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Chamfort - The French Moralists: Products of A Perfected Civilization
Chamfort - The French Moralists: Products of A Perfected Civilization
Question
Responses
It's because the public seems to me to have very bad taste and a
penchant for disparaging things.
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every time I was successful. It's because one never sees, as Bacon says,
glory and repose walking together. Because the public is only interested
in successes that it doesn't esteem. Because I would be half-way from
the glory of Jeannot. Because I no longer want to please anyone except
those who are like me. It's because the more my literary attention goes
away, the happier I am. It's because I have known nearly every famous
man in our times, and I have seen them unhappy through this pretty
passion for celebrity, and die after having degraded their moral character
for it.
Question
Réponses
C'est qu'un homme raisonnable ne peut agir sans motif, et qu'un succès
ne me ferait aucun plaisir, tandis qu'une disgrâce me ferait peut-être
beaucoup de peine.C'est que je ne dois pas troubler mon repos, parce
que la compagnie prétend qu'il faut divertir la compagnie.C'est que je
travaille pour les variétés amusantes, qui sont le théâtre de la nation, et
qu je mène de front, avec cela, un ouvrage philosophique, qui doit être
imprimé à l'imprimerie royale.C'est que le public en use avec les gens de
lettres comme les racoleurs du pont Saint-Michel avec ceux qu'ils
enrôlent, enivrés le premier jour, dix écus et des coups de bâton le reste
de leur vie.C'est qu'on me presse de travailler, par la même raison que
quand on se met à sa fenêtre, on souhaite de voir passer, dans les rues,
des singes ou des meneurs d'ours.Exemple de M. Thomas, insulté
pendant toute sa vie et loué après sa mort.Gentilshommes de la chambre,
comédiens, censeurs, la police, Beaumarchais.C'est que j'ai peur de
mourir sans avoir vécu.C'est que tout ce qu'on me dit pour m'engager à
me produire, est bon à dire à Saint-Ange ou à Murville.C'est que j'ai à
travailler et que les succès perdent du temps.C'est que je ne voudrais pas
faire comme les gens de lettres, qui ressemblent à des ânes, ruant et se
battant devant un râtelier vide.C'est que si j'avais donné à mesure, les
bagatelles dont je pouvais disposer, il n'y aurait plus pour moi de repos
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sur la terre.C'est que j'aime mieux l'estime des honnêtes gens, et mon
bonheur particulier que quelques éloges, quelques écus, avec beaucoup
d'injures et de calomnies.C'est que s'il y a un homme sur la terre qui ait
le droit de vivre pour lui, c'est moi, après les méchancetés qu'on m'a
faites à chaque succès que j'ai obtenu.C'est que jamais, comme dit
Bacon, on n'a vu marcher ensemble la gloire et le repos.Parce que le
public ne s'intéresse qu'aux succès qu'il n'estime pas.Parce que je
resterais à moitiè chemin de la gloire de Jeannot.Parce que j'en suis à ne
plus vouloir plaire qu'à qui me ressemble.C'est que plus mon affiche
littéraire s'efface, plus je suis heureux.C'est que j'ai connu presque tous
les hommes célèbres de notre temps, et que je les ai vus malheureux par
cette belle passion de célébrité et mourir, après avoir dégradé par elle
leur caractère moral.
First Part
Première Partie
Maximes et Pensées
Chapter One
Chapitre Premier
General Maxims
Maximes Générales
Maxims and axioms are, just like summaries, the work that spirited
people do, it seems, for the use of mediocre or lazy spirits. A lazy
person adapts to a maxim that keeps him from having to make the
observations himself that brought the author to the statement he presents
to his reader. Lazy and mediocre men think they are fit to go beyond it,
and give the maxim a generality that the author, at least if he wasn't
himself mediocre, which sometimes happens, didn't claim to give. A
superior man seizes all at once on the resemblances and differences that
make the maxim more or less applicable in each separate case, or not
applicable at all. It is similar in this way to natural history, where the
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desire to simplify nature has imagined classes and divisions. Spirit was
needed to make these. Because it was necessary to bring things together
and observe similarities. But a great naturalist, a man of genius, sees that
nature has prodigally made beings who are each particularly different,
and sees the insufficiency of the divisions and classes that are used so
often by mediocre and lazy spirits; one can compare the two: it is often
the same thing, it is often cause and effect.
Les maximes, les axiomes, sont, ainsi que les abrégés, l'ouvrage des
gens d'esprit, qui ont travaillé, ce semble, à l'usage des esprits médiocres
ou paresseux. Le paresseux s'accomode d'une maxime qui le dispense de
faire lui-même les observations qui ont mené l'auteur de la maxime au
résultat dont il fait part à son lecteur. Le paresseux et l'homme médiocre
se croient dispensés d'aller au-delà, et donnent à la maxime une
généralité que l'auteur, à moins qu'il ne soit lui-même médiocre, ce qui
arrive quelquefois, n'a pas prétendu lui donner. L'homme supérieur saisit
tout d'un coup les ressemblances, les différences qui font que la maxime
est plus ou moins applicable à tel ou tel cas, ou ne l'est pas du tout. Il en
est de cela comme de l'histoire naturelle, où le désir de simplifier a
imaginé les classes et les divisions. Il a fallu avoir de l'esprit pour les
faire. Car il a fallu rapprocher et observer des rapports. Mais le grand
naturaliste, l'homme de génie voit que la nature prodigue des êtres
individuellement différents, et voit l'insuffisance des divisions et des
classes qui sont d'un si grand usage aux esprits médiocres ou paresseux;
on peut les associer: c'est souvent la même chose, c'est souvent la cause
et l'effet.
It would be a curious thing to see a book that pointed out all of the
corrupting ideas about the human spirit, society, morality that are
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Ce serait une chose curieuse qu'un livre qui indiquerait toutes les idées
corruptrices de l'esprit humain, de la société, de la morale, et qui se
trouvent développées ou supposées dans les écrits les plus célèbres, dans
les auteurs les plus consacrés; les idées qui propagent la superstition
religieuse, les mauvaises maximes politiques, le despotisme, la vanité de
rang, les préjugés populaires de toute espèce. On verrait que presque
tous les livres sont des corrupteurs, que les meilleurs font presque autant
de mal que de bien.
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mixture of pleasure and surprise. It's this debris that causes a naive
expression of a natural feeling that sometimes escapes in society; it even
happens that it is more pleasing the more elevated the rank of the person
it escaped from, that is, the further they are from nature. It charms others
in a king, because a king is the extreme opposite. It is the debris of
ancient Doric or Corinthian architecture in a vulgar and modern
building.
10
Rogues always need their honor a little bit, in a similar way as spies
in the police, who aren't paid as much when they don't investigate high
society.
11
12
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13
14
There are two types of moralists and politicians: those who only know
the odious and ridiculous side of human nature, and this is the majority:
Lucian, Montaigne, La Bruyère, La Rochefoucauld, Swift, Mandeville,
Helvetius, etc.. Then there are those who only see it's beautiful side and
it's perfections; such as Shaftesbury and some others. The first do not
know the palace of which they have only seen the bathroom. The second
are enthusiasts who turn their eyes far away from what offends them,
and which exists nonetheless. Est in medio verum. [The truth is in the
middle].
15
16
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distinguishes a good and a bad poet is that the first wants to produce an
effect through reasonable means, and for the second any means are just
fine. In this way they are similar to honest men and rogues, which
equally want to make a fortune: the first only use honest means, and the
others use any means at all.
17
Philosophy, like medicine, has very many drugs, very few good
remedies and nearly no specifics.
18
People count about 150 million souls in Europe, double that in Africa,
more than triple that in Asia; admitting that America and Australia
contain only a fraction of the people in our hemisphere, one can be sure
that on our globe everyday more than one hundred thousand men die. A
man who only lived for thirty years would have escaped this frightening
destruction about 1,400 times.
19
I've seen men who were only gifted with simple and straight reason,
without very much vastness or elevation of spirit, and this simple reason
was enough for them to put human vanity and folly in their places, to
give them a feeling of their personal dignity, and make them appreciate
this same feeling in others. I've seen women in nearly the same
situation, to whom a true feeling, experienced early, gave the same
ideas. It follows from these two observations that people who highly
value these human vanities and follies are the lowest class of our
species.
20
Someone who doesn't know how to run back to pleasant jokes, and who
lacks suppleness of spirit, often finds himself placed between the
necessity of being false or being pedantic; annoying alternatives that an
honest fellow will keep from him, usually, by grace and gaiety.
21
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22
23
The majority of the nobility resemble their ancestors in about the same
way as a Cicerone in Italy resembles Cicero.
24
25
An honest man must have public esteem without having thinking of it,
and, so to say, despite himself. Someone who runs after it shows what
he is worth.
26
It is a beautiful allegory, in the Bible, that death arose from the tree of
knowledge of good and evil. Doesn't this emblem mean that when one
has seen to the bottom of things, the loss of illusions brings death to
one's soul, that is, a complete disinterest in everything that touches and
occupies other men?
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27
28
People in society think that the deaf are unfortunate. Isn't this a
judgment pronounced by the excessive pride of society, which says:
"Isn't this man to be pitied, who doesn't hear what we are saying?"
29
Thought consoles all and remedies all. If sometimes it harms you, ask it
for the remedy to the harm, and it will give it to you.
30
There are, one cannot deny, some great characters in modern history;
and one can't understand how they were formed. They seem out of place
there. They are like caryatids on a mezzanine.
31
32
33
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34
35
How many distinguished soldiers, how many brave officers have died
without transmitting their names to posterity: in this, they were less
fortunate than Bucephalus [the horse of Alexander the Great], and even
less fortunate than the spanish bulldog Berecillo [of Christopher
Colombus], who ate the Indians on Haiti, and who received as much pay
as three soldiers!
36
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37
What best explains that dishonest men, and sometimes even fools,
nearly always have more success in society than honest men and men
with spirit, is that dishonest men and fools don't have to go through as
much trouble to adjust to the current and tone of society, which in
general is only dishonesty and foolishness; whereas honest and sensible
men, being unable to enter so fast into the commerce of the world, lose
precious time in making their fortunes. The first are salesmen who,
knowing the language of the country, sell and restock their merchandise
immediately, whereas the others are obliged to learn the language of
their suppliers and customers. Before revealing their merchandise and
making deals with such people, they often even scorn learning this
language, and they go back home before revealing their wares a single
time.
38
39
To pardon reason for the bad things it does to most men, a person needs
to consider what man would be without reason. It is a necessary evil.
40
There is nonsense that is well said, just as there are fools who are very
well dressed.
41
If someone had told Adam, the day after the death of Abel, that in a few
centuries there would be places where, within four square lieues, seven
or eight hundred thousand men would be placed and gathered together,
would he have believed that these multitudes could ever live together?
Wouldn't he have formed a much more frightful idea of the crimes and
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42
Pretensions are a source of pain, and the age of happiness in life begins
when they end. If a woman used to be pretty and her beauty starts to
recede, her pretensions make her ridiculous or unhappy: ten years later,
uglier and older, she is calm and tranquil. If a man is at the age where he
can succeed with women, he exposes himself to a thousand
inconveniences and even affronts: he grows old and becomes nothing to
them, how they will react to him is certain, and he is tranquil. In
everything, evils come from our ideas not being fixed and assured;
incontestably, it is worth more to be less and to be what one is. The state
of well-established dukes and peers is worth more than that of foreign
princes who have to constantly fight for preeminence. If Chapelain
had done what Boileau had advised in the famous hemistiche: 'Why
doesn't he write in prose?', he would have spared himself many
torments, and would perhaps have earned fame in a way other than
through ridicule
43
"Aren't you ashamed of trying to speak better than you can?" said
Seneca to one of his sons, who couldn't figure out how to continue a
speech he had started. One could say the same thing to people who
adopt principles that require more strength than is in their character:
"Aren't you ashamed of trying to be more of a philosopher than you can
be?"
44
45
In seeing Bacon, at the beginning of the 17th century, show the human
spirit the path it must take to reconstruct the edifice of knowledge, one
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nearly ceases admiring the great men who succeeded him, such as
Boyle, Locke, etc.. He distributed in advance the lands that they had to
reclaim or conquer. It is Caesar, master of the world after his victory at
Pharsalus, giving kingdoms and provinces to his partisans and favorites.
46
Our reason sometimes makes us as unhappy as our passions do; and one
can say of a man, when he is in this situation, that he is an
invalid poisoned by his medicine.
47
The moment that a person loses his illusions, the passions of his youth,
often leaves him with regret; but sometimes he hates the prestige that
tricked him. It is Armida who burned and destroyed the palace that used
to delight her.
48
Doctors do not see more clearly into diseases and the inside of the
human body than ordinary men. They are both blind; but doctors are like
the Quinze-Vingts who know the streets better, and who end up luckier.
49
You ask how a person makes a fortune. Look at what happens at the
orchestra area of a spectacle when people have begun to crowd around
it; how some stay far away, how the ones closest up recoil back from it,
how the people behind are carried forward. This image is so just that the
word that expresses it has passed into the language of the people. They
call making a fortune: 'pushing oneself forward.' "My son, my nephew
pushed himself forward." The nobility say: to advance oneself, to
advance, to arrive, softened terms, which take away the idea of force,
violence, and vulgarity, but which still have the principle idea.
50
The physical world seems like the work of a powerful and good being,
who was obliged to abandon the execution of a part of it's plan to some
mischievious creature. But the moral world seems like it resulted from
the caprices of a devil who went mad.
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51
A person who does no more than give his word to guarentee that an
assertion is true, which could only be maintained by proofs, resembles a
man who says: "On my honor I assure you that the earth rotates around
the sun."
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
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59
60
61
62
Someone said that providence was the christened name of chance; some
pious person will say that chance is a nickname for providence.
63
There are few men who permit themselves a vigorous and intrepid use
of their reason, and dare to apply it to every object in all it's force. The
time has come when it's necessary to thus apply it to all the objects of
morality, of politics, and of society; to kings, to ministers, to people who
have power, to philosophers, to the principles behind sciences, to the
arts, etc.. Without this, a person will remain in mediocrity.
64
There are men who need to be first and to lift themselves above others,
whatever the cost may be. Everything is the same to them, provided that
they aren't recognized as charlatans; on the stage of a theater, on a
throne, on a high scaffold, they will be happy with anything if they
attract other people's attention.
65
Men become small when they get together: they are like the devils in
Milton who are obliged to become Pygmies in order to enter
Pandaemonium.
66
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One destroys one's own character out of fear that it will attract
attention, and one throws oneself into nothingness to escape from the
danger of being described.
67
68
Ambition takes to petty souls more easily than to great ones, just as fire
takes to straw and thatched huts more easily than to palaces.
69
A man often only lives with himself, and he needs virtue; he lives with
others, and he needs honor.
70
71
Nature, giving men reason and passions at the same time, seems to
have wanted, with this second gift, to help men to forget the evil done
by the first one, and when nature only has men live for a few years after
they lose their passions, it seems to be pitying them by quickly
delivering them from a life that is reduced to seeking every aid
from reason.
72
All passions exaggerate, and they are only passions because they
exaggerate.
73
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74
The best gift of nature is the strength of reason that lifts us above our
passions and weaknesses, and which allows us to govern our qualities,
our talents and our virtues.
75
76
77
Upon seeing the way that people treat the sick in a hospital, one would
think that men have created these sad asylums not to care for the sick,
but to take them out of the sight of happy people,
whose enjoyment these invalids would spoil.
78
These days, people who love nature are accused of being fabulous.
79
Tragedy in the theater has the great moral inconvenience of putting too
much importance in life and death.
80
The day that we have most lost is the one on which we have not
laughed.
81
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82
One distorts ones spirit, conscience, and reason in the same way that
one spoils one's stomach.
83
The laws for protecting secrets and depositories and are the same.
84
85
86
If one wants to become a philosopher, one mustn't push away the first
painful discoveries that one makes in the knowledge of men. It's
necessary, in order to know them, to triumph over the discontent that
they cause, just as the anatomist triumphs over nature, his organs, and
his disgust, to become skilled in his art.
87
When one learns the evils in nature, one scorns death; when one learns
those in society, one scorns life.
88
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Chapter II
89
90
The public doesn't believe at all in the purity of certain virtues and
certain feelings; and, in general, the public hardly ever lifts itself above
base ideas.
91
92
93
Hope is only a charlatan who ceaselessly tricks us; and, for myself,
happiness only began when I lost hope. I would happily put over the
door of paradise the verse that Dante put over that of Hell: Lasciate
ogni Speranza, voi ch' entrate. [Leave behind all hope, you who enter.]
94
95
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96
97
What does it matter to never seem weaker than someone else, and to
never allow other men to have advantages over you? It is enough that a
person has more ability in one thing, and that others know this.
Otherwise, it would be necessary to be an Achilles without a heel, and
this seems impossible.
98
99
100
It's a known truth that our century has put words back in their places,
has banished scholastic, dialectical, and metaphysical subtleties,
and has returned to what is simple and true in physics, morality, and
politics. To only speak of morality, one senses how many complex and
metaphysical ideas are contained in the word honor. Our century has
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101
Love of glory, a virtue! A strange virtue that is aided by every vice, that
is stimulated by pride, ambition, envy, vanity, and sometimes even
avarice! Would Titus still have been Titus, if he his ministers were
Sejanus, Narcissus, and Tigellin?
102
Glory often tests an honest man as much as fortune does; that is, both
the one and the other oblige him, before possessing them, to do or to
suffer things that are unworthy of his character. A man who is intrepidly
virtuous pushes both the one and the other equally away, and envelops
himself in obscurity or misfortune, and sometimes in both.
103
104
105
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106
One usually thinks that the art of pleasing is a good way to make a
fortune: but knowing how to be bored is much more successful. The
talent for making money, along with that of succeeding with women,
reduces itself to this.
107
There are few men who have great characters and who do not have
something fantastic [in the sense of fantasy rather than good] in their
head or in their heart. A man who is completely without that, however
honest, however intelligent he may be, has the same relation to a great
character, as an artist who is very clever but who does not aspire to a
beautiful ideal has to an artist who is a man of genius and who has made
this beautiful ideal familiar.
108
There are certain men whose virtue shines more in a private condition
than a public one. A frame would mar it. The more beautiful a diamand
is, the lighter it's mounting must be. The richer the setting, the less the
diamond shows itself.
