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En Aller À La Moutarde

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Colman Dudley Frank
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Extract

In Romania XXX (1901), p. 388, in his article Villoniana, M. Gaston Paris seeks to illumine some points suggested by M. Auguste Longnon's edition of the works of François Villon. M. Longnon in his note to l. 1783 Grand Testament marks “Aller à la moutarde” as an “expression proverbiale.” Of this summary treatment M. Paris ventures the opinion, “cela ne renseigne pas beaucoup le lecteur. Il était d'usage autrefois, au moment du repas, d'envoyer chercher de la moutarde fraîchement broyée; c'était généralement les enfants qui étaient chargés de cette commission, et il paraît qu'ils allaient d'habitude en bandes, et en chantant des chansons plaisantes sur les événements du jour. De là cette locution si fréquente au xvème et au xvième siècle: ‘Les petits enfants en vont à la moustarde’ pour dire un scandale dont tout le monde parle.”

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , 1910 , pp. 97 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1910

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References

page 97 note 1 Oeuvres Complètes de François Villon par Auguste Longnon,—Alphonse Lemerre, Paris, 1892.

page 97 note 2 It will be noted that all of the examples are of the xvth or of the xvith century.

page 97 note 3 Wolfgang v. Wurzbach: “Die Werke Maistre François Villon”: Rom. Forsch. 16 (1904), p. 539, note to l. 1783, makes this categorical statement: “Es war üblich vor der Mahlzeit die Kinder um Senf zu schicken, wobei diese Lieder über Ereignisse des Tages sangen (?). Daher kam der Ausdruck zu der Bedeutung allgemein bekannt, im Munde aller sein.” The author cites Leroux, ii, 147 and Rom., xxx, 388 (G. Paris).

page 98 note 1 The other etymologies suggested are found in Larousse:

  1. (1)

    (1) < Cymric mostardd = qui émet une forte odeur.

  2. (2)

    (2) < Lat. multum + ardens (against which etymology the most potent argument is the frequency of the writings mostard and moustard).

  3. (3)

    (3) < moult tarde, dévise des ducs de Bourgogne,—Burgundy and especially Dijon, being famous for its mustard. Concerning this etymology, Furetière, Dict. Universel, s. v. moutardier, explains that, in 1382, when King Charles, accompanied by his uncle, Philip the Bald, Duke of Burgundy, was going against the Gantois, who were in rebellion, the town of Dijon raised 1000 men for his army. In return for this courtesy the Duke bestowed upon the city the right to use his coat-of-arms, bearing the device “Moult me tarde,” which, written scroll-shaped, was read by the people moult tarde. This caused the troops and afterwards all Dijonnais to be called moutardiers—and not the fact that Dijon was famed for its mustard. However, Leroux de Lincy in his Proverbes Français, s. v. Dijon, considers this etymology “inventée à plaisir.” He finds it noted in a book published at Rouen in 1640: Toineau Arbeau, Bigarrures et Touches du Seigneur des Accords. But in the Dit de l'Apostoile, which dates from the end of the xiiith century, we find mention of the “moutarde de Dijon,” which proves that the town already had a reputation for its mustard. “Il n'est ville se non Dijon, Il n'est moutarde que à Dijon” (Prov. de Jeh. Michelet, ms. xvème siècle). It is far more probable, then, that the successful industry suggested the device to the Dukes of Burgundy than vice versa.

page 99 note 1 Leroux de Lincy, Proverbes Français, v. ii, 203.

page 100 note 1 Wherever this passage is referred to, as by Littré, Leroux de Lincy, Nisard, du Bellay, et al., the preposition is always inserted (repeated) before la moutarde.

page 100 note 2 In the Bohemian settlement of New York, in the neighborhood of East 72nd St. and Avenue A, where women are for the most part the wage earners, it is a custom to have a sort of central kitchen for the neighborhood, where one woman superintends the cooking for the whole group of families. At meal-time the children come from all about, armed with granite-ware dishes piled one upon the other and carried by a handle. In these they carry back the family meal from this central kitchen. In Germany, it is customary to send children to fetch cooked foods from the restaurants. Cf., too, the vendors of pommes frites in the streets of French cities.

page 101 note 1 Larousse, Dict. Univ. du xixème siècle s. v. moutarde.

page 101 note 2 Cf. supra, p. 98, n. 1 (3).

page 101 note 3 Henri Chabœuf, Dijon, Monuments et Souvenirs, pp. 36 ff.

