NEW METHOD OF LEARNING THE FRENCH LANGUAGE; EMBRACING BOTH THE Analytic and Synthetic Modes of Instruction: BRING ▲ PLAIN AND PRACTICAL WAY OF ACQUIRING THE ART OF READING, SPEAKING, AND COMPOSING FRENCH. ON THE PLAN OF WOODBURY'S METHOD WITH GERMAN. BY LOUIS FASQUELLE, LL.D. PROFESSOR OF MODERN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF Autant de langues on parle, autant de fois on est homme.-CHARLES V. REVISED AND IMPROVED. NEW YORK: IVISON, BLAKEMAN, TAYLOR, & COMPANY, 138 & 140 GRAND STREET. CHICAGO: 133 & 135 STATE STREET. 1876. We have published for the use of Teachers, "A KEY TO THE EXERCISES IN FASQUELLE'S NEW FRENCH METHOD, with occasional Notes and References to the Rules, by Louis Fasquelle, LL.D., etc." Price The "Key" can be sent by mail, by sending the publishers the price in P. O. stamps. HARVARD Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the ELECTROTYPED B SMITH & MCDOUGAL, 82 & 84 BEEKMAN-ST. то The Lovers of the French Language AND LITERATURE, THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES, This bolume IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. PREFACE. THE universality of the French language furnishes sufficient proof of its utility. Throughout Europe, in many parts of Asia, Africa, and America, no education is complete without a knowledge of that tongue, which in more than one country of Europe is emphatically called "the language." Its merits are becoming so well appreciated in this country, that it is almost unnecessary to particularize them, to speak of its unsurpassed precision and clearness, and of its capability of expressing every idea, in the most laconic and in the most ornamental style. The language of France, that happy compound of the Celtic, the Romanic and the Teutonic elements, is equally adapted to the lightest literature and to the most profound diction of science. The rich mines of French literature, too long but imperfectly known here, offer in every department of knowledge treasures equal to those presented by the literature of any other nation. Many works have been published in this country and in England to facilitate the acquisition of the French language; but during his more than twenty years' practice in teaching the modern languages, the author of this volume has in vain looked for the appearance of a book which, like several of the French grammars published in Germany, should unite in due proportions theory and practice. To the high merits of several of the theoretical grammars he bears his most cheerful testimony; yet, the student might go through them, and know but little of the idiomatic or practical part of the language. Several of the practical works, though well executed according to the plans which their authors had laid, neglect grammatical rules, if not entirely, at least far too much; and the student may, after having devoted a long time to the mere memorizing of sentences, |