129-594: Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat ( French pronunciation: [sɛ̃ ʒɑ̃ kap fɛʁa] ; Occitan : Sant Joan de Cap Ferrat ; Italian : San Giovanni Capo Ferrato ) is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in Southeastern France . In 2012, Cap Ferrat was named the second most expensive residential location in the world after Monaco . Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat
258-543: A Beethoven symphony. Bryan Connon comments in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , "After this it seemed that Maugham could not fail, and the public eagerly bought his novels [and] volumes of his carefully crafted short stories". In 1915 Syrie Wellcome became pregnant, and in September, while Maugham was on leave to be with her, she gave birth to their only child, Mary Elizabeth , known as Liza. The baby
387-746: A barrister , and had a distinguished legal career in Britain – The Times described him as "a great legal figure" – serving as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary (1935–1938) and Lord Chancellor (1938–1939). The two younger sons became writers: Henry (1868–1904) wrote poetry, essays and travel books. Shortly before the birth of the Maughams' fourth son the government of France proposed a new law under which all boys born on French soil to foreign parents would automatically be French citizens and liable to conscription for military service. The British ambassador, Lord Lyons , had
516-447: A base for pirating until the 11th century. By 1388, the territory of Saint Jean Cap Ferrat with the entire County of Nice was given by treaty to the Dukes of Savoy (see also History of Villefranche-sur-Mer ). The history of Saint Jean Cap Ferrat tells that Duke Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy built a fort at Saint-Hospice in 1561 in an effort to secure the coastline from invaders. The fort
645-604: A book with a large autobiographical element – as a masterpiece, and his short stories are widely held in high critical regard. Maugham's plain prose style became known for its lucidity, but his reliance on clichés attracted adverse critical comment. During the First World War Maugham worked for the British Secret Service , later drawing on his experiences for stories published in the 1920s. Although primarily homosexual, he attempted to conform to some extent with
774-505: A career in the church or the law even if either had attracted him. His uncle ruled out the civil service, believing that it was no longer a career for gentlemen after reforms requiring applicants to pass an entrance examination. A family friend found Maugham a position in an accountant's office in London, which he endured for a month before resigning. The local physician in Whitstable suggested
903-468: A ceremony in New Jersey . He entered the marriage from a sense of duty rather than from personal inclination, and the two quickly began to grow apart. She returned to England and he continued with his work as a secret agent. He was selected by Sir William Wiseman of British Intelligence to go to Russia, where the overthrow of the monarchy threatened to lead to a Russian withdrawal from the war. Maugham's job
1032-466: A certainty when in November 1944, after a six-month illness initially diagnosed as pleurisy , Haxton died of tuberculosis. Maugham was distraught; he told his nephew, Robin, "You'll never know how great a grief this has been to me. The best years of my life – those we spent wandering about the world – are inextricably connected with him. And in one way or another – however indirectly – all I've written during
1161-542: A common origin (see Occitano-Romance languages ). The language was one of the first to gain prestige as a medium for literature among Romance languages in the Middle Ages. Indeed, in the 12th and 13th centuries, Catalan troubadours such as Guerau de Cabrera , Guilhem de Bergadan, Guilhem de Cabestany, Huguet de Mataplana , Raimon Vidal de Besalú, Cerverí de Girona , Formit de Perpinhan, and Jofre de Foixà wrote in Occitan. At
1290-636: A consonant), whereas the southernmost dialects have more features in common with the Ibero-Romance languages (e.g. betacism ; voiced fricatives between vowels in place of voiced stops; - ch - in place of - it -), and Gascon has a number of unusual features not seen in other dialects (e.g. /h/ in place of /f/ ; loss of /n/ between vowels; intervocalic -r- and final -t/ch in place of medieval - ll -). There are also significant lexical differences, where some dialects have words cognate with French, and others have Catalan and Spanish cognates. Nonetheless, there
1419-524: A dialect of French spoken by Jews in southern France. Southern Jewish French is now estimated to only be spoken by about 50–100 people. Domergue Sumien proposes a slightly different supradialectal grouping. Somerset Maugham William Somerset Maugham CH ( / m ɔː m / MAWM ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham
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#17328519273681548-453: A duck takes to water." Before the publication of his next novel, The Making of a Saint (1898), Maugham travelled to Spain. He found Mediterranean lands much to his liking, for what his biographer Frederic Raphael calls their " douceur de vivre missing under grim English skies". He based himself in Seville , where he grew a moustache, smoked cigars, took lessons in the guitar, and developed
1677-621: A few days after his eighth birthday. He later said that for him her loss was "a wound that never entirely healed" and even in old age he kept her photograph at his bedside. Two and a half years after his mother's death his father died, and Maugham was sent to England to live with his paternal uncle Henry MacDonald Maugham, the vicar of Whitstable in Kent. After spending the first ten years of his life in Paris, Maugham found an unwelcome contrast in life at Whitstable, which according to his biographer Ted Morgan "represented social obligation and conformity,
1806-591: A friend of Syrie, portrayed as the spymaster "R" in the Ashenden stories Maugham wrote after the war. Syrie and Liza were with him for part of the year, providing a convincing domestic cover, and his profession as a writer enabled him to travel about and stay in hotels without attracting attention. His covert job, which was in violation of Switzerland's neutrality laws, was to coordinate the work of British agents in enemy territory and dispatch their information to London. In his overt capacity as an author he wrote Caroline ,
1935-571: A guest for many seasons and was often visited by her brother the Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn , who lived for twenty years on Cap Ferrat. During the Belle Époque the Cap-Ferrat was already the vacation resort of the world elite: the great names of the era came there during winter to enjoy its climate and quality of life. In his song " I Went to a Marvellous Party ," Noël Coward included
2064-582: A maternity ward set up within his embassy – which was legally recognised as UK territory – enabling British couples in France to circumvent the new law, and it was there that William Somerset Maugham was born on 25 January 1874. Maugham never greatly liked his middle name – which commemorated a great-uncle named after General Sir Henry Somerset – and was known by family and friends throughout his life as "Willie". Maugham's mother died of tuberculosis in January 1882,
