[76] I am greatly indebted to M. Désiré Greffier, author of Les Règles de la composition typographique, à l’usage des compositeurs, des correcteurs et des imprimeurs, and to his publisher, M. Arnold Muller, of the Imprimerie des Beaux-Arts, 36 Rue de Seine, Paris, for permission to translate and make extracts from this useful brochure.—H. H.

[77] M. Greffier carefully explains that in putting capitals to the articles in the case of these and similar names he differs from the Académie française.—H. H.

[78] Many now write ‘Dante’ for ‘le Dante’; ‘Tasse’ is also met with for ‘le Tasse’.—H. H.

[79] M. Reyne, proof-reader in the National Government Printing-Office, Paris, tells me that there is no uniformity of practice in French printing-offices in regard to the accentuation of capital letters generally, although there is a consensus of opinion as to retaining accents for the letter E. As to the grave accent on the capital letter A, the two extracts which follow are sufficient authority:

‘The letter A, when a capital, standing for à, is never accented by French printers. This, I know, is a rule without exception; and one of the reasons given is that the accented capital is “ugly”. A better reason is that the accent often “breaks off”.’—Mr. Léon Delbos, M.A., late Instructor in French to Royal Naval Cadets in H.M.S. ‘Britannia’.

‘The practice of omitting the grave accent on the preposition A (whatever the reason of it may be) is all but universal.’—Mr. E. G. W. Braunholtz, M.A., Ph.D., Reader in the Romance Languages in the University of Cambridge. [H. H.]

[80] ‘The rule about è instead of é, as in collège instead of collége, should be strictly adhered to, as it now is by most French people. However, é cannot be changed into è unless it have that sound; hence it is not right to say Liègeois, for the sound is that of é; but Liège is correct. Note that Liégeois takes an e after the g.’—Mr. Léon Delbos.

[81] The list is from Gasc’s Dictionary of the French and English Languages: G. Bell & Sons, 1889.

[82] The English practice, never to put a space before a comma, is regarded by the best French printers as bad. ‘This vicious practice’ (i.e. putting no space before a comma), says M. Théotiste Lefevre, ‘which appears to us to have no other motive than the negligence of the compositor, tends unhappily, from day to day, to get introduced also into French composition.’—Guide pratique du compositeur et de l’imprimeur typographes (p. 196 n.) par T. Lefevre. Paris, Firmin-Didot, 1883.—H. H.

[83] St-Germain, Ste-Catherine, l’église de St-Sulpice, St-Hilaire, la St-Jean, are however met with in railway time-tables, &c.

[84] Mm. Km. Hm. These capitals and all the metric contractions are authorized by the French Minister of Public Instruction.—H. H.

[85] That is, words foreign to French.—H. H.