I’ve often heard the advice that it’s a mistake to learn vocabulary words in isolation, either as memorized english translations of French word or as memorized French synonyms of a French word. Better, says the recommendation, to remember a sentence that uses the target word so that you learn it in context. I’ve found this advice hard to implement, as I have difficulty remembering whole sentences, especially for the full range of words I’m trying to learn.
But this technique may be more viable for grammar rules. This morning I was doing an exercice on the words tout, toute, tous, and toutes. One of the examples shown was an excerpt from Césaire de Heisterbach, who chronicled the siege of Béziers (between Narbonne and Montpellier) in 1209. It contains this well known (if often re-attributed) passage:
«Comment distinguer les hérétiques des catholique», se demandait-on lors de la prise de la ville de Béziers où vivaient de nombreux cathares, en 1209.
«Tuez-les tous, Dieu reconnaîtra les siens», répondit Arnaud Amaury, légat du pape Innocent III.»
“How shall we distinguish the heathens from the catholics?”, they wondered upon capturing the city of Beziers which, in 1209, still housed many Cathars.
“Kill them all, God will know his own,” replied Arnaud Amaury, the representative of Pope Innocent III.
Ah yes, a classic in the annals of tactics. Bloodshed aside, the point of this passage was illustrate that the word tous, when used as a pronoun meaning “everyone, all of them”, comes after an imperative verb, and also after any direct object there may be. Thus «Tuez-les tous» and not «Tous les tuez», «Tuez-tous-les», etc. Moreover, because «tous» is a pronoun here you pronounce the final “s” rather than leaving it silent as you would in «Tous les deux» or «tous les gens» where it is an adjective. That makes this Béziers passage less than ideal as a canonical example. Even if I overcame my qualms about memorizing a passage about killing heathens, there’s no hint to help me remember to pronounce that final “s”.
Fortunately for me, there preamble to the exercise gives a second example that is right up my alley: a Georges Brassens song excerpt!
De Pierre à Paul en passant par Félicien
Embrasse-les tous, Embrasse-les tous
Dieu reconnaîtra le sien
Passe-les tous par tes armes
Passe-les tous par tes charmes
Jusqu’à ce que l’un deux les bras en croix
Tourne de l’oeil dans tes bras
From Peter to Paul, by way of Félicien
Kiss them all, kiss them all
God will know his own
Dazzle them all with your wiles
Favor them all with your smiles
Til one of them faints in your arms
Swept of his feet by your charms
I love the reference that Brassens makes in this song, and I am thankful to the authors of this grammar text for drawing my attention to it. I vaguely knew the “Kill them all and let god sort it out” line, but didn’t know the particular french structure of it, nor did I think of it when I first herd the Brassens song. I thought he was just doing his usual anarchy-and-free-love thing. But it’s a great bit of literary jiu-jitsu to add in his anti-clericalism and turn the Church-inspired slaughter into an endorsement of promiscuity. That said, if you look past the sentimental and nostalgic music, there’s still a bit of misogyny to these American-in-2020 ears
Anyway, from a pedagogical view point I like this example is a better fit for me. It has the advantage that it is a song with music, which makes it easier for me to remember, and also that I can listen to the recording of Brassens singing it and pronouncing the final “s”.
It so happens that I know another Brassens song, even more ribald, which shows the contrasting pronunciation of «tous» when used as an adjective «Tous les gars».
Quand Margot dégrafait son corsage
Pour donner la gougoutte à son chat
Tous les gars, tous les gars du village
Étaient là, lalala la la la
Étaient là, lalala la la la
When Margot would unclip her blouse
To let her cat nurse from her breasts
All the men, all the men of the village
Would come hooting and howling
Lalala la la la!
If you listen to the whole song, Margot is presented as a simple (but wise?) shepherdess, innocently thinking that the men are there to see a cute kitty-cat that she had adopted when its mother was lost. The men are happy to let her think whatever she like so long as they get their daily peep show. The women of the village are none too happy about it, though, and end up organizing themselves and beating the cat to death. Margot is distraught by this turn of events, takes herself a husband, and from then only shows her charms to him only. Echos of Il était une bergère if you think about it (translation).
And just in case you thought it was only men who sang ribald Brassens songs, here’s a recording of Patachou singing the same song. Recall that Patachou (née Henriette Ragon) is the cabaret nightclub singer who discovered Brassens in 1952, first singing his songs on stage and later getting him up on stage to perform them himself. According to her account, she convinced him to sing because some of his songs were told in the first person by an obviously male character, and presenting audiences with a woman singing them was too much of a stretch.
Finally, I can’t resist including this all-instrumental version of Brave Margot, posted just a few months ago by a classical guitarist