Sparks Commentary: My experience with political philosophy in French

This is a follow-up to a blog post from 2014. (For this earlier post, click here.)

I wrote a post some years ago about my experience with French (available here), in which I told how I had used my French up to that time. I’ve done a number of things with my French since that time which merit an update of this post. These involve reading some political philosophers in the original – mainly Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Tocqueville. I have blog posts about each of these three individuals with a discussion of their respective ideas elsewhere, so I will not attempt to duplicate that coverage here. Rather, I will describe the experience of reading these men in the original French; and what it felt like to use my French in this new way.

François-Marie Arouet, better known as “Voltaire” – more about what I read from him later

How (and when) did I gain the desire to read political philosophers in the original French?

It all started on a camping trip around New Year’s Day 2010 for me, while I was still in college. I was actually reading Montesquieu in English at that time, although not all the way through. I noted that reading it would require more time than I then had available to me, since I was still in college at that time. I found what little I had read then to be quite fascinating, and dreamed of reading it in its entirety “some day.” Nonetheless, I made no definite plans about when to read it at that time. The thought occurred to me that since I already knew French by that time, I could actually read it in the original some day; and I thought that this might be a good idea. Nonetheless, I again made no plans at that time about when to do it. It was a possibility for my bucket list, though, and I count the journey as beginning then. (I also considered reading Karl Marx in German at that time, but that’s a story for another post.)

Plato, an author that I have since read in the original Greek

How (and when) did I finally commit to doing this?

When I decided some years later to learn the Ancient Greek language, I thought about reading Plato in the original. I was reminded of how I had once dreamed of reading Montesquieu in the original French some years earlier, but had indefinitely postponed it to some future time. I had the thought come into my mind: “Why not do it now?” Thus, I decided to read Montesquieu in the original French sooner, rather than later. (I later added Rousseau and Tocqueville to the list as well, but I’m getting ahead of myself here.) I obtained a copy of Montesquieu’s magnum opus in French from Amazon France, and began reading him in 2015 – five years after the events of that campout. Since then, “the rest is history,” as they say; and I have gone on to read all of these authors in the original French. Specifically, I read at least one work in the original from each author. (More on which works I read later.)

Baron de Montesquieu

Some comments on the difficulty of reading French out loud, after several years away from it

I was a little out of practice with French pronunciations at this time, since all of my prior readings in French had been silent. (And I include the scriptures in this category, since these had been my primary language readings since taking my last French class.) But I discovered that it was hard to imagine the pronunciations in my mind correctly, or even semi-correctly, when I wasn’t reading it out loud. Thus, I started to read it out loud before I got very far into Montesquieu’s book, “De l'esprit des lois.” My pronunciations were probably not correct very often, but I was at least attempting a correct pronunciation. I sometimes worried that I was acquiring some bad pronunciation habits in the process of reading it out loud, but I like to think that I could still have re-learned the language quickly if I ever became immersed in it in a French-speaking country (and still could today, I hope). If I ever went to a Francophone country somewhere, there would definitely be an adjustment period for me. But I might well have an advantage over people who have never studied the language at all, or whose experience with it has been limited to classrooms.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Juggling French with other languages, like Spanish and Ancient Greek

Reading in French definitely improved my mastery of the language, and so I continued to do it as much as I could, even though I was juggling a vast number of other projects – including language projects – at the same time. (Spanish and Ancient Greek, for example, along with a number of English projects of various kinds.) Re-learning correct pronunciations might thus be something like switching to a different dialect of the language, from the one that I had been creating in my own head. But the grammar of the “dialect” would basically be the same, even if the pronunciations would be somewhat different owing to my continued isolation from other French speakers – and particularly native speakers. Although I had only been exposed to native French speaking in my earlier stages of learning the language, I did have some influence from some of the best written sources of centuries ago, all written by native speakers.

Statue of Rousseau on the Île Rousseau, Geneva

What did I read in the original French? (See the details below)

So without further ado, these are the books that I read in the original French:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, later in life

I read Baron de Montesquieu’s “De l'esprit des lois” (“The Spirit of Laws”) from January 2015 through January 2018, which was approximately three years (depending upon which days of the month are used here). This is a book that influenced the United States Constitution, which was quoted by Madison and Hamilton in the Federalist Papers.
I read Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes” (“Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men”) from January 2018 to June 2018, which was approximately six months.
I read Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “Du contrat social, ou principes du droit politique” (“The Social Contract, or Principles of Political Right”) from July 2018 to December 2018, which was also approximately six months.
I read a letter from Voltaire to Rousseau in French (which I link to here), and three brief essays written by Voltaire, from December 2018 to January 2019. These two projects actually took me only a few weeks combined together, because they were so short. The three essays were all part of Voltaire’s “Lettres philosophiques sur les anglais” (“Philosophical Letters on the English”). Specifically, I read #8: “Sur le parlement” (“On the Parliament), #9: “Sur le gouvernement” (“On the Government”), and #10: “Sur le commerce” (“On Trade”).
And finally, I read Alexis de Tocqueville’s “De la démocratie en Amérique” (“Democracy in America”) from March 2019 to July 2022, which was a little over three years. This is one of the most influential foreign commentaries on American government.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Conclusion: These experiences may have a lasting effect upon my French fluency

I have thus now read every work from my earlier French list. I have no others that I’m planning to read at this time. Therefore, I will return to getting my practice in a slightly different way. When my family reads the scriptures in English, I will follow along in French, translating from French into English when it’s my turn. It’s true that I won’t be reading stuff in the original, and that this is no longer on my to-do list. Nonetheless, I think that I’ll remain glad that I got some experience with French authors in the original. When most people think of French literature, they think of fictional works like “Les Misérables” or “The Count of Monte Cristo.” Under this definition, I don’t have much experience with reading literature in any language, let alone French. But in a broader sense of the word, one might say that I have read some “French literature.” Reading political philosophers in the original is no easy task, and I have now spent seven years doing it. I am sure that these experiences will have a lasting effect upon my fluency in the language, and that I will remember things from these readings for many years to come.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Footnote to this blog post:

One French word actually came up a lot in my political philosophy readings. More than any other, it seemed difficult to translate. The word is “mœurs,” and it can translate to societal customs, manners, and morals. When I read Montesquieu in French, I was astonished by the number of translations that my English edition offered for it, since I was reading a translation side-by-side with the original. When I read Rousseau in French, the translator singled out this particular word as a difficult one to translate, and said that they would only translate it as “mores” (pronounced “morays”), although they noted that many other translations were also possible here. Tocqueville also made extensive use of this word.

These things convinced me that this word is an important concept for most (if not all) French political philosophy.

The post that you just read is a follow-up to a blog post from 2014. (For this earlier post, click here.)

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