Here's One For You Grammar Buffs

[DTCwordfan]

Chapter Heading in a book - and involves French

should it be:

Tremolat - La Belle France
or
Tremolat - la Belle France

A beautiful village with a great hotel there....in some ways akin to our Kirkby Lonsdale, both used for period sets, the latter used for 'The Voyage of Doctor Doolittle.'

Thanks in advance for your learned consideration.

[Peter Pedant]

well it looks like

Henry Owgan · 1856
Ah , mon Dieu , la belle France ! - la belle ville etc

Jourdain will know

[jno]

the French disapprove of the upper case (and guillotined many of them); under normal circumstances it would probably be Tremolat - la belle France. But books are usually subject to house style, and the editors may have some reason for extra capitalisation.

[bhg481]

It's 60 years since I last had a French lesson but I seem to remember that the definite article in front of a town name was always lower case. Just for fun I looked on Google Earth and found that they use upper case. I then got clever (I thought) and looked at Google street view to discover that town signs on French roads at the entrance to a town are in block capitals, so no help there.

[TheChair]

Assuming that the item is in an English book, and that this is the title or heading, then one would normally use title case, so the second one would be correct.

[DTCwordfan]

thank you all - indeed the book is in English and I lean to TheChair's opinion.

[THECORBYLOON]

Trémolat has an accent.

[Atheist]

Indeed, Corby. A French one!

[THECORBYLOON]

Some might say it's a cute accent...

[Atheist]

Oh, la la, Corby. The French accent is the cutest I know!

[jno]

but a grave accusation.

Yes, if it's in English, it can be whatever (but the comments about house style still stand: publishers make their own rules).

[Tilly2]

That would be grave.

[Tilly2]

Sorry, Jno. Didn't see you there.

[jno]

stereo is good, Tilly

[ichkeria]

It’s not a grammar question but a matter of style and if it was up to me then it makes no sense, in title case, not to capitalise the article, especially as it’s the first word of the clause