Why did Mark Twain hate the French? ("The Jumping Frog")

[Emil Miller]

Just curious: Did he cite any prostitutes by name?

One seldom remembers the names of prostitutes.

[cacian]

One seldom remembers the names of prostitutes.

I live to conquer Divine Brown is one.

[Nick Capozzoli]

Obviously it is all satire. This is especially evident in The Innocents Abroad and the story of the French duellists:
Satire in The Great French Duel by Mark Twain


Satire is defined as irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity. Twain spends most of his satirical energy attacking the French culture.
He starts with the French Duel. When the word "duel" comes to the mind of an American, we think of bloodshed and the definite casualty of at least one person. Twain tells us that the only danger in fighting a French duel is in the fact that they are held in the open air and "the combatants are nearly sure to catch cold." He goes on to talk about how M. Paul de Cassagnac, the most famous of French duelists, had been told by his physician that "if he goes on dueling for fifteen or twenty years more - unless he forms the habit of fighting in a comfortable room where the damps and drafts cannot intrude - he will eventually endanger his life." The idea that someone could duel for twenty years and never be threatened by anything else but a cold is absurd to us, but Twain uses this idea to poke fun at the French.
Next Twain speaks of the idea of a "French calm." In the story, a French calm is describe to be very different from an English calm. We think of calm as being very relaxed and tranquil. Twain describes Gambetta quite the contrary when he says, "He was moving swiftly back and forth among the debris of his furniture, now and then staving chance fragments of it across the room with his foot, grinding a constant grist of curses through his set teeth, and halting every little while to deposit another handful of his hair on the pile which he had been building of it on the table."
Later in the story, Twain is trying to negotiate the weapons and distance between combatants that will be involved in the duel. He makes the sarcastic suggestion or using brickbats at three quarters of a mile. Not only did the Frenchman take his joke seriously, he came back to him and said that "his principle was charmed with the idea of brickbats at three quarters of a mile, but must decline on account of the danger to disinterested parties passing between."
In reading this story, I kept getting the mental image of a childish Twain jumping up and down yelling, "Sissy, sissy, sissy!"
Satire was a very common happening in this story and Twain uses it flawlessly.

Twain apparently did not hear about Gallois, the brilliant French mathematician who died in a duel. So it seems that he was mistaken about
the non-lethality of French duels...

Of course it's all satire. BTW, Twain was an equal-time practitioner of linguistic satire, and he didn't reserve his satire to the French. He lambasted the Germans...famously commenting that he read a great German story with great interest but was disappointed to find the last few pages missing (where all the verbs were) so he couldn't figure out what had happened... And he had especially sharp criticisms for some fellow American writers, like Cooper.

[cafolini]

Twain apparently did not hear about Gallois, the brilliant French mathematician who died in a duel. So it seems that he was mistaken about
the non-lethality of French duels...

Of course it's all satire. BTW, Twain was an equal-time practitioner of linguistic satire, and he didn't reserve his satire to the French. He lambasted the Germans...famously commenting that he read a great German story with great interest but was disappointed to find the last few pages missing (where all the verbs were) so he couldn't figure out what had happened... And he had especially sharp criticisms for some fellow American writers, like Cooper.

I think Twain meant worthlessness by non-lethality, and that goes along with the case Gallois.

By the way...Gallois = infinity = infinity + x. A very far reaching statement for those who were able to grasp it.

[kev67]

Does anyone remember that song by Prefab Sprout which went, "Hot dog, jumping frog, Albuquerque"? I thought they were just random lines, but maybe they were literary references.

[Nick Capozzoli]

I think Twain meant worthlessness by non-lethality, and that goes along with the case Gallois.

By the way...Gallois = infinity = infinity + x. A very far reaching statement for those who were able to grasp it.

As regards notions of infinity, Georg Cantor had even more "far reaching" statements than did Gallois.

[cacian]

Twain hated the French? maybe he was half French himself and could not speak it and so he resented it. it takes one to know one.

[cacian]

Twain apparently did not hear about Gallois, the brilliant French mathematician who died in a duel. So it seems that he was mistaken about
the non-lethality of French duels...

Of course it's all satire. BTW, Twain was an equal-time practitioner of linguistic satire, and he didn't reserve his satire to the French. He lambasted the Germans...famously commenting that he read a great German story with great interest but was disappointed to find the last few pages missing (where all the verbs were) so he couldn't figure out what had happened... And he had especially sharp criticisms for some fellow American writers, like Cooper.

would not that been his own fault for not checking the book right. how could one hold a book and not realise there were pages missing.?
for a writer he ought to have been more observant.

[SilvanDitties]

would not that been his own fault for not checking the book right. how could one hold a book and not realise there were pages missing.?
for a writer he ought to have been more observant.

I reckon Mr. Twain's trying to be funny with it, poking fun at how the German language is grammatically odd, having their verbs at the end, compared to English.

[cacian]

I reckon Mr. Twain's trying to be funny with it, poking fun at how the German language is grammatically odd, having their verbs at the end, compared to English.

excellent point indeed
I reckon all writer should at least learn two or more languages to be more savvy in the way of things.