age by bringing
into French poetry the Greek compounds which the doctors and
philosophers used. Malherbe repaired Ronsard's mischief somewhat. The
language became more noble and more harmonious with the establishment of
the Academie Francaise, and acquired finally, in the reign of Louis
XIV., the perfection whereby it might be carried into all forms of
composition.

The genius of this language is order and clarity; for each language has
its genius, and this genius consists in the facility which the language
gives for expressing oneself more or less happily, for using or
rejecting the familiar twists of other languages. French having no
declensions, and being always subject to the article, cannot adopt Greek
and Latin inversions; it obliges words to arrange themselves in the
natural order of ideas. Only in one way can one say "_Plancus a pris
soin des affaires de Cesar._" That is the only arrangement one can give
to these words. Express this phrase in Latin--_Res Caesaris Plancus
diligenter curavit_: one can arrange these words in a hundred and twenty
ways, without injuring the sense and without troubling the language. The
auxiliary verbs which eke out and enervate the phrases in modern
languages, still render the French tongue little suited to the concise
lapidary style. The auxiliary verbs, its pronouns, its articles, its
lack of declinable participles, and finally its uniform gait, are
injurious to the great enthusiasm of poetry, in which it has less
resources than Italian and English; but this constraint and this bondage
render it more suitable for tragedy and comedy than any language in
Europe. The natural order in which one is obliged to express one's
thoughts and construct one's phrases, diffuses in this language a
sweetness and easiness that is pleasing to all peoples; and the genius
of the nation mingling with the genius of the language has produced more
agreeably written books than can be seen among any other people.

The pleasure and liberty of society having been long known only in
France, the language has received therefrom a delicacy of expression and
a finesse full of simplicity barely to be found elsewhere. This finesse
has sometimes been exaggerated, but people of taste have always known
how to reduce it within just limits.

Many persons have thought that the French language has become
impoverished since the time of Amyot and Montaigne: one does indeed
find in many authors expressions which are no lon