Chamfort PDF

Chamfort - The French Moralists
Products of a Perfected Civilization
Question
Why don't you give anything to the public any more?
Responses
It's because the public seems to me to have very bad taste and a
penchant for disparaging things.
It's because a reasonable man cannot act without motivation, and

a success wouldn't give me any pleasure, while a disgrace would
perhaps give me a lot of pain. It's because I needn't trouble my repose
for people who say that it's necessary to entertain people. It's because I
would work to amuse vaudeville, our national theater, and meanwhile I
would have to publish a philosophical work through the royal printing
house. It's because the public uses men of letters in the same way that
army recruiters of the Saint-Michel bridge treat the people they enroll,
getting them drunk the first day, and giving them ten écus and beatings
for the rest of their life. It's because people press me to work for the
same reason that, when a person goes to his window, he hopes to see
monkeys, bears, and ringleaders passing through the street. The
example of M. Thomas, insulted during his whole life and praised after
his death. The Gentlemen of the King's Chamber, the Comediens
Français, the censors, the police, Beaumarchais. It's because I am afraid
of dying without having lived. It's because everything people tell me to
encourage me to produce things is fit to be said to Saint-Ange or
Murville. It's because I have worked and lost time to success. It's
because I would not want to act like men of letters, who resemble
donkeys trying to kick out people's false teeth. It's because if I gave
attention to all of the trifles I could write down, there would be no more
rest for me on earth. It's because I prefer the esteem of honest people
and my personal happiness to praise, some money, and a great deal
of injury and slander. It's because if there is any man on earth who has
the right to live for his own sake, it is me, after the malice I was shown
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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.
Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionnée
Question
Pourquoi ne donnez-vous rien au public?
Réponses
C'est que le public me paraît avoir le comble du mauvais goût et la rage

du dénigrement.
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
Maxims and Thoughts
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.
Most compilers of verse or of bon mots resemble people who eat

cherries or oysters, at first choosing the best ones, and finishing by
eating everything.
La plupart des faiseurs de recueils de vers ou de bons mots ressemblent

à ceux qui mangent des cerises ou des huîtres, choisissant d'abord les
meilleurs et finissant par tout manger.
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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developed or proposed in the most celebrated books, in the most

consecrated authors; ideas that propagate religious superstition, bad
political maxims, despotism, the vanity of rank, and popular prejudices
of every kind. One would see that nearly all books are corruptors, and
that the best do nearly as much harm as good.
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.
There is no end to writing about education, and the works written on

this topic have produced some happy ideas, some useful methods, and
have produced, in a word, things that are very good. But what can be, in
general, the use of these works, if they are not accompanied by fitting
reforms in legislation, religion, and public opinion? Education having
no other object than to conform the reason of our childhood to public
reason in these three areas, what is the result of an education that
approves of things that contradict them? In forming a child's reason,
what do you do but to prepare him to sooner see the absurdity in the
opinions and mores consecrated by sacred authority, public opinion,
or legislation, and consequently make him scorn them?
On ne cesse d'écrire sur l'éducation, et les ouvrages écrits sur cette

matière ont produit quelques idées heureuses, quelques méthodes utiles,
ont fait, en un mot, quelque bien partiel. Mais quelle peut être, en grand,
l'utilité de ces écrits, tant qu'on ne fera pas marcher de front les réformes
relatives à la législation, à la religion, à l'opinion publique? L'éducation
n'ayant d'autre objet que de conformer la raison de l'enfance à la raison
publique relativement à ces trois objets, qulle instruction donner tant
que ces trois objets se combattent? En formant la raison de l'enfance,
que faites-vous que de la préparer à voir plutôt l'absurdité des opinions
et des moeurs consacrées par le sceau de l'autorité sacrée, publique, ou
législative, par conséquent, à lui en inspirer le mépris?
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It is a source of pleasure and philosophy to analyze the ideas that enter

into the diverse judgments that drive this or that man, this or that
society. Examining the ideas that determine this or that public opinion is
not less interesting, and is often more so.
C'est une source de plaisir et de philosophie de faire l'analyse des idées

qui entrent dans les divers jugements que portent tel ou tel homme, telle
ou telle société. L'examen des idées qui déterminent telle ou telle
opinion publique, n'est pas moins intéressant, et l'est souvent davantage.
It is with civilization as with cooking. When ones sees light dishes on a

table, healthy and well-prepared, one is very glad that cooking has
become a science; but when one sees gravies, sauces, and pâtés, one
curses cooks and their fatal art: to be applied.
Il en est de la civilisation comme de la cuisine. Quand on voit sur une

table des met légers, sains et bien préparés, on est fort aise que la cuisine
soit devenue une science; mais quand on y voit des jus, des coulis, des
pâtés de truffes, on maudit les cuisiniers et leur art funeste: à
l'application.
Man, in the actual state of society, seems to me more corrupted by his

