uu_--_vault_ for _vaut_ (Modern French _voute_, _volvitam_), _soder_ (_souder_, _solidare_). (19) The change of the diphthong _ie_ to simple _e_ is specially Anglo-Norman, in Old French of the Continent these sounds never rhyme, in that of England they constantly do, and English words show, with rare exceptions, the simple vowel--_fierce_ (Old French _fiers_, _ferus_), chief (_chief_, _caput_), with _ie_ = _ee_; but _pannier_ (_panier_, _panarium_). At the beginning of the modern period, Parisian dropped the _i_ of _ie_ when preceded by _ch_ or _j_--_chef_, _abreger_ (Old French _abregier_, _abbreviare_); elsewhere (except in verbs) _ie_ is retained--_fier_ (_ferum_), _pitie_ (_pietatem_). Modern Guernsey retains _ie_ after _ch_--_ap'rchier_ (_approcher_, _adpropeare_).(20) Some of the Modern French changes have found their places under older ones; those remaining to be noticed are so recent that English examples of the older forms are superfluous. In the 16th century the diphthong _au_ changed to _ao_ and then to _o_, its present sound, rendering, for instance, _maux_ (Old French _mals_, _malos_) identical with _mots_ (_muttos_). The _au_ of _eau_ underwent the same change, but its _e_ was still sounded as _[schwa]_ (the _e_ of _que_); in the next century this was dropped, making _veaux_ (Old French _veels_, _vitellos_) identical with _vaux_ (_vals_, _valles_). (21) A more general and very important change began much earlier than the last; this is the loss of many final consonants. In Early Old French every consonant was pronounced as written; by degrees many of them disappeared when followed by another consonant, whether in the same word (in which case they were generally omitted in writing) or in a following one. This was the state of things in the 16th century; those final consonants which are usually silent in Modern French were still sounded, if before a vowel or at the end of a sentence or a line of poetry, but generally not elsewhere. Thus a large number of French words had two forms; the Old French _fort_ appeared as _for_ (though still written _fort_) before a consonant, fort elsewhere. At a later period final consonants were lost (with certain exceptions) when the word stood at the end of a sentence or of a line of poetry; but they are generally kept when followed by a word beginning with a vowel. (22) A still later change is the general loss of the vowel (written e) of unaccented final syllables; this vowel preserved in the 16th century the sound _[schwa]_, which it had in Early Old French. In later Anglo-Norman final _[schwa]_ (like every other sound) was treated exactly as the same sound in Middle English; that is, it came to be omitted or retained at pleasure, and in the 15th century disappeared. In Old French the loss of final _[schwa]_ is confined to a few words and forms; the 10th century _saveiet_ (_sapebat_ for _sapiebat_) became in the 11th _saveit_, and _ore_ (_ad horam_), _ele_ (_illam_) develop the abbreviated _or, el_. In the 15th century _[schwa]_ before a vowel generally disappears--_mur_, Old French _meur_ (_maturum_); and in the 16th, though still written, _[schwa]_ after an unaccented vowel, and in the syllable _ent_ after a vowel, does the same--_vraiment_, Old French _vraiement_ (_veraca mente_); _avoient_ two syllables, as now (_avaient_), in Old French three syllables (as _habebant_). These phenomena occur much earlier in the anglicized French of England--13th century _aveynt_ (Old French _aveient_). But the universal loss of final _e_, which has clipped a syllable from half the French vocabulary, did not take place till the 18th century, after the general loss of final consonants; _fort_ and _forte_, distinguished at the end of a sentence or line in the 16th century as _fort_ and _fort[schwa]_, remain distinguished, but as _for_ and _fort_. The metre of poetry is still constructed on the obsolete pronunciation, which is even revived in singing; "dites, la jeune belle," actually four syllables (_dit, la zhoen bel_), is considered as seven, fitted with music accordingly, and sung to fit the music (_dit[schwa], la zhoena bel[schwa]_). (23) In Old French, as in the other Romanic languages, the stress (force, accent) is on the syllable which was accented in Latin; compare the treatment of the accented and unaccented vowels in _latro amas_, giving _lere, aime_, and in _latronem, amatis_, giving _laron, amez_, the accented vowels being those which rhyme or assonate. At present, stress in French is much less marked than in English, German or Italian, and is to a certain extent variable; which is partly the reason why most native French scholars find no difficulty in maintaining that the stress in living Modern French is on the same syllable as in Old French. The fact that stress in the French of to-day is independent of length (quantity) and pitch (tone) largely aids the confusion; for though the final and originally accented syllable (not counting the silent e as a syllable) is now generally pronounced with less force, it very often has a long vowel with raised pitch. In actual pronunciation the chief stress is usually on the first syllable (counting according to the sounds, not the spelling), but in many polysyllables it is on the last but one; thus in _caution_ the accented (strong) syllable cau, in _occasion_ it is _ca_. Poetry is still written according to the original place of the stress; the rhyme-syllables of _larron, aimez_ are still _ron_ and _mez_, which when set to music receive an accented (strong) note, and are sung accordingly, though in speech the la and ai generally have the principal stress. In reading poetry, as distinguished from singing, the modern pronunciation is used, both as to the loss of the final _[schwa]_ and the displacement of the stress, the result being that the theoretical metre in which the poetry is written disappears. (24) In certain cases accented vowels were lengthened in Old French, as before a lost s; this was indicated in the 16th century by a circumflex--_bete_, Old French _beste_ (_bestiam_), _ame_, Old French _anme_ (_anima_). The same occurred in the plural of many nouns, where a consonant was lost before the _s_ of the flection; thus singular _coc_ with short vowel, plural _cos_ with long. The plural _cos_, though spelt _cogs_ instead of _co_ (= _koo_), is still sometimes to be heard, but, like other similar ones, is generally refashioned after the singular, becoming _kok_. In present French, except where a difference of quality has resulted, as in _cote_ (Old French _coste, costam_) with _o_ and _cotte_ (Old French _cote_), with _o_, short and long vowels generally run together, quantity being now variable and uncertain; but at the beginning of this century the Early Modern distinctions appear to have been generally preserved.