109
110
Few vices can prevent a man from having as many friends as too great
of qualities can.
111
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112
113
114
Nature seems to use men for it's designs without carrying about it's own
instruments in a similar way as tyrants do away with the people who
have served them.
115
There are two things that a man must reconcile himself to, or he will
find life unbearable: they are the injuries of time and the injuries of men.
117
There are certain faults that prevent people from catching epidemic
vices: just as during a plague one sees people with a fever escape from
contagion.
118
The great misfortune of passions does not come from the torments
that they cause, but from the base things they make a person do, and
which degrade him. Without these inconveniences, they would have too
many advantages over cold reason, which never makes people happy.
Passions make a man live, wisdom and facts only make him endure.
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119
A man without elevation cannot have kindness; he can only have good-
natured credulity.
120
It's necessary to unite things that are contradictory; love of virtue with
indifference toward public opinion, a taste for labor with
indifference toward glory, and care for one's health with indifference
toward death.
121
A cup of water does more to cure one's thirst than a barrel of wine.
Apply this to riches.
123
124
One must agree that to be happy living in society, there are parts of
one's soul that must be completely paralyzed.
125
Fortune and the costumes that surround it turn life into a play that in the
long run makes the most honest man an actor despite himself.
126
128
Do you want to see the extent to which society corrupts men? Examine
what they are when they have been under it's influence the longest, that
is, in old age. Observe an old courtier, an old priest, an old judge, an old
lawyer, an old surgeon., etc..
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129
130
131
132
Vanity has often caused a man to show all of the energy in his soul.
A wooden rod connected to a pointed piece of steel is a dart; add two
feathers and it's an arrow.
133
Weak people are the light troops of the wicked. They cause more harm
than the army itself, they infest and ravage.
134
135
136
One happily shares the friendships that our friends have made with
others; but even the most justified hatred has difficulty making itself
respected.
137
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138
148
149
There are more fools than wise people, and in wise people themselves
there is more folly than wisdom.
150
General maxims are in the conduct of life what routines are in the arts.
151
152
154
There are very few things in society that an honest man can pleasantly
rest his soul or his thoughts on.
155
When I notice that the people who are insensate to the most things are,
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156
157
158
159
160
161
The Dutch have no pity for people who are in debt. They think that any
man who is in debt lives at the expense of his fellow citizens if he is
poor, and of his inheritors if he is rich.
162
Fortune is often like rich and spendthrift women, who ruin the house to
which they brought a large dowry.
163
Change of fashion is the tax that the industry of the poor puts on the
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164
The desire for money can go very far in proving that a person has a
petty character, but it has little to say about a persons sincerity; and there
is a great distance between a man who scorns money and someone who
is truly honest.
165
The richest man is one who is economical. The poorest is one who is
avaricious.
166
167
Isn't it amusing to consider that the glory of most great men consists in
having spent their whole life combatting prejudices and pitiable
foolishnesses that seem like they should never have entered a human
head? The glory of Bayle, for example, is based on having shown the
absurdity in philosophical and scholastic subtleties that would make a
peasant from Gatinais gifted with great natural sense shrug his
shoulders. That of Locke is based on having proven that a person
shouldn't speak without understanding himself, nor think that he
understands what he doesn't understand. The glory of most philosophers
is based on having written large books against superstitious ideas that a
savage from Canada would flee with scorn. That of Montesquieu, and
some others before him, (with respect to a crowd of miserable
prejudices) is based on having shown that governments are made for the
governed and not the governed for governments. If the dream of
philosophers who try to perfect society is realized, what will posterity
say when it sees that so much effort was needed to achieve things that
are so simple and natural?
168
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A man who is honest and also wise owes it to himself to join the
purity that satisfies his conscience with the prudence that guesses and
prevents calumny.
169
The role of a man with foresight is very sad. He afflicts his friends
when he mentions the misfortunes that will come from their
imprudence. They do not believe it; and when these misfortunes occur,
these same friends regard him with ill-will for having predicted them,
and their pride makes them look away from a person who should be
their consolation, and who they would have considered one if they
weren't humiliated in his presence.
170
171
172
When a person has suffered very much and been very exhausted by his
own sensibility, he sees that one must live day by day, forget very much,
and finally clear away as much life as continues to arrive.
173
174
People say that we must try to reduce our needs each day. This applies
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above all to the needs of our pride. They are the most tyrannical, and
which need to be combated most.
175
It is not rare to see weak souls that, through frequent association with
more vigorous ones, want to lift themselves above their character. This
produces contradictions as amusing as a fool with pretensions to
intelligence.
176
Chapter III
177
178
179
What is society when reason isn't what ties people together, when
feeling doesn't consent to it, when it isn't an exchange of pleasant
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180
181
A man cannot live in society after the age of his passions. It is only
tolerable in the era of life when one uses ones stomach for amusement
and ones personality to kill time.
182
Members of the church know the court and the current issues there a
little like school boys who have obtained an Exeat and are permitted to
dine outside of the college know society.
183
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instructive is what an honest man who has seen very much and seen it
clearly says to his friend in a quiet corner near a fire: a number of such
conversations have taught me more than every book and the usual
commerce of society. They put me on the right path and made me reflect
more.
184
The influence that a moral idea has over our soul, as contrasted with
physical and material objects, can be seen on many occasions; but one
never sees it more clearly than when it seizes us quickly and
unexpectedly. You go walking on the boulevard in the evening: you see
a charming garden at the end of which is a salon that is tastefully lit up.
You see a number of pretty women there, copses, and a receding
walkway where laughter is coming from: these are nymphs; you can tell
by their slender waists, etc. You ask someone who a certain woman is,
and she responds: "It is Mme de B..., the lady of the house."
Unfortunately, you know her, and the charm disappears.
185
You run into the baron de Breteuil; he informs you of his wealth, his
vulgar seductions, etc.; he ends by showing you a portrait of the queen
holding a rose and covered in diamonds.
186
[The baron de Breteuil was a minister under Louis XVI and Peixoto
was the banker of the marechal de Richelieu]
187
188
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'He's a fool, he's a fool'; soon someone says: 'How extreme you are in
everything. What is happening at bottom? He mistakes his position for
who he is, his importance for his merit, and his credit for virtue. Isn't
everyone like that? Is there so much to yell about?'
189
When fools lose their positions, whether they were ministers of state or
chief clerks, they keep a ridiculous haughtiness and an idea of their
own importance.
190
People who have esprit have a thousand amusing stories to tell about
follies that they have seen in high places and that can be shown in a
hundred examples. It is an evil as old as monarchies and nothing proves
better how irremediable it is. I would conclude from a thousand stories I
have heard that if monkeys had as much talent as parrots, people would
be glad to make them ministers of state.
191
192
194
Society is made up of two large groups: people who have more food
than appetite, and people who have more appetite than food.
195
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196
It is an excellent rule for the art of mockery and making fun that the
joke would have to be laughed at even by the person made fun of, and
that if he gets angry, the one who made fun of him was in the wrong.
197
M... told me that I had a great misfortune, which was not submitting to
the complete power of fools. He was right, and I saw that a fool has the
great advantage of finding himself among his peers. He is like brother
Dim-wit in the temple of Folly:
198
199
Men of the world and of the court assign people and things a
conventional value and are surprised to find themselves mistaken
sometimes. They resemble mathematicians who ignore the variables in
an equation and are surprised when they add everything up
and don't have the correct value.
200
There are moments when society seems to realize what it is worth. I've
often noticed that it esteems people who don't give it any mind; and it
often happens that a sovereign scorn for society is considered a
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201
Society is so contemptible that the few honest people that can be found
there esteem people who scorn it, and are distinguished by this scorn
itself.
202
203
204
A truth that is cruel, but necessary to admit, is that in society, and above
all in high society, everything is artfulness, science, calculation, even the
appearance of simplicity and the most amiable ease. I've seen men
whose reactions seemed to be completely spontaneous, but were in fact
done with calculation, sometimes a quick one, but very subtle and
knowing. I've seen people make the most reflected-on dissimulation
seem like apparent naivety and abandon. It is the clever neglige of a
coquette, which makes artfulness seem like anything but artfulness. This
is unfortunate, but necessary. In general, a man who lets his weaknesses
be seen, even in the most intimate friendship, is left very unhappy! I've
seen the most intimate friends offend the pride of someone they
surprised in secret. It seems impossible that in the actual state of society
(I always mean high society), a single man can show the bottom of his
soul and the depths of his character, and above all his weaknesses, to his
best friend. But, rather, it is necessary (in the society mentioned) to
carry refinement so far that what is at the bottom of ones soul cannot
even be suspected, if only so that one won't be scorned for
being false by a troupe of excellent actors.
205
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The people who feel love for a prince the moment he begins to treat
them well remind me of children who want to be priests the day after a
beautiful procession, or soldiers the day after a public review of troops.
206
207
Useful and even brilliant actions, and real help, even the greatest, that is
given to the nation and even to the court are, when the court doesn't
approve of them, only 'brilliant sins', as theologians say.
[Note in back of book: 'Saint Augustine, who denied that pagans had
any virtue, called their good actions 'peccata splendida' or 'shining sins']
208
209
Any man who lives in society very often persuades me that he doesn't
have much feeling; because, I see nearly nothing there that can interest a
heart, or rather nothing that doesn't harden it: what rules there is a
spectacle of senselessness, frivolity, and vanity.
210
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a man with merit but because of a girl or a buffoon. When women adorn
themselves, it is nearly never for an honest man, but for the species. In
general, when people break the yoke of opinion, it is rarely to lift
themselves above it, but to descend below it.
211
There are certain types of misconduct that people hardly make at all
these days, or make much less. People are so refined that a vile man
quite naturally replaces his soul with his intelligence and refrains from
speaking certain platitudes that once would have tricked people. I've
seen dishonest men sometimes be proud and decent with a prince, a
minister of state, without giving in at all, etc. This tricks young people
and novices who don't know, or who forget, that one must judge a man
by his character as well as the principles he professes.
212
When one sees the trouble that social conventions seem to take to
dismiss merit from any position where it could be useful to society,
when one observes the leagues of fools against people with spirit, one
would think that there was a conspiracy of valets against their masters.
213
What does a young man find when he enters society? People who
want to protect him, who claim to honor him, govern him, and advise
him. I say nothing about the people who want to do away with him,
harm him, make him lose everything, or trick him. If his character is
elevated enough to only want to be protected by his mores, not to owe
his honor to anything, nor anyone, to be governed by his principles, to
be advised by his insight, character, and in accordance with his own
bearing, which he knows better than anyone, everyone says that he is
original, strange, uncontrollable. But if he doesn't have much
intelligence, nor much elevation, if he has few principles and doesn't
perceive that people only want to protect and govern him so that he
will act as their instrument, people find him charming, and he is, as
people say, the best child in the world.
215
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surprising and scandalous than vice. People whom public baseness calls
grand-seigneurs, or rulers, men in high positions, seem, for the most
part, endowed with this odious insensibility. Doesn't this come from
the vague and little-developed idea in their heads that men who have
virtue can't be used in intrigues? They neglect them, these men, as being
useless to themselves and others, in a country where, without intrigue,
falseness, and trickery, one succeeds in nothing!
216
217
[The bourgeois, i.e. the wealthy, not-noble merchants who married their
daughters to noble families that were losing their money for the titles]
218
Consider twenty men, even honest ones, who all know and esteem a
certain man with recognized merit; Dorilas, for example; who praise
him, boast about his talents and his virtues; and all of whom agree that
he has them. One of these men says: 'It's too bad that he has been so ill-
favored by fortune.' - 'What did you say?', another responds, 'Only his
modesty makes him live without luxury. Do you know that he makes
twenty-five thousand livres a year?' - 'Really!' - 'It's true, I can prove it.'
Then this same man with merit appears, and he compares the more or
less cold, though distinguished, reception by these people, with how
they used to greet him. This is what he did: he made the comparison,
and he groaned. But in this group of people, one person treated him
in the same way. 'One in twenty', our philosopher says: 'I am content.'
220
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traits. Many courtiers have a lazy eye for the same reason that many
tailors are pigeon-toed.
221
222
223
Who only has completely honorable liaisons with people? Who doesn't
visit someone who his other friends have to excuse him for? Which
woman has never been forced to explain to society why some other
woman was visiting her, who other people were surprised to see at her
home?
224
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his honor when the occasion arises; don't waste your time with these
trifles. Do more, do something better: commission someone to write his
genealogy.
225
You think that a minister of state, a man with a high position, has some
principles, and you think so because you heard him speaking about
them. Consequently, you refrain from asking him for something that
would make him contradict his favorite maxims. You soon learn that
you were duped, and you see him do things that prove to you that a
minister of state has no principles at all, but only cleverness and a tic for
saying certain things.
226
Many courtiers endure hatred without gaining anything, for the pleasure
of being courtiers. They are lizards who go crawling with the only result
that they lose their tails.
227
This man will never attract consideration: he must make a fortune and
live with the canaille [rabble].
228
229
When he sees what happens in the world, the most misanthropic man
gives himself up to gaiety, and Heraclitus dies of laughter.
231
When a person sees princes acting honestly when they are on their own,
he is tempted to reproach the people who surround him for the majority
of his wrongs and weaknesses; one says to oneself: 'How unfortunate
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that this prince has Damis or Aramont for friends!' One doesn't think
that if Damis or Aramont had been noble people, or men with character,
they would not have been friends of the prince.
232
233
234
Tutors who claim to have given princes a good education after teaching
them formalities and debasing etiquettes, resemble teachers of
mathematics who think they've formed great arithmeticians after telling
their students that three and three make eight.
235
Who seems like the strangest person to the people around him? Is it
a Frenchman in Beijing or Macao? Is it a Laplander in Senegal? Or
would it be a man who has merit and is poor and without certificates of
birth whom chance has placed among people who possess one of these
advantages, or both? Isn't it remarkable that society subsists with the
tacit convention of excluding nineteen-twentieths of the population from
its wealth and rights?
237
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238
There are people who aren't pleasant at all, but who don't prevent others
from being so. Their company is sometimes bearable; there are others
who are not pleasant at all and whose simple presence prevents other
people from being amiable; this is very unbearable, and is the great
inconvenience of pedantry.
239
240
241
People have tried to turn the job of a courtier into a science. Everyone
wants to elevate himself.
242
["cicisbeism:
A ménage à trois arrangement in which a sexually dissatisfied wife takes
a lover with her husband's knowledge and acceptance. This custom was
popular in high Italian society in the 17-19 th century; the Italian word
cicisbeo means official lover ."]
243
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244
245
The magistrates who watch over public order, such as the criminal
lieutenant, the civil lieutenant, the lieutenant of police, and many others,
nearly always end up with a horrible opinion of society. They think they
know men, and only know the scum of society. One doesn't judge a city
by its sewers or a house by its bathroom. The majority of these
magistrates always remind me of the colleges, where the people in
charge of correction have a cabin filled with amenities, and only leave
when they need to whip someone.
246
247
One doesn't doubt, from the first glance, the bad things that come from
the ambition to merit the following praise, which is so common: "M.
Such and Such is very likeable." It happens, I do not know how, that
there is a certain type of easiness, carelessness, weakness, and
unreasonableness which is very pleasant, when these qualities are mixed
with some esprit; that the man with whom one does what one likes, who
belongs to the moment, is more agreeable than one who follows
through, has character and principles, who does not forget his sick or
absent friend, who is able to leave a pleasure party to do him some
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service, etc.. It would be an annoying list, that of all the defects, wrongs,
or faults which please people. Also, men of the world, who have
reflected on the art of being pleasant more than one would believe and
than they believe themselves, have the majority of these defects, and this
comes from the necessity that people should say about them: "M. Such
and Such is very likeable."
248
249
The most absurd customs, the most ridiculous etiquettes, are in France
and elsewhere under the protection of this phrase: That's how things are.
That is precisely the phrase that Hottentots say when Europeans ask
them why they eat locusts; why they consume the vermin that they are
covered in. They saÿ: 'That's how things are.'
250
251
252
253
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254
255
When one is too struck by the universal evils of society and the horrors
that are found in capitals and in large cities, one must say to oneself:
"There could have been greater misfortunes after all of the chances that
have submitted twenty-five million men to a single one, and gathered
seven hundred thousand men in the space of two square miles."
256
Too superior of qualities often make a man less fit for society. One
doesn't go to the market with gold bars; one goes with money or small
change.
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257
Society, circles, salons, what people call the world, is a wretched play, a
bad opera, without anything that deserves a persons interest, which
makes itself a little bearable through gadgets and decorations.
La société, les cercles, les salons, ce qu'on appelle le monde, est une
pièce misérable, un mauvais opéra, sans intérêt, qui se soutient un peu
par les machines et les décorations.
258
To have a just idea of things, one must understand words in the opposite
meaning that they are supposed to have in society. Misanthrope, for
example, this means Philanthropist; a bad Frenchman, this means a good
citizen who indicates certain monstrous abuses; a philosopher, a simple
man who knows that two and two make four, etc.
Pour avoir une idée juste des choses, il faut prendre les mots dans la
signification opposée à celle qu'on leur donne dans le monde.
Misanthrope, par exemple, cela veut dire Philanthrope; mauvais
Français, cela veut dire bon citoyen, qui indique certains abus
monstrueux; philosophe, homme simple, qui sait qu deux et deux font
quatre, etc.
259
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260
261
262
We do not know men who we only know in part; things that we only
know three-quaters about, we do not know at all. These two reflections
are enough to appreciate nearly every speech that is made in society.
Les hommes qu'on ne connaît qu'à moitié, on ne les connaît pas; les
choses qu'on ne sait qu'aux trois quarts, on ne les sait pas du tout. Ces
deux réflexions suffisent pour faire apprécier presque tout les discours
qui se tiennent dans le monde.
263
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to be nothing.
264
[My impression is that by Peru he meant a place from which they could
get very much gold. It may be wrong.]
265
266
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not have the passions that move society. One sees that he can do nearly
nothing for ones happiness, and one leaves him where he is.
267
Chapter IV
On the taste for retirement from society [perhaps solitude would do],
and on the dignity of ones character
268
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269
L'homme le plus modeste, en vivant dans le monde, doit, s'il est pauvre,
avoir un maintien très assuré et une certaine aisance, qui empêche qu'on
ne prenne quelque avantage sur lui. Il faut dans ce cas parer sa modestie
de sa fierté.