page 102 note 1 Cf. for example, Daudet, Mule du Pape.

page 102 note 2 Histoire Générale de Paris aux xivème et xvème Siècles. Documents et Ecrits Originaux Recueillis et Edités par Le Roux de Lincy et Tisserand, Paris, 1867, p. 494.

page 103 note 1 Leroux de Lincy, Histoire de l'Hôtel de Ville de Paris, 2ème partie, p. 134 ff.

page 103 note 2 Le Mistère du Vieil Testament, ii, p. 206, l. 13791.

page 104 note 1 Leroux de Lincy, Proverbes Français, sec. xiii, p. 204.

page 104 note 2 Apropos of this example and in view of the similarity of position of the two guilds, the tripe-vendors and the mustard-vendors, the following note is of interest, from Henri Chabœuf's Dijon, Monuments et Souvenirs, p. 39: “On est aussi plus sévère pour les tripiers, qui, établis à l'aise dans les maisons de l'ouest ouvrant par derrière sur le Guzon, faisaient librement de son cours le réceptacle de tous les déchets de leur industrie …. En 1667 Millote, ‘l'antique majeur,’ qui est voisin des tripiers,—son hôtel existe encore Eue Piron 27, et touche au Bourg par les derrières—obtint qu’ il soit interdit aux tripiers de fondre les graisses et de brûler les cornes dans l'intérieur de la ville.”

page 105 note 1 Ch. Nisard, Chansons Populaires; Jeanroy, Origines de la Poésie Lyrique en France au Moyen Age; G. Paris, Les Chansons du xvème siècle. Soc. des Anciens Textes, No. i; Raynaud, Bibliographie des Chansonniers Français; Eainié, Chansonnier du xviiième siècle; Leroux de Lincy, Chants Historiques Français; et al.

page 106 note 1 Leroux de Lincy, Recueil de Chants Historiques Français depuis le xiième jusqu'au xviiième siècle. Paris, mdcccxlii. Introduction.

page 106 note 2 Cf. also Ch. Nisard, Chansons Populaires, Tome i, p. 238, where the occurrence is detailed at some length in a quotation from the work, which is cited in the note under the rather misleading title, Journal de Paris.

page 107 note 1 This song arose from an epidemic of a sort of grippe that raged in Paris at this time (1413).

page 107 note 2 John Payne, The Poems of Master François Villon of Paris done into English verse for the Villon Society, London, mdcccxcii, translates the stanza thus:—

“Item, Jacques Cardon naught of me
(For naught I had for him) shall get—
—Not that he'd throw away, perdie,
Except this roundel, if 'twere set
To some such tune as ‘Marionnette‘
Composed for Marion Slow-to-come
Or ‘Hold your door open, Guillemette‘
It might belike the vogue become.“

page 108 note 1 Note the genitive “dont.”

page 108 note 2 First Edition, of 1550, is by Bartolomi Aneau.

page 108 note 3 Du Bellay, La Defence et Illustration de la Langue Françoyse (1549), p. 214, note. (Ed. by Henri Chamard, chez Albert Fontemoing, Paris, 1904.)

page 108 note 4 Cf. also God., Lex., v. 7, p. 727, s. v. Tirelitenteine, where wrong punctuation blinds the sense. Not given s. v. mostarde.

page 109 note 1 Also lamybaudichon or Gaudichon. Cf. Langlois: Notes et Extraits des Mss. de la Bibl. Frçe., v. xxxiii, p. 179, note 1 (pt. 2): “à propos d'un parchemin du xivème siècle. A la fin du volume, une main du xvème siècle a écrit

'En mey Paris ait une chose
Qui en mey Paris est enclose
Que celle chose osteroit
Par tout le monde pais seroit.'

Also:

'Adont li respont le berger
Comment l'entendez vous?
L'Amin Gaudechon, plumez
Vostre cou, cou, cou, cous.'“

page 109 note 2 The full context reads:

“A Monsieur Dolet
D'Un Détracteur, médisant de luy.
Si ce Baudet, ton scauoir tant peu prise,
Que cà & là, ton nom aille mordent, Consideré sa tresfolle entreprise,
Ce n'est pas trop merveilleux accident.
Son meschant Cuers est assés evident
J'a les enfantz en vont à la moustarde.
Il cognoistra plus a plains, quoy qu'il tarde,
Qu'il a gaigné prendre le frein aux dentz.
Mais à ce sot ce ne fault prendre garde
D'un sac ne sort, que ce qui est dedans.“
(Ch. de Ste. Marthe, Poésie Françoise, p. 33.)

