Well, studying the Firebird Suite, there's an awful lot of techniques all over the show to be used. I know what most of them mean, but the French ones have bogged me down. Can anyone possibly define

Jeté -

Étouffez –

Sautillé

Salt(ando) –

Spicc(ato) –

Du talon –


From what I've heard, they all seem fairly similar! :S

Taa!

I haven't played the violin for years but I can speak French fluently.

Jeter means to throw - I'm not sure what it would mean in this context.
Etouffez means to stifle or deaden the sound (I presume you have spelt it right as "etoffez" would mean to expand)
Sautillé is a little jumping movement.
I think saltando and spiccato are Italian and not French.
Du talon means to play at the heel of the bow. (The opposite is à la pointe).

I'd need to see them in context, but as a violin player (albeit a frustrated one) and a native Francophone, I'll do my best to help:

Jeté means thrown - it could essentially have two meanings, either it's suggesting the piece should sound rushed, or if it's a bowing indication it's a little like ricochet.

étouffez doesn't appear to be a bowing instruction at all - it seems to be a direct instruction to the player (the form of the verb used is a command like form rather than the past participle which is usually used for bow strokes) - as Kerioboe said, it means 'stiffle' - the overall effect of that one word standing alone would sound to a native French mind either like 'choke yourself' or 'deaden the sound now' - let's hope it's the second one!

Sautillé means 'jumpy' and is fast spiccato - played in the middle to high end of the bow.

Saltando is the same as sautillé and is written in Italian.

Spiccato is slow sautillé played in the lower half of the bow, it's a slow bouncy stroke where the hair leaves the string. Again, this is Italian.

Du talon simply means, as Keriobe said, from the heel of the bow.

Essentially, the French way of viewing bowing is quite fluid - there are long strokes (détaché), legato strokes (liés), sharp détached strokes (piqué or détaché étroit) then jumpy strokes (sautillé if the bow is changing direction, ricochet if it isn't). A French violinist wouldn't see the difference between sautillé and spiccato, really, it's just faster versions of the same thing which therefore means you have to move the bounce point higher up so the bow doesn't go so high...

If you're interested in learning about the French school of learning bow technique (where things like sautillé and ricochet are taught to second and third year students - some of whom haven't begun to shift position yet), then I can't recommend anything more highly than the three book series 'Le petit pagannini' - it's excellent.

Good luck

Allan

This site has some useful videos explaining some of the different bow techniques but not all those you mention

http://violinmasterclass.com/mc_menu.php

I was just going to put that up! Looks like you beat me to it!