Breakdown of Il valait mieux qu'il flattât l'orgueil du roi.
il
he
de
of / from / any (in negative sentences) / about (concerning)
le roi
the king
que
that (introducing a clause)
il vaut mieux
it is better to
flatter
to flatter
l'orgueil
the pride (m)
Questions & Answers about Il valait mieux qu'il flattât l'orgueil du roi.
What tense is flattât and why does it have a circumflex?
It is the imperfect subjunctive (subjonctif imparfait) of the verb flatter. In this literary tense, the third-person singular form almost always features a circumflex accent over the vowel just before the final t (yielding endings like -ât, -ît, or -ût). This accent is a highly reliable visual clue to help you recognize the tense when reading classic French texts!
Why is the imperfect subjunctive used here instead of the standard present subjunctive?
The expression Il vaut mieux que (It is better that) expresses a subjective judgment or necessity, which always triggers the subjunctive mood. Because the main clause is set in a past tense (Il valait mieux), traditional literary rules dictate a "sequence of tenses," requiring the following verb to also reflect the past by using the imperfect subjunctive.
Would I hear flattât in everyday spoken French?
Almost certainly not. The imperfect subjunctive is reserved for formal writing, historical texts, and classic literature. In modern spoken and everyday written French, speakers ignore the traditional sequence of tenses and simply use the present subjunctive despite the past-tense trigger: Il valait mieux qu'il flatte l'orgueil du roi.
The English translation says "for him to flatter," so why isn't an infinitive used in French?
English frequently uses the structure "for [someone] to [verb]" after impersonal phrases. However, French requires two separate clauses connected by que (followed by the subjunctive) whenever you introduce a specific subject doing the action (il). If you wanted to make a general statement without specifying who was doing the flattering, you would drop the que and use the infinitive: Il valait mieux flatter l'orgueil du roi (It was better to flatter the king's pride).
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