page 110 note 1 Save Quintil Censeur, found in God., Lex., however, s. v. Tirelitenteine, but not s. v. mostarde.

page 110 note 2 Cf. God. Lex. (Complém.) s. v. mostarde.

page 111 note 1 Cf. Littré, Dict., s. v. moutarde.

page 111 note 2 The play deals with the love affairs of Mme Loricat, a lady of some years and much wealth, who is about to espouse Thibaut, her gardener, a young and uncouth peasant. Thibaut enters, out of breath and angry:

“Thib.—Oh palsanguenne, oui, j'ai bien affaire de ça. Mais voyez un peu ces nigauts-là à qui ils en avont.

Mathurine.—Qu'est-ce que c'est donc, M. Thibaut, vous voilà biau de mauvaise humeur?

Thib.—Hé, ventregué, qui ne le seroit pas? N'an se gobargede moi dans tout le village et les petits enfants couront après moi: oh, dame!

Math.—Est-ce que vous leur avez fait queuque chose?

Thib.—Non, voirement, c'est notre Madame qui est cause de ça.

Math.— Mme Loricat?

Thib.—Avec son mariage qu'elle dit qui sera secret et tout le monde en va à la moutarde.

Math.—Eh biau, tant mieux pour vous, cela vous fait honneur.

Thib.—Queu peste d'honneur? ils se gaussont trestous de moi, vous dis-je.“

page 112 note 1 It is a well-known fact that the mustard-plant scatters its pollen far and wide, takes root easily, grows luxuriantly, and spreads rapidly. This fact no doubt aided the development of the figurative sense of this locution. Just so rumor flies, gossip spreads, and slander takes root.

page 112 note 2 Attention should be called to the large number of locutions made on the word moutarde, most of which are of no concern for this study. Indeed, it is of the utmost importance to keep entirely separate and distinct two lines of meanings of the term. The signification unimportant for us can be indicated by the phrase le baril de moutarde, colloquial for le derrière, which suggests at once an idea entirely foreign to this stndy. Closely connected, however, are such locutions as the following: moutard = enfant, also gamin, the street waif. The question suggests itself, does not this appellation arise from the custom of the little children to go for mustard? Envoyer à la moutarde = to send about one's business—there, my child, go and get the mustard, don't bother me. Et le reste en moutarde, said of a man who cannot justify his accounts, equivalent to the college youth's bill for sundries. S'amuser à la moutarde = to waste time, probably lounging about the mustard-vendors' shops or carts. S'en aller à la moutarde is said of a man who has dropped in the social scale, fallen to the rabble, gone to the dogs. S'en moutarder likewise applies to people who sink in station, especially to those who fall thru drinking. The modern dictionaries of French slang do not include this locution, at least not Billaudeau, Recueil de Locutions; Marcel Schwob, Etude sur l'Argot Français; Albert-Lévy et G. Pinet, L'Argot de l'X. Neither has it seemed possible to connect with the French locution the modern English slang phrase “all to the mustard,” a symbol of unusual excellence.

It will be seen from the nature of the examples of the locution en aller à la moutarde, from the statements of the vast amount of mustard consumed in the Middle Ages, and from the etymology of Diez, that the mustard of the Middle Ages was quite a different product from that of to-day, altho it is a noteworthy fact that the modern condiment is used to a far greater extent in France than in any other modern country. The name of the mustard seed was Lat. sinapsis > germc. sinap > goth. sinaps > ger. senf, which maintained itself in German, while French developed a name from the mixing-fluid mout < Lat. mustum, and the condiment undoubtedly was in texture quite as fluid as mout, the new wine, which entered into its composition. Note in the example from Le Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris, that the children go “au vin ou à la moutarde”; it is juxtaposed with wine; note that the amount of its consumption is measured by the hundreds of liters, and note further such allied locutions as baveur comme un pot à moutarde (Leroux de Lincy, Prov. Franç., t. ii, p. 303), “foaming as a wine-pot,” a much stronger simile than foaming as a mustard-pot (which never has been known to foam); et le reste en moutarde is said of a man whose accounts do not reckon up exactly—the rest in drink; il s'en est allé à la moutarde is said of the man who frequents the dram-shops. All of these locutions point to a very liquid condiment. In strong support of this theory comes the Span. word mostazo, according to the Dicc. de la Acad. Real. = mosto fuerte, strong new wine.