counter-investigation into a national myth – L’Express

Let’s start again. In the collective imagination, this famous ordinance signed in 1539 by François I in this Aisne castle would have made French the official language of the State. The website of the “international city of the French language” which Emmanuel Macron will inaugurate on October 30 states this without batting an eyelid: “Its articles 110 and 111 impose French in all acts of legal significance in the administration and justice of the kingdom.” Only small detail: according to most historians and linguists who have looked closely at this subject, this assertion is simply erroneous. We will very quickly understand why.

As always in History, it is essential to start by looking at the original text. Now, what does this one say? In article 111, it states: “We want from now on all judgments […] be pronounced, recorded and delivered to the parties in native French language and not otherwise.” The “non otherwise” does not pose a problem: it is a question of chasing away Latin. The whole question consists of knowing what should be understood by these four words: “in French mother tongue.” And there, two schools clash.

The first defends the traditional thesis: “French, and only French”. Its proponents recall the desire of sovereigns to unify a culturally disparate kingdom. The same people add that the Parliaments of Toulouse and Bordeaux, located in the Occitan lands, had already switched to written French in the 15th century. “The prestige of the language had already had its effect and the ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts simply added the signature of the king to a fact,” thus believes the linguist Bernard Cerquiglini. Opinion shared by one of his famous colleagues, Claude Hagège: “Latin was obviously not the only language excluded by the Villers-Cotterêts ordinance. Regional languages ​​were just as excluded, and even more so, because unlike to him, they were very much alive and therefore conceived as potential rivals” [Le français, histoire d’un combat, par Claude Hagège, éditions Michel Hagège].

This interpretation, however, comes up against a major obstacle: it is not written “in françoys”, but “in native françoys language”. However, according to the historian Fernand Braudel, in the 16th century 90% of the population was made up of peasants who, in their overwhelming majority, did not speak French, but Provençal, Basque, Breton, Picardy or Burgundian. Hence this common sense question: if Francis I had really wanted to impose French, and French alone, why on earth would he have added this qualifier “maternal”? Hence the thesis defended by the second school, the most numerous: “in native françoys language” means French AND the other languages ​​of France – at least those which were written, and in particular the langue d’oc.

Their conviction is all the stronger since article 111 is preceded – this is arithmetic – by article 110, which says this: “We want and order [que lesdits arrêts] be made and written so clearly that there is and cannot be any ambiguity or uncertainty.” The king therefore insists on the necessary intelligibility of court decisions. Summary by Charles Baud, doctor of law at Panthéon Assas and author of ‘a thesis from the School of Charters devoted to this famous ordinance [L’ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts (1539) et sa réception jusqu’aux codifications napoléoniennes, par Charles Baud] : “If Francis I wanted the rulings to be understood by the people, there was no point in replacing Latin, which was no longer in use, with French, which was not in use in most of the territory. “

Some jurists of the time were not mistaken. One of them, Pierre Rebuffi, underlined it as early as 1554: “This means in the idiom of the place and maternal […] This is why he said “maternal françoys”, and not simply “françoys”. We also find court decisions subsequent to the publication of the ordinance written in langue d’oc, notably in Toulouse (1539) and Toulon (1557), as the legal historian Sylvain Soleil explains. [“L’ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts, cadre juridique de la politique linguistique des rois de France ?“, dans Langue(s) et Constitution(s), Economica]. Even more significant: “In 1567, the code of King Charles IX cites the ordinance of 1539 in the form “in French Or maternal”, restoring a missing word to indicate the alternative and clarify its clumsy initial wording”, adds the sociolinguist Philippe Blanchet [Cité de la langue française à Villers-Cotterêts : le contresens d’un mythe national, par Philippe Blanchet].

For the majority of specialists, the matter is therefore settled. With this order, Francis I undoubtedly sought to attack Latin – the language of the powerful Catholic Church, towards which he intended to assert his power.. For the rest, the most likely is that it authorized French AND the other languages ​​of France in order to achieve the goal set in article 110: a better understanding of court decisions.

Let’s nuance it. No doubt, deep down, the monarch had a preference for his “françoys” – this is the logic of the State – but he did not have the political means to impose it. “Certain provincial parliaments, before which the king had to register his order, would have opposed such a coup,” continues Charles Baud. So he had to compose. By opting for an ambiguous formula, He set a goal to achieve, hoping that in the long term, there would be an habituation to the central language, as explained by the historian Olivia Carpi, specialist in the 16th century. Which would indeed be the case, but only from the following century.

The routine interpretation of Villers-Cotterêts must therefore be reviewed. “The traditional account of the history of the French language identifies the Ordinance of 1539 as the moment when the French state first imposed French as the national language of France,” writes historian Paul Cohen. as recent work has demonstrated, its authors did not conceive it as an instrument for the linguistic unification of France. It is a myth invented a few decades after the death of François I.” [L’imaginaire d’une langue nationale : l’État, les langues et l’invention du mythe de l’ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts à l’époque moderne en France, par Paul Cohen]

It remains to be understood how such an untruth could have imposed itself on people’s minds – to the point of still being relayed today by public authorities. And, here again, it is History which offers the answer. It must first be remembered that for a long time it was the king who ensured the unity of a country that was profoundly disparate from a cultural point of view. His subjects could speak the language of their choice, as long as they swore loyalty to him. A system that worked quite well until… Louis XVI was beheaded. From then on, it was necessary to find something else, and it was in particular the language that was chosen. “Becoming a secular Republic, France has transferred the sacred to a certain number of symbols, including the French language”, analyzes the linguist Michel Launey [La République et les langues, par Michel Launey, Raisons d’agir]. This is how Villers-Cotterêts became one of the rare texts of the Ancien Régime to save its head, so to speak. “Under the Revolution, the Jacobins used it to prohibit the use of certain regional languages ​​deemed enemies of the Republic, underlines Olivia Carpi. As for the Third Republic, it also contributed to establishing this myth to gain acceptance of French as the only language of instruction. We are completely in the national novel” [L’envers d’un mythe national. L’ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts, par Olivia Carpi].

The most incredible thing is that this myth still has very concrete implications today since this ordinance is the last legislative text of the Ancien Régime to still be applied. Last spring, the Montpellier administrative court referred to it to cancel the deliberations of five municipal councils in the Pyrénées-Orientales wishing to deliberate in Catalan – with a systematic translation into French. Once again giving the advantage to centralizers, convinced that every State needs a single language, and wrong to lovers of cultural diversity, convinced, with Fernand Braudel, that “France is called diversity”.