2193-529: A memoir, published in 1962, Looking Back , in which "he denigrated his late former wife, was dismissive of Haxton, and made a clumsy attempt to deny his homosexuality by claiming he was a red-blooded heterosexual". He attempted to disinherit his daughter and to make Searle his adopted son, but the courts prevented it. Maugham died in the Anglo-American Hospital in Nice on the night of 15–16 December 1965 at
2322-407: A painter. It was well received: reviewers called it "extraordinarily powerful and interesting", and "a triumph [that] has given me such pleasure and entertainment as rarely comes my way"; one described it as "an exhibition of the beast in man, done with such perfect art that it is beyond praise". After the war Maugham had to choose between living in Britain or being with Haxton, because the latter
2451-729: A part of a wider Occitano-Romanic group. One such classification posits three groups: According to this view, Catalan is an ausbau language that became independent from Occitan during the 13th century, but originates from the Aquitano-Pyrenean group. Occitan has 3 dialects spoken by Jewish communities that are all now extinct. A sociolect of the Gascon dialect spoken by Spanish and Portuguese Jews in Gascony . It, like many other Jewish dialects and languages, contained large amounts of Hebrew loanwords. It went extinct after World War 2 with
2580-408: A passion for "a young thing with green eyes and a gay smile" (gender carefully unspecified, as Hastings comments). The Making of a Saint , a historical novel, attracted less attention than Liza of Lambeth and its sales were unremarkable. Maugham continued to write assiduously and within five years he published two more novels and a collection of short stories, and had his first play produced; but
2709-425: A rent boy, with whom he became infatuated". Raphael comments that there is no firm evidence for this, and Meyers suggests that she is based on Harry Phillips, a young man whom Maugham had taken to Paris as, nominally, his secretary for a prolonged stay in 1905. Maugham proofread Of Human Bondage at Malo-les-Bains , near Dunkirk , during a lull in his ambulance duties. When the book was published in 1915 some of
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#17328519273682838-564: A sanatorium in Scotland. While there he wrote a farce , Home and Beauty , which was presented at the Playhouse Theatre in August 1919 starring Gladys Cooper and Charles Hawtrey . In the same year Maugham published one of his best-known novels, The Moon and Sixpence , about a respectable stockbroker who rebels against conformity, abandons his wife and children, flees to Tahiti and becomes
2967-540: A second Occitan immigration of this period was assimilated by the similar Navarro-Aragonese language , which at the same time was fostered and chosen by the kings of Aragon . In the 14th century, Occitan across the whole southern Pyrenean area fell into decay and became largely absorbed into Navarro-Aragonese first and Castilian later in the 15th century, after their exclusive boroughs broke up (1423, Pamplona 's boroughs unified). Gascon-speaking communities were called to move in for trading purposes by Navarrese kings in
3096-489: A single written standard form, nor does it have official status in France, home to most of its speakers. Instead, there are competing norms for writing Occitan, some of which attempt to be pan-dialectal, whereas others are based on a particular dialect. These efforts are hindered by the rapidly declining use of Occitan as a spoken language in much of southern France, as well as by the significant differences in phonology and vocabulary among different Occitan dialects. According to
3225-492: A sought-after interior designer. Her concentration on her work briefly lessened the domestic tensions at the couple's house when Maugham was in residence. By 1925, Maugham, learning that his wife was spreading scandal about his private life and had taken lovers of her own, was reconsidering his future. After another long trip to the Far East, he agreed with Syrie that they would live separately, she in London and he at Cap Ferrat in
3354-615: A stay at a spa ( Vichy , Abano , Vevey ), an intensely social summer on the Riviera, followed by the autumn in London in his regular suite at the Dorchester Hotel . In 1959 the foreign travel included a final trip to the far East. He kept himself fit, and further attempted to fend off the encroachments of age with supposedly rejuvenating injections at the clinic of Paul Niehans . Nonetheless, his final years, according to Connon, were marred by increasing senility, misguided legal disputes and
3483-456: A story of slum life since Rudyard Kipling 's The Record of Badalia Herodsfoot (1890), and praised the author's "vividness and knowledge ... extraordinary gift of directness and concentration ... His characters have an astounding amount of vitality". The Westminster Gazette praised the writing but deplored the subject matter, and The Times also conceded the author's skill – "Mr Maugham seems to aspire, and not unsuccessfully, to be
3612-464: A success to match that of his first book eluded him. Between 1903 and 1906 he wrote two more plays, a travel book and two novels, but his next big commercial and critical success did not come until October 1907, when his comedy Lady Frederick opened at the Court Theatre in London. He had written it four years earlier, but numerous managements turned it down until Otho Stuart accepted it and cast
3741-454: A tailor, he dropped his aitches like one of the characters in Liza of Lambeth . He had already been taken up by older homosexuals, including Lytton Strachey , who called him "my Bronzino boy". Maugham's biographers have differed considerably about Searle's character and his influence for better or worse on his employer. Connon writes, "He was seen by some as a near saint and by others, particularly
3870-556: A tale of working-class adultery and its consequences. It drew its details from his obstetric duties in South London slums. He wrote near the opening of the novel: "... it is impossible always to give the exact unexpurgated words of Liza and the other personages of the story; the reader is therefore entreated with his thoughts to piece out the necessary imperfections of the dialogue". The book received mixed reviews. The Evening Standard commented that there had not been so powerful
3999-583: A three-act comedy, which opened in February 1916 at the New Theatre , London, with Irene Vanbrugh in the title role. In November 1916 Maugham was asked by the intelligence service to go to the South Seas . Samoa was regarded as crucial to Britain's strategic interests, and Maugham's task was to gather information about the island's powerful radio transmitter and the threat from German military and naval forces in
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4128-469: A unitary language, as it lacks an official written standard . Like other languages that fundamentally exist at a spoken, rather than written, level (e.g. the Rhaeto-Romance languages , Franco-Provençal , Astur-Leonese , and Aragonese ), every settlement technically has its own dialect, with the whole of Occitania forming a classic dialect continuum that changes gradually along any path from one side to
