Introduction: attitudes towards change in the seventeenth century

Change presupposes variation. In a century that witnessed the imposition of the ideology of the standard, change was at times regretted since standardization is ‘partly aimed at preventing or inhibiting linguistic change’ (Milroy and Milroy 1991: 36). The remarqueurs, from Vaugelas on, are very much preoccupied with change, aware of the difference between the language of their sixteenth-century predecessors and that of ‘modern authors’. Moreover, they typically considered that the French language had reached a state of perfection which could be jeopardized by any change, or ‘corruption’ of the language. Of Vaugelas's 549 observations, nearly one-fifth focus on changes in usage, and the evolution of French is also discussed in general terms in his Preface. Likewise, Marguerite Buffet devotes one of the four parts of her work to ‘Termes barbares & trop anciens’, and the largest number of her observations which explicitly refer to variation are devoted to this parameter. Significant numbers of observations concerned with changing usage are also found in Ménage 1675 (fifty-five observations) and Andry de Boisregard 1689 (sixty observations); Ménage's comments are particularly valuable since his detailed citation of authors provides a much finer calibration of the chronology of the changes he discusses. His chronological horizon also stretches back much further than that of many of his contemporaries.