In written French, there are special tenses known as literary tenses. These appear mainly in written texts and in literature, as a rule, although you never know when you'll run across them. Even though you may not ever actually use them, you should at least be able to recognize them.

Le Passé Simple

The passé simple, or simple past tense, is used like the passé composé to refer to events that occurred in the past. There is a major difference, however; while the passé composé uses either avoir or être as an auxiliary verb, the passé simple does not take any auxiliary; instead, the following endings are added to the stem of verbs ending in -er.

Table 12-16

Passé Simple with -er Verb Endings

Person	Singular	Plural
1st Person	-ai	-âmes
2nd Person	-as	-âtes
3rd Person	-a	-èrent

Table 12-17

Conjugation of Parler in the Passé Simple

Singular	Plural
je parlai	nous parlâmes
tu parlas	vous parlâtes
il/elle parla	ils/elles parlèrent

With verbs ending in -ir and -re, the passé simple is formed a little differently, adding the endings in Table 12-25, instead. Unlike the endings of -er verbs, only the nous and vous forms have accents in the conjugated verb endings.

Table 12-18

Passé Simple -re and -ir Verb Endings

Person	Singular	Plural
1st Person	-is	-îmes
2nd Person	-is	-îtes
3rd Person	-it	-irent

Table 12-19

Conjugation of Partir in the Passé Simple

Singular	Plural
je partis	nous partîmes
tu partis	vous partîtes
il partit	ils partirent

Table 12-20

Conjugation of Rire in the Passé Simple

Singular	Plural
je ris	nous rîmes
tu ris	vous rîtes
il/elle rit	ils rirent
ils/elles rit	elles rirent

You will need to be careful that you don't confuse -ir and -re verbs conjugated in the passé simple with the conditional or future forms of the words. Normally, the presence of an “r” is a great pointer to the tense. Fortunately, you won't have to worry about hearing these verbs conjugated in this tense; however, you may encounter them in books, magazines, or even on commemorative plaques. Best to be prepared.

The following irregular verbs have completely irregular formations in the passé simple, as they do in most other tenses, too. Avoir and être are used in the construction of another literary tense, called the passé antérieur, which is covered in the following section.

Table 12-21

Conjugation of Avoir in the Passé Simple

Singular	Plural
j'eus	nous eûmes
tu eus	vous eûtes
il/elle eut	ils eurent

Table 12-22

Conjugation of Être in the Passé Simple

Singular	Plural
je fus	nous fûmes
tu fus	vous fûtes
il/elle fut	ils/elles furent

The following verbs, tenir and venir, also have irregular conjugations in the passé simple. The verbs are not readily recognizable from the conjugation; as a matter of fact, you may find yourself confusing them with a number of words, so familiarize yourself with the forms.

Table 12-23

Conjugation of Tenir in the Passé Simple

Singular	Plural
je tins	nous tînmes
tu tins	vous tîntes
il/elle tint	ils/elles tinrent

Table 12-24

Conjugation of Venir in the Passé Simple

Singular	Plural
je vins	nous vînmes
tu vins	vous vîntes
il vint	ils vinrent

Le Passé Antérieur

If the passé simple is similar in use to the passé composé, then the passé antérieur is similar to the plus-que-parfait. It is used to refer to events that happened before the action described using the passé simple. However, in formation, it is very much like the passé composé. It uses avoir or être conjugated in the passé simple as the auxiliary verb, along with the past participle. As usual, the past participle will agree with any necessary preceding object pronouns. Refer to earlier in this chapter for information on agreement with verbs conjugated with être as the auxiliary verb and for agreement with verbs using avoir as the auxiliary. Here is an example: