“A kiss, but all in all, what is it? An oath made a little closer, a more precise promise, a confession that wants to be confirmed, a pink dot that you put on the i of the verb to love; it’s a secret that takes the mouth for the ear, a moment of infinity that sounds like a bee, a communion that tastes like a flower, a way of a little breathing the heart, and a little taste, at the edge of the lips, the soul! »
— Cyrano de Bergeracact III, scene X
My parents, quite early on, made us love great works. The one who marked me for life is Cyrano de Bergerac. You could find everything there. Uprightness. Courage. The ideal. Absolute love.
But it is above all the beauty of the words that I found there. The beauty of perfect sentences, what is sometimes called the genius of the French language.
It would be sick1 if the beautiful words and beautiful sentences of our language became more fashionable than the vocabulary of American broadcasts. That would be wonderful if our elected officials tried to get us to adopt sophisticated words rather than talking to the National Assembly about shaker the columns of the temple, top gun and of wet dream.
The French language contains everything it needs to become again what it has long been and still is outside of Canada: a prestigious language.
When my father was getting old, he cried out, quoting Don Diègue, a character from the cid de Corneille: “O rage, O despair. O enemy old age! “. It made me want to read the whole piece, a piece where we find several other superb very useful verses:
To welcome a compliment: “Such a charming speech cannot be overheard”.
To denounce ageism: “I am young it is true; but to well-born souls
Value does not wait for the number of years”.
To avoid the word “old”: “His wrinkles on his forehead have engraved his exploits,
And still tell us what it once was.
To underline the return of the teams to the locker room: “And the fight ceased for lack of fighters”.
To denounce the great who dominates the small: “To conquer without danger, one triumphs without glory”.
Comics can also transmit the love of words. Achille Talon, for example, is the king of vocabulary. I read it happily… and with a dictionary!
Achille Talon does not arrive at home, but in “the cozy serenity of the protective hearth”. Each of his sentences is a discovery: “I woke up this morning from the seraphic sleep to which only deferential taxpayers can claim.” “I ignore with a haughty foot the malevolent allusions of a vulgar and heavy spirit that my artistic gifts splash with contempt”. And in winter: “I will clear the driveway with flexibility, speed and my shovel”, etc.
At the turn of a hilarious phrase, Achille’s philosophical question: “But… But this flower has passed away!” Hey! Yes. What do you put on the grave of a flower? “.
The beauty of the language is also Chloé Sainte-Marie who sings Miron: “I walk to you, I stagger to you, I die of you”. It was Joséphine Bacon who “made herself beautiful so that people would notice the marrow of my bones, survivor of a story that is not told”. It was Paul-Émile Borduas who wrote to his lover: “It is up to us to make our next meeting a marvel”. It’s Victor Hugo for whom: “Art is human thought that breaks all chains!” […], slave people, it makes you free, free people, it makes you great! “.
The beauty of the language is also my wife who said to me as I jumped into the car to join her: “I can’t wait for you to be within reach”.
I don’t know what the impact of an advertisement like the peregrine falcon will be. However, I know that the beauty of the language is the best argument at our disposal to make it loved.
Charles de Gaulle said that “Any man who writes, and who writes well, serves France”. Let’s write well. Let’s talk well. We will serve Quebec.
1. This is a subtle reference to the Government of Quebec advertising, advertising that led to the writing of this column.