The subjunctive is a mood that exists both in English and French. This paper tries to compare and contrast the frequency and use of this mood in these languages. Although the two languages belong to two different branches of the Indo-European family tree they have had much contact over the years and the use of the subjunctive is comparable in the two languages. However, it is obvious that the subjunctive is more frequent in French than in English. The essay tries to see whether the subjunctive is likely to appear in the same type of subordinate clauses in both languages. There will also be a brief analysis of the different tenses of the subjunctive. The paper studies four different grammars, two English, and two French, and is hence a study of how the four grammars deal with the subject of the subjunctive. The paper studies different types of subordinate clauses and tries to find equivalents of these clause types in the four grammars. The different clauses are divided into relative, adverbial and complementary clauses. The subjunctive proved to be the most frequent in the two latter clause types in both languages. According to the grammars English possesses two tenses and French possesses five. Among the four grammars two that are somewhat more dated are more elaborate when dealing with the subjunctive than the more recent ones.