4257-794: A view across the Rade de Villefranche . Cro de Peï Pin is the biggest beach, located just north of the port at the Anse Lilong (the bay between the main peninsula and the smaller Ste Hospice peninsula), facing eastward into the Baie des Fourmis and the Tete de Chene. There's a public parking lot alongside the beach. The Zoo du Cap-Ferrat, which closed down in 2011, had an impressive collection of fauna and flora . There were over 300 varieties of plants, including succulents and cacti. There were also eucalyptus trees that were over 100 years old. A variety of animals also resided in
4386-492: A writer and introduced him to the works of Schopenhauer and Spinoza . Maugham wrote his first book while in Heidelberg, a biography of the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer , but it was not accepted for publication and the author destroyed the manuscript. After Maugham's return to Britain in 1892, he and his uncle had to decide on his future. He did not wish to follow his brothers to Cambridge University , and his stammer precluded
4515-608: A written account in Occitan from Pamplona centered on the burning of borough San Nicolas from 1258, while the History of the War of Navarre by Guilhem Anelier (1276), albeit written in Pamplona, shows a linguistic variant from Toulouse . Things turned out slightly otherwise in Aragon, where the sociolinguistic situation was different, with a clearer Basque-Romance bilingual situation (cf. Basques from
4644-410: Is "probably not more divergent from Occitan overall than Gascon is". There is no general agreement about larger groupings of these dialects. Max Wheeler divides the dialects into two groups: Pierre Bec divides the dialects into three groups: In order to overcome the pitfalls of the traditional romanistic view, Bec proposed a "supradialectal" classification that groups Occitan with Catalan as
4773-614: Is a Romance language spoken in Southern France , Monaco , Italy 's Occitan Valleys , as well as Spain 's Val d'Aran in Catalonia ; collectively, these regions are sometimes referred to as Occitania . It is also spoken in Calabria ( Southern Italy ) in a linguistic enclave of Cosenza area (mostly Guardia Piemontese ). Some include Catalan in Occitan, as the linguistic distance between this language and some Occitan dialects (such as
4902-481: Is a satire on the literary world and a humorously cynical observation of human mating. There was hostile comment in the press that the central figure seemed to be a tasteless parody of Thomas Hardy , who had died in 1928. Maugham further damaged his own reputation by denying that another character, Alroy Kear – a superficial novelist of more pushy ambition than literary talent – was a caricature of Hugh Walpole . Few believed Maugham's denial and he eventually admitted it
5031-460: Is a significant amount of mutual intelligibility . Gascon is the most divergent, and descriptions of the main features of Occitan often consider Gascon separately. Max Wheeler notes that "probably only its copresence within the French cultural sphere has kept [Gascon] from being regarded as a separate language", and compares it to Franco-Provençal, which is considered a separate language from Occitan but
5160-417: Is all your own; the rest of us have to content ourselves with at the best an approximation of what we see in the mind's eye. After one has got over the glamour of the stage and the excitement, I do not myself think the theatre has much to offer the writer compared with the other mediums in which he has complete independence and need consider no one. Maugham's thirty-second and last play was Sheppey (1933). It
5289-720: Is located at the northern end (entrance) of the peninsula. The Les Azuriales Opera Festival , founded in 1997, takes place each year in August in Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild . With its coastal location, cuisine in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat is based around seafood. Dishes include escalope de mérou au citron , which is sea bass steaks in lime; salmon tournedos with truffles; cod and vegetables in garlic sauce; and skate with capers. Meat dishes include estouffade de sanglier (wild boar) and fillet de beef rossini cooked with foie gras. One of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat's main sources of income
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5418-532: Is located on a peninsula next to Beaulieu-sur-Mer and Villefranche-sur-Mer and extends out to Cap Ferrat . Its tranquility and warm climate make it a favourite holiday destination among the European aristocracy and international rich who visit the French Riviera . Saint Jean Cap Ferrat was known to the ancient Greeks as Anao. The site of present-day Cap Ferrat was first settled by Celto-Ligurian tribes , then by
5547-527: Is the Villa des Cèdres, which has been owned by Marnier-Lapostolle (the founder of Grand Marnier ) since 1924 and is now in part a botanical garden called the Jardin botanique Les Cèdres . In 1905, Béatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild chose Cap Ferrat to build a Tuscan-style palazzo, now known as Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild museum. This very scenic location can be rented under special conditions to host galas and events in
5676-413: Is the other native language. Up to seven million people in France understand the language, whereas twelve to fourteen million fully spoke it in 1921. In 1860 , Occitan speakers represented more than 39% of the whole French population (52% for francophones proper); they were still 26% to 36% in the 1920s and fewer than 7% in 1993. Occitan is fundamentally defined by its dialects, rather than being
5805-434: Is tourism. The main attractions of Saint-jean-Cap-Ferrat are its pleasant climate, history and its circuit of yachts, which attract thousands of tourists every year. Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat also has a small port of fish. Another Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat's source of income is the hotel industry and the real estate sector, which is dynamic in the region. In 2012 Cap Ferrat was named as the second most expensive residential location in
5934-462: Is worthier and better suited for romances and pastourelles ; but [the language] from Limousin is of greater value for writing poems and cançons and sirventés ; and across the whole of the lands where our tongue is spoken, the literature in the Limousin language has more authority than any other dialect, wherefore I shall use this name in priority. The term Provençal , though implying a reference to
6063-518: The òc language (Occitan), the oïl language (French), and the sì language (Italian). The word òc came from Vulgar Latin hoc ("this"), while oïl originated from Latin hoc illud ("this [is] it"). Old Catalan and now the Catalan of Northern Catalonia also have hoc ( òc ). Other Romance languages derive their word for "yes" from the Latin sic , "thus [it is], [it
6192-622: The Romance of Flamenca (13th century), the Song of the Albigensian Crusade (1213–1219?), Daurel e Betó (12th or 13th century), Las, qu'i non-sun sparvir, astur (11th century) and Tomida femina (9th or 10th century). Occitan was the vehicle for the influential poetry of the medieval troubadours ( trobadors ) and trobairitz : At that time, the language was understood and celebrated throughout most of educated Europe. It
6321-473: The French Riviera , where Maugham entertained lavishly. After Haxton's death in 1944, Alan Searle became Maugham's secretary-companion for the rest of the author's life. Maugham gave up writing novels shortly after the Second World War , and his last years were marred by senility. He died at the age of 91. William Somerset Maugham came from a family of lawyers. His grandfather, Robert Maugham (1788–1862),
