Evening star., 1920-09-19
THE RAMBLER WRITES ABOUT THE "
PLACE-NAMES NEAR THE CAPITAL
Why Our Ancestors Used
French Words topescribe
Their Homes-The Story
of Belmont on Gunston
Neck.

The magnificent English colonies on
opposite sides Of the Potomac river
were dotted with Belairs. Bonairs.
Belvues and Belmonts. Many of these
place-names endure, and you come
or "marcher" through ia belle cam
payne" in the "voisinage" of Wash
ington. Many of your ancestors had
prediction (and that word comes
to US through the French from the
Latin 'prae" and "diligere") for
French names. 1t would seem that
they believed a name compounded of
note of distinction and an air of
grace to the farm.
About the fourth decade of the
eighteenth century, or, at any rate.
long before the American revolt
against England lent it's inspiration
to the radicals and revolutionaries of
France. a spell of Francomania set
in among the fashionable colonial
families and it spread among the
near-fashionable families of the Poto-
mac valley. Most of you can remem-
Der. that is. you do remember. the
surge of Anglomania that came upon
the highly fashionable people of the
United States in the early eighties
and spread over that part of our pop
ulation which was only lowly fash
ionable. You remember the vogue
of the word dude; the gibes at the
fellow who turned up his trousers
IN New York. because it was raining
in London; the gentleman VINO took
the cut Of his coats and trousers from
the Prince of Wales and the King of
England, Emperor OF India, ETC., etc;
who wore monocle in his eye and a
topper" on his head, and who in ac-
lating Bah Jove" 'Devilishly clev-
ah!" and all that. Well. the Rambler
thinks it was about 1740. that ladies
and gentlemen living in the country
that lies around Washington borrow
ed the French manner, drank French
ticed French fashions. There was an
influx of French dancing masters. in
structors in elegant department" in
singing and in playing on the spinet
and the harpsichord. All music that
All the girls had to take French les
sons, and even the boys had to learn to
say in French, Good day" 'sPass me
the butter. il you please" and Il love
you with all my heart" The Rambler
is Writing this without sneer or 5eer
at the French. He will permit no man
to excel his admiration for the grandeur
Of the French republic and in respec..
for the glory Of the men and women Of
France. What he is trying to bring olt
is a little picture Of those transitory af-,
own people put on. There has come
down to US from the olden time the
gentle little epithet. ''Frenchified,"
which was derisively applied by some Of
our ancestors to other ancestors.
In connection with these French
over us. you will surely recollect
without much mental effort that after
the fashionable Anglomania faded out
q Teutomania overcame us. Only
music Vas Of German make and IAN
German music was good. while the
truth is that some music by Germans
and German Jews is divine and much
Of it is rotten. not differing in that
respect from music by American.
races have immortal music. There
are only two classes Of music in
which the broad-minded man can find
nothing to commend. The first of,
these classes is produced by a Chinese
orchestra and the second by. the uke-
lele.. AS the Rambler WROTE this on
the typewriter he included bagpipes.
but he struck that out because of
the love he bears old Scotia and her
dear burr-tongued men. You perhaps.
Germanic infatuation nobody could
be musician or scholar or a chem
ist. or an inventor or any kind of a
scientist unless he was a German.
Only a German professor could play
the fiddle or clarinet in a way to
draw applause from an American
We could not even make
as good beer as was made in Ger
many and you had no standing as an
epicure or connoisseur unless you
ordered the imported stuff Young
men talked of Heidelberg as though.
Oxford. Cambridge. the University Of
Virginia Yale, Princeton. Georgetown
and Harvard were out of date. But
the war Is over and please LET l1s have