Parlez-vous Fran愀椀猀?

I KNOW a boy who has never been to school and who has never had a French lesson in his life, but who can speak Frenchfluently. He’s no brighter than you are, either. How do you explain that? It’s because he was born in France. He is a French boy. But there was a time when every one who was anybody, no matter in what country he was born,could speak French. The English kings and nobles and educated people all spoke French; they spoke English only to their servants, who were not supposed to know anything better.

France is only two dozen miles from England—twenty-four miles—but there is water between the two countries andno bridge. The water between England and France is called the English Channel. It might just as well have been called the French Channel, for it doesn’t belong to either England or France. The finest swimmers in the World,both men and women, have come from all over the World just to try to swim across the English Channel. But only a very few have been able to do it. A boat takes only about an hour to cross and an airplane takes even less time.

When you cross over to France you usually leave a place on the English side called Dover and land at a place on theFrench side called Calais, because this is the shortest distance. It’s short, but often so very rough that every one is seasick—then it seems very long. Some day perhaps a tunnel will be made underneath the English Channel.People usually speak of this as the Calais-Dover route, and there is an old catch question, “What is the shortest route from England to France?” One usually answers “Calais- Dover,” but that is wrong, for the shortestway to France is “Dover-Calais.” Some people cross a longer way, landing at other places on the French side. Havre is one of these places. Havre is at the mouth of a river spelled “Seine,” but called “Sane.”