(d) _Orthography._--The history of French spelling is based on that of French sounds; as already stated, the former (apart from a few Latinisms in the earliest documents) for several centuries faithfully followed the latter. When the popular Latin of Gaul was first written, its sounds were represented by the letters of the Roman alphabet; but these were employed, not in the values they had in the time of Caesar, but in those they had acquired in consequence of the phonetic changes that had meantime taken place. Thus, as the Latin sound _u_ had become _o_ (close _o_) and _u_ had become _y_ (French _u_, German _ue_), the letter _u_ was used sometimes to denote the sound _o_, sometimes the sound _y_; as Latin _k_ (written _c_) had become _tsh_ or _ts_, according to dialect, before _e_ and _i_, _c_ was used to represent those sounds as well as that of _k_. The chief features of early French orthography (apart from the specialities of individual MSS., especially the earliest) are therefore these:--_c_ stood for _k_ and _tsh_ or _ts_; _d_ for _d_ and _dh_ (soft _th_); _e_ for _e_, _e_, and _[schwa]_; _g_ for _g_ and _dzh_; _h_ was often written in words of Latin origin where not sounded; _i_ (_j_) stood for _i_, _y_ consonant, and _dzh_; _o_ for _o_ (Anglo-Norman _u_) and _o_; _s_ for _s_ and _z_; _t_ for _t_ and _th_; _u_ (_v_) for _o_ (Anglo-Norman _u_), _y_ and _v_; _y_ (rare) for _i_; _z_ for _dz_ and _ts_. Some new sounds had also to be provided for: where _tsh_ had to be distinguished from non-final _ts_, _ch_--at first, as in Italian, denoting _k_ before _i_ and _e_ (_chi_ = _ki_ from _qvi_)--was used for it; palatal _l_ was represented by _ill_, which when final usually lost one _l_, and after _i_ dropped its _i_; palatal _n_ by _gn_, _ng_ or _ngn_, to which _i_ was often prefixed; and the new letter _w_, originally _uu_ (_vv_), and sometimes representing merely _uv_ or _vu_, was employed for the consonant-sound still denoted by it in English. All combinations of vowel-letters represented diphthongs; thus _ai_ denoted _a_ followed by _i_, _ou_ either _ou_ or _ou_, _ui_ either _oi_ (Anglo-Norman _ui_) or _yi_, and similarly with the others--_ei_, _eu_, _oi_, _iu_, _ie_, _ue_ (and _oe_), and the triphthong _ieu_. Silent letters, except initial _h_ in Latin words, are very rare; though MSS. copied from older ones often retain letters whose sounds, though existing in the language of the author, had disappeared from that of the more modern scribe. The subsequent changes in orthography are due mainly to changes of sound, and find their explanation in the phonology. Thus, as Old French progresses, _s_, having become silent before voiced consonants, indicates only the length of the preceding vowel; _e_ before nasals, from the change of _[~e]_ (nasal _e_) to _a_ (nasal _a_), represents _a_; _c_, from the change of _ts_ to _s_, represents _s_; _qu_ and _gu_, from the loss of the _w_ of _kw_ and _gw_, represent _k_ and _g_ (hard); _ai_, from the change of _ai_ to _e_, represents _e_; _ou_, from the change of _ou_ and _ou_ to _u_, represents _u_; _ch_ and _g_, from the change of _tsh_ and _dzh_ to _sh_ and _zh_, represent _sh_ and _zh_; _eu_ and ue, originally representing diphthongs, represent oe (German _oe_); _z_, from the change of _ts_ and _dz_ to _s_ and _z_, represents _s_ and _z_. The new values of some of these letters were applied to words not originally spelt with them: Old French _k_ before _i_ and _e_ was replaced by _qu_ (_evesque_, _eveske_, Latin _episcopum_); Old French _u_ and _o_ for _o_, after this sound had split into _eu_ and _u_, were replaced in the latter case by _ou_ (_rous_, for _ros_ or _rus_, Latin _russum_); _s_ was accidentally inserted to mark a long vowel (_pasle_, _pale_, Latin _pallidum_); _eu_ replaced _ue_ and _oe_ (_neuf_, _nuef_, Latin _novum_ and _novem_); _z_ replaced _s_ after _e_ (_nez_, _nes_, _nasum_). The use of _x_ for final _s_ is due to an orthographical mistake; the MS. contraction of _us_ being something like _x_ was at last confused with it (_iex_ for _ieus_, _oculos_), and, its meaning being forgotten, _u_ was inserted before the _x_ (_yeux_) which thus meant no more than _s_, and was used for it after other vowels (_voix_ for _vois_, _vocem_). As literature came to be extensively cultivated, traditional as distinct from phonetic spelling began to be influential; and in the 14th century, the close of the Old French period, this influence, though not overpowering, was strong--stronger than in England at that time. About the same