French Academy, II: de Vaugelas

Claude Favre de Vaugelas (1585-1650) had a thorough knowledge of the French language, and the "correctness" of his speech won him a spot as one of the original members of the Académie française in 1634. He is considered to be the one who "purified French diction" with his book called Remarques sur la langue française (1647).

His connection to us now?
1. His father Antoine Favre was a powerful Président du Senat of Savoie (around 1600) which was in our town. Antoine Favre's statue resides in the city center where the market is held every Saturday, a spot not far from our home here.

2. Another with the same name de Vaugelas, Jeanne Marie de Vaugelas, our French teachers tell us, gave the definitive shape to the French language as we have it today, around the time of the French Revolution (1789). The regulations regarding the use of the subjunctive, for example, are credit to him.