L'Imparfait et le Plus-que-parfait du Subjonctif: The Literary Subjunctive Tenses

There are four subjunctive tenses in French — présent, passé, imparfait, plus-que-parfait — and only two of them are alive in modern speech. The imparfait du subjonctif and the plus-que-parfait du subjonctif are essentially extinct in spoken French and absent from most contemporary writing. They live on in 19th-century literature, in some legal and ceremonial language, in academic prose that aims at a deliberately classical register, and in the occasional ironic flourish. They are also among the most distinctive markers of pre-twentieth-century French style.

This page is a recognition page for C1 readers. The goal is to be able to identify these forms when you meet them in Hugo, Balzac, Flaubert, Stendhal, Maupassant, or any pre-1950 prose; to know what they mean; and to mentally translate them into the modern subjonctif présent or subjonctif passé equivalents that contemporary French would use. Producing them in your own French is unnecessary, often comical, and signals "learner who has memorized rare forms" rather than "elegant stylist." The exception is if you are deliberately writing in a classical or pastiche register — but that is a stylistic choice, not a grammatical requirement.

Why these tenses still matter

You will encounter the imparfait du subjonctif and plus-que-parfait du subjonctif in three real-world places:

1. 19th-century and earlier French literature. Hugo, Balzac, Flaubert, Stendhal, Dumas, Maupassant — every page of these authors uses these forms. If you intend to read French literature at C1, you must be able to parse them at sight.
2. Legal and contractual French. Il convenait que les parties eussent signé avant la date butoir — formal legal prose still uses these tenses to express contractual sequences.
3. Very formal academic and ceremonial language. Doctoral defense rituals, official speeches by senior public figures, academic prefaces in classical literary criticism, certain Académie française pronouncements.

You will not hear them in conversation, in journalism, in modern fiction (post-1960 or so), in casual writing, in songs, in films, or in TV. Modern French uses subjonctif présent and subjonctif passé in all the contexts where older French would have used imparfait and plus-que-parfait du subjonctif.

Formation: the imparfait du subjonctif

The imparfait du subjonctif is built from the passé simple stem of the verb, with a characteristic double-s in most persons and a circumflex accent on the third-person singular. The endings are: -sse, -sses, -^t, -ssions, -ssiez, -ssent.

The third-person singular is the most distinctive form because of the circumflex, which is the orthographic signature of this tense.

Sample paradigm: parler (regular -er, passé simple stem parla-)

Sample paradigm: finir (regular -ir, passé simple stem fini-)

A subtle point: for -ir and many other verbs, several persons of the imparfait du subjonctif are identical to the corresponding subjonctif présent forms (que je finisse, qu'ils finissent are the same in both tenses). Only the third-person singular (qu'il finît) is unambiguously imparfait du subjonctif. This is why the third-person singular is the form you most often see and the diagnostic form for recognizing the tense.

Sample paradigm: être (passé simple stem fu-)

Sample paradigm: avoir (passé simple stem eu-)

Sample paradigm: venir (passé simple stem vin-)

Sample paradigm: faire (passé simple stem fi-)

The diagnostic is reliable: any verb form ending in -^t (with circumflex) in the third-person singular, after a que, is in the imparfait du subjonctif. Qu'il parlât, qu'elle vînt, qu'il fît, qu'il fût, qu'il eût, qu'on prît — these are unmistakable.

Formation: the plus-que-parfait du subjonctif

The plus-que-parfait du subjonctif is built mechanically from the imparfait du subjonctif of avoir or être + past participle. It is the literary counterpart of the modern subjonctif passé, used to mark anteriority in a literary context where the matrix verb is in the past.

Sample paradigm: parler (avoir auxiliary)

Sample paradigm: partir (être auxiliary)

The diagnostic for the plus-que-parfait du subjonctif is the combination of an imparfait du subjonctif of the auxiliary (qu'il eût, qu'il fût) followed by a past participle. Qu'il eût parlé, qu'elle fût venue, qu'on eût compris, qu'ils fussent partis — all distinctive.

How they work in literature

In strictly prescriptive French (the kind found in 19th-century novels), the four subjunctive tenses follow a rigid sequence-of-tenses rule based on the matrix-clause tense:

In modern French, the bottom two rows have collapsed into the top two: a past matrix verb pairs with the subjonctif présent or subjonctif passé, not the literary forms. But in pre-1960 prose, you will find the literary forms used systematically.

Examples from the literary register

These sentences could come from any 19th-century French novel. Read them aloud — the rhythm and register are characteristic, and the circumflex-bearing third-person singular forms (vînt, fût, prît, osât) are the signature notes of the literary subjunctive.

A famous Hugo example

A celebrated example from Victor Hugo's Les Misérables showcases the literary subjunctive in narrative context:

The three verbs fît, prît, eût are all imparfait du subjonctif — used because the matrix verb il fallait is in the past. In modern French, even with the past matrix, the subjonctif présent (fasse, prenne, ait) is what would appear.

The si + plus-que-parfait du subjonctif construction

In strictly literary French, the plus-que-parfait du subjonctif sometimes replaces the plus-que-parfait indicative or the conditionnel passé in counterfactual si-clauses or in the result clause. This is one of the most archaic uses, found mainly in 17th- and 18th-century writing and in self-consciously classical 19th-century prose.

This construction is sometimes called the deuxième forme du conditionnel passé and is described in classical grammar books. Modern speakers and writers do not use it. Recognize and translate; do not produce.

