[Hardy-l] Hardy's "la politesse du coeur"

[Nathalie Ba]

Thank you Eric for your answer. You must be right as regards Hardy learning the expression from a French teacher. But although it is charming, I just didn't have the feeling it is idiomatic in French. It rather sounds like a nonce phrase to me, an expression a writer may coin because it exactly describes what he\she wants to express. It is like "la jalousie rétrospective", another French expression whose source is given this time by Hardy  (it comes from George Sand and it appears in Hardy's "The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion").
 
Best,
 
Nathalie.     
 
 

--- En date de : Jeu 10.7.08, Eric Christen <ericjchristen at bluewin.ch> a écrit :

De: Eric Christen <ericjchristen at bluewin.ch>
Objet: Re: [Hardy-l] Hardy's "la politesse du coeur"
À: tallyba at yahoo.fr, hardy-l at coyote.csusm.edu
Date: Jeudi 10 Juillet 2008, 14h43



Dear members,   In one of his short stories, "Fellow-Townsmen" (Wessex Tales), Hardy's narrator speaks of la politesse du coeur  (the expression is in French and it is italicized). I looked for the original writer responsible for the expression. It is "Jean Jacques Barthelemy <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Jacques_Barthelemy>  (1716-95), a highly esteemed classical scholar and Jesuit, who published The Travels of Anacharsis the Younger in Greece" in 1788 (I quote from wikipedia). Hardy must have read Barthelemy's book although I can find no reference to it in his literary notes, autobiography or even letters.  Can anyone be of some help?  Thank you a lot in advance!  Nathalie.  

   “la politesse du coeur” is a fairly common – and quite charming – expression in French. Whether Barthélémy actually coined it or just used it is unknown. It is used to contrast pleasant attitudes to formal manners. As Barthélémy is quite forgotten – and must have been a hundred years ago – my guess is that Hardy learnt it from his French teacher while in London. 
    Eric
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