270
271
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272
The thoughts of someone who is solitary, who has sense, and is also
mediocre, will be worth very little if he is not aware of what is said and
what occurs in society.
273
A man who obstinately refuses to allow his reason and honesty, or even
his delicacy, to bend under the weight of any of the absurd or
dishonest conventions of society, who never yields in circumstances
where it would be in his self-interest to yield, infallibly ends up helpless,
with no other friend than an abstract being that people call virtue, who
lets him die of hunger.
274
It is not necessary only to live with people who know how to appreciate
us: this is only needed by a vanity that is too delicate and difficult to
content; but it is necessary that the people we spend all of our time
around can sense what we are worth. Philosophy itself does not
condemn this type of pride.
Il ne faut pas ne savoir vivre qu'avec ceux qui peuvent nous apprécier:
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275
People sometimes say about a man who lives alone: "He doesn't like
society." That's often like saying that a man doesn't like to take walks
because he doesn't willingly walk in the forest of Bondy at night.
On dit quelquefois d'un homme qui vit seul: « Il n'aime pas la société. »
C'est souvent comme si on disait d'un homme qu'il n'aime pas la
promenade, sous le prétexte qu'il ne se promène pas volontiers le soir
dans la forêt de Bondy.
276
Est-il bien sûr qu'un homme qui aurait une raison parfaitement droite,
un sens moral parfaitement exquis, pût vivre avec quelqu'un? Par vivre,
je n'entends pas se trouver ensemble sans se battre; j'entends se plaire
ensemble, s'aimer, commercer avec plaisir.
277
278
No one has more enemies in society than a man who is upright, proud
and sensible, disposed to taking people and things for what they are,
rather than for what they are not.
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Il n'y a personne qui ait plus d'ennemis dans le monde qu'un homme
droit, fier, et sensible, disposé à laisser les personnes et les choses pour
ce qu'elles sont, plutôt qu'à les prendre pour ce qu'elles ne sont pas.
279
Society hardens the heart of most men. However, people who are less
susceptible to hardening are obliged to create a sort of artificial
insensitivity in order not to be tricked by men or women. The feeling
that an honest man takes away from being left in society for a few days
is usually painful and sad. The only advantage it gives him is that it
makes his solitude more pleasant.
Le monde endurcit le cœur à la plupart des hommes. Mais ceux qui sont
moins susceptible d'endurcissement sont obligé de se créer une sorte
d'insensibilité factice pour n'être dupes ni des hommes, ni des femmes.
Le sentiment qu'un homme honnête emporte, après s'être livré quelques
jours à la société, est ordinairement pénible et triste. Le seul avantage
qu'il produira, c'est de faire trouver la retraite aimable.
280
The ideas of the public are nearly always vile and base. Since it hardly
hears of anything but scandals and things that are unusually
indecent, it interprets nearly all of the deeds or speeches that reach it in
the same way. What does it see in the noblest relation between a
nobleman and a man with merit, between a man with a high office and a
private citizen? In the first instance it only sees a protector and his
client, in the second, carousal and espionage. Often in an act of
generosity, mixed with noble and interesting circumstances, it only sees
money lent to a clever man by a fool. Sometimes in the
publicized passion of the most honest woman for a man who is worthy
of being loved, it only sees prostitution or libertinage. It is because it's
judgments are determined in advance by the great number of cases it has
to condemn and scorn. It results from these observations that the best
thing that can happen to honest people with respect to the public is not
to be noticed by it.
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les faits ou les discours qui passent jusqu'à lui. Voit-il une liaison même
de la plus noble espèce, entre un grand seigneur et un homme de mérite,
entre un homme en place et un particulier? il ne voit, dans le premier
cas, qu'un protecteur et un client, dans le second, que du manège et de
l'espionnage. Souvent dans un acte de générosité, mêlé de circonstances
nobles et intéressantes, il ne voit que de l'argent prêté à un homme
habile par une dupe. Dans le fait qui donne de la publicité à une passion
quelquefois très intéressante d'une femme honnête et d'un homme digne
d'être aimé, il ne voit que du catinisme ou du libertinage. C'est que ses
jugements sont déterminés d'avance par le grand nombre de cas où il a
dû condamner et mépriser. Il résulte de ces observations que ce qui eut
arriver de mieux aux honnêtes gens, c'est de lui échapper.
281
Nature didn't say to me "Never be poor."; still less "Be rich."; but it
cried "Be independant."
282
283
The man of the world, the friend of fortune, and even the lover of glory,
follow a path before them that has an unknown end. The sage, the friend
of himself, follows a circle whose end comes back to himself. It's the
totus teres atque rotundus of Horace.
[from his Satires; 'the sage is like a polished ball over which events
have no control'; more literally 'finished and completely rounded off']
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tracent tous devant eux une ligne directe qui les conduit à un terme
inconnu. Le sage, l'ami de lui-même, d'écrit une ligne circulaire, dont
l'extrémité le ramène à lui. C'est le totus atque rotundus d'Horace.
284
285
Quiconque n'a pas de caractère n'est pas un homme, c'est une chose.
286
People have found the Myself of Medea sublime; but someone who
cannot respond that way after every accident of life is worth very little,
or nearly nothing.
*The book has the following note here: Corneille, Medee, I, V, v. 320:
Medea: Myself.
On a trouvé le moi de Médée sublime; mais celui qui ne peut pas le dire
dans tous les accidents de la vie est bien peu de chose, ou plutôt n'est
rien.
Médée: « Moi. ».
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287
A person doesn't know a man at all who he doesn't know well; but few
men merit such close attention. That is the reason that a man with true
merit is in general reluctant to be known. He knows that few people can
appreciate him, that in this small number, everyone has his ties, his
interests, his vanity, that prevent him from giving merit enough attention
to justly value it. As for the common and out-worn praises people give it
when they recognize its existence, merit isn't flattered by them.
On ne connaît pas du tout l'homme qu'on ne connaît pas très bien; mais
peu d'hommes méritent qu'on les étudie. De là vient que l'homme d'un
vrai mérite doit avoir en général peu d'empressement d'être connu. Il sait
que peu de gens peuvent l'apprécier, que dans ce petit nombre chacun a
ses liaisons, ses intérêts, son amour-propre, qui l'empêchent d'accorder
au mérite l'attention qu'il faut pour le mettre à sa place. Quant aux
éloges communs et usés qu'on lui accorde quand on soupçonne son
existence, le mérite ne saurait en être flatté.
288
When a man has an elevated character, such that people know how he
will act in every situation where honesty is at stake, not only rogues, but
even semi-honest people disparage him and carefully avoid
him. Moreover, honest people become convinced that a man with such a
character can be useful to them; they neglect and observe him in order to
test other people that they have doubts about.
289
Nearly all men are slaves, for the reason that the Spartans gave for the
servitude of the Persians, because they didn't know how to pronounce
the syllable no. To be able to pronounce this word and live alone are the
only two ways for them to conserve their freedom and their character.
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Presque tous les hommes sont esclaves, par la raison que les Spartiates
donnaient de la servitude des Perses, faute de savoir prononcer la
syllable non. Savoir prononcer ce mot et savoir vivre seul sont les deux
seuls moyens de conserver sa liberté et son caractère.
290
When one has chosen not to see people unless they can meet you on
terms of morality, virtue, reason, and truth, without recourse to
conventions, vanity, and etiquettes, which support civil society; when, I
say, one has made this decision (and it is necessary to make it, or else
become a weak and vile fool), one ends up living very nearly alone.
Quand on a pris le parti de ne voir que ceux qui sont capables de traiter
avec vous aux termes de la morale, de la vertu, de la raison, de la vérité,
en ne regardant les conventions, les vanités, les étiquettes, que comme
les supports de la société civile; quand, dis-je, on a pris ce parti (et il
faut bien le prendre, sous peine d'être sot, faible et vile), il arrive qu'on
vit à peu près solitaire.
291
Every man who knows lofty feelings has the right, in order to be treated
as he should, to leave his character rather than his position.
CHAPTER V
CHAPITRE V
MORAL THOUGHTS
PENSÉES MORALES
292
Philsophers recognize four principle virtues that give rise to all of the
others. These virtues are justice, temperance, strength and prudence.
One can say that this last supports the first two, justice and temperance,
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and that it supplies strength in a way, by saving the man who has no
strength in a great many situations where strength is necessary.
293
Les moralistes, ainsi que les philosophes qui ont fait des systèmes en
physique ou en métaphysique, ont trop généralisé, ont trop multiplié les
maximes. Que devient, par exemple, let mot de Tacite: Neque mulier,
amissà pudicità, alia abnueri [Séjan qui a séduit Livie, femme de
Drusus, lui suggère le projet d'assassiner son mari: « Une femme qui a
sacrifié sa pudeur n'a plus rien à refuser. »], après l'exemple de tant de
femmes qu'une faiblesse n'a pas empêchées de pratiquer plusieurs
vertus? J'ai vu madame de L..., après une jeunesse peu différente de
celle de Manon Lescaut, avoir, dans l'âge mûr, une passion digne
d'Héloïse. Mais ces exemples sont d'une morale dangereuse à établir
dans les livres. Il faut seulement les observer, afin de n'être pas dupe de
la charlatanerie des moralistes.
294
People have taken all of the bad morals that shock good taste out of
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295
The soul acts in precisely the same way when it is sick as the body
does: it torments itself and agitates its senses, but finishes by finding
some calm. It finally comes to rest on the feelings and ideas that are
most necessary for its repose.
296
There are men for whom having illusions about the things that involve
their self-interest is as necessary as life. Sometimes, though, they
perceive things that bring them very close to the truth; but they quickly
distance themselves from these, and they resemble children who run
after someone wearing a mask, and who run away from him if he turns
around to take his mask off.
Il y a des hommes à qui les illusions sur les choses qui les intéressent
sont aussi nécessaires que la vie. Quelquefois cependant ils ont des
aperçus qui feraient croire qu'ils sont près de la vérité; mais ils s'en
éloignent bien vite, et ressemblent aux enfants qui courent après un
masque, et qui s'enfuient si le masque vient à se retourner.
297
The feeling that people have for the majority of benefactors is similar to
the gratitude they feel for people who pull out their bad teeth. They see
that the person has delivered them from an evil, but they remember the
discomfort that they've caused them, and they seldom love them with
tenderness.
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vous ont fait du bien, qu'ils vous ont délivré d'un mal, mais on se
rappelle la douleur qu'ils ont causée, et on ne les aime guère avec
tendresse.
298
A tactful benefactor must reflect that it's necessary to make the person
receiving his favor forget any material indebtedness. It must, so to say,
be lost in a feeling of mutual kindness and affection, just as the idea of
lovers giving each other pleasure hides and ennobles itself with the
charm of the love that makes them do so.
299
Any favor that isn't dear to the heart of the person who does it is odious.
It is like a relic, or the bone of a dead saint. A person
either has to enshrine it or tread on top of it.
Tout bienfait qui n'est pas cher au cœur est odieux. C'est une relique,
ou un os de mort. Il faut l'enchâsser ou le fouler aux pieds.
300
La plupart des bienfaiteurs qui prétendent être cachés, après vous avoir
fait du bien, s'enfuient comme la Galatée de Virgile: Et se cupit ante
videri.
301
People usually say that favors and acts of kindness attach men to each
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other. That is kind of nature. The just recompense for helping others is
being loved.
On dit communément qu'on s'attache par ses bienfaits. C'est une bonté
de la nature. Il est juste que la récompense de bien faire soit d'aimer.
302
Calumny is a wasp that bothers you, and against which you musn't
make any movement unless you are sure to kill it; otherwise it will
attack you more furiously than before.
303
The new friends that we make after a certain age, and by whom we seek
to replace the ones we have lost, have the same relation to our old
friends as glass eyes, false teeth and wooden legs have to real eyes,
natural teeth and legs of flesh and bone.
Les nouveaux amis que nous faisons après un certain âge, et par
lesquels nous cherchons à remplacer ceux que nous avons perdus, sont à
nos anciens amis ce que les yeux de verre, les dents postiches et les
jambes de bois sont aux véritables yeux, aux dents naturelles et aux
jambes de chair et d'os.
304
Dans les naïvetés d'un enfant bien né, il y a quelquefois une philosophie
bien aimable.
305
Most friendships are harassed by ifs and buts, and lead to simple
liaisons that are based on it's understoods.
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306
307
308
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309
Everything is equally vain with men, their joys and their griefs; but it is
better for the soap bubble to be gold or azure than black or gray.
Tout est également vain dans les hommes, leurs joies et leurs chagrins;
mais il vaut mieux que la boule de savon soit d'or ou d'azur, que noire
ou grisâtre.
310
311
312
313
Les stoïciens sont des espèces d'inspirés qui portent dans la morale
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314
S'il était possible qu'une personne, sans esprit, pût sentir la grâce, la
finesse, l'étendue et les différentes qualités de l'esprit d'autrui, et montrer
qu'elle sent, la société d'une telle personne, quand même elle ne
produirait rien d'elle-même, serait encore très recherchée. Même résultat
de la même supposition à l'égard des qualités de l'âme.
315
When a person sees or experiences the pain that comes with extreme
feelings, in love, in friendship, whether because of the death of the
person one loves, or because of other accidents in life, he is tempted to
think that dissipation and frivolity are not such great follies, and that life
is almost only worth what people of the world say it is.
316
317
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318
319
To enjoy and to give joy, without harming either oneself or anyone else,
that, I think, is all of morality.
Jouis et fair jouir, sans faire mal ni à toi ni à personne, voilà, je crois,
toute la morale.
320
For people who are truly honest and who have certain principles, God's
commandments have been abridged on the frontispiece of the abbey of
Thélème: Do what you want to.
Pour les hommes vraiment honnêtes, et qui ont de certains principes, les
commandement de Dieu ont été mis en abrégé sur le frontispice de
l'abbaye de Thélème: Fais ce que tu voudras.
321
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322
Only a complete friendship can develop all the qualities of the soul
and esprit of certain people. Ordinary society only makes them have a
few charms. They are beautiful fruit that only ripen in sunshine, and
that, in hothouses, only produce some pleasant and useless leaves.
Il n'y a que l'amitié entière qui développe toutes les qualités de l'âme
et de l'esprit de certaines personnes. La société ordinaire ne leur laisse
déployer que quelques agréments. Ce sont de beaux fruits, qui n'arrivent
à leur maturité qu'au soleil, et qui, dans la serre chaude, n'eussent
produit que quelques feuilles agréables et inutiles.
323
When I was young, having all the needs that come from passions and
led by them into society, forced to look there and in pleasures for
distraction to my cruel pains, people preached love of solitude and
work to me and harassed me with pedantic sermons on the subject. Now
that I am forty years old, having lost the passions that made society
bearable, no longer seeing anything but misery and futility in it, having
no more need of it to escape from pains that no longer exist, love for
solitude and work has become very lively in me, and has replaced
everything else. I've stopped going into society. Since then,
however, people haven't stopped plaguing me to go back into it. I have
been accused of being a misanthrope, etc. What conclusion can be
drawn from the difference between what they say now and when I was
young? The need that men have to blame everything.
Quand j'étais jeune, ayant les besoins des passions, et attiré par elles
dans le monde, forcé de chercher dans la société et dans les plaisirs
quelques distractions à des peines cruelles, on me prêchait l'amour de la
retraite, du travail, et on m'assommait de sermons pédantesques sur ce
sujet. Arrivé à quarante ans, ayant perdu les passions qui rendent la
société supportable, n'en voyant plus que la misère et la futilité, n'ayant
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plus besoin du monde pour échapper à des peines qui n'existaient plus,
le goût de la retraite et du travail est devenu très vif chez moi, et a
remplacé tout le reste. J'ai cessé d'aller dans le monde. Alors, on n'a
cessé de me tourmenter pour que j'y revinsse. J'ai été accusé d'être
misanthrope, etc. Que conclure de cette bizarre différence? le besoin que
les hommes ont de tout blâmer.
324
I only study what pleases me; I only occupy my spirit with the ideas
that interest me. They may be useful or useless, either to myself or to
others. Time may or may not bring circumstances in which I can employ
profitably what I have acquired. In any case, I will have had the
inestimable advantage of not denying myself, and of having obeyed my
thought and character.
Je n'étudie que ce qui me plaît; je n'occupe mon esprit que des idées
qui m'intéressent. Elles seront utiles ou inutiles, soit à moi, soit aux
autres. Le temps amènera
325
J'ai détruit mes passions, à peu près comme un homme violent tue son
cheval, ne pouvant le gouverner.
326
The greatest reasons for being upset have cured me of the lesser ones.
Les premiers sujet de chagrin m'ont servi de cuirasse contre les autres.
327
I have for M. de la B... the feeling that an honest man has when he
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328
I could very surely complain about many things, and perhaps many
people; but I stay silent about these latter; I only complain about things,
and if I avoid men, it's so that I don't have to live with people who
would make me bear the weight of things.
329
La fortune, pour arriver à moi, passera par les conditions que lui impose
mon caractère.
330
331
When someone finds out about a favor I did him, I feel punished rather
than compensated.
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Quand j'ai fait quelque bien et qu'on vient à le savoir, je me crois puni,
au lieu de me croire récompensé.
332
333
Celebrity is the punishment for having merit and talent. Mine, whatever
it was, only seems like an informer who was born to trouble my repose.
When I destroyed it, I felt the joy of triumphing over an enemy. Feeling
has triumphed even over vanity in me, and my literary vanity perished
when I stopped looking for satisfaction from other men.
334
Delicate and true friendship doesn't suffer an alliance with any other
feeling. I regard it as a great piece of luck that friendship was already
perfect between M and I, before I was able to do him the favors I did
and that only I was able to do for him. If everything that he did for me
could have been suspected of having been done out of self-interest, to
make me act as I later would, if it were possible for him to have
foreseen it, the happiness of my life would be poisoned forever.
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M et moi, avant que j'eusse occasion de lui rendre le service que je lui ai
rendu et que je pouvais seul lui rendre. Si tout ce qu'il a fait pour moi
avait pu être suspect d'avoir été dicté par l'intérêt de me trouver tel qu'il
m'a touvé dans cette circonstance, s'il eût été possible qu'il la prévît, le
bonheur de ma vie était empoisonné pour jamais.
335
336
What I've learned, I no longer know. The little that I still know, I
guessed.
Ce que j'ai appris, je ne le sais plus. Le peu que je sais encore, je l'ai
deviné.
