One was obliged then to cultivate
French; but the language was neither noble nor regular. The syntax was
left to caprice. The genius for conversation being turned to
pleasantries, the language became very fertile in burlesque and naive
expressions, and very sterile in noble and harmonious terms: from this
it comes that in rhyming dictionaries one finds twenty terms suitable
for comic poetry, for one for more exalted use; and it is, further, a
reason why Marot never succeeded in a serious style, and why Amyot could
render Plutarch's elegance only with naivete.
French acquired vigour beneath the pen of Montaigne; but it still had
neither nobility nor harmony. Ronsard spoiled the language 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.
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