period there arose etymological as distinct from traditional spelling. This practice, the alteration of traditional spelling by the insertion or substitution of letters which occurred (or were supposed to occur) in the Latin (or supposed Latin) originals of the French words, became very prevalent in the three following centuries, when such forms as _debvoir_ (_debere_) for _devoir_, _faulx_ (_falsum_) for _faus_, _autheur_ (_auctorem_, supposed to be _authorem_) for _auteur_, _poids_ (supposed to be from _pondus_, really from _pensum_) for _pois_, were the rule. But besides the etymological, there was a phonetic school of spelling (Ramus, in 1562, for instance, writes _eime_, _eimates_--with _e_ = _e_, _e_ = _e_, and _e_ = _[schwa]_--for _aimai_, _aimastes_), which, though unsuccessful on the whole, had some effect in correcting the excesses of the other, so that in the 17th century most of these inserted letters began to drop; of those which remain, some (_flegme_ for _flemme_ or _fleume_, Latin _phlegma_) have corrupted the pronunciation. Some important reforms--as the dropping of silent _s_, and its replacement by a circumflex over the vowel when this was long; the frequent distinction of close and open _e_ by acute and grave accents; the restriction of _i_ and _u_ to the vowel sound, of _j_ and _v_ to the consonant; and the introduction from Spain of the cedilla to distinguish _c_ = _s_ from _c_ = _k_ before _a_, _u_ and _o_--are due to the 16th century. The replacement of _oi_, where it had assumed the value _e_, by _ai_, did not begin till the last century, and was not the rule till the present one. Indeed, since the 16th century the changes in French spelling have been small, compared with the changes of the sounds; final consonants and final _e_ (unaccented) are still written, though the sounds they represent have disappeared.

Still, a marked effort towards the simplification of French orthography was made in the third edition of the _Dictionary_ of the French Academy (1740), practically the work of the Abbe d'Olivet. While in the first (1694) and second (1718) editions of this dictionary words were overburdened with silent letters, supposed to represent better the etymology, in the third edition the spelling of about 5000 words (out of about 18,000) was altered and made more in conformity with the pronunciation. So, for instance, _c_ was dropped in _beinfaicteur_ and _object_, _c_ in _scavoir_, _d_ in _advocat_, _s_ in _accroistre_, _albastre_, _aspre_ and _bastard_, _e_ in the past part. _creu_, _deu_, _veu_, and in such words as _alleure_, _souilleure_; _y_ was replaced by _i_ in _cecy, celuy, gay, joye_, &c. But those changes were not made systematically, and many pedantic spellings were left untouched, while many inconsistencies still remain in the present orthography (_siffler_ and _persifler_, _souffler_ and _boursoufler_, &c). The consequence of those efforts in contrary directions is that French orthography is now quite as traditional and unphonetic as English, and gives an even falser notion than this of the actual state of the language it is supposed to represent. Many of the features of Old French orthography, early and late, are preserved in English orthography; to it we owe the use of _c_ for _s_ (Old English _c_ = _k_ only), of _j_ (_i_) for _dzh_, of _v_ (_u_) for _v_ (in Old English written _f_), and probably of _ch_ for _tsh_. The English _w_ is purely French, the Old English letter being the runic _Ț_. When French was introduced into England, _kw_ had not lost its _w_, and the French _qu_, with that value, replaced the Old English _cȚ_ (_queen_ for _cȚ_en). In Norman, Old French _o_ had become very like _u_, and in England went entirely into it; _o_, which was one of its French signs, thus came to be often used for _u_ in English (_come_ for _cume_). _U_, having often in Old French its Modern French value, was so used in England, and replaced the Old English _y_ (_busy_ for _bysi_, Middle English _brud_ for _bryd_), and _y_ was often used for _i_ (_day_ for _dai_). In the 13th century, when _ou_ had come to represent _u_ in France, it was borrowed by English, and used for the long sound of that vowel (_sour_ for _sur_); and _gu_, which had come to mean simply _g_ (hard), was occasionally used to represent the sound _g_ before _i_ and _e_ (_guess_ for _gesse_). Some of the Early Modern etymological spellings were imitated in England; _fleam_ and _autour_ were replaced by _phlegm_ and _authour_, the latter spelling having corrupted the pronunciation.