6450-582: The Gascon language ) is similar to the distance between different Occitan dialects. Catalan was considered a dialect of Occitan until the end of the 19th century and still today remains its closest relative. Occitan is an official language of Catalonia, Spain, where a subdialect of Gascon known as Aranese is spoken (in the Val d'Aran ). Since September 2010, the Parliament of Catalonia has considered Aranese Occitan to be
6579-553: The Lombards at the end of the 6th century. Sant Ospizio (or Saint Hospice ), a hermit friar, is said to have inhabited a tower on the Eastern part of the peninsula. Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat had once been known as Cap-Saint-Sospir after a sixth-century monk who had lived in the area. In the 8th century, the history of Saint Jean Cap Ferrat changed when the Saracens occupied the site and used it as
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#17328519273686708-618: The Malay Peninsula , where they remained for six months. Maugham, as always, observed closely and collected material for his stories wherever they went. His fellow author Cyril Connolly wrote, "there will remain a story-teller's world from Singapore to the Marquesas that is exclusively and forever Maugham". In 1922–23 Maugham's next extended trip was in south and east Asia, with stops at Colombo, Rangoon, Mandalay , Bangkok and Hanoi. In Maugham's absence his wife found an occupation, becoming
6837-515: The Principality of Monaco and Cannes . Paloma beach southeast of the port, on the north side small peninsula (St Hospice). Being on a northeast-facing shore and at the base of some tall cliffs. The location is about a 5–10 minutes walk from the port. Passable beach is on the northwest side of the main peninsula, past the Office de Tourisme and past the zoo (parc zoologique). It's west-facing, with
6966-461: The UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages , four of the six major dialects of Occitan (Provençal, Auvergnat , Limousin and Languedocien) are considered severely endangered , whereas the remaining two ( Gascon and Vivaro-Alpine ) are considered definitely endangered . The name Occitan comes from the term lenga d'òc ("language of òc "), òc being the Occitan word for yes. While
7095-574: The Val d'Aran cited c. 1000 ), but a receding Basque language (Basque banned in the marketplace of Huesca, 1349). While the language was chosen as a medium of prestige in records and official statements along with Latin in the early 13th century, Occitan faced competition from the rising local Romance vernacular, the Navarro-Aragonese , both orally and in writing, especially after Aragon's territorial conquests south to Zaragoza , Huesca and Tudela between 1118 and 1134. It resulted that
7224-798: The West End of London. He wrote his 32nd and last play in 1933, after which he abandoned the theatre and concentrated on novels and short stories. Maugham's novels after Liza of Lambeth include Of Human Bondage (1915), The Moon and Sixpence (1919), The Painted Veil (1925), Cakes and Ale (1930) and The Razor's Edge (1944). His short stories were published in collections such as The Casuarina Tree (1926) and The Mixture as Before (1940); many of them have been adapted for radio, cinema and television. His great popularity and prodigious sales provoked adverse reactions from highbrow critics, many of whom sought to belittle him as merely competent. More recent assessments generally rank Of Human Bondage –
7353-499: The Zola of the New Cut " – but thought him "capable of better things [than] this singularly unpleasant novel". The first print run sold out within three weeks and a reprint was quickly arranged. Maugham qualified as a physician the month after the publication of Liza of Lambeth but he immediately abandoned medicine and embarked on his 65-year career as a writer. He later said, "I took to it as
7482-498: The Far East together in 1919–20, keeping Maugham away from home for six months. In late 1920 Maugham and Haxton set out on a trip that lasted more than a year. In the US they spent time in Hollywood , which Maugham despised from the first, but found highly remunerative. They then visited San Francisco and sailed to Honolulu and Australia before the final leg of their voyage, to Singapore and
7611-519: The God in whom he had been taught to believe failed to answer his prayers for relief from his troubles. In his teens he became a lifelong non-believer. From 1885 to 1890 Maugham attended The King's School, Canterbury , where he was regarded as an outsider and teased for his poor English (French had been his first language), his short stature, his stammer, and his lack of interest in sport. He left as soon as he could, although he later developed an affection for
7740-659: The Hindu sage Ramana Maharishi at his ashram , and later used him as the model for the spiritual guru of his 1944 novel The Razor's Edge . Throughout the decade Maugham, with Haxton in attendance, lived and entertained lavishly at his house on Cap Ferrat, the Villa La Mauresque . His domestic staff there comprised thirteen servants. When the Second World War began in 1939 he stayed in his home as long as he could, but in June 1940 France surrendered; knowing himself to be proscribed by
7869-592: The Judeo-Occitan dialects, Judeo-Niçard was spoken by the community of Jews living in Nice , who were descendants of Jewish immigrants from Provence, Piedmont, and other Mediterranean communities. Its existence is attested from a few documents from the 19th century. It contained significant influence in both vocabulary and grammar from Hebrew. All three of these dialects have some influence in Southern Jewish French,
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#17328519273687998-469: The Maugham family, as a villain"; Hastings labels him "a podgy Iago ... constantly briefing against [Syrie and Liza]", and quotes Alan Pryce-Jones 's summary: "an intriguer, a schemer with a keen eye to his own advantage, a troublemaker". Raphael calls him "a man of more reliable stamp" than Haxton; Meyers describes him as "sober, efficient, honest and gentle". Before returning to the south of France after
8127-521: The Nazis ( Joseph Goebbels denounced him personally) Maugham made his way to England in uncomfortable conditions on a coal freighter from Nice . Haxton, as a citizen of neutral America, was not in immediate peril from the Germans and remained at the villa, securing it and its contents as far as possible, before making his way via Lisbon to New York. Maugham spent most of the war years in the US, based for much of
8256-553: The age of 91, of complications following a fall. He was cremated in Marseille on 20 December. Two days later his ashes were interred in the grounds of The King's School, Canterbury, beside the wall of the Maugham Library, which he had endowed in 1961. Morgan observes: Maugham, the disbeliever in ecclesiastical ritual, was buried without ritual but on hallowed ground. Canterbury was the shrine of Thomas à Becket , murdered in 1170 in
8385-452: The cities in southern France is unlikely to hear a single Occitan word spoken on the street (or, for that matter, in a home), and is likely to only find the occasional vestige, such as street signs (and, of those, most will have French equivalents more prominently displayed), to remind them of the traditional language of the area. Occitan speakers, as a result of generations of systematic suppression and humiliation (see Vergonha ), seldom use
