The spread of French in seventeenth-and eighteenth-century Europe

In the course of the eighteenth century, the Russian nobility was transformed, as we shall see in later sections of this chapter, from an unrefined service class, whose slavish deference to the autocrat had frequently been scorned by western visitors to Muscovy, into a class whose upper stratum, at least, was a culturally sophisticated, self-respecting corporation with numerous contacts and affinities with western peers. While this transformation was taking place, it was France that happened to provide the most widely admired models for Europe's royal courts, aristocratic society, and literary and learned communities. Naturally, the French language was the principal vehicle for these models on foreign soil. The spread of French across Europe and its function in the dissemination of elite French culture (we use the term ‘culture’ in a broad sense) were described long ago by Ferdinand Brunot in his massive History of the French Language. More recently, Marc Fumaroli has paid nostalgic tribute to the French language and the cultural achievement associated with it up until the French Revolution of 1789. Here, as background to our survey of the historical contexts in which French was adopted in Russia and subsequently used there, we shall draw attention to the factors that significantly contributed to the spread of French language and culture across Europe from the grand siècle, the age of Louis XIV, whose personal rule lasted from 1661 to his death in 1715.

First, French was associated in late seventeenth-and eighteenth-century Europe with a way of life unrivalled on the continent at that time in its refinement, gaiety, good taste (bon goût), and comfort (douceur de vivre). This way of life was cultivated at the sumptuous court of Louis XIV at Versailles and more generally by the aristocracy of France under the ancien regime. It was associated above all with Paris, the city par excellence in the post- Renaissance, pre-industrial age in which francophonie flourished and the place where the knowledge, skills, and resources required to sustain the new refinement were concentrated. Indeed, the art of living well (l’art de vivre) was distinguished by urbanity, in the literal sense of ‘urban life’ as well as in the sense of courtesy or politeness (politesse).