(e) _Inflections._--In the earliest Old French extant, the influence of analogy, especially in verbal forms, is very marked when these are compared with Latin (thus the present participles of all conjugations take _ant_, the ending of the first, Latin _antem_), and becomes stronger as the language progresses. Such isolated inflectional changes as _saveit_ into _savoit_, which are cases of regular phonetic changes, are not noticed here.

(i.) _Verbs._--(1) In the oldest French texts the Latin pluperfect (with the sense of the perfect) occasionally occurs--_avret_ (_habuerat_), _roveret_ (_rogaverat_); it disappears before the 12th century. (2) The _u_ of the ending of the 1st pers. plur. _mus_ drops in Old French, except in the perfect, where its presence (as _[schwa]_) is not yet satisfactorily explained--_amoms_ (_amamus_, influenced by _sumus_), but _amames_ (_amavimus_). In Picard the atonic ending _mes_ is extended to all tenses, giving _amomes_, &c. (3) In the present indicative, 2nd person plur., the ending _ez_ of the first conjugation (Latin _atis_) extends, even in the earliest documents, to all verbs--_avez, recevez, oez_ (_habetis_, _recipitis, auditis_) like _amez_ (_amatis_); such forms as _dites_, _faites_ (_dicitis_, _facitis_) being exceptional archaisms. This levelling of the conjugation does not appear at such an early time in the future (formed from the infinitive and from _habetis_ reduced to _etis_); in the Roland both forms occur, _portereiz_ (_portare habetis_) assonating on _rei_ (_roi, regem_), and the younger _porterez_ on _citet_ (_cite_, _civitatem_), but about the end of the 13th century the older form _-eiz_, _-oiz_, is dropped, and _-ez_ becomes gradually the uniform ending for this 2nd person of the plural in the future tense. (4) In Eastern French the 1st plur., when preceded by _i_, has _e_, not _o_, before the nasal, while Western French has _u_ (or _o_), as in the present; _posciomes_ (_posseamus_) in the Jonah homily makes it probable that the latter is the older form--Picard _aviemes_, Burgundian _aviens_, Norman _aviums_ (_habebamus_). (5) The subjunctive of the first conjugation has at first in the singular no final _e_, in accordance with the final vowel laws--_plur_, _plurs_, _plurt_ (_plorem_, _plores_, _ploret_). The forms are gradually assimilated to those of the other conjugations, which, deriving from Latin _am_, _as_, _at_, have _e_, _es_, _e_(_t_); Modern French _pleure_, _pleures_, _pleure_, like _perde_, _perdes_, _perde_ (_perdam_, _perdas_, _perdat_). (6) In Old French the present subjunctive and the 1st sing. pres. ind. generally show the influence of the _i_ or _e_ of the Latin _iam_, _eam_, _io_, _eo_--Old French _muire_ or _moerge_ (_moriat_ for _moriatur_), _tiegne_ or _tienge_ (_teneat_), _muir_ or _moerc_ (_morio_ for _morior_), _tieng_ or _tienc_ (_teneo_). By degrees these forms are levelled under the other present forms--Modern French _meure_ and _meurs_ following _meurt_ (_morit_ for _moritur_), _tienne_ and _tiens_ following _tient_ (_tenet_). A few of the older forms remain--the vowel of _aie_ (_habeam_) and _ai_ (_habeo_) contrasting with that of _a_ (_habet_). (7) A levelling of which instances occur in the 11th century, but which is not yet complete, is that of the accented and unaccented stem-syllables of verbs. In Old French many verb-stems with shifting accent vary in accordance with phonetic laws--_parler_ (_parabolare_), _amer_ (_amare_) have in the present indicative _parol_ (_parabolo_), _paroles_ (_parabolas_), _parolet_ (_parabolat_), _parlums_ (_parabolamus_), _parlez_ (_parabolatis_), _parolent_ (_parabolant_); _aim_ (_amo_), _aimes_ (_amas_), _aimet_ (_amat_), _amums_ (_amamus_), _amez_ (_amatis_), _aiment_ (_amant_). In the first case the unaccented, in the second the accented form has prevailed--Modern French _parle_, _parler_; _aime_, _aimer_. In several verbs, as _tenir_ (_tenere_), the distinction is retained--_tiens_, _tiens_, _tient_, _tenons_, _tenez_, _tiennent_. (8) In Old French, as stated above, _ie_ instead of _e_ from _a_ occurs after a palatal (which, if a consonant, often split into _i_ with a dental); the diphthong thus appears in several forms of many verbs of the 1st conjugation--_preier_ (= _prei-ier_, _precare_), _vengier_ (_vindicare_), _laissier_ (_laxare_), _aidier_ (_adjutare_). At the close of the Old French period, those verbs in which the stem ends in a dental replace _ie_ by the _e_ of other verbs--Old French _laissier_, _aidier_, _laissiez_ (_laxatis_), _aidiez_ (adjutatis); Modern French _laisser_, _aider_, _laissez_, _aidez_, by analogy of _aimer_, _aimez_. The older forms generally remain in Picard--_laissier_, _aidier_. (9) The addition of _e_ to the 1st sing. pres. ind. of all verbs of the first conjugation is rare before the 13th century, but is usual in the 15th; it is probably due to the analogy of the third person--Old French _chant_ (_canto_), _aim_ (_amo_); Modern French _chante_, _aime_. (10) In the 13th century _s_ is occasionally added to the 1st pers. sing., except those ending in _e_ (= _[schwa]_) and _ai_, and to the 2nd sing. of imperatives; at the close of the 16th century this becomes the rule, and extends to imperfects and conditionals in _oie_ after the loss of their _e_. It appears to be due to the influence of the 2nd pers. sing.