8514-436: The decade, and of his whole career, was Our Betters . It was written in 1915 and staged in New York in 1917, for a satisfactory but not unusual 112 performances, but when produced in the West End in 1923 it was played 548 times. In 1930 Maugham published the novel Cakes and Ale , regarded by Connon as the most likely of the author's works to survive. This book, described by Raphael as "an elegant piece of literary malice",
8643-435: The early 12th century to the coastal fringe extending from San Sebastian to the river Bidasoa , where they settled down. The language variant they used was different from the ones in Navarre, i.e. a Béarnese dialect of Gascon. Gascon remained in use in this area far longer than in Navarre and Aragon, until the 19th century, thanks mainly to the fact that Donostia and Pasaia maintained close ties with Bayonne . Though it
8772-586: The end of the 11th century, the Franks , as they were called at the time, started to penetrate the Iberian Peninsula through the Ways of St. James via Somport and Roncesvalles , settling in various locations in the Kingdoms of Navarre and Aragon enticed by the privileges granted them by the Navarrese kings . They settled in large groups, forming ethnic boroughs where Occitan was used for everyday life, in Pamplona , Sangüesa , and Estella-Lizarra , among others. These boroughs in Navarre may have been close-knit communities that tended not to assimilate with
8901-432: The end to most dramatists, and they are wise to accept the warning. It is high time for them then to retire. I did so with relief." Raphael suggests that Maugham now wished to write to please himself rather than others. Maugham's days of lengthy trips to distant places were mostly behind him, but at Kipling's suggestion he sailed to the West Indies in 1936. The British colonies there failed to provide him with anything like
9030-456: The event of maritime disasters, and take part in the first maritime meteorological observations. This is a small marina with 560 berths. It is very well-sheltered and quiet, located on the French Riviera. Built in 1908, this stately white palace has hosted many worldwide personalities since it was erected, such as Paul Deschanel , George W. Bush , and Bill Clinton , Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll , Queen Victoria's daughter, who remained
9159-416: The geographical territory in which Occitan is spoken is surrounded by regions in which other Romance languages are used, external influences may have influenced its origin and development. Many factors favored its development as its own language. Catalan in Spain's northern and central Mediterranean coastal regions and the Balearic Islands is closely related to Occitan, sharing many linguistic features and
9288-414: The greatest mistake in his life. He told his nephew Robin , "I tried to persuade myself that I was three-quarters normal and that only a quarter of me was queer – whereas really it was the other way round". In 1913 he proposed to the actress Sue Jones, daughter of the playwright Henry Arthur Jones ; she declined his offer. In 1914 he began an affair with Syrie Wellcome , whom he had known since 1910. She
9417-794: The historical novel Catalina . He took part in the adaptation for the cinema of some of his short stories, Quartet (1948), Trio (1950) and Encore (1951), in all of which he appeared, contributing on-screen introductions. He did the same on American television, introducing the Somerset Maugham Theater series, which a reviewer said enjoyed "tremendous popularity ... and has won for him an audience of millions of enthusiastic fans". Maugham made many subsequent visits to London, including one for his daughter's second marriage in July 1948, where, in Hastings's words, "with professional ease he acted
9546-488: The infamous Royal Baccarat Scandal , lived there with his brewery heiress wife, the former Sibell Bass . Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat has a mild Mediterranean climate. Average temperatures range from 9 °C (48 °F) in January to 23 °C (73 °F) in the summer. There is very little rainfall in the summer. Although occasionally the Mistral winds arrive, it is more sheltered by the mountains than for example St. Tropez , so
9675-425: The initial reviews were favourable but many, both in Britain and in the US, were unenthusiastic. The New York World described the romantic obsession of the protagonist as "the sentimental servitude of a poor fool". The tide of opinion was turned by the influential American novelist and critic Theodore Dreiser , who called Maugham a great artist and the book a work of genius, of the utmost importance, comparable to
9804-476: The language at the beginning of the 13th century by Catalan troubadour Raimon Vidal de Besalú(n) in his Razós de trobar : La parladura Francesca val mais et [es] plus avinenz a far romanz e pasturellas; mas cella de Lemozin val mais per far vers et cansons et serventés; et per totas las terras de nostre lengage son de major autoritat li cantar de la lenga Lemosina que de negun'autra parladura, per qu'ieu vos en parlarai primeramen. The French language
9933-456: The language in the presence of strangers, whether they are from abroad or from outside Occitania (in this case, often merely and abusively referred to as Parisiens or Nordistes , which means northerners ). Occitan is still spoken by many elderly people in rural areas, but they generally switch to French when dealing with outsiders. Occitan's decline is somewhat less pronounced in Béarn because of
10062-474: The language. Following the pattern of language shift , most of this remainder is to be found among the eldest populations. Occitan activists (called Occitanists ) have attempted, in particular with the advent of Occitan-language preschools (the Calandretas ), to reintroduce the language to the young. Nonetheless, the number of proficient speakers of Occitan is thought to be dropping precipitously. A tourist in
10191-516: The larger collection of dialects grouped under the name langues d'oïl ) should be used for all French administration. Occitan's greatest decline occurred during the French Revolution , in which diversity of language was considered a threat. In 1903, the four Gospels ( "Lis Evangèli" , i.e. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) were translated into Provençal as spoken in Cannes and Grasse. The translation
10320-505: The last speakers being elderly Jews in Bayonne . About 850 unique words and a few morphological and grammatical aspects of the dialect were transmitted to Southern Jewish French. Judeo-Provençal was a dialect of Occitan spoken by Jews in Provence . The dialect declined in usage after Jews were expelled from the area in 1498, and was probably extinct by the 20th century. The least attested of
10449-416: The last twenty years has something to do with him". Even before Haxton's mortal illness, Maugham had already chosen a replacement as secretary-companion, in anticipation that Haxton would not return to live at La Mauresque. This was Alan Searle , whom Maugham had known since 1928, when Searle was twenty-three. He came from Bermondsey , a poor district of London. Morgan describes him: ... the son of