337
One of the great misfortunes of man is that even his good qualities
sometimes don't help him, and that the art of using them for his
benefit and of governing them well is often only the fruit of
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tardy experience.
338
Indecision and anxiety are to the spirit and the soul what a search is to
the body.
339
An honest man who has gotten rid of all illusions is a man par
excellence. Though he may have little esprit, his society is very
pleasant. He can't be a pedant, not placing importance in anything. He is
indulgent, because he remembers that he had the same illusions that
others are still occupied with. Being carefree is the reason for his
confidence in his commerce with men, and for not giving in to petty
annoyances. If people give him such annoyances or betray him, he
forgets or disdains it. He has more gaiety than others, because he is
constantly in a position to make epigrams on them. He has the truth, and
laughs at the false steps that people take who are groping around in false
ideas. He is a man who, from a place that is lit, sees the ridiculous
gestures that people are making who are walking in a dark room at their
own peril. With laughter, he breaks the false weights and measures that
people apply to men and things.
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en riant les faux poids et les fausses mesures qu'on applique aux
hommes et aux choses.
340
People are frightened by violent prospects; but they agree with strong
souls, and vigorous characters rest in extremity.
On s'effraie des partis violents; mais ils conviennent aux âmes fortes, et
les caractères vigoureux se reposent dans l'extrême.
341
The contemplative life is often miserable. We must act more, think less,
and not watch ourselves live.
342
Men can aspire to virtue; they cannot reasonably claim to have found
the truth.
343
CHAPITER VI
CHAPITRE VI
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344
I am ashamed of the opinion that you have of me. I have not always
been as Céladon as you see me. If I told you three or four of the traits I
had when I was young, you would see that I was not always so honest,
and that this belongs to the best company.
Je suis honteux de l'opinion que vous avez de moi. Je n'ai pas toujours
été aussi Céladon que vous me voyez. Si je vous contais trois ou quatre
traits de ma jeunesse, vous verriez que cela n'est pas trop honnête, et que
cela appartient à la meilleure compagnie.
345
346
Toutes les fois que je vois de l'engouement dans une femme, ou même
dans un homme, je commence à me défier de sa sensibilité. Cette règle
ne m'a jamais trompé.
347
348
Love is like epidemics. The more a person fears them, the more he
finds himself exposed to them.
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L'amour est comme les maladies épidémiques. Plus on les craint, plus
on y est exposé.
349
An amorous man wants to be more pleasing than he can be; and that is
why nearly all amorous people are ridiculous.
Un homme amoureux est un homme qui veut être plus aimable qu'il ne
peut; et voilà pourquoi presque tous les amoureux sont ridicules.
350
A certain woman made herself unfortunate for life, was forsaken and
dishonored for a lover who she ceased to love because he powdered his
face in a way that was ugly, or cut one of his nails in the same way, or
put his stockings on inside out.
Il y a telle femme qui s'est rendue malheureuse pour la vie, qui s'est
perdue et déshonorée pour un amant qu'elle a cessé d'aimer parce qu'il a
mal ôté sa poudre, ou mal coupé un de ses ongles, ou mis son bas à
l'envers.
351
A proud and honest soul who has known strong passions, has fled them
and feared them, disdains gallantry; just as a soul that has felt friendship
disdains common liaisons and petty self-interests.
Une âme fière et honnête, qui a connu les passions fortes, les fuit, les
craint, dédaigne la galanterie; comme l'âme qui a senti l'amitié, dédaigne
les liaisons communes et les petits intérêts.
352
People ask why women display the men they are attached to; they give
many reasons, most of which offend men. The truth is that there is no
other way for them to enjoy the power they have over them.
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ce moyen.
353
Women who belong to the dividing line between the classes, who have
a hope or mania for becoming something in society, have neither the
happiness that comes from nature, nor that which comes from opinion;
they are the unhappiest creatures that I know.
Les femmes d'un état mitoyen, qui ont l'espérance ou la manie d'être
quelque chose dans le monde, n'ont ni le bonheur de la nature, ni celui
de l'opinion; ce sont les plus malheureuses créatures que j'aie connues.
354
355
Les femmes ont des fantaisies, des engouements, quelquefois des goûts.
Elles peuvent même s'élever jusqu'aux passions: ce dont elles sont le
moins susceptibles, c'est l'attachement. Elles sont faites pour commercer
avec nos faiblesses, avec notre folie, mais non avec notre raison. Il
existe entre elles et les hommes des sympathies d'épiderme, et très peu
de sympathies d'esprit, d'âme et de caractère. C'est ce qui est prouvé par
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le peu de cas qu'elles dont d'un homme de 40 ans. Je dis, même celles
qui sont à peu près de cet âge. Observez que, quand elles lui accordent
une préférence, c'est toujours d'après quelques vue malhonnêtes, d'après
un calcul d'intérêt ou de vanité, et alors l'exception prouve la règle, et
même plus que la règle. Ajoutons que ce n'est pas ici le cas de l'axiome:
Qui prouve trop ne prouve rien.
356
Love seduces us through our vanity; hé! how to resist a feeling that
embellishes our idea of what we have, gives us back what we have lost
and other things that we don't have at all?
C'est par notre amour-propre que l'amour nous séduit; hé! comment
résister à un sentiment qui embellit à nos yeux ce que nous avons, nous
rend ce que nous avons perdu et nous donne ce que nous n'avons pas?
357
When a man and woman have a violent passion for each other, it seems
to me that whatever the obstacles are that separate them, a husband,
parents, etc., the two lovers belong to one another, according to nature,
by divine right, despite human conventions and laws.
Quand un homme et une femme ont l'un pour l'autre une passion
violente, il me semble toujours que, quels que soient les obstacles qui
les séparent, un mari, des parents, etc., les deux amants sont l'un à
l'autre, de par la nature, qu'ils appartiennent de droit divin, malgré les
lois et les conventions humaines.
358
If you take vanity away from love, too little is left. Once it is purged of
vanity, it is a weak convalescent that can hardly lift himself.
359
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Love as it exists in society is only the exchange of two fantasies and the
contact of two epidermises.
L'amour, tel qu'il existe dans la société, n'est que l'échange de deux
fantaisies et le contact de deux épidermes.
360
On vous dit quelquefois, pour vous engager à aller chez telle ou telle
femme: Elle est très aimable; mais si je ne veux pas l'aimer! Il vaudrait
mieux dire: Elle est très aimante, parce qu'il y a plus de gens qui veulent
être aimés que de gens qui veulent aimer eux-mêmes.
361
If a person wants to form an idea of the vanity of women when they are
young, he should compare it with what is left of it after they have passed
the age of pleasing men.
Si l'on veut se faire une idée de l'amour-propre des femmes dans leur
jeunesse, qu'on en juge par celui qui leur reste, après qu'elles on passé
l'âge de plaire.
362
"It seems to me," said M. de... with regard to being shown favors by
women, "that it truthfully is something people compete for, but that it
doesn't give them either feeling or merit."
363
Beautiful young women have the same misfortune as kings, that of not
having any friends; but, happily, they do not notice this misfortune any
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more than kings do. The grandeur of the first and the vanity of the
second hide it from them.
Les jeunes femmes ont un malheur qui leur est commun avec les rois,
celui de n'avoir point d'amis; mais, heureusement, elles ne sentent pas ce
malheur plus que les rois eux-mêmes. La grandeur des uns et la vanité
des autres leur en dérobent le sentiment.
364
People say that wise people do not try to make conquests in politics:
this can also be applied to gallantry.
On dit, en politique, que les sages ne font point de conquêtes: cela peut
aussi s'appliquer à la galanterie.
365
It is amusing that the phrase to know a woman means to have slept with
her, and this in many ancient languages, whose people had the simplest
mores and the closest to nature; as if a person doesn't know a woman at
all without this. If our ancestors made this discovery, they were much
more advanced than we know.
Il est plaisant que le mot, connaître une femme, veuille dire, coucher
avec une femme, et cela dans plusieurs langues anciennes, dans les
mœurs les plus simples, les plus approchantes de la nature; comme si on
ne connaissait point une femme sans cela. Si les patriarches avaient fait
cette découverte, ils étaient plus avancés qu'on ne croit.
366
Women wage a war with men in which the former have a great
advantage, because they have girls on their side.
Les femmes font avec les homme un guerre où ceux-ci ont un grand
avantage, parce qu'ils ont les filles de leur côté.
367
There are such girls as are able to sell themselves, but not give
themselves to someone.
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368
369
Soyez aussi aimable, aussi honnête qu'il est possible, aimez la femme la
plus parfaite qui se puisse imaginer; vous n'en serez pas moins dans le
cas de lui pardonner ou votre prédécesseur, ou votre successeur.
370
371
Le commerce des hommes avec les femmes ressemble à celui que les
Européens font dans l'Inde: c'est un commerce guerrier.
372
For a liaison between a man and woman to be really lovely, there has to
be between them either enjoyment, memory or desire.
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373
An intelligent woman told me something one day that may well be the
secret to her sex: it was that every woman, when she takes a lover,
considers how other women view this man more than how she views
him herself.
Une femme d'esprit m'a dit un jour un mot qui pourrait bien être le
secret de son sexe: c'est que toute femme, en prenant un amant, tient
plus de compte de la manière dont les autres femme voient cet homme,
que de la manière dont elle le voit elle-même.
374
Mme de... joined her lover in England, to show how great tenderness
she had for him, though she hardly had any at all. At present, scandals
occur for the sake of decency.
Mme de... a été rejoindre son amant en Angleterre, pour faire preuve
d'une grande tendresse, quoiqu'elle n'en eût guère. À présent, les
scandales se donnent par respect humain.
375
I remember seeing a man who refused to court the girls that worked
in an Opera house anymore, because, he said, they were just as false as
noblewomen.
376
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377
Feelings give rise to thoughts. People easily admit this; they admit less
often that thoughts give rise to feelings, but this is hardly less true.
378
379
With regard to gallantry, time has let piquant scandals give way
to piquant mysteries.
380
It seems that love does not look for real perfections; people say that it
fears them. It only loves the ones that it creates, that it imagines; it
resembles kings who don't recognize any grandeur that they didn't
institute.
381
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382
383
People often say: "Even the most beautiful woman in the world can
only give what she has"; this is very false: she gives exactly what a
person thinks he is receiving, since in this area of life imagination
decides the value of what a person receives.
384
385
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386
387
388
"Someone who hasn't seen very many girls has no idea of women at
all", a man said this to me gravely who was a great admirer of his wife,
who was cuckolding him.
« Celui qui n'a pas vu beaucoup de filles ne connaît point les femmes »,
me disait gravement un homme, grand admirateur de la sienne, qui le
trompait.
389
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390
391
Love is more pleasant than marriage for the same reason that novels are
more pleasant than history.
L'amour plaît plus que le mariage, par la raison que les romans sont
plus amusants que l'histoire.
392
393
The most reasonable and moderate word that has been said on the
question of celibacy and marriage is this: "No matter which you choose,
you will regret it." In his last years, Fontenelle regretted not having
married. He forgot 95 years of being without cares.
Le mot le plus raisonnable et le plus mesuré qui ait été dit sur la
question du célibat et du mariage est celui-ci: « Quelque parti que tu
prennes, tu t'en repentiras. » Fontenelle se repentit, dans ses dernières
années, de ne s'être pas marié. Il oubliait 95 ans, passés dans
l'insouciance.
394
The only thing that can vouch for a marriage is the wisdom of the
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two people being married, and the madness of their attraction. The rest
is vile calculation.
395
Women are married before they become nothing or are able to become
so. A husband is nothing more than a type of man who troubles the body
of his wife, warps her esprit and hews her soul.
On marie les femmes avant qu'elles soient rien et qu'elles puissent rien
être. Un mari n'est qu'une espèce de manœuvre qui tracasse le corps de
sa femme, ébauche son esprit et dégrossit son âme.
396
Le mariage, tel qu'il se pratique chez les grands, est une indécence
convenue.
397
We have seen men who are reputed honest and of considerable society
congratulate the luck of Mlle..., a young, beautiful, spiritual, and
virtuous person, for succeeding in becoming the wife of M..., a sickly,
repellent, dishonest, imbecilic, but rich old man. If anything
characterizes vile centuries, it is considering such a thing a triumph, the
ridiculousness of such a joy, the inversion of every moral and natural
idea.
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398
The state of a husband has the unhappiness that even if he has very
much esprit, in society and even in his house he can seem boring
without even opening his mouth, and ridiculous when saying the
simplest thing. If he is loved by his wife, it prevents a part of this
misfortune. That is the reason why M... said to his wife: "My dear
friend, help me not to be ridiculous."
L'état de mari a cela de fâcheux que le mari qui a le plus d'esprit peut
être de trop partout, même chez lui, ennuyeux sans ouvrir la bouche, et
ridicule en disant la chose la plus simple. Être aimé de sa femme sauve
une partie de ces travers. De là vient que M... disait à sa femme: « Ma
chère amie, aidez-moi à n'être pas ridicule. »
399
400
Because of his passion for women, the most honest man either has to be
a husband or a cicisbeo; either villainous or impotent.
Grâce à la passion des femmes, il faut que l'homme le plus honnête soit
ou un mari, ou un sigisbée; ou un crapuleux, ou un impuissant.
401
402
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one of whom is too inferior to the other; and this is not the effect of
vanity, but of a just pride which it would be absurd and impossible to
want to strip from human nature. Vanity only belongs to a weak or
corrupt nature; but pride, well known, belongs to ordained nature.
Ce n'est pas tout d'être aimé, il faut être apprécié, et on ne peut l'être
que par ce qui nous ressemble. De là vient que l'amour n'existe pas, ou
du moins ne dure pas, entre des êtres dont l'un est trop inférieur à l'autre;
et ce n'est point là l'effet de la vanité, c'est celui d'un juste amour-propre
dont il serait absurde et impossible de vouloir dépouiller la nature
humaine. La vanité n'appartient qu'à la nature faible ou corrompue; mais
l'amour-propre, bien connu, appartient à la nature bien ordonnée.
403
Women only give to friendship what they borrow from love. A woman
who is ugly and imperious, and wants to please men, is a poor
person who demands that people show him charity.
404
When a lover is too loved by his mistress, he seems to love her less, and
vice versa. Is it with the feelings of peoples hearts as it is with favors?
When a person can't hope to repay them, he falls into ingratitude.
405
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La femme qui s'estime plus pour les qualités de son âme ou de son
esprit que pour sa beauté, est supérieure à son sexe. Celle qui s'estime
plus pour sa beauté que pour son esprit ou pour les qualités de son âme,
est de son sexe. Mais celle qui s'estime plus pour sa naissance ou pour
son rang que pour sa beauté, est hors de son sexe, et au-dessous de son
sexe.
406
Il paraît qu'il y a dans le cerveau des femmes une case de moins, et dans
leur cœur une fibre de plus, que chez les hommes. Il fallait une
organisation particulière, pour les rendre capables de supporter, soigner,
caresser des enfants.
407
Nature has left the conservation of every creature to maternal love, and
to assure that mothers have a recompense, it has attached pleasures and
even pains to this delicious feeling.
408
Concerning love, everything is true, everything is false; and it's the one
thing about which people can't say something absurd.
En amour, tout est vrai, tout est faux; c'est la seule chose sur laquelle on
ne puisse pas dire un absurdité.
409
A man in love who pities a man with reason seems to resemble a man
who reads fairy tales and who makes fun of someone who reads history.
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410
411
One of the best reasons for never marrying is that a person is not being
completely duped by a woman when she isn't his.
412
Have you never seen a woman who, seeing one of her long-time friends
near another woman, supposed that she was being cruel to her? A person
sees by that the opinion that they have of each other. Draw your
conclusions.
Avez-vous jamais connu une femme qui, voyant un de ses amis assidu
auprès d'une autre femme, ait supposé que cette femme lui fût cruelle?
On voit par là l'opinion qu'elles ont les unes des autres. Tirez vos
conclusions.
413
Quelque mal qu'un homme puisse penser des femmes, il n'y a pas de
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414
415
I've seen some men and women in society who do not ask for an
exchange of feelings between each other, but an exchange of
procedures, and who abandon this last bargain if it will lead to the first
one.
CHAPTER VII
CHAPITRE VII
416
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417
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être différents.
418
If a person examined with care all of the rare qualities of spirit and soul
that are necessary to judge, feel and appreciate good verses; the tact, the
delicacy of organs, of ear and of intelligence, etc., he would be
convinced that despite the pretentions of all classes of society for
judging the charm of works, poets have even fewer true judges than
geometers. Poets who count the public for nothing and only work for
connoisseurs would do with their works what the famous mathematician
Viete did with his in an age when the study of mathematics was less
widespread than today. He only made a few copies and distributed them
to people who could understand and enjoy them, or be helped by them.
As for others, he didn't think about them. But Viete was rich and most
poets are poor. Then a geometer has perhaps less vanity than a poet; or if
he has as much, he can calculate the extent of it better.
419
There are men for whom esprit (that intrument that can be applied to
everything) is only a talent by which they seem to be dominated, that
they don't govern and which is not at all ordered by their reason.
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n'est qu'un talent par lequel ils semblent dominés, qu'ils ne gouvernent
pas, et qui n'est point aux ordres de leur raison.
420
421
422
When a pleasant man has the ambition to gain the petty advantage of
pleasing people other than his friends, as so many men do, especially
men of letters for whom pleasing others is almost a profession, it is clear
that they can only be driven by self-interest or vanity. Such a person has
to choose between the role of a courtisan and that of a coquette, or if one
likes, an actor. A man who makes himself pleasant for a group of people
because he enjoys himself with them is the only person who plays the
role of an honest man.
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423
Someone said that to take things from the ancients was like robbing the
towns beyond national borders; but plundering things from the moderns
was like stealing pocket change on street corners.
Quelqu'un a dit que de prendre sur les anciens, c'était pirater au-delà de
la ligne; mais que de piller les modernes, c'était filouter au coin des rues.
424
Poetry adds esprit to the thoughts of a man who sometimes has very
little of it; and that is what people call talent. Often it takes esprit away
from the thoughts of a person who has very much of it, and that is the
best proof that someone does not have talent for writing poetry.
425
Most present day books have an air of having been made in one day
from others read the night before.
La plupart des livres d'à présent ont l'air d'avoir été faits en un jour avec
des livres lus de la veille.
