The Avertins' grandchildren are currently staying with us, here in Tours. Arthur is ten years old, Dauphne is eight. Having several years' experience as a counselor at a summer camp, and possessing a fair knowledge of what to expect from American children, I have tried to get an idea of what French children are like from Arthur and Dauphne.
Dauphne and Arthur are very friendly and energetic, surprisingly courteous, and some of the best-behaved children I have met (although Dauphne occasionally needs reminders from her Papi to cut the chatter at the dinner table). Both of them are excited to help me learn French, defining and spelling words that they use, on demand, and when they passed the Institute on a guided tour of Tours, they wanted to visit Misaki and me (classes were all over, though). When I told Dauphne that she was my "petite professeur," she ran and told the nearest grandparent. They are very fond of their Uncle Jerome (whom they call "JJ"), who lives in Tours, and often comes to spend the evening with his parents, and a few nights ago, they passed the night with him, and in the morning, baked cookies.
In French literature class (an after-class elective at the Institute), the professor told us that all French children can recite by heart La Fontaine's famous poem of "Le Corbeau et le Renard" ("The Crow and the Fox"), and proceeded to demonstrate that forty years had not dulled his memory in the least. I prompted the two, by asking if they knew La Fontaine. Dauphne shook her head, but Arthur remembered him, with a little bit of prompting from his grandparents. As I had hoped, he began to recite the famous poem; however, after six lines, he stopped, unable to remember the rest of the words: I didn't press the matter, and the conversation turned to other matters.
Daphne owns a Nintendo DS, which she calls a "Nintendo DS." Which is strange, because the word for "screen" in France is "ecran;" therefore, shouldn't it be a "DE" or "ED?" Or maybe, it's simply cheaper for the manufacturer to create a single mold, and not worry about translation? I haven't asked her what "DS" stands for, though.
I haven't seen Daphne or Arthur reading, but I'm not home most of the time, and I don't see them when they're in bed. I don't know whether they read before they go to bed or not.
Both children finish absolutely everything on their plates, and the last two night in a row, Daphne has eaten her dinner, but refused dessert.
Curious as to whether they knew the historic friendship between our two countries, I showed the two children a picture of the best-loved American in France. Zero recognition. When they learned that the man in the picture's name was Benjamin Franklin, the situation did not change. Neither of them had heard of him. I am certain that I would not have recognized a picture, of, say, Lafayette, when I was ten years old, but I would have known his name. Unfair comparison? Probably; to my understanding, French aid during the American Revolution made a significantly greater difference in the history of the US (i.e. victory) than it did in that of France.
I played "cache-cache" with the children last night. "Cacher" is the verb "to hide" in French, and the game was identical to "hide-and-go-seek." Daphne was small enough to slither under the bureau while Arthur counted to "cinquante" (fifty), but I was too large to fit anywhere other than underneath the desk which holds the family's desktop computer. M. Avertin came home just as Arthur had begun searching, and asked me what I was doing under the desk. I explained to him that "on est en train de jouer a cache-cache," and he began to laugh (but Arthur didn't hear me). We had a good chuckle about it at dinnertime.
Is this a representative, random sample of typical French children? Of course not. How much you read into the above observations is your own decision.
~JD
"Mais l'inegal bilan de la vente des biens nationaux a pu localement modifier la hierarchie des sympathies et des haines; la ou les paysans ont ete frustres par la conquete bourgeoise de ce qu'ils attendaient, les conditions sont mures pour un retournement d'attitudes" [But the unequal result of the sale of national property could change local relationships of sympathy and antipathy; where the peasants were frustrated by the bourgeois conquest of what they had long awaited, the conditions were ripe for a reversal of attitudes] (Vovelle, Chute de la monarchie, p. 233).
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