10578-772: The latter term for the language as a whole. Many non-specialists, however, continue to refer to the language as Provençal . One of the oldest written fragments of the language found dates back to 960, shown here in italics mixed with non-italicized Latin: De ista hora in antea non decebrà Ermengaus filius Eldiarda Froterio episcopo filio Girberga ne Raimundo filio Bernardo vicecomite de castello de Cornone ... no·l li tolrà ni no·l li devedarà ni no l'en decebrà ... nec societatem non aurà , si per castellum recuperare non o fa , et si recuperare potuerit in potestate Froterio et Raimundo lo tornarà , per ipsas horas quæ Froterius et Raimundus l'en comonrà . Carolingian litanies ( c. 780 ), though
10707-643: The leader sang in Latin , were answered to in Old Occitan by the people ( Ora pro nos ; Tu lo juva ). Other famous pieces include the Boecis , a 258-line-long poem written entirely in the Limousin dialect of Occitan between the year 1000 and 1030 and inspired by Boethius 's The Consolation of Philosophy ; the Waldensian La nobla leyczon (dated 1100), Cançó de Santa Fe ( c. 1054 –1076),
10836-837: The lush park and gardens. Today Saint-Jean Cap-Ferrat has probably some of the most expensive real estate in the world, and continues to attract the rich. Current residents include theatrical composer Andrew Lloyd Webber . Some of its Italianate and belle époque estates have hosted a plethora of heads of state, aristocrats, and personalities: King Leopold II of Belgium , Baroness de Rothschild , Charlie Chaplin , Rainier III , David Niven , Somerset Maugham , Jean Cocteau , Lady Kenmare and Roderick Cameron, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton , Pierre and São Schlumberger , Hubert de Givenchy , Rachel Lambert Mellon , Mary Wells Lawrence , Isadora Duncan , Winston Churchill , French prime ministers Maurice Rouvier and Raymond Barre . Major Berkeley Levett , an English aristocrat and witness in
10965-492: The lyric Living in error/With Maud at Cap Ferrat/Which couldn't be right. The Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild (or Musée Île-de-France) is an Italian-style villa built between 1905 and 1912 on the request of Baronness Béatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild . It contains a large art collection and fine furnishing. The villa grounds have an extensive set of seven gardens designed in different styles: French Traditional, Florentine, Spanish, Exotic, Lapidary, Japanese, and Provençal. The villa
11094-608: The material he had gathered in the Asian outposts in the 1920s, but the French penal settlement on Devil's Island furnished him with some stories. During a visit to India in 1938 he found his interest prompted less by the British expatriates than by Indian philosophers and ascetics: "As soon as the Maharajas realized that I didn't want to go on tiger hunts but that I was interested in seeing poets and philosophers they were very helpful." He visited
11223-481: The medical profession, and Maugham's uncle agreed. Maugham, who had been writing steadily since he was 15, intended to make his career as an author, but he dared not tell his guardian. From 1892 until he qualified in 1897, he studied medicine at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School in Lambeth . In his work as a medical student Maugham met the poorest working-class people: "I was in contact with what I most wanted, life in
11352-415: The modern Occitan-speaking area. After Frédéric Mistral 's Félibrige movement in the 19th century, Provençal achieved the greatest literary recognition and so became the most popular term for Occitan. According to Joseph Anglade , a philologist and specialist of medieval literature who helped impose the then archaic term Occitan as the standard name, the word Lemosin was first used to designate
11481-595: The more prestigious and exclusive British honour, the Order of Merit , saying to friends that the CH "means 'Well done, but ...'". There is some suggestion that his known homosexuality may have militated against his receiving the higher honour. In the post-war era, Maugham settled into a pattern of life that changed little from year to year: Winter and spring at the Mauresque, a few weeks of foreign travel (Austria, Italy, Spain) with
11610-571: The narrow-minded provincialism of nineteenth-century small-town English life". He found his uncle and aunt well-meaning but remote by contrast with the loving warmth of his home in Paris; he became shy and developed a stammer that stayed with him all his life. In a 2004 biography of Maugham, Jeffrey Meyers comments, "His stammer, a psychological and physical handicap, and his gradual awareness of his homosexuality made him furtive and secretive". Maugham's biographer Selina Hastings describes as "the first step in Maugham's loss of faith" his disillusion when
11739-422: The negative sense: for example, "Vous n'avez pas de frères?" "Si, j'en ai sept." ("You have no brothers?" "But yes, I have seven."). The name "Occitan" was attested around 1300 as occitanus , a crossing of oc and aquitanus ( Aquitanian ). For many centuries, the Occitan dialects (together with Catalan ) were referred to as Limousin or Provençal , after the names of two regions lying within
11868-435: The norms of his day. After a three-year affair with Syrie Wellcome which produced their daughter, Liza , they married in 1917. The marriage lasted for twelve years, but before, during and after it, Maugham's principal partner was a younger man, Gerald Haxton . Together they made extended visits to Asia, the South Seas and other destinations; Maugham gathered material for his fiction wherever they went. They lived together in
11997-534: The officially preferred language for use in the Val d'Aran. Across history, the terms Limousin ( Lemosin ), Languedocien ( Lengadocian ), Gascon , in addition to Provençal ( Provençal , Provençau or Prouvençau ) later have been used as synonyms for the whole of Occitan; nowadays, the term "Provençal" is understood mainly as the Occitan dialect spoken in Provence , in southeast France. Unlike other Romance languages such as French or Spanish , Occitan does not have
12126-478: The other. Nonetheless, specialists commonly divide Occitan into six main dialects: The northern and easternmost dialects have more morphological and phonetic features in common with the Gallo-Italic and Oïl languages (e.g. nasal vowels ; loss of final consonants; initial cha/ja- instead of ca/ga- ; uvular ⟨r⟩ ; the front-rounded sound /ø/ instead of a diphthong, /w/ instead of /l/ before
12255-492: The outside world". Maugham wrote of Haxton: He had an amiability of disposition that enabled him in a very short time to make friends with people in ships, clubs, bar-rooms, and hotels, so that through him I was able to get into easy contact with an immense number of persons whom otherwise I should have known only from a distance. After the South Seas trip Maugham visited the US and was joined by Syrie. In May 1917 they married at
12384-607: The part of proud father, managed to be civil to Syrie, and made a creditable speech at the reception at Claridge's afterwards". During a visit in 1954 he was invested as a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) by the Queen at a private audience in Buckingham Palace . He was widely understood in literary circles to have turned down a knighthood and to have hankered after
12513-462: The peninsula became a magnet for kings and wealthy visitors, a new era in the history of Saint Jean Cap Ferrat. The small fishing village of Saint Jean developed and by 1904 was established as a self-standing commune with the rest of the peninsula, separated from nearby Villefranche-sur-Mer . At the beginning of the 20th century, King Léopold II of Belgium owned an estate on Cap Ferrat and built several houses and an artificial lake. The main residence
