Antiquaries in the Age of Romanticism: 1789-1851 - Queen Mary ...

Norman troubadour manuscripts of the twelfth century, the authors of which had English names
was a point, he noted to Douce, against Thomas Percy(1729-1811), compiler of the popular but
academically flawed Reliques of Ancient English Poetry of 1765. De la Rue noted it as a point
for ‘votre ami son antagoniste’ [your friend his enemy] who was probably Joseph Ritson. 20
Between them Douce and de la Rue managed to get the Abbé’s paper ‘On Anglo-Norman
Poets’ read (by Douce) to the Society of Antiquaries on 29 March 1798 and it was eventually
published in the Society’s journal, Archaeologia, although not before de la Rue had complained
several times of the delay adding:
A quoi bon tirer des tenebres des hommes qui honorerent l’angleterre, pour que la societe des antiquaries les y
replonge en ne faisant pas imprimer mes dissertations. [What is the point of drawing from obscurity these men who
did honour to England, only for the Society of Antiquaries to submerge them again by failing to publish my
work.] 21
Douce, who managed with great difficulty to get a copy of the published article through to de la
Rue in Paris, may have been irritated when the Abbé expressed disappointment at receiving only
one.
As these instances of his correspondence suggest de la Rue was as pugnacious as the next
antiquary but not in any narrow sense a nationalist, neither French nor, despite his gratitude to
the country that had given him refuge, English. He made up his mind on the basis of the evidence
and confided in friends as he found them. Thus he was willing to share with Douce his latest
researches while playing his cards rather closer to his chest with M Le Grand, librarian at the
Bibliothèque Nationale who was always trying to draw him out about his theories. ‘Je reste
boutonné’ he told Douce [I keep the stopper in]. 22 Writing in 1813, from Caen about the new
catalogue of manuscripts in the British Museum by Henry Ellis (1777-1869), another friend of
Douce, de la Rue was highly critical, (as were many others) accusing Ellis of misdating texts and
of ignoring thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman writers in order to give a longer history to English
20
Douce/de la Rueletters, f4, 12 May, 1798. Ritson maintained a long campaign against Percy, accusing him of
manipulating his sources.
21
Douce/de la Rue letters, f12v, 15 fructidor, an 8 (2 September 1800).
22
Douce/de la Rue letters, f4, 12 May, 1798.
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