On N'Achete Pas les Enfants dans les Drug Stores

Abstract

WHAT has been the effect of the impact of American English on modern French? In view of the many contacts between Americans and Frenchmen in recent years, it would be surprising indeed if evidence of American influence were not discernible. A convenient opportunity to arrive at some notion of that influence is afforded in a novel of the Second World War, Emigres de luxe, by Maurice Dekobra, published by Brentano in 1941. Since the action of most of the novel takes place in and around New York, and since most of the characters are American, the author uses a great many English words and a great many Americanisms. His only restraint in this regard, we may assume, would be his sense of the ability of his French readers to understand these outlandish terms. Because Dekobra is a skillful writer, with many successful novels behind him, may we not also assume that his judgment as to what Americanisms his readers would understand can be trusted? A justifiable conclusion, then, would be that the English words and the Americanisms used by Dekobra have, to some degree at least, become a part of the French language. Emigris de luxe is the story of an Austrian movie actress who escapes from the concentration camp where she has been interned by the Germans and appeals for shelter at the chateau of the Duc de Brancourt. The much-married duke himself takes an interest in her, hides her from the German agents, marries her, and after the fall of the Third Republic, brings her to America. The S.S. Toledo, with its 225 refugees, docks in New York on page 61 of this 404-page novel, and after that, the action is wholly in New York and at Ivy Lodge, the palatial mansion near Tarrytown, New York, where live the two unmarried sisters of the duke's first wife, together with June, eighteen-year-old daughter of the duke by this earlier marriage. Lest the reader unfamiliar with Dekobra conclude that this is another 'sentimental novel for chambermaids,' I hasten to add that it is highly sophisticated and even gay as the French know how to be gay in the midst of a good deal of misery. His revenues cut off as a result of the German invasion of France, the duke is faced with the problem of earning a living in the New World, a problem which he solves with no great expenditure of blood, sweat, and tears by becoming first a master of ceremonies in a night club and later a popular lecturer before women's clubs, on the subject of how to use that charm, or, according to the billing: 'Your Heart Is My