12642-454: The popular Ethel Irving in the title role. It ran for 422 performances at five different West End theatres. By the next year, while the run of Lady Frederick continued, Maugham had three other plays running simultaneously in London. Maugham later said that he made comparatively little money from this unprecedented theatrical achievement, but it made his reputation. Punch printed a cartoon of Shakespeare's ghost looking concerned about
12771-538: The predominantly Basque -speaking general population. Their language became the status language chosen by the Navarrese kings, nobility, and upper classes for official and trade purposes in the period stretching from the early 13th century to the late 14th century. Written administrative records were in a koiné based on the Languedocien dialect from Toulouse with fairly archaic linguistic features. Evidence survives of
12900-653: The province's history (a late addition to the Kingdom of France), though even there the language is little spoken outside the homes of the rural elderly. The village of Artix is notable for having elected to post street signs in the local language. The area where Occitan was historically dominant has approximately 16 million inhabitants. Recent research has shown it may be spoken as a first language by approximately 789,000 people in France , Italy , Spain and Monaco . In Monaco, Occitan coexists with Monégasque Ligurian , which
13029-597: The raw". In maturity, he recalled the value of his experiences: "I saw how men died. I saw how they bore pain. I saw what hope looked like, fear and relief; I saw the dark lines that despair drew on a face." Maugham took rooms in Westminster , across the Thames from the hospital. He made himself comfortable there, filled many notebooks with literary ideas, and continued writing nightly, while studying for his medical degree. In 1897 he published his first novel, Liza of Lambeth ,
13158-513: The region of Provence , historically was used for Occitan as a whole, for "in the eleventh, the twelfth, and sometimes also the thirteenth centuries, one would understand under the name of Provence the whole territory of the old Provincia romana Gallia Narbonensis and even Aquitaine ". The term first came into fashion in Italy . Currently, linguists use the terms Provençal and Limousin strictly to refer to specific varieties within Occitan, using
13287-518: The region. He was reunited with Haxton, who joined him as secretary-companion. In addition to his intelligence work, Maugham gathered material for his fiction wherever he went. He was, by his own account, not a particularly imaginative or inventive person, but he studied people and places and used them, sometimes with minimal alteration or disguise, in his stories. He was helped in this by Haxton – extrovert and gregarious in contrast with Maugham's shyness – who became what Morgan terms an "intermediary with
13416-428: The same childhood misfortunes as Maugham himself: the loss of his mother, the breakup of his family home, and his emotionally straitened upbringing by elderly relatives. In addition, Carey has a club foot , a disability which commentators equate with either Maugham's stammer or his homosexuality. According to some of Maugham's intimates, the main female character, the manipulative Mildred, was based on "a youth, probably
13545-489: The school, and became a generous benefactor. A modest legacy from his father enabled him to go to Heidelberg University to study. His aunt, who was German, arranged accommodation for him, and aged sixteen he travelled to Germany. For the next year and a half he studied literature, philosophy and German. During his time in Heidelberg he had his first sexual affair; it was with John Ellingham Brooks , an Englishman ten years his senior. Brooks encouraged Maugham's ambitions to be
13674-589: The south of France. They divorced in 1929. During the 1920s Maugham published one novel ( The Painted Veil , (1925)), three books of short stories ( The Trembling of a Leaf (1921), The Casuarina Tree (1926) and Ashenden (1928)) and a travel book ( On a Chinese Screen , (1922)) but much of his work was for the theatre. He wrote seven plays during the decade: The Unknown (1920), The Circle (1921), East of Suez (1922), The Camel's Back (1923), The Constant Wife (1926), The Letter (1927) and The Sacred Flame (1928). His longest-running play of
13803-623: The term would have been in use orally for some time after the decline of Latin, as far as historical records show, the Italian medieval poet Dante was the first to have recorded the term lingua d'oc in writing. In his De vulgari eloquentia , he wrote in Latin, "nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil" ("for some say òc , others sì , yet others say oïl "), thereby highlighting three major Romance literary languages that were well known in Italy, based on each language's word for "yes",
13932-544: The time at a comfortable house on the estate of his American publisher, Nelson Doubleday . His lifestyle was modest: he felt that despite his considerable wealth he should not live luxuriously while Britain was enduring wartime privations. He saw little of Haxton, who undertook war work in Washington DC. As always, Maugham wrote continually. His daily routine was to write between an early breakfast and lunchtime, after which he entertained himself. His most substantial book from
14061-609: The ubiquity of Maugham's plays. Between 1908 and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Maugham wrote a further eight plays, but his stage successes did not completely distract him from writing novels. His supernatural thriller The Magician (1908) had a principal character modelled on Aleister Crowley , a well-known occultist . Crowley took offence and wrote a critique of the novel in Vanity Fair , charging Maugham with "varied, shameless and extensive" plagiarism. Maugham
14190-476: The war years was The Razor's Edge ; he found writing it unusually tiring – he was seventy when it was completed – and vowed it would be the last long novel he wrote. Haxton was holding down a responsible job in Washington and enjoying his new independence and self-reliance. Maugham was happy for him and was reconciled to the possibility of returning to La Mauresque without him after the war. The possibility became
14319-517: The war, Maugham travelled to England and lived in London until the end of 1946. While there, he established and endowed the Somerset Maugham Award , to be administered by the Society of Authors and given annually for a work of fiction, non-fiction, or poetry written by a British subject under the age of thirty-five. After returning to Cap Ferrat he completed his last full-length work of fiction,
14448-555: The winds are not as strong. The temperatures drop below 10 °C (50 °F) for only three months of the year (December to February), and winters on the French Riviera are balmy in comparison to the cold and gloomy weather that predominates the northern European countries. Nicknamed as one of the pearls on the French Riviera , this quiet fishing village is renowned in the whole world for its peninsula of lush vegetation and rocky beaches, close to other popular resorts such as Èze ,