426
Good taste, tact and proper manners have more in common than men of
letters think. Tact is good taste applied to self-defense and to
ones conduct; proper manners is good taste applied to speeches and
conversation.
Le bon goût, le tact, et le bon ton ont plus de rapport que n'affectent de
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427
428
Pour être un grand homme dans les lettres, ou du moins, opérer une
révolution sensible, il faut, comme dans l'ordre politique, trouver tout
préparé et naître à propos.
429
Noblemen and wits mutually seek each other out and want to unite their
two types, of which one is a little more dusty and the other a little more
windy.
430
Men of letters love the people they amuse, just like travellers love the
people they surprise.
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Les gens de lettres aiment ceux qu'ils amusent, comme les voyageurs
aiment ceux qu'ils étonnent.
431
Qu'est-ce que c'est qu'un homme de lettres qui n'est pas rehaussé par
son caractère, par le mérite de ses amis, et par un peu d'aisance? Si ce
dernier avantage lui manque au point qu'il soit hors d'état de vivre
convenablement dans la société où son mérite l'appelle, qu'a-t-il besoin
du monde? Son seul parti n'est-il pas de se choisir une retraite où il
puisse cultiver en paix son âme, son caractère et sa raison? Faut-il qu'il
porte le poids de la société, sans recueillir un seul des avantages qu'elle
procure aux autres classes de citoyens? Plus d'un homme de lettres,
forcé de prendre ce parti, y a trouvé le bonheur qu'il eût cherché ailleurs
vainement. C'est celui-là qui peut dire qu'en lui refusant tout on lui a
tout donné. Dans combien d'occasions ne peut-on pas répéter le mot de
Thémistocle: « Hélas! nous périssions si nous n'eussions péri! »
432
A person says and says again after having read a work that breathes
virtue: "It's too bad that authors do not paint themselves in their works,
and that a person cannot conclude from such a work that the author is
what he seems to be." It is true that very many examples authorize this
thought; but I've noticed that people often make this reflection in order
not to have to honor the virtues whose images are found in the writings
of an honest man.
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433
An author, a man with taste, is, among this blasé public, what a young
woman is in a circle of old libertines.
434
435
436
The repose of a writer who has created good works is more respected
by the public than the fecundity of an author who multiplies mediocre
ones. In the same way, the silence of man who is known for speaking
well is very much more imposing than the loquaciousness of a man who
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Le repos d'un écrivain qui a fait de bons ouvrages est plus respecté du
public que la fécondité active d'un auteur qui multiplie les ouvrages
médiocres. C'est ainsi que le silence d'un homme connu pour bien parler
impose beaucoup plus que le bavardage d'un homme qui ne parle pas
mal.
437 What makes many works successful is the similarity between the
mediocrity of the authors ideas and the mediocrity of the publics.
438
After seeing the people who make up the Académie française, a person
would think that it took this verse of Lucretius for its motto: Certare
ingenio, contendere nobilitate. ['To rival genius and want to be first
because of station']
439
The honor of being in the Académie française is like having the cross of
Saint-Louis, which is seen as often at the dinners of Marly as at inns that
cost 22 sols.
440
The Académie française is like the Opera, which maintains itself with
things that are foreign to it, the pensions that are received by the actors
from the provinces, permission to go from the parterre to the foyer, etc.
In the same way, the Académie maintains itself by all the advantages
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that it hands out. It resembles the Cidalise of Gresset: 'Take this, that is
your first duty, And show some esteem afterwards, if you can.'
L'Académie française est comme l'Opéra, qui se soutient par des choses
étrangères à lui, les pensions qu'on exige pour lui des Opéras comiques
de province, la permission d'aller du parterre aux foyers, etc. De même,
l'Académie se soutient par tous les avantages qu'elle procure. Elle
ressemble à la Cidalise de Gresset: Ayez-là, c'est d'abord ce que vous
lui devez, Et vous l'estimerez après, si vous pouvez.
441
Literary reputations, and those in the theatre above all, are like the
fortunes that people used to make from islands. It was nearly sufficient
to pass over them in order to become very wealthy, but these great
fortunes themselves harmed the following generation: the exhausted
lands didn't yield as abundantly.
442
De nos jours, les succès de théâtre et de littérature ne sont guère que des
ridicules.
443
444
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445
Having a lot of ideas does not give a person esprit, in the same way that
having a lot of soldiers doesn't make a person a good general.
446
People often become angry at men of letters who retire from society.
They want them to take an interest in a part of the world that they would
receive nearly nothing advantageous from; they want to force them to
eternally engage in loteries that they have no tickets for.
447
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448
What a person knows the best is: 1st what he has guessed; 2nd what he
has learned through experience of men and things; 3rd what he has
learned, not in books, but through books, that is, through the reflections
that he makes after reading them; 4th what he has learned in books or
from masters.
449
Men of letters, and above all poets, are like peacocks whose box one
throws grains in, and which one sometimes takes out to have them show
their tails; while roosters, chickens, ducks and turkeys walk freely
through a barnyard and fill their beaks completely at their ease.
Les gens de lettres, surtout les poètes, sont comme les paons, à qui on
jette mesquinement quelques graines dans leur loge, et qu'on en tire
quelquefois pour les voir étaler leur queue; tandis que les coqs, les
poules, les canards et les dindons se promènent librement dans la basse-
cour, et remplissent leur jabot tout à leur aise.
450
Success produces success, just like having money makes a person able
to make money.
451
There are books that a man with the most esprit would not be able to
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make without renting a carriage; that is, without going to consult men,
things, libraries, manuscripts, etc.
Il y a des livres que l'homme qui a le plus d'esprit ne saurait faire sans
un carrosse de remise, c'est-à-dire sans aller consulter les hommes, les
choses, les bibliothèques, les manuscrits, etc.
452
453
The memoires that people who lived in high places or of men of letters,
even the ones who passed for being most modest, leave to serve as a
history of their life betrays their secret vanity, and reminds me of the
history of that saint who left one hundred thousand écus in order to be
canonized.
Les mémoires que les gens en place ou les gens de lettres, même ceux
qui ont passé pour les plus modestes, laissent pour servir à l'histoire de
leur vie, trahissent leur vanité secrète, et rappellent l'histoire de ce saint
qui avait laissé cent mille écus pour servir à sa canonisation.
454
It's a great misfortune to lose, because of our character, the rights that
our talents give us over society.
C'est un grand malheur de perdre par notre caractère, les droits que nos
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455
It's after the age of their passions that great men have produced their
masterpieces, just as it is after the eruptions of volcanoes that the earth
is most fertile.
C'est après l'âge des passions que les grands hommes ont produit leurs
chef-d'oeuvre, comme c'est après les éruptions des volcans que la terre
est plus fertile.
456
The vanity of men of the world cleverly uses the vanity of men of
letters. These latter gain reputations that lead to high places. At first, for
both parties, this is only wind; but people with adroit intrigues use this
wind to fill the sails of their fortune.
457
458
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459
460
Many men of letters think that they love glory when they only love
vanity. These are two very different and even opposed things; because
the one is a petty passion and the other a great one. There is, between
vanity and glory, the same difference that there is between someone in
love with himself and someone in love.
461
Posterity only considers men of letters by their works, and not by their
rank in society. Rather what they made than what they were seems to be
its motto.
462
Sperone Speroni explained very well how an author can say something
that is very clear to himself and sometimes obscure to his reader: He
says, "It's because the author goes from the thought to the expression
and the reader goes from the expression to the thought."
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463
The works that an author made with pleasure are often his best, just as
the children born from parents in love are the most beautiful.
Les ouvrages qu'un auteur fait avec plaisir sont souvent les meilleurs,
comme les enfants de l'amour sont les plus beaux.
464
In the fine arts, and also in many other things, a person only knows well
what he has not learned.
465
A painter gives a soul to figures and a poet lends figures to feelings and
ideas.
Le peintre donne une âme à une figure, et le poète prête une figure à un
sentiment et à une idée.
466
Quand La Fontaine est mauvais, c'est qu'il est négligé; quand Lamothe
l'est, c'est qu'il est recherché.
467
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468
469
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPITRE VIII
470
People have often made fun of others who speak with enthusiasm about
savages as opposed to people who are civilized. However, I would like
to know what people would respond to these three objections: among
savages, people have not yet seen an example of: 1st, someone who is
crazy; 2nd, a suicide; 3rd, a savage who has wanted to embrace civilized
life; while a great number of Europeans, as much in Haiti as in the two
Americas, after having lived with savages and coming back to their
compatriots, return to the forest. Let someone respond to this without
being verbose and without sophism.
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471
472
When a person considers that the fruit of the work and insight of thirty
or fourty centuries has been to subject three hundred million men spread
over the globe to thirty despots, most of them ignorant and imbeciles,
each advised by three or four villains, who are sometimes stupid, what is
he to think of humanity, and what is he to expect from it in the future?
473
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474
475
Once, the royal treasury was called the Savings. People blushed at this
name, which seemed untrue since people had been prodigal with the
states money, and they simply called it the royal treasury.
476
The most respectable title of the french nobility means that a person
has immediately descended from one of the thirty thousand helmeted
and iron-clad men with armlets and leggings who, on great steel-clad
horses, tread eight or nine million naked men underfoot, who were the
actual ancestors of the nation. That is something that very well deserves
the love and respect of their descendants! And, to make this nobility
respectable, they adopted men who made their fortune by stripping the
huts of poor people who weren't able to pay their taxes. Miserable
human institutions that, fit to inspire scorn and horror, expect to be
respected and revered!
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fer, foulaient aux pieds huit ou neuf millions d'hommes nus, qui sont les
ancêtres de la nation actuelle. Voilà un droit bien avéré à l'amour et au
respect de leurs descendants! Et, pour achever de rendre cette noblesse
respectable, elle se recrute et se régénère par l'adoption de ces hommes
qui ont accru leur fortune en dépouillant la cabane du pauvre hors d'état
de payer les impositions. Misérables institutions humaines qui, faites
pour inspirer le mépris et l'horreur, exigent qu'on les respecte et qu'on
les révère!
477
478
479
[Note from book: Chérin was the genealogist to the king. He verified
the well-foundedness of titles of nobility.]
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480
Qu'importe qu'il y ait sur le trône un Tibère ou un Titus, s'il a des Séjan
pour ministres?
482
A person could say that there was no more civil government in Rome
after the death of Tiberius Gracchus; and Scipio Nasica, who left the
Senate in order to use violence against a Tribune, taught the Romans
that force alone would establish laws in the Forum. He revealed this
disastrous secret before Sulla.
On peut dire qu'il n'y eut plus de gouvernement civil à Rome après la
mort de Tiberius Gracchus; et Scipion Nasica, en partant du Sénat pour
employer la violence contre le tribun, apprit aux Romains que la force
seule donnerait des lois dans le Forum. Ce fut lui qui avait révelé avant
Sylla ce mystère funeste.
483
Ce qui fait l'intérêt secret qui attache si fort à la lecture de Tacite, c'est
le contraste continuel et toujours nouveau de l'ancienne liberté
républicaine avec les vils esclaves que peint l'auteur. C'est la
comparaison des anciens Scaurus, Scipion, etc., avec les lâchetés de
leurs descendants. En un mot, ce qui contribue à l'effet de Tacite, c'est
Tite-Live.
484
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over the door to the prison where the unfortunate Ugolin was shut in.
485
People have written books about the best interests of princes; people
study the best interests of princes: has anyone ever studied the best
interests of peoples?
On a fait des livres sur les intérêts des princes; on parle d'étudier les
intérêts des princes: quelqu'un a-t-il jamais parlé d'étudier les intérêts
des peuples?
486
The only histories that deserve attention are those of free peoples. The
histories of peoples who submit to despots are only collections of
anecdotes.
Il n'y a d'histoire digne d'attention que celle des peuples libres. L'histoire
des peuples soumis au despotisme n'est qu'un recueil d'anecdotes.
487
Ministers of state are only lackeys, and are only more important
because the nobleman their master owns more land.
489
When a minister of state makes his master commit faults and follies that
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are harmful to the public, it often only makes him more established in
his position: one would say that they tie themselves to their master more
effectively through this type of complicity.
490
491
Would anyone believe that there are people who defend despotism,
under the pretext that it is necessary for encouraging the arts? It's
unbelievable how much the brilliance of the century of Louis XIV has
multiplied the number of people who think this way. According to them,
the bottom line of all human society is to have beautiful tragedies,
beautiful comedies, etc.. These are the people who pardon all of the
evils that priests have done when they consider that without priests, we
wouldn't have the comedy Tartuffe.
492
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court.
493
494
Paris, singulier pays, où il faut 30 sols pour dîner; 4 francs pour prendre
l'air; 100 louis pous le superflu dans le nécessaire, et 400 louis pour
n'avoir que le nécessaire dans le superflu.
495
496
A person could describe the city of Paris with the same phrase that saint
Theresa used to describe hell: "A place that smells and where
people feel no love."
497
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C'est une chose remarquable que la multitude des étiquettes dans une
nation aussi vive et aussi gaie que la nôtre. On peut s'étonner aussi de
l'esprit pédantesque et de la gravité des corps et des compagnies; il
semble que le législateur ait cherché à mettre un contrepoids qui arrêtât
la légèreté du Français.
498
499
In France, people leave alone the person who started the fire and
persecute the one who rings the bell.
500
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Presque toutes les femmes, soit de Versailles, soit de Paris, quand ces
dernières sont d'un état un peu considérable, ne sont autre chose que des
bourgeoises de qualité, des Madame Naquart, présentées ou non
présentées.
501
502
Le public est gouverné comme il raisonne. Son droit est de dire des
sottises, comme celui des ministres est d'en faire.
503
504
The English are the only people who have found a way to limit the
power of a man whose face is on a small coin.
Les Anglais sont le seul peuple qui ait trouvé le moyen de limiter la
puissance d'un homme dont la figure est sur un petit écu.
505
How is it possible that under the most frightful despotism people still
reproduce? It's because the laws of nature are sweeter and also more
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imperious than those of tyrants; it's because a child smiles at his mother
under Domitian just as under Titus.
506
A philosopher said: "I do not know how a Frenchman who has once
been in the antichamber of the king, or in the waiting room to see him
after waking, can be adequately described: he is a grand seigneur."
507
The flatterers of princes say that hunting is an image of war; and in fact,
the peasants whose fields are equally ravaged in both cases must agree
that that is true enough.
Les flatteurs des princes ont dit que la chasse était une image de la
guerre; et en effet, les paysans, dont elle vient de ravager les champs,
doivent trouver qu'elle la représente assez bien.
508
It is unfortunate for men, and perhaps happy for tyrants, that the poor
and unfortunate do not have the same instinct or pride as elephants, who
do not ever reproduce under servitude.
Il est malheureux pour les hommes, heureux peut-être pour les tyrans,
que les pauvres, les malheureux, n'aient pas l'instinct ou la fierté de
l'éléphant qui ne se reproduit point dans la servitude.
509
In the eternal struggle in society between the poor and the rich, the
nobles and the plebeians, between accredited and unknown men, there
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are two observations to make: the first is that their words and actions are
evaluated by different weights and measures, with one group weighing
one pound, and the other weighing ten or one hundred, an admitted
disproportion that is accepted as an eternal standard; and this by itself is
horrible. This way of evaluating people, authorized by law and custom,
is one of the enormous vices of society, which by itself would be able to
explain all of its other vices. The other observation is that even when
this inequality is put in danger, it worsens: the weight of the poor, the
plebeian then diminishes to a quarter of what it was, while the ten
pounds of the rich or the noble becomes a hundred, and the hundred
becomes a thousand, etc. This is the natural and necessary effect of
their respective positions: the poor and the plebeian envy any good
fortune of their equals and the rich and the noble find aids and
accomplices in theirs, who second them so that they can share their
advantages or obtain similar ones.
510
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511
"The nobility", say the nobles, "is an intermediary between the king and
the people..." Yes, like a hunting dog is an intermediary between a
hunter and hares.
512
Qu'est-ce que c'est qu'un cardinal? C'est un prêtre habillé de rouge, qui
a cent mille écus du roi, pour se moquer de lui au nom du pape.
513
514
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sols de notre monnaie pour jouir en paix, sous des lois justes et douces,
de la protection du gouvernement, de la sûreté de sa personne et de sa
propriété. de la liberté civile et religieuse, du droit de voter aux
élections, d'être membre du Congrès, et par conséquent législateur, etc.
Tel paysan français, de l'Auvergne ou du Limousin, est écrasé de tailles,
de vigntièmes, de corvées de toute espèce, pour être insulté par le
caprice d'un subdélégué, emprisonné arbitrairement, etc., et transmettre
à une famille dépouillée cet héritage d'infortune et d'avilissement.
515
North America is the place in the world where the rights of man are
best recognized. Americans are the worthy descendants of those famous
republicans who expatriated themselves in order to flee tyranny [a note
in the book mentions puritans]. This place has formed men worthy of
combating and conquering the English themselves, in an epoch when
these last had recovered their liberty and were able to form the most
beautiful government that ever was [the book says after the revolution of
1688 to George III (1760)]. The American revolution will be useful to
the English themselves, by forcing them to newly examine their
constitution and banish abuses from it. What will happen? The English,
chased from North America, will throw themselves onto the islands and
on French and Spanish possessions, and give them their government,
which is founded on the natural love that men have for liberty, and
which adds to this love itself. Such governments will form on Spanish
and French islands, and above all on South America, which, having
become English, will form new constitutions that will have liberty as
their principle and foundation. Thus the English will have the unique
glory of having formed nearly the only free peoples in the world, the
only ones, to speak properly, worthy of the name of man, since they will
be the only ones who recognize and conserve the rights of man. But how
many years won't be necessary to achieve this revolution? It is necessary
to purge the French and the Spanish from immense lands, where they
would only be able to form slaves, and transplant Englishmen there to
provide the first germs of liberty. These germs will develop and produce
new fruit and will achieve a revolution that will chase the English
themselves from both Americas and every island.
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516
517
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518
Every person who comes from the people arms himself against it to
oppress it: militiamen and merchants become secretary to the king,
preachers who are from a village preach submission to arbitrary power,
the historiographer is the son of a bourgeois, etc. These are the soldiers
of Cadmus: the first who are armed turn themselves against their
brothers and hurl themselves on them.