Recognition strategies

When reading 19th-century French, the diagnostic features for the literary subjunctive are:

1. Circumflex on the third-person singular: qu'il parlât, qu'elle vînt, qu'on fît, qu'il fût, qu'il eût. Any verb in the third-person singular after que with a circumflex on a vowel of the ending is imparfait du subjonctif.
2. Double s in plural and second-person singular: que nous parlassions, que vous parlassiez, qu'ils parlassent, que tu parlasses. The double s
   • ending is the imparfait du subjonctif signature.
3. Fusse, fusses, fût, fussions, fussiez, fussent (forms of être). One of the most common patterns in 19th-century prose.
4. Eusse, eusses, eût, eussions, eussiez, eussent (forms of avoir). When followed by a past participle, this is the plus-que-parfait du subjonctif.

Once you can spot these forms, the meaning translates straightforwardly: qu'il vînt = qu'il vienne = "that he come"; qu'il eût parlé = qu'il ait parlé = "that he have spoken." The mood and the embedded-clause logic are unchanged from the modern subjunctive — only the tense morphology shifts.

A common stumbling block: eût vs. eut

Even careful readers sometimes confuse the imparfait du subjonctif of avoir (qu'il eût) with the passé simple indicative of avoir (il eut). They are spelled almost identically, but the circumflex is the diagnostic.

• il eut (no circumflex, no que) — passé simple indicative — "he had" (a punctual past event)
• qu'il eût (with circumflex, after que) — imparfait du subjonctif — "(that) he had" (in a literary subjunctive context)

The same distinction holds for fut (passé simple) vs. fût (subjonctif imparfait), vint vs. vînt, prit vs. prît, and so on. The circumflex is small but decisive.

Should you ever use them?

For ordinary B2-C1 communication: no. Modern French uses subjonctif présent and subjonctif passé in all contexts where older French would have used the literary forms, and producing the literary forms in conversation is jarring.

For deliberately classical or pastiche writing: yes, but carefully. If you are writing a historical novel set in the 19th century, an academic paper that aims at a classical register, or a piece of literary parody, the literary subjunctive is part of the toolkit. Use it consistently — mixing modern and literary forms is a stylistic mistake — and remember that the passé simple should accompany the imparfait du subjonctif, not the passé composé.

For French exams: recognition only. Production of the literary subjunctive is not tested at any standard CEFR level (including C2). What is tested is your ability to read it and to translate it into modern French.

Comparison with English and other Romance languages

English has nothing like this. The English subjunctive is so reduced (if I were you, I demand that he be present) that even calling it a "subjunctive" requires definitional gymnastics. There is no recognition challenge for English-speaking readers analogous to the imparfait du subjonctif.

For Spanish speakers, the situation is more complicated. Spanish has retained an imperfecto del subjuntivo (hablara / hablase) that is fully alive in modern speech and writing. Quería que viniera — "I wanted him to come" — is everyday Spanish, with the imperfecto del subjuntivo as the natural choice. This is a major asymmetry: the form that French has driven into literary obsolescence, Spanish has kept robustly productive. Spanish learners of French sometimes over-produce the imparfait du subjonctif by transfer from their L1, and this is a mistake. French has moved past this form; Spanish has not.

For Italian speakers, the congiuntivo imperfetto (che parlasse) is also alive, similarly to Spanish — though more endangered in casual northern Italian speech. Again, do not transfer Italian instincts about which subjunctive tense to use into French.

The takeaway: of the major Romance languages, only French has driven the imperfect subjunctive into literary recognition-only status. This is one of the genuine peculiarities of French in its family.

Common Mistakes

Mistake 1: Producing the imparfait du subjonctif in casual French.

Mistake 2: Confusing eût (subj. imparfait) with eut (passé simple) when reading.

Mistake 3: Mixing modern and literary forms in the same text.

Mistake 4: Skipping the circumflex on the third-person singular.

The circumflex is not optional. It is the diacritic signature of this tense and the diagnostic feature that lets you spot it in print.

Mistake 5: Treating si + plus-que-parfait du subjonctif as the modern way to express counterfactuals.

Key takeaways

• The imparfait du subjonctif and plus-que-parfait du subjonctif are literary, recognition-only tenses in modern French. They flourish in 19th-century prose, in legal and ceremonial language, and in deliberately classical writing — not in spoken French or contemporary journalism.
• Formation: the imparfait du subjonctif is built from the passé simple stem with endings -sse, -sses, -^t, -ssions, -ssiez, -ssent. The third-person singular has a circumflex (qu'il parlât, qu'elle vînt, qu'il fût, qu'il eût). The plus-que-parfait du subjonctif is imparfait du subjonctif of avoir / être
  • past participle.
• Modern French has collapsed the four-tense subjunctive system into two productive tenses: subjonctif présent and subjonctif passé. The literary forms are no longer needed for production at any CEFR level.
• Spanish and Italian still have productive imperfect subjunctives. French is the outlier among the major Romance languages in having driven its imperfect subjunctive into literary obsolescence. Do not transfer the Spanish or Italian habit into French.
• The circumflex on the third-person singular is the diagnostic feature for spotting these tenses in print. Qu'il fût (subj. impf.) vs. il fut (passé simple) is the model contrast — small accent, large grammatical difference.
• For C1 readers: recognize, parse, mentally translate to the modern form. For producers: stay in subjonctif présent and subjonctif passé. Use the literary forms only if you are deliberately writing in a classical register.