--Old French _vend_ (_vendo_ and _vende_), _vendoie_ (_vendebam_), _parti_ (_partivi_), _ting_ (_tenui_); Modern French _vends_, _vendais_, _partis_, _tins_; and _donne_ (_dona_) in certain cases becomes _donnes_. (11) The 1st and 2nd plur. of the pres. subj., which in Old French were generally similar to those of the indicative, gradually take an _i_ before them, which is the rule after the 16th century--Old French _perdons_ (_perdamus_), _perdez_ (_perdatis_); Modern French _perdions_, _perdiez_, apparently by analogy of the imp. ind. (12) The loss in Late Old French of final _s_, _t_, &c., when preceding another consonant, caused many words to have in reality (though often concealed by orthography) double forms of inflection--one without termination, the other with. Thus in the 16th century the 2nd sing. pres. ind. _dors_ (_dormis_) and the 3rd _dort_ (_dormit_) were distinguished as _dorz_ and _dort_ when before a vowel, as _dors_ and _dort_ at the end of a sentence or line of poetry, but ran together as _dor_ when followed by a consonant. Still later, the loss of the final consonant when not followed by a vowel further reduced the cases in which the forms were distinguished, so that the actual French conjugation is considerably simpler than is shown by the customary spellings, except when, in consequence of an immediately following vowel, the old terminations occasionally appear. Even here the antiquity is to a considerable extent artificial or delusive, some of the insertions being due to analogy, and the popular language often omitting the traditional consonant or inserting a different one. (13) The subsequent general loss of _e_ = _[schwa]_ in unaccented final syllables has still further reduced the inflections, but not the distinctive forms--_perd_ (_perdit_) and _perde_ (_perdat_) being generally distinguished as _per_ and _perd_, and before a vowel as _pert_ and _perd_.

(ii.) _Substantives._--(1) In Early Old French (as in Provencal) there are two main declensions, the masculine and the feminine; with a few exceptions the former distinguishes nominative and accusative in both numbers, the latter in neither. The nom. and acc. sing, and acc. plur. mas. correspond to those of the Latin 2nd or 3rd declension, the nom. plur. to that of the 2nd declension. The sing, fem. corresponds to the nom. and acc. of the Latin 1st declension, or to the acc. of the 3rd; the plur. fem. to the acc. of the 1st declension, or to the nom. and acc. of the 3rd. Thus masc. _tors_ (_taurus_), _lere_ (_latro_); _tor_ (_taurum_), _laron_ (_latronem_); _tor_ (_tauri_), _laron_ (_latroni_ for _-nes_); _tors_ (_tauros_), _larons_ (_latrones_); but fem. only _ele_ (_ala_ and _alam_), _flor_ (_florem_); _eles_ (_alas_), _flors_ (_flores_ nom. and acc.). About the end of the 11th century feminines not ending in _e_ = _[schwa]_ take, by analogy of the masculines, _s_ in the nom. sing., thus distinguishing nom. _flors_ from acc. _flor_. A century later, masculines without _s_ in the nom. sing. take this consonant by analogy of the other masculines, giving _leres_ as nom. similar to _tors_. In Anglo-Norman the accusative forms very early begin to replace the nominative, and soon supersede them, the language following the tendency of contemporaneous English. In continental French the declension-system was preserved much longer, and did not break up till the 14th century, though acc. forms are occasionally substituted for nom. (rarely nom. for acc.) before that date. It must be noticed, however, that in the current language the reduction of the declension to one case (generally the accusative) per number appears much earlier than in the language of literature proper and poetry; Froissart, for instance, _c._ 1400, in his poetical works is much more careful of the declension than in his Chronicles. In the 15th century the modern system of one case is fully established; the form kept is almost always the accusative (sing. without _s_, plural with _s_), but in a few words, such as _fils_ (_filius_), _soeur_ (_soror_), _pastre_ (_pastor_), and in proper names such as _Georges_, _Gilles_, &c., often used as vocative (therefore with the form of nom.); the nom. survives in the sing. Occasionally both forms exist, in different senses--_sire_ (_senior_) and _seigneur_ (_seniorem_), _on_ (_homo_) and _homme_ (_hominem_). (2) Latin neuters are generally masculine in Old French, and inflected according to their analogy, as _ciels_ (_caelus_ for _caelum_ nom.), _ciel_ (_caelum_ acc.), _ciel_ (_caeli_ for _caela_ nom.), _ciels_ (_caelos_ for _caela_ acc.); but in some cases the form of