Il N'y a Que Le Premier Pas Qui Coûte

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB.

ONE morning in 1873 at a breakfast in London the talk fell upon proverbs, and the question arose what foreign proverb, not of classical origin, was the most familiar and in the most frequent use in English conversation or books. Several were suggested, naturally all of them French; for instance, “Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle, ” “Chacun à son gout,” “Les absents out toujours tort.” The charming saying of la duchesse de la Ferté to Madame de Staël, “Tiens, mon enfant, je ne vois que moi qui aie toujours raison,” was mentioned, but was held not to have the character or the currency of a familiar proverb. Finally, it was agreed that of all the French proverbs perhaps the one with which everybody was acquainted, and which an English-speaking man would use with least consciousness of its being of foreign origin, was, “Il n’y a que le premier pas qui coûte.” But a new question was then proposed, whether this was a genuine old proverb, in use before the middle of the eighteenth century, or whether it was an invention of the impromptu wit of Madame du Deffand, to whom the phrase had been traced.

In a letter to Horace Walpole she tells the story of her use of the words. He had heard of it by rumor, and wished to know the precise circumstances on her authority. Her reply to his inquiry, dated 6 Juin, 1767, is as follows : “ Vous me demandez mon mot de St. Denis; cela est bien plat à raconter, mais vous le voulez.

“M. le Cardinal de Polignac, beau diseur, grand conteur, et d’une excessive crédulité, parloit de St. Denis et disoit que quand il eut la tête coupée, il la prit et la porta entre ses mains, tout le monde sait cela; mais tout le monde ne sait pas qu’ayant été martyrisé sur la montagne de Montmartre, il porta sa tête de Montmartre à St. Denis, ce qui fait l’espace de deux grandes lieues. Ah! lui dis-je, Monseigneur, je croirois que dans une telle situation il n’y a que le premier pas qui coûte.

“Cela est conté à faire horreur, je ne sais rien faire de commande. ”

It seems plain from Madame du Deffand’s narrative that the mot was no borrowed proverbial phrase, but was coined fresh at the instant. It bears the mint mark of her “esprit ” which Voltaire declared to be “encore plus beau que ses yeux.” The story was old when she told it to Walpole, for the Cardinal de Polignac had then been dead for twenty-five years, and the phrase had already become current. Her words about the Cardinal, “ beau diseur, grand conteur, ” were not unlike those with which Madame de Sévigné describes him in 1690. “C’est un des hommes du monde,” she said, “dont l’esprit me paraît le plus agréable; il sait tout; il parle de tout; il a toute le douceur, la vivacité, la complaisance qu’on peut souhaiter dans le commerce.” He was learned too, and his great poem the Anti-Lucretius was much praised, more praised, perhaps, than read.

It is he whom Voltaire at the opening of his Temple du Gout salutes as, “ Le cardinal, oracle de la France, ” —

and in whose mouth he puts words which form an amusing comment upon Madame du Deffand’s charge against him of “excessive credulity.” “Ah! me dit-il, l’infaillibilité est à Rome pour les choses qu’on ne comprend pas.”

In the talk which followed at breakfast in regard to Madame du Deffand’s saying, it was asserted that it was not to be found in Littré’s Dictionary; and I, having recently had some relations with M. Littré, was asked to make inquiry of him whether the phrase was known in French literature before Madame du Deffand used it. I accordingly did so, inclosing to him a note in which the fact that the mot had been looked for in vain in his Dictionary was stated. In reply I received from him a characteristic and pleasant letter, of which the part relating to this matter was as follows : —

VERSAILLES, 14 janvier, 1873.
CHER MONSIEUR, — Je vous demande pardon de n’avoir pas répondu tout de suite à votre lettre; j’ai été empêché par des occupations urgentes. Le proverbe dont il s’agit se trouve dans mon Dictionnaire à la fin du mot Pas; il est cità par Condillac, dont je rapporte le passage. Je rectifie en cela la note de M—. Mais à mon tour je lui dois la source d’où il provient. Au moment je ne sus pas, ou je négligea de rechercher où Condillac avait pris son indication. En tout cas, je crois que le proverbe n’est pas autre chose que le mot de Mme. du Deffand tombé dans le domaine commun; du moins je n’en trouve aucune trace d’ailleurs et auparavant.

The passage from Condillac cited in the Dictionary is from his Art d’écrire, in which he tells the story, and assigns the saying to “une femme d’esprit.” This treatise was published in 1755, when Madame du Deffand was well known in the Parisian world as the mistress of its most distinguished salon.

The earliest instance I have met with of this admirable piece of wit having become simply proverbial, and having passed into “ the common domain, ” is in an ironical note of Grimm’s, dated October, 1780, on the confinement in the Bastile of the presumptuous Sieur Linguet: “Quelle perte pour le genre humain, quelle perte irréparable, si l’on arrêtait longtemps l’essor de ce génie extraordinaire! Avec un peu moins de géométric dans la tête qu’on n’en apprend au collége, il venait de s’engager publiquement à démontrer que Newton n’était qu’un visionnaire. Et n’avait-il pas prouvé qu’en législation Montesquieu n’était qu’un imbécile? Il n’y a, dans toutes ces entreprises, comme dans celle de saint Denis de marcher sans tête, que le premier pas qui coûte.”

There are certainly not many of our familiar proverbs which can be traced back to their source, and of which the gradual spread can be followed so securely as this, and few of such wide vogue of which the origin is so recent. Its ready adoption by the Englishspeaking world is perhaps mainly due to the fact that we have no proverb corresponding to it, or that can supply its place; and in part, perhaps, to the fact that a close and idiomatic translation of it is difficult.