Tout ce qui sort de la classe du peuple s'arme contre lui pour l'opprimer,
depuis le milicien, le négociant devenu secrétaire du roi, le prédicateur
sorti d'un village, pour prêcher la soumission au pouvoir arbitraire,
l'historiographe fils d'un bourgeois, etc. Ce sont les soldats de Cadmus:
les premiers armés se tournent contre leurs frères, et se précipitent sur
eux.
519
520
521
A person governs men with his head. One does not play chess with
goodness of heart.
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On gouverne les hommes avec la tête. On ne joue pas aux échecs avec
un bon coeur.
522
523
Lessen the hardships of the people, and you lessen their ferocity, in the
same way that you make sick people feel better with broth.
524
I observe that the most extraordinary men, who effected revolutions that
seem to be the work of their genius alone, were supported by the most
favorable circumstances and by the spirit of their times. People know all
of the attempts made before the great voyage of Vasco de Gama to the
West Indies. People are not ignorant of the many navigators who were
convinced that there were great islands, and without doubt a continent to
the west, before Columbus discovered it, and he himself owned papers
by a famous pilot who had been writing with him about this [note in
book: Palestrello, a Portugese navigator]. Phillip had prepared
everything for the Persian war before his death. Many sects of heretics
unleashed against the abuses of the Roman church preceded Luther and
Calvin, and even Viclef.
J'observe que les hommes les plus extraordinaires et qui on fait des
révolutions, lesquelles semblent être le produit de leur seul génie, ont été
secondé par les circonstances les plus favorables et par l'esprit de leur
temps. On sait toutes les tentatives faites avant le grand voyage de Vasco
de Gama aux Indes occidentales. On n'ignore pas que plusieurs
navigateurs étaient persuadés qu'il y avait de grandes îles, et sans doute
un continent à l'Ouest, avant que Colomb l'eût découvert, et il avait lui-
même entre les mains les papiers d'un célèbre pilote avec qui il avait été
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525
People usually believe that Peter the Great awoke one day with the idea
of creating everything in Russia; M. de Voltaire admits himself that his
father, Alexis, formed the design of transporting the Arts there. There is
a maturity in everything that must be waited for. Happy the man who
lives in this moment of maturity!
526
527
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1789, et tous les préjugés dont la plupart étaient remplis, on eût dit qu'ils
ne les avaient détruits que pour les prendre, comme ces gens qui abattent
un édifice pour s'approprier les décombres.
528
One of the reasons that governing bodies and Assemblies are rarely
able to do anything that isn't foolish, is that in a public deliberation, the
best thing that can be said either against the affair or person in question
can hardly ever be said loudly without great dangers or extreme
inconveniences.
Une des raisons pour lesquelles les Corps et les Assemblées ne peuvent
guère faire autre chose que des sottises, c'est que dans une déliberation
publique, la meilleur chose qu'il y ait à dire ou contre l'affaire ou la
personne dont il s'agit, ne peut presque jamais se dire tout haut, sans de
grands dangers ou d'extrêmes inconvénients.
529
In the instant when God created the world, the moving chaos must have
been more disorderly than when it was in an unmoving disorder. In the
same way, the confusion in our society, which is reorganizing itself,
must seem like an excess of disorder.
530
Courtiers and people who lived off of the monstrous abuses that have
been crushing France are ceaselessly saying that abuses could be
reformed without destroying them as people have been. It is as though
they would like the Augean stables to be cleaned with a feather duster.
[Cleaning the Augean stables was one of Hercules' twelve labors; he had
to divert a river through them in order to do it]
Les courtisans et ceux qui vivaient des abus monstrueux qui écrasaient
la France sont sans cesse à dire qu'on pouvait réformer les abus sans
détruire comme on a détruit. Ils auraient bien voulu qu'on nettoyât
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531
In the ancien régime, a philosopher wrote bold truths. One of those men
who birth or favorable circumstances gave a high position read these
truths, weakened them, modified them, understood a twentieth part of
them and passed for a man who was disquieting, but who had esprit. He
moderated his zeal for them and succeeded in everything. The
philosopher was put in the Bastille. In the new regime, it is the
philosopher who succeeds in everything; his ideas help him, no longer
to be imprisoned, no longer to uncork the esprit of a fool so that he can
be successful, but to bring the philosopher himself to high places. Judge
how the mob of people who are discarded through this order of things
accustom themselves to it!
532
533
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APPENDIX
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APPENDICE
534
Un homme, attaquant une femme sans être prêt, lui dit: « Madame, s'il
vous était égal d'avoir encore un quart d'heure de vertu? »
535
536
537
Some people put their books in their library, but M... puts his library in
his books. (Said about a writer of books that have already been written.)
Il y a des gens qui mettent leurs livres dans leur bibliothèque, mais M...
met sa bibliothèque dans ses livres. (Dit d'un faiseur de livres faits.)
538
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M. D... L... was telling M. D... about a horrible lawsuit someone had for
him, and added: "What would you do in my place?" The other, who had
become indifferent after having suffered injustices and had become an
egoist out of misanthropy, responded coldly to him: "In that situation,
Monsieur, I would take care of my stomach and try to keep my tongue
red and my urine very light."
M. D... L... vint conter à M. D... un procédé horrible qu'on avait eu pour
lui, et ajoutait: « Que feriez-vous à ma place? » Celui-ci, homme devenu
indifférent à force d'avoir souffert des injustices, et égoïste par
misanthropie, lui répondit froidement: « Moi, Monsieur, dans ces cas-là
je soigne mon estomac et je tiens ma langue vermeille et mon urine bien
briquetée. »
539
A lover of the duchesse d'Olonne, seeing her flirt with her husband, left
the room while saying to her: "Parbleu! You are a real hussy; that is too
much."
540
The old people in the capitals are more corrupt than the young people.
There, decay comes right after maturity.
Les vieillards, dans les capitales, sont plus corrompus que les jeunes
gens. C'est là que la pourriture vient à la suite de la maturité.
541
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542
543
544
A doctor of the Sorbonne, furious over the System of Nature, said: "It's
an execrable, abominable book; it is atheism with demonstrations."
545
A man who was known to close his eyes to his wife's disorders, and
who worked many times to increase her fortune, showed the greatest
sadness over her death, and said to me gravely: "I can say what Louis
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XIV said at the death of Marie-Thérèse: this is the first time that she has
ever caused me sadness."
Un homme connu pour avoir fermé les yeux sur les désordres de sa
femme, et qui en avait tiré parti plusieurs fois pour sa fortune, montrait
le plus grand chagrin de sa mort, et me dit gravement: « Je puis dire ce
que Louis XIV disait à la mort de Marie-Thérèse: Voilà le premier
chagrin qu'elle m'ait jamais donné. »
547
"M. was impassioned and thought he was wise. I was a madwoman, but
I doubted myself, and, on this point, I was closer to wisdom than he
was."
548
A doctor said: "Only the people who are going to inherit something pay
me well."
549
M. the Dauphin, father of the king (Louis XVI), passionately loved his
first wife, who was redheaded and who had the inconvenience attached
to this color. He went a long time without loving the second Dauphine,
and gave for his reason that she did not smell like a woman. He thought
that this odor belonged to the whole sex.
550
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hate him as though he had accepted them, and people laughed with M.
D..., who would said: "Morbleu! If he only knew how amusing he is!"
M. D... avait refusé les avances d'une jolie femme. Son mari le prit en
haine, comme s'il les eût acceptées, et on riait de M. D..., qui disait: «
Morbleu! s'il savait du moins combien il est plaisant! »
551
A pretty woman said to her lover, who was morose and acted as though
he were married: "Monsieur, observe that when you are near my
husband in society, it would be decent of you to be happier than he is."
Une jolie femme dont l'amant était maussade, et avait des manières
conjugales, lui dit:
« Monsieur, apprenez que, quand vous êtes avec mon mari dans le
monde, il est décent que vous soyez plus aimable que lui. »
552
M..., who people frequently asked to read his verses, and who grew
impatient at that, said that when he began to read them he was always
reminded of what a charlatan at the Pont-Neuf would say to his monkey
when he began his tricks: "Let's go, my dear Bertrand, it is not a
question of amusing ourselves here. We must divert the honorable
company."
« Allons, mon cher Bertrand, il n'est pas question ici de s'amuser. Il nous
faut divertir l'honorable compagnie. »
553
People said of M... that he clung all the more tightly to a certain grand
seigneur the more base things he did for him. He is like ivy that attaches
itself by crawling.
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On disait de M... qu'il tenait d'autant plus à un grand seigneur qu'il avait
fait plus de bassesses pour lui. C'est comme le lierre qui s'attache en
rampant.
554
An ugly woman who decorated herself with jewels in order to enter into
the company of young and pretty women, did, in her genre, the same
thing that people do in a discussion when they are afraid they will be
shown they are wrong: they try to cleverly change the fundamental
question. It is a matter of knowing who is the most beautiful. The ugly
woman wants people to ask who is the richest.
Une femme laide, qui se pare pour se trouver avec de jeunes et jolies
femmes, fait, en son genre, ce que font dans une discussion les gens qui
craignent d'avoir le dessous: ils s'efforcent de changer habilement l'état
de la question. Il s'agissait de savoir quelle était la plus belle. La laide
veut qu'on demande quelle est la plus riche.
555
Pardon them, for they know not what they do was what the preacher
said at the marriage of d'Aubigné, seventy years old, with a young
person of seventeen.
Pardonnez-leur, car ils ne savent ce qu'ils font fut le texte que prit le
prédicateur au mariage d'Aubigné, âgé de soixante-dix ans, et d'une
jeune personne de dix-sept.
556
557
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558
M... said pleasantly that at Paris, every honest man provides jobs for
police spies, just as Pope said that poets feed critics and journalists.
559
A man said naively to one of his friends: "We have, this morning,
condemned three men to death. Two of them really merited it."
560
A very rich man who was speaking about the poor said: "It's hard not to
give them anything, those cute fellows are always asking." More than
one prince could say this about his courtiers.
561
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[Note: facili {as opposed to fagioli, beans} would seem to mean easy,
but it may be an archaic form; the french translation in the book gives
haricots, which is beans. The french translation in the book also gives
ch... for caga, which doesn't help me {though il chie means he shits}. If
it comes from cagare in the same way that manga comes from
mangiare, it would mean to shit. Heaven knows what it means. ]
562
"People say spiritual power", said M..., "as opposed to the power of
beasts. Spiritual, because it had enough spirit [esprit] to seize authority."
563
« Vous prenez mal votre temps; j'étais bien vieux il y a quelques années,
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564
565
566
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the same charm. "I thank you, Messieurs", said the young duc, "and I am
touched by what you are telling me. The only thing left for me to do is
to tell you that my speech was written by M. Roy, and I will give him
my compliments on possessing the good opinion of the court."
567
Someone asked the abbé Trublet how much time he devotes to making
his books. He responded: "It depends on the society I see."
568
569
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570
A little girl said to M..., the author of a book on Italy: "Monsieur, you
have written a book on Italy? - Yes, mademoiselle. - Have you been
there? - Definitely. - Did you go before or after you wrote your book?"
Une petite fille disait à M..., auteur d'un livre sur l'Italie:
571
[Note: "
Athena had thrown {the aulos, or flute} away because it caused her
cheeks to puff out and ruined her beauty. ]
C'est une jolie allégorie que celle qui représente Minerve, la déesse de la
Sagesse, rejetant la flûte quand elle s'aperçoit que cet instrument ne lui
sied pas.
572
It's a pretty allegory that has true dreams leave through a door made of
horns, and false dreams, that is pleasant illusions, through a door of
ivory.
C'est une jolie allégorie que celle qui fait sortir les songes vrais par la
porte de corne, et le songes faux, c'est-à-dire les illusions agréables, par
la porte d'ivoire.
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573
A man with esprit said about M..., his old friend, who came back to visit
him after having become prosperous: "He not only wants his friends to
be happy, he expects them to be."
Un homme d'esprit disait de M..., son ancien ami, qui était revenu à lui
dans la prospérité:
« Non seulement il veut que ses amis soient heureux, mais il l'exige. »
574
Love, says Plutarch, makes other passions silent: it is the dictator before
whom all other powers vanish.
L'amour, dit Plutarque, fait taire les autres passions: c'est le dictateur
devant qui tous les autres pouvoirs s'évanouissent.
575
M..., hearing someone preach against the moral effects of love, because
of imagination's bad influence, said: "For myself, I'm not afraid of it.
When a woman agrees with me and makes me happy, I yield to the
feelings that she inspires me with, reserving the option not to be her
dupe if she doesn't agree with me. My imagination is the upholsterer
who I send to furnish my apartment when I see that I will be well
lodged; otherwise, I give it no orders, and there I spare any unpleasant
memory."
M..., entendant prêcher contre l'amour moral, à cause des mauvais effets
de l'imagination, disait:
576
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M. de L... told me that the moment when he learned about the infidelity
of Mme de B..., he felt in the middle of his grief that he would not love
any more, that love was disappearing for ever, like a man who, in a
field, hears the sound of a partridge that rises and flies off.
577
You are surprised that M. de L... sees Mme de D...? But, monsieur, M.
de L... is in enamored, I think, with Mme de D..., and you know that a
woman has often been the intermediary that associates rather than
harmonizes two sharp and opposed colors.
Vous vous étonnez que M. de L... voie Mme de D...? Mais, monsieur,
M. de L... est amoureux, je crois, de Mme de D..., et vous savez qu'une
femme a souvent été la nuance intermédiaire qui associe plutôt qu'elle
n'assortit deux couleurs tranchantes et opposées.
578
579
Our imagination gives birth to one illusion the moment that it begins to
lose another, similar to those rosebushes that produce roses in every
season.
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580
M... said that what he loved most was peace, silence and obscurity.
Someone responded: That's a hospital room.
M... disait que ce qu'il aimait par-dessus tout, c'était paix, silence,
obscurité. On lui répondit: C'est la chambre d'un malade.
581
Someone said to M..., a man brilliant in society: "You didn't spend much
wit on MM... yesterday evening." He responded: "Remember the dutch
proverb: Without a little money, there can be no economy."
On disait à M..., homme brillant dans la société: « Vous n'avez pas fait
grande dépense d'esprit hier soir avec MM... » Il répondit: « Souvenez-
vous du proverbe hollandais: Sans petite monnaie, point d'économie. »
582
A woman is nothing by herself; she is what she seems like to the man
who is occupied with her: that is why she becomes so furious at the
people to whom she doesn't seem like how she wants to appear. She
loses her existence to them. A man is less hurt by this because he
remains what he is.
Une femme n'est rien par elle-même; elle est ce qu'elle paraît à l'homme
qui s'en occupe: voilà pourquoi elle est si furieuse contre ceux à qui elle
ne paraît pas ce qu'elle voudrait paraître. Elle y perd son existence.
L'homme en est moins blessé parce qu'il reste ce qu'il est.
583
From greatness of soul, he made a few steps toward fortune, and from
greatness of soul he scorned it.
Il avait, par grandeur d'âme, fait quelques pas vers la fortune, et par
grandeur d'âme il la méprisa.
584
M..., an old bachelor, said pleasantly that marriage is too perfect a state
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M..., vieux célibataire, disait plaisamment que le mariage est un état trop
parfait pour l'imperfection de l'homme.
585
Mme de Fourq... said to a lady companion that she had: "You never say
the thing that must be told me about the circumstances I'm in, about
what is suited to my character, etc.; for example, these days it very much
seems that I will lose my husband. I will be inconsolable about it.
Therefore, you have you have to say to me, etc."
586
M. d'Osmond jouait dans une société deux ou trois jours après la mort
de sa femme, morte en province.
« Mais, d'Osmond, lui dit quelqu'un, il n'est pas décent que tu joues le
lendemain de la mort de ta femme. - Oh! dit-il, la nouvelle n m'en a pas
encore été notifiée. - C'est égal, cela n'est pas bien. - Oh! oh! dit-il, je ne
fais que carotter. »
587
"A man of letters," said Diderot, " can have a mistress who writes
books; but he needs a wife who sews shirts."
« Un homme de lettres, disait Diderot, peut avoir une maîtresse qui fasse
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588
« Aucun, lui dit le malade. J'ai fait bonne chère tout l'été; j'ai une
maîtresse, et je me suis réjoui. Mais voilà l'hiver qui approche: je crains
le retour de l'humeur qui afflige mes yeux. Ne me conseillez-vous pas le
cautère? - Non, lui dit gravement le médecin; vous avez une maîtresse:
cela suffit. Il serait plus sage de la quitter et de mettre un cautère; mais
vous pouvez peut-être vous en passer, et je crois que ce cautère suffit. »
589
A man who had great indifference for life said while dying: "Doctor
Bouvard will be pretty baffled."
590
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illness, died and left her a great fortune with the right to remarry.
591
Il y a une modestie d'un mauvais genre, fondée sur l'ignorance, qui nuit
quelquefois à certains caractères supérieurs, qui les retient dans une
sorte de médiocrité: ce qui me rappelle le mot que disait à un déjeuner à
des gens de la cour un homme d'un mérite reconnu: « Ah! Messieurs,
que je regrette le temps que j'ai perdu à apprendre combien je valais
mieux que vous! »
592
Conquerors will always pass as the premier men, just as people will
always say that the lion is the king of the animals.
593
M..., having traveled in Sicily, was fighting the prejudice that people
have of thinking that the inland of every country is full of thieves. To
prove his point, he mentioned that everywhere he went, people told him:
"The brigands are somewhere else." M. de B..., a misanthrope full of
gaiety, said: "Now that, for example, is something people don't tell you
in Paris."
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594
One knows that there are thieves in Paris who are known to the police
and are nearly solicited by them and working at their orders, if they
don't inform on their comrades. One day, the lieutenant of police sent for
some of these and said to them: "Such an article was stolen, on such a
day, in such a quarter of the city." - "Monsieur, at what time?" - "At two
in the afternoon." - "Monsieur, it wasn't us, we can't respond for it; it
must have been stolen by the CARNIES."
« Il a été volé tel effet, tel jour, en tel quartier. - Monsieur, à quelle
heure? - A deux heures après midi. - Monsieur, ce n'est pas nous, nous
ne pouvons en répondre; il faut que cela ait été volé par des FORAINS.
»
595
596
The Italians say: Sotto umbilico ne religione ne verita. [Below the navel
there is neither religion nor truth.]
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wicked on earth so that they may become good, or so that the good may
become better upon seeing them.