the Latin neuter is preserved, as in _cors_, now _corps_, Lat. _corpus_; _tens_, now _temps_, Lat. _tempus_. Many neuters lose their singular form and treat the plural as a feminine singular, as in the related languages--_merveille_ (_mirabilia_), _feuille_ (_folia_). But in a few words the neuter plural termination is used, as in Italian, in its primitive sense--_carre_ (_carra_, which exists as well as _carri_), _paire_ (_Lat. paria_); Modern French _chars_, _paires_. (3) In Old French the inflectional _s_ often causes phonetic changes in the stem; thus palatal _l_ before _s_ takes _t_ after it, and becomes dental _l_, which afterwards changes to _u_ or drops--_fil_ (_filium_ and _filii_) with palatal _l_, _filz_ (_filius_ and _filios_), afterwards _fiz_, with _z_ = _ts_ (preserved in English _Fitz_), and then _fis_, as now (spelt _fils_). Many consonants before _s_, as the _t_ of _fiz_, disappear, and _l_ is vocalized--_vif_ (_vivum_), _mal_ (_malum_), nominative sing. and acc. plur. _vis_, _maus_ (earlier _mals_). These forms of the plural are retained in the 16th century, though often etymologically spelt with the consonant of the singular, as in _vifs_, pronounced _vis_; but in Late Modern French many of them disappear, _vifs_, with _f_ sounded as in the singular, being the plural of _vif_, _bals_ (formerly _baux_) that of _bal_. In many words, as _chant_ (_cantus_) and _champs_ (_campos_) with silent _t_ and _p_ (Old French _chans_ in both cases), _maux_ (Old French _mals_, sing. _mal_), _yeux_ (_oculos_, Old French _oelz_, sing. _oeil_) the old change in the stem is kept. Sometimes, as in _cieux_ (_caelos_) and _ciels_, the old traditional and the modern analogical forms coexist, with different meanings. (4) The modern loss of final _s_ (except when kept as _z_ before a vowel) has seriously modified the French declension, the singulars _fort_ (_for_) and _forte_ (_fort_) being generally undistinguishable from their plurals _forts_ and _fortes_. The subsequent loss of _[schwa]_ in finals has not affected the relation between sing. and plur. forms; but with the frequent recoining of the plural forms on the singular present Modern French has very often no distinction between sing. and plur., except before a vowel. Such plurals as _maux_ have always been distinct from their singular _mal_; in those whose singular ends in _s_ there never was any distinction, Old French _laz_ (now spelt _lacs_) corresponding to _laqveus_, _laqveum_, _laqvei_ and _laqveos_.

(iii.) _Adjectives._--(1) The terminations of the cases and numbers of adjectives are the same as those of substantives, and are treated in the preceding paragraph. The feminine generally takes no _e_ if the masc. has none, and if there is no distinction in Latin--fem. sing. _fort_ (_fortem_), _grant_ (_grandem_), fem. plur. _forz_ (_fortes_), _granz_ (_grandes_), like the acc. masc. Certain adjectives of this class, and among them all the adjectives formed with the Latin suffix _-ensis_, take regularly, even in the oldest French, the feminine ending _e_, in _Provencal_ a (_courtois_, fem. _courtoise_; _commun_, fem. _commune_). To these must not be added _dous_ (Mod. Fr. _dolz_, _dous_), fem. _douce_, which probably comes from a Low Latin _dulcius_, _dulcia_. In the 11th century some other feminines, originally without _e_, begin in Norman to take this termination--_grande_ (in a feminine assonance in the Alexis), plur. _grandes_; but other dialects generally preserve the original form till the 14th century. In the 16th century the _e_ is general in the feminine, and is now universal, except in a few expressions--_grand'mere_ (with erroneous apostrophe, _grandem_, _matrem_), _lettres royaux_ (_literas regales_), and most adverbs from adjectives in _-ant_, _-ent_--_couramment_ (_currante_ for _-ente mente_), _sciemment_ (_sciente mente_). (2) Several adjectives have in Modern French replaced the masc. by the feminine--Old French masc. _roit_ (_rigidum_), fem. _roide_ (_rigidam_); Modern French _roide_ for both genders. (3) In Old French several Latin simple comparatives are preserved--_maiur_ (_majorem_), nom. _maire_ (_major_); _graignur_ (_grandiorem_), nom. _graindre_ (_grandior_); only a few of these now survive--_pire_ (_pejor_), _meilleur_ (_meliorem_), with their adverbial neuters _pis_ (_pejus_), _mieux_ (_melius_). The few simple superlatives found in Old French, as _merme_ (_minimum_), _pesme_ (_pessimus_), _proisme_ (_proximum_), _haltisme_ (_altissimum_), this last one being clearly a literary word, are now extinct, and, when they existed, had hardly the meaning of a superlative. (4) The modern loss of many final consonants when not before vowels, and the subsequent loss of final _[schwa]_, have greatly affected the distinction between the masc. and fem. of adjectives--_fort_ and _forte_ are still distinguished as _for_ and _fort_, but _amer_ (_amarum_) and _amere_ (_amaram_), with their plurals _amers_ and _ameres_, have run together.

