The French syllabic meter distinguishes it fundamentally from English accentual-syllabic meter: where an English iambic pentameter counts five stresses, a French décasyllabe counts ten syllables, making syllabic count rather than stress pattern the organizing principle of the verse; A student learning French metrics should begin by practicing syllabic counting, including the complex rules about the mute e, diérèse, and synérèse, before attempting to analyze the more subtle rhythmic effects created by accent placement within the syllabic framework; The major French meters form a hierarchy: the twelve-syllable alexandrin dominates tragic, epic, and elevated lyric poetry; the ten-syllable décasyllabe served narrative and some lyric poetry; and the eight-syllable octosyllabe is the meter of lighter narrative and certain lyric forms; Verlaine's prescription of impair (odd-numbered) meters in his Art poétique recommends meters like the nine-syllable or seven-syllable line as alternatives to the even-numbered dominance, seeking rhythmic instability and musical flow over the confident regularity of even syllable counts; The reform of French meter by the Symbolists did not abandon syllabic counting entirely but loosened the strict rules about caesura, hiatus, and the mute e that classical versification had imposed, creating a more flexible syllabic practice that preserved the unit of the line while freeing its internal organization; Modern free verse in French retains an awareness of meter as a reference system even when departing from it: the ghost of the alexandrin haunts even the most liberated contemporary French poetry, giving its departures from regularity their expressive resonance.