George Washington's Rules of Civility: Complete with the Original French Text and New French-to-English Translations

Origins of the Rules of Civility: In 1745, a thirteen year-old schoolboy in Virginia jotted down a lengthy set of social rules in his workbook. Like many other young men in the American colonies, young George Washington was learning how to conduct himself in the fashion of a respectable British gentleman. Following instruction, George title his notes The Rules of Civility. The rules of civility were not a colonial invention. Like today's rules of etiquette, the colonial rules of civility reflect hundreds of years of social and cultural changes in western civilization. Codes of chivalry were distant ancestors in the Middle Ages; more immediate forebears were visible in the parentl advice and courtesy books of the Renaissance. The Rules of Civility, in the form that George Washington learned them in 1745, follow maxims set out in a 1595 French manuscript titled Bien-seance de la Conversation entre les Hommes, ("Good Manners in Conversation among Men").