(f) _Derivation._--Most of the Old French prefixes and suffixes are descendants of Latin ones, but a few are Teutonic (_ard = hard_), and some are later borrowings from Latin (_arie_, afterwards _aire_, from _arium_). In Modern French many old affixes are hardly used for forming new words; the inherited _ier_ (_arium_) is yielding to the borrowed _aire_, the popular _contre_ (_contra_) to the learned anti (Greek), and the native _ee_ (_atam_) to the Italian _ade_. The suffixes of many words have been assimilated to more common ones; thus _sengler_ (_singularem_) is now _sanglier_.

(g) _Syntax._--Old French syntax, gradually changing from the 10th to the 14th century, has a character of its own, distinct from that of Modern French; though when compared with Latin syntax it appears decidedly modern.

(1) The general formal distinction between nominative and accusative is the chief feature which causes French syntax to resemble that of Latin and differ from that of the modern language; and as the distinction had to be replaced by a comparatively fixed word-order, a serious loss of freedom ensued. If the forms are modernized while the word-order is kept, the Old French _l'archevesque ne puet flechir li reis Henris_ (Latin _archiepiscopum non potest flectere rex Henricus_) assumes a totally different meaning--_l'archeveque ne peut flechir le roi Henri_. (2) The replacement of the nominative form of nouns by the accusative is itself a syntactical feature, though treated above under inflection. A more modern instance is exhibited by the personal pronouns, which, when not immediately the subject of a verb, occasionally take even in Old French, and regularly in the 16th century, the accusative form; the Old French _je qui sui_ (_ego qvi sum_) becomes _moi qui suis_, though the older usage survives in the legal phrase _je soussigne_.... (3) The definite article is now required in many cases where Old French dispenses with it--_jo cunquis Engleterre, suffrir mort_ (as Modern French _avoir faim_); Modern French _l'Angleterre, la mort_. (4) Old French had distinct pronouns for "this" and "that"--_cest_ (_ecce istum_) and _cel_ (_ecce illium_), with their cases. Both exist in the 16th century, but the present language employs _cet_ as adjective, _cel_ as substantive, in both meanings, marking the old distinction by affixing the adverbs _ci_ and _la_--_cet homme-ci, cet homme-la_; _celui-ci, celui-la_. (5) In Old French, the verbal terminations being clear, the subject pronoun is usually not expressed--_si ferai_ (_sic facere habeo_), _est durs_ (_durus est_), _que feras_ (_quid facere habes_)? In the 16th century the use of the pronoun is general, and is now universal, except in one or two impersonal phrases, as _n'importe, peu s'en faut_. (6) The present participle in Old French in its uninflected form coincided with the gerund (_amant = amantem_ and _amando_), and in the modern language has been replaced by the latter, except where it has become adjectival; the Old French _complaingnans leur dolours_ (Latin _plangentes_) is now _plaignant leurs douleurs_ (Latin _plangendo_). The now extinct use of _estre_ with the participle present for the simple verb is not uncommon in Old French down to the 16th century--_sont disanz_ (_sunt dicentes_) = Modern French _ils disent_ (as English _they are saying_). (7) In present Modern French the preterite participle when used with _avoir_ to form verb-tenses is invariable, except when the object precedes (an exception now vanishing in the conversational language)--_j'ai ecrit les lettres, les lettres que j'ai ecrites_. In Old French down to the 16th century, formal concord was more common (though by no means necessary), partly because the object preceded the participle much oftener than now--_ad la culur muee_ (_habet colorem mutatam_), _ad faite sa venjance, les turs ad rendues_. (8) The sentences just quoted will serve as specimens of the freedom of Old French word-order--the object standing either before verb and participle, between them, or after both. The predicative adjective can stand before or after the verb--_halt sunt li pui_ (Latin _podia_), _e tenebrus e grant_. (9) In Old French _ne_ (Early Old French _nen_, Latin _non_) suffices for the negation without _pas_ (_passum_), _point_ (_punctum_) or _mie_ (_micam_, now obsolete), though these are frequently used--_jo ne sui lis sire_ (_je ne suis pas ton seigneur_), _autre feme nen ara_ (_il n'aura pas autre femme_). In principal sentences Modern French uses _ne_ by itself only in certain cases--_je ne puis marcher, je n'ai rien_. The slight weight as a negation usually attached to ne has caused several originally positive words to take a negative meaning--_rien_ (Latin _rem_) now meaning "nothing" as well as "something." (10) In Old French interrogation was expressed with substantives as with pronouns by putting them after the verb--_est Saul entre les prophetes?_ In Modern French the pronominal inversion (the substantive being prefixed) or a verbal periphrasis must be used--_Saul est-il?_ or _est-ce que Saul est?_

(h) _Summary._--Looking at the internal history of the French language as a whole, there is no such strongly marked division as exists between Old and Middle English, or even between Middle and Modern English. Some of the most important changes are quite modern, and are concealed by the traditional orthography; but, even making allowance for this, the difference between French of the 11th century and that of the 20th is less than that between English of the same dates. The most important change in itself and for its effects is probably that which is usually made the division between Old and Modern French, the loss of the formal distinction between nominative and accusative; next to this are perhaps the gradual loss of many final consonants, the still recent loss of the vowel of unaccented final syllables, and the extension of analogy in conjugation and declension. In its construction Old French is distinguished by a freedom strongly contrasting with the strictness of the modern language, and bears, as might be expected, a much stronger resemblance than the latter to the other Romanic dialects. In many features, indeed, both positive and negative, Modern French forms a class by itself, distinct in character from the other modern representatives of Latin.