598
Men are so perverse that the hope alone and even the desire alone of
correcting them, of seeing them reasonable and honest, is an absurdity, a
dreamy idea that can only be pardoned by the simplicity of a persons
first youth.
Les hommes sont si pervers que le seul espoir et même le seul désir de
les corriger, de les voir raisonnables et honnêtes, est une absurdité, une
idée romanesque qui ne se pardonne qu'à la simplicité de la première
jeunesse.
599
"I have lost all taste for men", said M. de L... - "You have not lost your
taste at all", M. de N... said to him, not to deny what he claimed, but out
of misanthropy, so as to say: your taste is good.
« Je suis bien dégoûté des hommes, disait M. de L... - Vous n'êtes pas
dégoûté », lui dit M. de N..., non pour lui nier ce qu'il disait, mais par
misanthropie, pour lui dire: votre goût est bon.
600
M..., an undeceived old man, said to me: "The rest of my life seems to
me like a half-sucked orange, that I crush for I don't know what reason,
and whose juice is not worth the trouble I am taking to squeeze it."
601
Our language [french] is, people say, a friend of clarity. It's as much,
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Notre langue est, dit-on, amie de la clarté. C'est donc, observe M...,
parce qu'on aime le plus ce dont on a le plus besoin; car, si elle n'est
maniée très adroitement, elle est toujours prête à tomber dans
l'obscurité.
602
or
Ab Jove Musarum primordia. [What belongs to the Muses
begins with Jupiter]
Verses, said M..., are like olives, which always sell for more when they
are given a covering.
Les vers, disait M..., sont comme les olives, qui gagnent toujours à être
pochetées.
604
Fools, the ignorant, and people who are dishonest look to take ideas,
reason and noble and elevated feelings from books in the same way that
a rich woman goes to a fabric merchant to get clothes that match her
wealth.
Les sots, les ignorants, les gens malhonnêtes, vont prendre dans les
livres des idées, de la raison, des sentiments nobles et élevés, comme
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605
M... said that the learned are the pavers of the temple of glory.
M... disait que les érudits sont les paveurs du temple de la gloire.
606
M..., vrai pédant grec, à qui un fait moderne rappelle un trait d'antiquité.
Vous lui parlez de l'abbé Terray, il vous cite Aristide, contrôleur général
des Athéniens.
607
SECOND PART
SECONDE PARTIE
CARACTÈRES ET ANECDOTES
Caractères et Anecdotes
608
Our century has produced eight great actresses: four in the theater and
four in society. The first four are Mlle d'Angeville, Mlle Dumesnil, Mlle
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Clairon and Mme Saint-Huberti; the four others are Mme de Mont...,
Mme de Genl..., Mme N... and Mme d'Angiv...
609
M... said to me: "I am reduced to looking for all my pleasures in myself,
that is, in the sole exercise of my intelligence. Nature has put in the
brain of man a little gland called the cerebellum, which performs the
task of a mirror; it represents to a person, both in good and in bad, in
little and in great, at large and in detail all the objects of the universe and
even the products of his own thought. It is a magic lantern of which man
is the owner and before which scenes pass in which he is an actor and a
spectator. This is properly man; this limits his empire. Everything else is
alien to him."
610
"Today, the 15th of March, 1782, I have done," said M. de..., "a good
work of a rare enough type. I have consoled an honest man, full of
virtues, rich with 100 000 livres of rent, with a very great name, a good
deal of esprit, excellent health, etc. And me, I am poor, obscure and ill."
« Aujourd'hui, 15 mars 1782, j'ai fait, disait M. de..., une bonne oeuvre
d'une espèce assez rare. J'ai consolé un homme honnête, plein de vertus,
riche de 100 000 livres de rente, d'un très grand nom, de beaucoup
d'esprit, d'une très bonne santé, etc. Et moi je suis pauvre, obscur et
malade. »
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611
People know about the fanatical speech that the bishop of Dol gave to
the king, regarding the protestants. He was speaking in the name of the
whole clergy. The bishop of Saint-Pol asked him why he spoke for
everyone without consulting them: he said, "I consulted my crucifix." -
"In that case," replied the bishop of Saint-Pol, "you should have
repeated your crucifix's response exactly."
612
It's a known story that Madame, daughter of the king, was playing with
one of her maids, saw her hand, and after having counted her fingers:
"How!" said the child with surprise, "You have five fingers too, like
me?" And she counted them again to make sure.
C'est un fait avéré, que Madame, fille du roi, jouant avec une de ses
bonnes, regarda à sa main, et, après avoir compté ses doigts: «
Comment! dit l'enfant avec surprise, vous avez cinq doigts aussi, comme
moi? » Et elle recompta pour s'en assurer.
613
614
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615
616
617
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618
M... said to me, "I've seen women from every country: an Italian woman
only thinks that she's loved when her lover is ready to commit a crime
for her; an English woman, something unreasonable; and a French
woman, something that isn't clever."
M... me disait: « J'ai vu des femmes de tous les pays; l'Italienne ne croit
être aimée de son amant que quand il est capable de commettre un crime
pour elle; l'Anglaise, une folie; et la Française, une sottise. »
619
Duclos said about I don't know which base rogue who had made a
fortune: "A person spits in his face, wipes it off with his foot and he says
thank you."
Duclos disait de je ne sais quel bas coquin qui avait fait fortune:
620
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said to Mme de Defant: "Madame, I have the honor to present you with
my most humble respect."; to Monsieur the president Henault:
"Monsieur, I am very honored to greet you."; to M. de Pont-de-Veyle:
"Monsieur, I am your very humble servant"; and to d'Alembert: "Hello,
Monsieur."
621
For thirty years, a man passed his nights at the house of Mme de ...; his
wife died; people thought he would marry his mistress, and encouraged
him to do so. He refused: "I wouldn't know where to spend my nights
anymore."
Un homme allait, depuis trente ans, passer toutes les soirées chez Mme
de ...; il perdit sa femme; on cru qu'il épouserait l'autre, et on l'y
encourageait. Il refusa: « Je ne saurais plus, dit-il, où aller passer mes
soirées. »
622
Mme de Tencin, avec des manières douces, était une femme sans
principes et capable de tout, exactement. Un jour, on louait sa douceur:
« Oui, dit l'abbé Trublet, si elle eût eu intérêt de vous empoisonner, elle
eût choisi le poison le plus doux. »
623
M. de Broglie, who only admired military merit, said one day: "This
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Voltaire that people praise so highly, and who I don't count for much,
has nevertheless written a beautiful verse:
« Ce Voltaire qu'on vante tant, et dont je fais peu de cas, il a pourtant fait
un beau vers:
624
Someone was refuting I don't know which opinion of M... about a work,
saying to him that the public judged it otherwise: "The public, the
public!", he said, "How many fools are necessary to make a public?"
625
626
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Il existe une médaille que M. le prince de Condé m'a dit avoir possédée,
et que je lui ai vu regretter. Cette médaille représente d'un côté Louis
XIII, avec les mots ordinaires: Rex Franc. et Nav., et de l'autre le
cardinal de Richelieu, avec ces mots autour: Nil sine Consilio.
627
M..., having read the letter of saint Jerome in which he paints the
violence of his passions with the greatest energy, said: "The strength of
his temptations gave me more desire than his penitence scared me."
628
M... said: "Women only have something good when they have
something better."
M... disait:
629
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630
A man who was infatuated with the charms of the priesthood said:
"When I am sure to be damned, I must become a priest."
631
A man was in mourning, from his head to his feet: there were many
professional mourners, he had a black wig and an elongated figure. One
of his friends approached him sadly: "Eh! Good God! Who is it that you
have lost?" - "Me?" he said. "I haven't lost anything: this is because I am
a widower."
« Eh! Bon Dieu! qui est-ce donc que vous avez perdu? - Moi, dit-il, je
n'ai rien perdu: c'est que je suis veuf. »
632
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633
People used to have the King cake before the meal. M. de Fontenelle
was king, and since he neglected to serve it from a excellent platter that
he had in front of him, someone said: "The king forgets his subjects." To
which he responded: "That's how we are, we men apart."
[Note: "The gâteau des Rois {King cake} is made with brioche and
candied fruits. A little bean was traditionally hidden in it, a custom
taken from the Saturnalia in the Roman Empire: the one who stumbled
upon the bean was called "king of the feast." " http://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/King_cake ]
634
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Berrier sent a collection of police and guards to the road to Lyon; they
seized the man, gagged him, brought him to Paris, and put him in the
Bastille, where he stayed for 18 years. M. de Malesherbes, who saved
many prisoners in 1775, told this story in the first moment of his
indignation.
"Before the torture, on 28 March 1757, he said "the day will be hard".
He was tortured first with red-hot pincers; his hand, holding the knife
used in the attempted assassination, was burned using sulphur; molten
wax, lead, and boiling oil were poured into his wounds. Horses were
then harnessed to his arms and legs for his dismemberment. Damiens'
limbs and ligaments did not separate easily; after some hours,
representatives of the Parliament ordered his executioner and his aides
to cut Damiens' joints. Damiens was then dismembered, to the applause
of the crowd. His torso, apparently still living, was then burnt at the
stake." 'Berrier, or rather Berryer, lieutenant of the police, minister of
the Navy, keeper of Seals (1703 - 1862).' 'Malesherbes, magistrate,
minister under Louis XVI. He was a friend of the Encyclopedists and of
Rousseau. Died on the scaffold (1721 - 1794)' ]
635
The cardinal de Rohan, who had been arrested for debts at his embassy
in Vienna, went, in the office of the grand almoner, to attend to the
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Le cardinal de Rohan, qui a été arrêté pour dettes dans son ambassade
de Vienne, alla, en qualité de grand aumônier, délivrer des prisonniers
du Châtelet, à l'occasion de la naissance du dauphin. Un homme, voyant
un grand tumulte autour de la prison, en demanda la cause: on lui
répondit que c'était pour M. le cardinal de Rohan, qui, ce jour-là, venait
au Châtelet: « Comment, dit-il naïvement, est-ce qu'il est arrêté? »
636
637
M. de ..., whom bitter griefs prevented from renewing his health, said to
me: "Let someone show me the river of forgetfulness, and I will have
found the fountain of youth."
638
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A young and sensible man, who was honest in love, was being
humiliated by libertines who were making fun of his sentimental
expressions. He responded to them naively: "Is it my fault if I prefer
women whom I love to women whom I don't?"
639
640
The
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641
The
abbé Raynal, young and poor, agreed to say a mass every day for 20
sols; when he was wealthier, he rented the commission to the abbé de La
Porte, for 8 sols less: this fellow, having become less wretched,
subleased it to the abbé Dinouart, for 4 sols less still, besides the portion
going to the abbé Raynal; such that this poor mass, struck by two
pensions, was only worth 8 sols to the abbé Dinouart.
L'abbé Raynal, jeune et pauvre, accepta une messe à dire tous les jours
pour 20 sols; quand il fut plus riche, il la céda à l'abbé de La Porte, en
retenant 8 sols dessus: celui-ci, devenu moins gueux, la sous-loua à
l'abbé Dinouart, en retenant 4 sols dessus, outre la portion de l'abbé
Raynal; si bien que cette pauvre messe, grevée de deux pensions, ne
valait que 8 sols à l'abbé Dinouart.
642
Thérèse, got off the hook of speaking about the partition of Poland very
simply: "Since France," he said,"has said nothing about this partition, I
will take a stand and support France by saying nothing about it either."
643
Lord Marlborough was in a trench with one of his friends and one of his
nephews, and a cannon struck this friend and blew out his brains, which
covered the face of the young man, who recoiled in terror. Marlborough
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644
Mme the duchess of Maine, whose health was bad, scolded her doctor,
saying to him: "Is it for this that you impose so many privations on me
and make me live with only the most necessary entourage?" - "But V. A.
has 40 people in the château now." - "Eh, well! Don't you know that 40
or 50 people are the barest necessity for a princess?"
[Note: the duchess of Maine was the grand-daughter of the Great Condé
and wife of the duc du Maine who was the son of Louis XIV]
645
The duc de Chartres, learning about the insult made to Mme the duchess
of Bourbon, his sister, by M. the count d'Artois, said: "I'm glad I'm not
her father or her husband."
[Note: The count d'Artois was the brother of Louis XVI and the future
Charles X]
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646
One day when people couldn't hear each other in a dispute at the
Académie, M. de Mairan said: "Messieurs, no more than four people
speak at a time!"
647
The count de Mirabeau, very ugly, but full of esprit, having been
brought into court on a charge of kidnapping and seduction, was his own
counsel. "Messieurs," he said, "I am accused of having seduced
someone; as my only response and my whole defense, I request that my
portrait may be put on the stand." The commissioner didn't understand:
"Brute," said the judge, "look at the man's face!"
Le comte de Mirabeau, très laid de figure, mais plein d'esprit, ayant été
mis en cause pour un prétendu rapt de séduction, fut lui-même son
avocat.
648
M... said to me: "It is because I don't have true feeling that I transact
love as everyone does. This has been my lesser evil, like a man who,
wanting to see a play, and finding that there are no more seats for
Iphigenia, goes to the amusing Variety shows."
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M... me disait:
« C'est faute de pouvoir placer un sentiment vrai, que j'ai pris le parti de
traiter l'amour comme tout le monde. Cette ressource a été mon pis-aller,
comme un homme qui, voulant aller au spectacle, et n'ayant pas trouvé
de place à Iphigénie, s'en va aux Variétés amusantes. »
649
Mme de Brionne broke with the cardinal de Rohan in front of the duc de
Choiseul, who the cardinal wanted to send away. There was a violent
scene between them, which Mme de Brionne ended by threatening to
throw him out of the window: "I certainly can descend" he said, "from a
place I climbed through so many times."
[Note: Mme de Brionne was a lady in the palace of the queen. The
cardinal de Rohan was prelate, ambassador to Vienna, grand almoner of
France, and cardinal. 'He was compromised in the Affair of the
Necklace.' The duc de Choiseul was minister under Louis XV.]
650
M. the duc de Choiseul was at the gambling table of Louis XV, when he
was exiled. M. de Chauvelin, who was there also, said to the king that
he couldn't continue, because the duc was his other half. The king said
to M. de Chauvelin: "Ask him if he wants to go on." M. de Chauvelin
wrote to Chanteloup; M. de Choiseul accepted. At the end of the month,
the king asked if the rationing of grain had been completed: "Yes", said
M. de Chauvelin. "M. de Choiseul won three thousand louis." - "Ah! I'm
very glad;" said the king, "request that he comes here very soon."
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651
"Love", said M..., "should only be the pleasure of delicate souls. When I
see vulgar men meddling in love, I am tempted to say: 'What are you
meddling in? Gambling, eating, and ambition belong to the canaille
[rabble].'
« L'amour, disait M..., devrait n'être le plaisir que des âmes délicates.
Quand je vois des hommes grossiers se mêler d'amour, je suis tenté de
dire: « De quoi vous mêlez-vous? Du jeu, de la table, de l'ambition à
cette canaille. » »
652
653
"Do you know why", (M. de... said to me), "a man is more honest, in
France, in his youth, and even until he is thirty than after this age? It's
because it is not until after this age that he is undeceived; because
among us a person has to be either an anvil or a hammer; because he
sees clearly that the evils that make the nation groan are irremediable.
Until then he had resembled a dog who defends the dinner of his master
from other dogs. After this age, he is like a dog who goes after it along
with the others."
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654
Mme de B..., not being able, despite her great influence, to do anything
for M. de D..., her lover, who was an all too mediocre man, married him.
One doesn't show these things in one's lover; in one's husband, one
shows everything.
Mme de B... ne pouvant, malgré son grand crédit, rien faire pour M. de
D..., son amant, homme par trop médiocre, l'a épousé. En fait d'amants,
il n'est pas de ceux que l'on montre; en fait de maris, on montre tout.
655
M. the count of Orsai, the son of a famer-general, and known for his
mania for being a nobleman, found himself with M. de Choiseul-
Gouffier at the office of the provost of merchants. The latter had come
to this magistrate to lower his capitation, which had been considerably
increased; the other had come to bear his complaints that his had been
decreased, and he believed that this diminution supposed some
infringement on his titles of nobility.
656
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Someone said about M. the abbé Arnaud, who never told stories: "He
talks a lot; not that he is a chatterbox, but the effect is the same because
when he speaks he never tells stories."
657
« C'est un homme qui aime mieux la pluie que le beau temps, et qui,
entendant chanter le rossignol, dit: « Ah! la vilaine bête! » »
658
Tsar Peter the Great, being at Spithead, wanted to know how the
punishment of the cale [literally, 'wedge'] was inflicted on sailors. No
guilty men could be found. Peter said: "You can use one of my people."
- "Prince," someone responded to him, "your people are in England, and
consequently are under the protection of the laws."
[Note: From what I could gather, the cale involved throwing a sailor
overboard into the water several times, keeping him tied up with a cord
tied to a rod between his legs, to pull him back aboard.]
Le tsar Pierre Ier, étant à Spithead, voulut savoir ce que c'était que le
châtiment de la cale qu'on inflige aux matelots. Il ne se trouva pour lors
aucun coupable. Pierre dit: « Qu'on prenne un de mes gens. - Prince, lui
répondit-on, vos gens sont en Angleterre, et par conséquent sous la
protection des lois. »
659
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660
171 of 201
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661
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662
"My ideas, my principles," said M..., "do not agree with everyone: they
are like the powders of Ailhaut and certain drugs which do great harm to
feeble constitutions and are very profitable for people who are robust."
He gave this as the reason for him not to have ties to M. de J..., a young
man of the court, whom people were trying to connect him with.
663
664
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665
Amid the misfortunes of the end of the reign of Louis XIV, after the
defeat at the battles of Turin, of Oudenarde, of Malplaquet, of Ramilies,
and of Hochstet, the greatest noblemen of the court would say: "At least
the king is in good health, that's the principal thing."
Dans les malheurs de la fin du règne de Louis XIV, après la perte des
batailles de Turin, d'Oudenarde, de Malplaquet, de Ramillies,
d'Hochstet, les plus honnêtes gens de la cour disaient:
666
[Note in book: " 'Little Laborde' was the son of Jean-Joseph de Laborde,
the banker of the king, who had largely financed the expenses of the
war." ]
667
"In society I have only seen," said M..., "meals without digestion, dinner
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« Je n'ai vu dans le monde, disait M..., que des dîners sans digestion, des
soupers sans plaisir, des conversations sans confiance, des liaisons sans
amitié et des coucheries sans amour. »
668
The curé de Saint-Sulpice had gone to see Mme de Mazarin during her
final illness, to give her some small exhortations; she said when she
perceived him: "Ah! M. le curé, I am delighted to see you; I have to tell
you that the butter of baby Jesus is no longer very good: it's for you to
put this in order, since the baby Jesus is dependant on your church."
