It is thus employed even by Molière.

Peut-être en avez vous déjà féru quelqu'un.

(Ecole des Femmes, i. 6.)

§ 412. Gésir (strong verb) (jacēre).

Most of the Old French forms employed indifferently e or i:

gesir or gisir, gesant or gisant, etc.

Modern French have i. They are

nous gisons
je gisais

All the forms remaining in

nous gisions

Ci-githic jacet, here lies, is in common use on tombstones. The noun gîte, home, shelter, from Low Latin gistum (same root), is in full use. It has a corresponding verb gîter.

§ 413. Ouïr (weak verb) (audire).

1. The older form of this Infinitive was oir.

Et qu'il vous plaist a oïr ma priere. (Couci, 12th cent.) For au = o, compare causa, chose ;_clausus, clos; aurum, or. For o ou, compare laudare, Old French loer, Modern French louer.

2. Except ouïr and ouï, the various forms are more or less comic.

Till lately the verb was employed throughout. It was thus conjugated:

* Littré gives j'oirai, j'oirais, but this form is not later than the sixteenth century. Compare j'asseoirai, je pourvoirai, etc., (§ 408,) which, like j'oirai, are etymologically incorrect.

=

The O yes listen, of the English criers and law courts, is from the Anglo-Norman infinitive oyer. Oyer is also employed in oyer et terminer, another of the numerous law phrases which have been handed down unaltered from the Norman.

In the seventeenth century there is no trace of degradation in the word:

Si j'oïs maintenant quelque bruit, si je vois ce soleil.
(DESCARTES, 16th century.)
Son sang criera vengeance, et je ne l'orrai pas.

(CORNEILLE.) Et je vous en conjure de toute la dévotion de mon cœur, que nous oyions quelque chose qu'on ait fait pour nous.

(MOLIÈRE.)

On vit souffrir Madame d'Aiguillon, mais on ne l'ouït pas se plaindre. (BOSSUET.)

Des terres presque inconnues ouïrent la parole de vie.

(MASSILLON.)

Even so late as Chateaubriand we have— On n'oyait dans ce gouffre de vapeurs, que le sifflement du (Italie, Le Vésuve.)

vent.

§ 414. Chaloir (strong verb) (calère).

Chaloir, to matter, to be of importance, is almost obsolete. It was in use till the seventeenth century. It has always been impersonal.

(BOILEAU.) (ID.)

Il ne vous doit chaloir, ni de qui, ni combien. J'en suis d'avis pourtant qu'il me chaille. (LA FONTAINE.) Nonchalant, nonchalance, nonchalamment, are in common use; the two first even in English.

Souloir (solere).

La Bruyère (17th cent.) includes souloir in a long list of words which in his time were archaic.

"L'usage a préféré dans les verbes travailler à ouvrer, être accoutumé à souloir, convenir à duire; faire du bruit à bruire; injurier à vilainer," etc.

It occurs occasionally in authors of the seventeenth century, but in the Imperfect tense only.

Chateaubriand employs it in this tense.

§ 415. Choir, échoir, déchoir, méchoir (strong verbs).

1. Choir was in full use till the sixteenth century.

Si un aveugle mene un autre, tous deux cheent en la fosse.

Les resnes lui cheurent des mains.

Au pis-aller n'y cherroit qu'une amende.

(CALVIN.)

(AMYOT.)

(MAROT.)

In the seventeenth century, choir and chu seem alone to have been common. Littré only gives one other example, viz., the Past Simple (Passé Défini). It is from Bossuet: Cet insolent chut du ciel. He calls attention to the fact that the purists of the time, to whom we owe the loss of so many useful words, had in the end of the seventeenth century rejected it from their vocabulary :

'Prenez garde de choir :' façon de parler bourgeois, dit de Caillères, 1670.

2. The Future, cherrai, écherrai, décherrai, mécherrai, are of regular formation according to the principle explained in §§ 392, 398. Compare verrai. Littré also gives choirai, échoirai, déchoirai, as available forms, but they are modern, and strictly speaking, irregular. The only example he gives under choir, échoir, or déchoir, is one from Diderot, 1767. Je crois que l'école a beaucoup déchu, et qu'elle déchoira davantage. Compare asseoirai, pourvoirai, etc. (408).

3. To meschéant, the now obsolete Present Participle of méchoir, to have ill luck, we owe méchant. The sense is: (1) to have bad luck; (2) to be good for nothing; (3) to be wicked. (See Position of Adjectives in SYNTAX.)

§ 416. Bruire (weak verb), (to) rustle.

The existing forms, bruyant, il bruit, ils bruyent, il bruyait, ils bruyaient, etc., are being rapidly superseded by bruissant, il bruisse, ils bruissent, il bruissait, ils bruissaient, etc. (See faillir, vêtir, etc., § 388.) Compare:

Les serpents à sonnettes bruyaient de toutes parts.

(CHÂTEAUBRIAND.) La ville bruissait à ses pieds comme une ruche pleine.

(LAMARTINE.) Bruyant, noisy, is common as an adjective. Compare also bruit, noise.

§416A. Braire (weak verb), (to) bray.

Braire, brayant, je brais,

- brait.

The tenses are formed regularly from the existing principal

parts.

§ 417. Sourdre (weak verb) (surgère).

Sourdre is a doublet of surgir. Surgir dates from the sixteenth century sourdre is the Old French form. It is rare even in the following parts:

Des eaux chaudes qui sourdent (jaillissent) aux rives de la

mer.

(MALHERBE.)

Là sourdait une eau qui avait la propriété de rajeunir.

De cette grâce sourdit une dispute.

(LA FONTAINE.)

(ST. SIMON.)

(V. HUGO.)

Nous entendrons ces millions de morts sourdre confusément dans leurs sépulcres. Sors, the old Past Participle, has left a feminine form employed as a noun: source.

§ 418. Soudre (strong verb) (solvere).

1. Soudre (English, solve) was in common use till the sixteenth century. Its conjugation was like that of the compound which has displaced it in Modern French, viz., résoudre.

Ledict Panurge solut tres bien le probleme. (RABELAIS.) Now it is employed in Infinitive only, and even there rarely. 2. In Old French, soudre, absoudre, dissoudre, résoudre, had each two Past Participles, one in -sols or -sous, the other in -solu. Absoudre and dissoudre have adopted the form in sous. Résoudre has both résous and résolu. But the meaning is different. Résous is confined to the meaning of 'changed into. Le brouillard s'est résous en pluie.

Dissolu, absolu, are employed as adjectives: un homme dissolu, un pouvoir absolu.

Strangely enough, the French forms which least resemble the Latin, alone restore in the feminine the t of the Latin:

dissous

dissoute

$419. Frire (weak verb).

Frire, -, je fris -, frit.

The tenses are formed regularly from the existing principal parts.

§419A. Issir (weak verb) (exire).

This verb was in use till the sixteenth century.

Et issirent

tous ceux de Londres.

(FROISSART, 15th cent.)

Non que j'eusse opinion qu'il pust issir de moy, chose qui meritat d'etre mise devant vos yeux.

The Past Participle issu alone remains.

(AMYOT, 16th cent.)

§ 420. Tistre and tisser (weak verbs).

Tistre is the regular form obtained from texère. It has only left tissu.

Moi seule, j'ai tissu le lien malheureux.

(RACINE.)

(LAMARTINE.)

Tes jours furent tissus de gloire et d'infortune.

Tisser has taken its place.