Oh you could at least have posted it in English --

The particle is kept for one syllable names beginning with a consonant sound.

<i>Except that you don't say "je vais à d'Austerlitz" when you're going to "la gare d'Austerlitz" ......</i>

true, but I do not know of any shortened form of a train station name (airports are). Hypothetically, assume a <i>musée d'Alembert</i>. Would one say "une expo à Alembert" or "une expo au d'Alembert"? And yes, I know that in this instance the <i>de</i> is a <i>particule</i> but my point is that the vestigial quality of the <i>d'</i> in <i>musée d'Orsay</i> seemed to make it an inseparable part of the name.

That's how I thought of it. But it gets more complicated. Why assume the definite article in "je vais au Marmottan pour voir l'expo ..." but not in "je vais à Orsay pour voir l'expo ..."?

I think that the last answer I received is the best explanation: Parce que sinon le français serait trop facile à apprendre pour les étrangers ;-)

Following this thread with interest (and some amusement).
I've only ever heard the museum referred to in the UK by its full name, the Musée d'Orsay. That is how it was referred to in English when I was learning art history as a teenager, anyway.

I never came across the term "the d'Orsay" until I started reading this board!

"I never came across the term "the d'Orsay" until I started reading this board!"

Neither did I, but I was advised from Americans who'd been to the museum: "Don't miss the d'Orsay," and it didn't sound right.

I suspected, but now I know, it's "the musee d'Orsay" or in English, the Orsay museum.

I've enjoyed this thread and learned more than I asked. I hadn't thought about "de" and names.

De Gaulle is correct.

His surname was written with an upper-case D and the surname is invariable.

The other people you mention are descendants of the aristocracy who enjoy the rare privilege of writing their surname with a lower case D.

When their name is cited without a preceding Monsieur or Le Comte or Le Marquis or whatever, it is said or written without the "de".

Le Marquis de Lafayette
Lafayette
Le General De Gaulle
De Gaulle

A Belgian aristocrat once told me that in Belgium, a monarchy, it is an offense to impersonate an aristocrat by writing your upper-case surname with the lower case D. Anway, that is what he said.

France, being no longer a monarchy, hence with no official system of titles, probably has lots of people who have added a "de" fraudulently to their name and perhaps made up a title to boot.

There is a publication called "Dictionnaire de la fausse noblesse", dedicated to umasking the imposters.

There was a time when having a "de" in your name could cost you your head.

The particle is kept for one syllable names beginning with a consonant sound.

Then why Sade?

Don't ask, StCirq. There are some people that you don't want to annoy.

That is the name that I said broke the rule.

Ah, I missed that.

Having now read pvoyageuse's post I started doubting myself about de/ De Gaulle.

Most of the hits I get on google show his name spelled de Gaulle. Some show it as De Gaulle.

All my life I have been convinced it was De Gaulle -- and now it appears I am wrong. Live and learn.

Le Monde:

http://regards-curieux.blog.lemonde....retrospective/

Title is "James Ensor au Musée d’Orsay, la retrospective"

Even in blog form, Le Monde didn't choose to shorten the
name of the museum in any fashion.

Here's an interesting example, again from Le Monde:

http://www.lemonde.fr/cgi-bin/ACHATS...jet_id=1103756

"La rétrospective, qui se tient au Musée d'Orsay, après le MoMA de New York..."

Evidently the critic chose to shorten the name of the museum in New York to MoMA but still chose to spell out the full name of the museum.

Another example:

L'Express

http://www.lexpress.fr/culture/art/l...or_825849.html

"Les oeuvres du peintre belge... sont exposées au Musée d'Orsay."

Let's see how the French themselves write in English. An example from RFI, Radio France International:

http://www.rfi.fr/actuen/articles/106/article_1838.asp

"There is undeniable pleasure in seeing so many chefs d’oeuvres gathered together under three roofs: the Grand Palais, the Musée d’Orsay and the Louvre. The French newspaper Libération calls it the ‘Picasso Magical Tour’."

Here's one use of "Orsay Museum," in English, which is exactly what one would expect in terms of omitting "d'," here:

http://www.rfi.fr/actuen/articles/113/article_3846.asp

"Caroline Matthieu, curator of the exhibit Gustave Eiffel, le magicien du fer (the magician of iron), and in charge of architecture collections at Paris’ Orsay museum, says she wanted to bring out the elegant and innovative way Eiffel used iron."

But notice the word "museum" still appears after the word Orsay in this example.

With Charles de Gaulle, let's just check the airport website:

http://www.aeroportsdeparis.fr/ADP/f...agers/Accueil/

"Accès à Paris-Charles de Gaulle"

And just check out the Metro map:

http://www.ratp.info/orienter/f_plan...ng&partenaire=

Charles de Gaulle 'Etoile

"de" is absolutely never capitalized when it is used as a separate word, unless of course it begins a sentence or a title. (So of course I should have written: "De" is never capitalized....") It is just a connecting word.

..the Marquis de Sade is just "Sade" to the French, as former prime minister Dominique de Villepin is just "Villepin." Alexis de Tocqueville is just "Tocqueville," and the Cardinal de Richelieu is just "Richelieu."

still nobody would say "Guesclin" for "Bertrand du Guesclin" *

*Constable of France - 1320/1380

"Sade" is the exception to the rule that one syllable nouns with a <i>particule</i> retain the <i>particule</i>, and I believe that one would say "du Guesclin" even though the name has more than one syllable and does not begin with a vowel, another exception to the rule.

'particule'...I like

Mais « d’ », « Du » ou « Des » sont maintenus :



"still nobody would say "Guesclin" for "Bertrand du Guesclin" * Du Guesclin"

No, because "du" and "d'" obey to a different rule than "de".
We say :
Des Cars
Des Esseintes
d’Alembert
d'Hozier

Except for Des Cars, which follows the single syllable rule, all the others names start with vowels or a silent "h", and that same rule applies to those. See my quote above from <u>Le Petit Robert</u>. I don't think that there is a grammatical difference, aside from the plural, between "le duc de Bretagne" and (admittedly fictitious) "le duc des Landes".