[Note: I am not sure what this refers to. I found some mention of butters
shaped as baby Jesus', and the following article on the Sulpicians, but I
don't know how they fit together, if at all: http://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/Sulpicians ]
« Ah! M. le curé, je suis enchantée de vous voir; j'ai à vous dire que le
beurre de l'enfant Jésus n'est plus à beaucoup près si bon: c'est à vous
d'y mettre ordre, puisque l'enfant Jésus est une dépendance de votre
église. »
669
« Votre ami n'a aucun usage du monde, ne sait rien de rien. - Oui, dit-il;
et il est déjà triste comme s'il savait tout. »
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670
M... said that a wise and penetrating spirit, who saw society as it is,
would only find bitterness everywhere. It is absolutely necessary for a
person to direct his view to pleasant things, and accustom himself to
only viewing man as a puppet and society as the planks he hops on. As
soon as this is done, everything changes; the spirit of different
conditions, the vanity particular to each of them, the different nuances in
individuals, the knavery, etc. everything becomes entertaining, and a
person conserves his health.
M... disait qu'un esprit sage, pénétrant et qui verrait la société telle
qu'elle est, ne trouverait partout que de l'amertume. Il faut absolument
diriger sa vue vers le côté plaisant, et s'accoutumer à ne regarder
l'homme que comme un pantin et la société comme la planche sur
laquelle il saute. Dès lors, tout change; l'esprit des différents états, la
vanité particulière à chacun d'eux, ses différentes nuances dans les
individus, les friponneries, etc., tout devient divertissant, et on conserve
sa santé.
671
"It is only with very much difficulty," said M..., "that a man of merit
maintains himself in society without the aid of a name, a high rank, or a
fortune: the man who has these advantages is, on the contrary, endured
as though despite himself. There is the same difference between these
two men as there is between a scuba diver and a swimmer."
672
M... said to me: "I have given up the friendship of two men: one because
he never spoke to me about himself; the other because he never spoke to
me about myself."
M... me disait: « J'ai renoncé à l'amitié de deux hommes: l'un, parce qu'il
ne m'a jamais parlé de lui; l'autre, parce qu'il ne m'a jamais parlé de moi.
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673
The same person was being asked why the governors of the provinces
had more pomp than the king: "It's for the same reason," he said, "that
the actors from the country charge more than those from Paris."
« C'est, dit-il, que les comédiens de campagne chargent plus que ceux de
Paris. »
674
A preacher of the League had taken for the text of his sermon:
Eripe nos. Domine, à luto foecis [Rescue us, O Lord, from the mire of
the dregs] , which he translated as follows: Seigneur, rid us of bourbon!
675
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personnes dans son salon, tandis qu'il était dans son cabinet, dont la
porte était ouverte. Il prend un air affairé, et, tenant des papiers à la
main, il dicte gravement à son secrétaire:
676
677
The Regent sent to ask the president Daron for the resignation of his
place as first president of the Parliament of Bordeaux. This man
responded that no one could take his position away without a lawsuit.
The Regent, having received his letter, put at the bottom: Nevermind,
and send it back as his response. The president, knowing the prince he
was dealing with, sent in his resignation.
678
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A man of letters was juggling a poem and also an affair which his
fortune depended on. Someone asked him how his poem was going:
"Rather," he said, "ask me how my affair is going. I resemble quite
closely that gentleman who, having been charged with a crime, let his
beard grow, not wanting, as he said, to cut it before knowing whether his
head belonged to him. Before trying to be immortal, I would like to
know if I will live."
679
M. de la
680
M..., Provencal, who has very pleasant ideas, was saying to me with
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respect to kings and even ministers of state, that once the machine has
gotten thoroughly going, the choice of the one or of the others is
indifferent. "These", he said, "are like dogs who make a rotisserie spin;
it is enough for them to move their legs for everything to go well.
Whether a dog is beautiful, or is intelligent, or has a good nose, or none
of these, the rotisserie turns, and the dinner will always be pretty good."
[There is a note in the book that says that M... here is Mirabeau.]
681
682
"Considering the tone that has ruled in literature for the last ten years,"
said M..., "literary celebrity seems to me like a type of defamation that
doesn't yet have quite as many bad effects as a straitjacket, but this will
come."
« Au ton qui règne depuis dix ans dans la littérature, disait M..., la
célébrité littéraire me paraît une espèce de diffamation qui n'a pas
encore tout à fait`autant de mauvais effets que le carcan, mais cela
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viendra. »
683
684
Someone asked the duchess de Rohan when she would be giving birth.
"I like to think", she said, "that I will have this honor in two months."
The honor was of delivering a Rohan.
685
686
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687
During a siege, a young fellow carrying water was crying out: "6 sols
for a pail of water!" A bomb came and carried away one of his buckets!
"12 sols for a pail of water!" the fellow cried without being surprised.
688
The abbé de Molières was a simple and poor man, foreign to everything,
always off working on the system of Descartes; he had no valet at all
and worked in his bed, and since he didn't have wood for a fire, he put
his stockings ['culottes', see note below'] on his head over his cap, the
two legs hanging to the right and to the left. One morning he heard a
knock at his door: "Who goes there?" - "Open the door..." - He pulled a
rope and the door opened. The abbé de Molières, not seeing anything:
"Who are you?" - "Give me your money." - "My money?" - "Yes, your
money." - "Ah! I see, you are a thief?" - "Thief or not, you have to give
me your money." - "Yes, I truly must: well! look in here..." He craned
his neck and presented one of the legs of his stockings; the thief dug in
it: "Eh well! There's no money." - "Indeed there isn't, but there is my
key." - "Eh well, this key..." - "This key, take it." - "I have it." - "Go to
this writing desk; open..." The thief put the key in a different drawer.
"Leave that alone: do not distub that: those are my papers. Ventrebleu,
are you done? Those are my papers: in the other drawer you will find
my money." - "There it is." - "Eh, good, take it. Close the drawer then..."
The thief fled. "M. thief, close the door then. Morbleu! He leaves the
door open!... What a dog of a thief! I have to get out of bed in the cold
that there is! Cursed thief!" The abbé jumped to his feet, went to close
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689
M..., with respect to the 6,000 years that Moses gave for the world, said
upon considering the slowness of the progress of arts and the actual state
of civilization: "What does he want people to do in his 6,000 years? It
took more than that to know how to strike a fire and to invent matches."
M..., à propos des 6.000 ans que Moïse donne, disait en considérant la
lenteur des progrès des arts et l'état actuel de la civilisation: « Que veut-
il qu'on fasse de ses 6.000 ans? Il en a fallu plus que cela pour savoir
battre le briquet, et pour inventer les allumettes. »
690
The countess de Boufflers said to the prince de Conti that he was the
best of all tyrants.
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691
Mme de Montmorin said to her son: "You are entering into society, I
have only one piece of advice to give you: be amorous with all the
women."
« Vous entrez dans le monde, je n'ai qu'un conseil à vous donner, c'est
d'être amoureux de toutes les femmes. »
692
A woman said to M... that she suspected he never lost ground with
women: "Never," he said to her, "except what was due to fate." In truth,
his love always grew through his enjoyment of it, after having begun
very tranquilly.
693
In the time of M. de Machaut, the king was presented with the plans of
attending to a full court, such as people have wanted to execute since.
Everything was decided by the king, Mme de Pompadour and the
ministers of state. The responses that the king would make to the first
president were read to him; everything was explained in a memoire in
which was written: "Here, the king assumes a severe air; here, the king's
expression softens; here, the king makes such and such as gesture", etc.
The memoire still exists.
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plénière, telle qu'on a voulu l'exécuter depuis. Tout fut réglé entre le roi,
Mme de Pompadour et les ministres. On dicta au roi les réponses qu'il
ferait au premier président; tout fut expliqué dans un mémoire dans
lequel on disait:
« Ici, le roi prendra un air sévère; ici, le front du roi s'adoucira; ici, le roi
fera tel geste », etc. Le mémoire existe.
694
"It is necessary", said M..., "to flatter the self-interest or to scare the
self-love of men: they are monkeys who only do sumersaults in
exchange for nuts, or from fear of being whipped."
695
[Note in book: 'The widow of her first husband, the duchess remarried
in 1773 with a young magistrate. She was fifty five years old and was
vigorously criticized.']
696
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M. de Saint-Julien, the father, ordered his son to give him a list of his
debts, and this latter put at the head of his balance sheet 60 thousand
livres for the position of advisor to the Parlement of Bordeaux. The
indignant father thought that it was mockery, and reproached his son
bitterly. The son maintained that he paid this amount. "It was", he said,
"when I met with Mme Tilaurier. She wanted to have the position of
advisor to the Parlement of Bordeaux for her husband; and without this
she would never have been my friend; I paid for the office, and you see,
father, that you have no reason to be angy at me, and that I do not make
jokes in bad taste."
697
The count d'Argenson, a man with esprit, but depraved, and making
sport of his own shame, said: "My enemies will have a pretty time of it,
they will not trip me up: no one here is more of a valet than I am."
698
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avait acheté une place de 50 mille écus: « Ne seriez-vous pas bien aise
d'avoir un pareil ornement? - Non, dit l'autre; mais je voudrais avoir ce
qu'il vous coûte. »
699
700
M..., known for his fitting actions in society, told me that what had
formed him the most was having slept, on occasion, with women of 40
and listening to people aged 80.
M..., connu par son usage du monde, me disait que ce qui l'avait le plus
formé, c'était d'avoir su coucher, dans l'occasion, avec des femmes de 40
ans, et écouter des vieillards de 80.
701
M... said that to run after a fortune with ennui, cares, and assiduity
toward people who are powerful, while neglecting the culture of ones
spirit and soul, is like fishing for gudgeon with a golden hook.
M... disait que de courir après la fortune avec de l'ennui, des soins, des
assiduités auprès des grands, en négligeant la culture de son esprit et de
son âme, c'est pêcher au goujon avec un hammeçon d'or.
702
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The duc de Choiseul and the duc de Praslin had had a dispute over who
was more of a brute, the king or M. de la Vrillière; the duke de Praslin
maintained that it was M. de la Vrilière; the other, a faithful subject,
sided with the king. One day, in Counsel, the king spoke a fat piece of
drivel. "Eh well! M. de Praslin," said the duc de Choiseul, "what do you
think of that?"
703
M. de Buffon surrounds himself with flatterers and fools who praise him
shamelessly. A man dined at his house with the abbé Leblanc, M. de
Juvigny and two other men of the same character. In the evening, he said
that while dining he had seen, in the heart of Paris, four oysters attached
to a rock. People looked a long time for the meaning of this enigmatic
phrase, which he finally explained.
704
During the final illness of Louis XV, which from its first days seemed
like a mortal one, Lorry, who was sent for along with Bordeu, used,
while detailing what he was going to do, the phrase: it is necessary. The
king, shocked by this word, repeated it softly and in a dying voice: It is
necessary, it is necessary!
[A note in the book mentions that Lorry and Bordeu were doctors]
Pendant la dernière maladie de Louis XV, qui dès les premiers jours se
présenta comme mortelle, Lorry, qui fut mandé avec Bordeu, employa,
dans le détail des conseils qui'il donnait, le mot: il faut. Le roi, choqué
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705
706
Cailhava who, during the whole revolution, only thought about the
complaints of authors against actors, was complaining to a man of
letters, tied to many members of the Assemblée Nationale, that the
decree had not been passed. The other said: 'But do you think that in the
Assemblée Nationale, the only thing of question is the representation of
dramatic works?' - 'No,' responded Cailhava, 'I know very well that the
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707
708
Mme de Genlis was living with M. de Senevoi. One day when her
husband was beside her dressing table, a soldier arrived and asked her
for her protection against M. de Senevoi, his colonel, whom he was
asking for leave. Mme de Genlis became angry at the impertinent man;
said to him that she didn't know M. de Senevoi better than anyone else;
in a word, refused. M. de Genlis detained the soldier, and said to him:
'Go ask for your leave in my name; and if Senevoi refuses to give it to
you, tell him that I will make him give his.'
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709
M... often used to spout the maxims of Roué in matters of love; but at
bottom he was sensitive and made for passions. One day someone said
about him: 'He pretends to be dishonest so that women won't push him
away.'
M... débitait souvent des maximes de Roué, en fait d'amour; mais, dans
le fond, il était sensible, et fait pour les passions. Aussi quelqu'un disait-
il de lui: « Il a fait semblant d'être malhonnête, afin que les femmes ne le
rebutent pas. »
710
711
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712
713
706
Cailhava who, during the whole revolution, only thought about the
complaints of authors against actors, was complaining to a man of
letters, tied to many members of the Assemblée Nationale, that the
decree had not been passed. The other said: 'But do you think that in the
Assemblée Nationale, the only thing of question is the representation of
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dramatic works?' - 'No,' responded Cailhava, 'I know very well that the
printing of them is a matter of question, too.'
707
708
Mme de Genlis was living with M. de Senevoi. One day when her
husband was beside her dressing table, a soldier arrived and asked her
for her protection against M. de Senevoi, his colonel, whom he was
asking for leave. Mme de Genlis became angry at the impertinent man;
said to him that she didn't know M. de Senevoi better than anyone else;
in a word, refused. M. de Genlis detained the soldier, and said to him:
'Go ask for your leave in my name; and if Senevoi refuses to give it to
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709
M... often used to spout the maxims of Roué in matters of love; but at
bottom he was sensitive and made for passions. One day someone said
about him: 'He pretends to be dishonest so that women won't push him
away.'
M... débitait souvent des maximes de Roué, en fait d'amour; mais, dans
le fond, il était sensible, et fait pour les passions. Aussi quelqu'un disait-
il de lui: « Il a fait semblant d'être malhonnête, afin que les femmes ne le
rebutent pas. »
710
711
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712
713
714
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715 Mme de Tencin said that people with spirit make many mistakes in
their actions because they never believe that society is brutish enough,
as brutish as it is.
Mme de Tencin disait que les gens d'esprit faisaient beaucoup de fautes
en conduite, parce qu'ils ne croyaient jamais le monde assez bête, aussi
bête qu'il l'est.
716
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faveur, un mot qui lui faisait gagner un procès très juste; le garde des
Sceaux la refusa. La comtesse de Talleyrand prenait intérêt à cette
femme; elle en parla au garde des Sceaux: nouveau refus. Mme de
Talleyrand en fit parler par la reine: autre refus. Mme de Talleyrand se
souvint que le garde des Sceaux caressait beaucoup l'abbé de Périgord,
son fils. Elle fit écrire par lui: refus très bien tourné. Cette femme
désespérée résolut de faire un tentative, et d'aller à Versailles. Le
lendemain, elle part; l'incommodité de la voiture publique l'engage à
descendre à Sèvres et à faire le reste de la route à pied. Un homme lui
offre de la mener par un chemin plus agréable et qui abrège. Elle
accepte, et lui conte son histoire. Cet homme lui dit: « Vous aurez
demain ce que vous demandez. » Elle le regarde, et reste confondue.
Elle va chez le garde des Sceaux, est refusée encore, veut partir.
L'homme l'engage à coucher à Versailles, et, le lendemain matin, lui
apporte le papier qu'elle demandait. C'était un commis d'un commis,
nommé M. Étienne.
717
The duc de la Vallière, seeing the young Lacour at the Opera without
diamonds, approached her and asked her how this could be. 'It is
because,' she said 'diamonds are the cross of Saint-Louis of our state.'
On this word, he fell madly in love with her. He lived with her for a long
tim. She subjugated him by the same means that Mme du Barry used
with Louis XV. She took away his blue ribbon, layed him on the ground
and said to him: 'Go down on your knees, old Ducaille.'
718
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719
An English banker, named Ser or Sair, was accused of having taken part
in a conspiracy to carry the king (George III) away and transport him to
Philadelphia. Brought before his judges, he said to them: 'I know very
well what a king can do for a banker; but I am ignorant of what a banker
can do for a king.'
Un banquier anglais, nommé Ser ou Sair, fut accusé d'avoir fait une
conspiration pour enlever le roi (George III) et le transporter à
Philadelphie. Amené devant ses juges, il leur dit: « Je sais très bien ce
qu'un roi peut faire d'un banquier; mais j'ignore ce qu'un banquier peut
faire d'un roi. »
720
Someone said to the English satirist Donne: 'Thunder against vices, but
spare the people with them.'- 'How;' he said, 'condemn the cards and
pardon the swindlers?'
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721
722
Mme de H... was recounting the death of M. le duc d'Aumont to me. 'It
happened very suddenly,' she said; 'two days before M. Bouvard gave
him permission to eat; and the same day of his death, two hours before
his final paralysis, he acted as though he were thirty, the same way he
had acted all of his life: he asked for his wig, said: 'Brush off this
fauteuil, show me my two new embroideries'; in short, his whole head,
all of his ideas were as usual.'
723
M..., who, after having come to know high society, took the part of
solitude, gave for his reasons that after having examined the conventions
of society in the interaction between a man of high rank and a vulgar
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one, he had found that it was a deal between an imbecile and a dupe. 'I
resembled,' he added, 'a great chess player, who let himself play with
people who require that you begin without a queen. I played divinely, I
racked my brains, and I finished by winning a small écu [penny].'
M..., qui, après avoir connu le monde, prit le parti de la solitude, disait
pour ses raisons, qu'après avoir examiné les conventions de la société
dans le rapport qu'il y a de l'homme de qualité à l'homme vulgaire, il
avait trouvé que c'était un marché d'imbécile et de dupe. « J'ai
ressemblé, ajoutait-il, à un grand joueur d'échecs, qui se lasse de jouer
avec des gens auxquels il faut donner la dame. On joue divinement, on
se casse la tête, et on finit par gagner un petit écu. »
724
A courtier said, upon the death of Louis XIV: 'After the death of the
king, one could believe anything.'
Un courtisan disait, à la mort de Louis XIV: « Après la mort du roi, on
peut tout croire. »
725
726
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727
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