When the World Spoke French

A New York Review Books Original

From the death of Louis XIV to the Revolution-in Sweden, Austria, Italy, Spain, England, Russia, and Germany; among kings and queens, diplomats, military leaders, writers, great ladies, and artists-French was the universal language. This book presents a series of portraits of foreigners who conversed and corresponded in French regardless of their native language, accompanied by excerpts from their letters or other writings, to demonstrate the genius of the language in the period when it was the political and intellectual lingua franca of Europe.

Profiled here are figures familiar to English-speaking readers, such as Catherine the Great, Francisco Goya, Horace Walpole, and Benjamin Franklin. Here too are many who are less well known today: Stanis_as II Augustus Poniatowski, the last king of Poland; Gustave III of Sweden; and Gouverneur Morris, the U.S. ambassador to France during the Terror. All of them were irresistibly attracted to France; to the ideal of human happiness inspired by the Enlightenment, whose capital was Paris; and to the taste, style of living, and modes of social pleasure that spread from France across the Continent. Marc Fumaroli provides glimpses not only into their public and private lives but also into a conception of the “sweetness of life” that France and its language nourished for nearly a century.