f the numerous treatises composed in this country for the
benefit of those who wished to keep up their knowledge of French said:
"Sweet French is the finest and most graceful tongue, the noblest speech
in the world after school Latin, and the one most esteemed and beloved
by all people.... And it can be well compared to the speech of the
angels of heaven for its great sweetness and beauty."[398]

In spite of these praises, the end of French, as the language "most
esteemed and beloved," was near at hand in England. Poets like Gower
still use it in the fourteenth century for their ballads, and prose
writers like the author of the "Croniques de London"[399]; but these are
exceptions. It remains the idiom of the Court and the great; the Black
Prince writes in French the verses that will be graven on his tomb:
these are nothing but curious cases. Better instructed than the lawyers
and suitors in the courts of justice, the members of Parliament continue
to use it; but English makes its appearance even among them, and in 1363
the Chancellor has opened the session by a speech in English, the first
ever heard in Westminster.

The survival of French was at last nothing but an elegance; it was still
learnt, but only as Madame de Sevigne studied Italian, "pour entretenir
noblesse." Among the upper class the knowledge of French was a
traditional accomplishment, and it has continued to be one to our day.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century the laws were still, according
to habit, written in French; but complaints on this score were made to
Henry VIII., and his subjects pointed out to him that this token of the
ancient subjection of England to the Normans of France should be
removed. This mark has disappeared, not however without leaving some
trace behind, as laws continue to be assented to by the sovereign in
French: "La Reine le veut." They are vetoed in the same manner: "La
Reine s'avisera"; though this last manner is less frequently resorted to
than in the time of the Plantagenets.

French disappears. It does not disappear so much because it is forgotten
as because it is gradually absorbed. It disappears, and so does the
Anglo-Saxon; a new language is forming, an offspring of the two others,
but distinct from them, with a new grammar, versification, and
vocabulary. It less resembles the Anglo-Saxon of Alfred's time than the
Italian of Dante resembles Latin.

The vocabulary is deeply modified. It numbered before the Conque