IV. BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The few works which treat of French philology as a whole are now in many respects antiquated, and the important discoveries of recent years, which have revolutionized our ideas of Old French phonology and dialectology, are scattered in various editions, periodicals, and separate treatises. For many things Diez's _Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen_ (4th edition--a reprint of the 3rd--Bonn, 1876-1877; French translation, Paris, 1872-1875) is still very valuable; Burguy's _Grammaire de la Langue d'Oil_ (2nd edition--a reprint of the 1st--Berlin, 1869-1870) is useful only as a collection of examples. Schwan's _Grammatik des Altfranzoesischen_, as revised by Behrens in the 3rd edition (Leipzig, 1898; French translation, Leipzig and Paris, 1900), is by far the best old French grammar we possess. For the history of French language in general see F. Brunot, _Histoire de la langue francaise des origines a 1900_ (Paris, 1905, 1906, &c.). For the history of spelling, A. F. Didot, _Observations sur l'orthographe ou ortografie francaise suivies d'une histoire de la reforme orthographique depuis le XV^e siecle jusqu'a nos jours_ (2nd ed., Paris, 1868). For the history of French sounds: Ch. Thurot, _De la prononciation francaise depuis le commencement du XVI^e siecle, d'apres les temoignages des grammairiens_ (2 vols., Paris, 1881-1883). For the history of syntax, apart from various grammatical works of a general character, much is to be gathered from Ad. Tobler's _Vermischte Beitraege zur franzoesischen Grammatik_ (3 parts, 1886, 1894, 1899, parts i. and ii. in second editions, 1902, 1906). G. Paris's edition of _La Vie de S. Alexis_ (Paris, 1872) was the pioneer of, and retains an important place among, the recent original works on Old French. Darmesteter and Hatzfeld's _Le Seizieme Siecle_ (Paris, 1878) contains the first good account of Early Modern French. Littre's _Dictionnaire de la langue francaise_ (4 vols., Paris, 1863-1869, and a Supplement, 1877); and Hatzfeld, Darmesteter and Thomas, _Dict. general de la langue francaise_, more condensed (2 vols., Paris, 1888-1900), contain much useful and often original information about the etymology and history of French words. For the etymology of many French (and also Provencal) words, reference must be made to Ant. Thomas's _Essais de philologie francaise_ (Paris, 1897) and _Nouveaux essais de philologie francaise_ (Paris, 1904). But there is no French dictionary properly historical. A _Dictionnaire historique de la langue francaise_ was begun by the Academie francaise (4 vols., 1859-1894), but it was, from the first, antiquated. It contains only one letter (A) and has not been continued. The leading periodicals now in existence are the _Romania_ (Paris), founded (in 1872) and edited by P. Meyer and G. Paris (with Ant. Thomas since the death of G. Paris in 1903), and the _Zeitschrift fuer romanische Philologie_ (Halle), founded (in 1877) and edited by G. Groeber. To these reference should be made for information as to the very numerous articles, treatises and editions by the many and often distinguished scholars who, especially in France and Germany, now prosecute the scientific study of the language. It may be well to mention that, Old French phonology especially being complicated, and as yet incompletely investigated, these publications, the views in which are of various degrees of value, require not mere acquiescent reading, but critical study. The dialects of France in their present state (_patois_) are now being scientifically investigated. The special works on the subject (dictionaries, grammars, &c.) cannot be fully indicated here; we must limit ourselves to the mention of Behren's _Bibliographie des patois gallo-romans_ (2nd ed., revised Berlin, 1893), and of Gillieron and Edmont's _Atlas linguistique de la France_ (1902 et seq.), a huge publication planned to contain about 1800 maps. (H. N.; P. M.)