14577-651: The world after Monaco. Train. The Nice-Ventimiglia train along the coast stops at Villefranche-sur-Mer and Beaulieu-sur-Mer . There are buses to the Cap-Ferrat from Nice's central bus station. Air: The nearest airports are Toulon-Hyères , Nice-Côte d'Azur , Marseille-Provence . Occitan language Italy Occitan ( English: / ˈ ɒ k s ɪ t ən , - t æ n , - t ɑː n / ; Occitan pronunciation: [utsiˈta, uksiˈta] ), also known as lenga d'òc ( Occitan: [ˈleŋɡɒ ˈðɔ(k)] ; French : langue d'oc ) by its native speakers, sometimes also referred to as Provençal ,
14706-463: The zoo. There is a very large bronze statue of the Madonna and Child , the early-19th century chapel, and a military cemetery for the 1914-18 war. A highlight of St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat is the lighthouse, built in 1862 by decision of Napoleon III who wanted to equip the French littoral with a semaphoric chain. The goal was to ensure a monitoring of navigation, transmit messages to the ships, organize help in
14835-412: Was Frederick Gerald Haxton , a young San Franciscan, who became his lover and companion for the next thirty years, but the affair between Maugham and Syrie Wellcome continued. In the weeks before the war began, Maugham had been completing his novel Of Human Bondage , a Bildungsroman with substantial autobiographical elements. The critic John Sutherland says of it: The hero, Philip Carey, suffers
14964-402: Was a departure from his previous style; its moral ambiguity and equivocal ending puzzled the critics and the public. Despite some help from Coward in the drafting and having Ralph Richardson as star and John Gielgud as director, it ran for a modest 83 performances. Maugham later wrote, "I grew conscious that I was no longer in touch with the public that patronises the theatre. This happens in
15093-435: Was a lie. Hastings quotes a contemporary's view that Kear was Maugham's revenge on Walpole for "a stolen boyfriend, an unrequited love and an old canker of jealousy". By the early 1930s Maugham had grown tired of the theatre. He told Noël Coward in 1933: I am done with playwriting. ... I cannot tell you how I loathe the theatre. It is all very well for you, you are author, actor and producer. What you give an audience
15222-564: Was a prominent solicitor and co-founder of the Law Society of England and Wales . Maugham's father, Robert Ormond Maugham (1823–1884), was a prosperous solicitor, based in Paris; his wife, Edith Mary, née Snell, lived most of her life in France, where all the couple's children were born. Robert Maugham handled the legal affairs of the British Embassy there, as his eldest surviving son, Charles, later did. The second son, Frederic , became
15351-464: Was acutely conscious of the fate of Oscar Wilde , whose arrest and imprisonment took place when Maugham was in his early twenties. Lifelong, Maugham was highly reticent about homosexual encounters, but it was thought by at least two of his lovers that at this period in his life he had recourse to young male prostitutes. Nevertheless he had a wish to marry, which he later greatly regretted. Looking back, he described his early attempts to be heterosexual as
15480-581: Was destroyed in 1706 by the Duke of Berwick when Nice was occupied by the French armies of King Louis XIV . During the 18th century, the history of Saint Jean Cap Ferrat changed when the area - officially part of the Kingdom of Sardinia - was occupied off and on by the French. It was returned to the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1814 after Napoleon's abdication. In 1860, the County of Nice was finally ceded by treaty to France and
15609-444: Was done], etc.", such as Spanish sí , Eastern Lombard sé , Italian sì , or Portuguese sim . In modern Catalan, as in modern Spanish, sí is usually used as a response, although the language retains the word oi , akin to òc , which is sometimes used at the end of yes–no questions and also in higher register as a positive response. French uses si to answer "yes" in response to questions that are asked in
15738-478: Was given the official Roman Catholic Imprimatur by vicar general A. Estellon. The literary renaissance of the late 19th century (in which the 1904 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, Frédéric Mistral, among others, was involved) was attenuated by World War I , when (in addition to the disruption caused by any major war) many Occitan speakers spent extended periods of time alongside French-speaking comrades. Because
15867-485: Was legally the daughter of Henry Wellcome, although he had not seen his wife for many years. He successfully sued for divorce in 1916, citing Maugham as co-respondent . After the birth of his daughter, Maugham moved to Switzerland. His fluency in French and German was an advantage, and for a year he worked in Geneva – at his own expense – as an agent for the British Secret Service . He was recruited by Sir John Wallinger ,
15996-554: Was married to the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome , but the couple had formally separated in 1909, after which she had a succession of partners, including the retailer Harry Gordon Selfridge . By 1914 Maugham was famous, with thirteen plays and eight novels completed. Too old to enlist when the First World War broke out, he served in France as a volunteer ambulance driver for the British Red Cross . Among his colleagues
16125-485: Was refused admission to the country. The lifelong ban followed his arrest and trial over a homosexual incident in 1915. He was acquitted, but was nonetheless registered as an "undesirable alien". When in Britain, Maugham lived with his wife at their house in Marylebone , but the couple were temperamentally incompatible, and their relationship grew increasingly fractious. He spent much time travelling with Haxton. They visited
16254-453: Was schooled in England and went to a German university. He became a medical student in London and qualified as a physician in 1897. He never practised medicine, and became a full-time writer. His first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), a study of life in the slums, attracted attention, but it was as a playwright that he first achieved national celebrity. By 1908 he had four plays running at once in
16383-543: Was still an everyday language for most of the rural population of southern France well into the 20th century, it is now spoken by about 100,000 people in France according to 2012 estimates. There is a movement in regions of France where Occitan was widely spoken to introduce educational programs to encourage young people in these regions to learn the language. According to the 1999 census, there were 610,000 native speakers (almost all of whom were also native French speakers) and perhaps another million people with some exposure to
16512-511: Was the maternal language of the English queen Eleanor of Aquitaine and kings Richard I (who wrote troubadour poetry) and John . With the gradual imposition of French royal power over its territory, Occitan declined in status from the 14th century on. The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) decreed that the langue d'oïl (French – though at the time referring to the Francien language and not
16641-520: Was to counter German propaganda, and to encourage the moderate republican Russian government under Alexander Kerensky to continue fighting. He arrived in Petrograd in August, too late to influence the outcome: in November, Kerensky was supplanted by Lenin and the Bolsheviks , who took Russia out of the war. By that time Maugham was ill with tuberculosis. He returned to Britain and spent three months in
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