reason than by his passions. His passions (I understand here the ones
that belong to primitive man) have conserved, in the social order, the
little nature that one can still find there.
L'homme, dans l'état actuel de la société, me paraît plus corrompu par

sa raison que par ses passions. Ses passions (j'entends ici celles qui
appartiennent à l'homme primitif) ont conservé, dans l'ordre social, le
peu de nature qu'on y retrouve encore.
Society is not, as one usually thinks, a development of nature, but very

much it's destruction and complete recasting. It is a second edifice, built
from the ruins of the first. One finds the debris of the first in it with a
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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.
La société n'est pas, comme on le croit d'ordinaire, le développement de

la nature, mais bien sa décomposition et sa refonte entière. C'est un
second édifice, bâti avec les décombres du premier. On en retrouve les
débris avec un plaisir mêlé de surprise. C'est celui qu'occasionne
l'expression naive d'un sentiment naturel qui échappe dans la société; il
arrive même qu'il plaît davantage, si la personne à laquelle il échappe est
d'un rang plus élevé, c'est-à-dire, plus loin de la nature. Il charme dans
un roi, parce qu'un roi est dans l'extrémité oppossée. C'est un débris
d'ancienne architecture dorique ou corinthienne, dans un édifice grossier
et moderne.
In general, if society was not an artificial composition, every simple

and true feeling would not produce the great effect that it does: it would
please without being surprising. But it is surprising and pleasant. Our
surprise is a satire on society, and our pleasure is an homage to nature.
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
A man of the people, a beggar, can let himself be scorned, without

seeming vile, provided that the scorn is only shown to his exterior. But if
this same beggar allowed his character to be insulted, even if it were by
the highest sovereign in Europe, he would become as vile of a person as
he is poor.
12
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One must agree that it is impossible to live in the world without

sometimes putting on an act. What distinguishes an honest man from a
rogue is that he only does so in situations where he has to, in order to
escape from peril, whereas the other does it even when the occasion
wasn't presented.
13
People sometimes make a very strange argument in society. They say to

a man, wanting to dismiss his recommendation of someone else: "He is
your friend." - Eh! Morbleu, he is my friend because the good things
that I am saying about him are true, because he is just as I am describing
him. You take the cause for an effect, and the effect for a cause. Why do
you think that I would say something good about him because he is my
friend, and why don't you think instead that he is my friend because
there are good things to say about him?
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
If a person wanted to prove the perfect uselessness of all the books on

morality, sermons, etc., they would only need to glance at hereditary
nobility. Is there a fault against which philosophers, orators, and poets
have made greater satires, have exercised more intelligence on, have
treated with more sarcasm? Has this prevented presentations at the
court, or the fantasy of mounting carriages? Has it abolished the role of
Cherin?
16
In the theater, a person wants to produce an effect; but what
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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
Often an opinion, a custom, seems absurd when we are young, and
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advancing in life, we find the reason. Musn't we conclude that certain

habits aren't so ridiculous? One is lead to think sometimes that they
were established by people who had read the entire book of life, and that
they are judged by people who, despite their esprit, have only read a few
pages.
22
It seems that, according to the ideas in society and social decency, a

priest or curé needs to have some belief in order not to be a hypocrite,
and needs to be not too sure of himself in order not to be intolerant. The
Grand Vicar is able to smile at a joke against religion, a Bishop
can completely laugh, and a Cardinal can add in a punch-line.
23
The majority of the nobility resemble their ancestors in about the same
way as a Cicerone in Italy resembles Cicero.
24
I read in a book by I-don't-know which traveler that certain savages in

Africa believe in immortality of the soul. Without claiming to explain
what becomes of it, they believe that it wanders after death in the
underbrush around their small towns, and they look for it for many
mornings after a person's death. Not finding it, they abandon their
search and don't think about it anymore. This is a little like what our
philosophers have done, and would do better to do.
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
It is necessary that there is everything in the world; it's necessary that,

even in the artificial organizations of a social system, men are found
who oppose society with nature, opinion with truth, stereotypes with
reality. It is a type of spirit and character that is very piquant, and whose
influence is felt more often than it seems. There are people who only
need to be presented with something true, in order for them to regard it
with naive and interested surprise. They are amazed that something
striking (when one presents it to them as such) has been able to escape
them for so long.
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
The best philosophy, relative to the world, is an alliance between the

sarcasm that comes from gaiety and the indulgence that comes with
scorn.
32
I am no more surprised to see one man tired of glory than I am to see

another inconvenienced by the noise people are making in his anteroom.
33
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In society I have seen people ceaselessly sacrifice the esteem of

honest men for consideration, and repose for celebrity.
34
A strong proof that God exists, according to Dorilas, is that humans

exists, humans par excellence, in the least doubtful sense, and
consequently in a circumscribed sense, in a word, the landed aristocracy.
It's the masterpiece of Providence, or rather the only direct work of it's
hands. But people claim and assure him that other creatures exist who
resemble the nobility perfectly. Dorilas says: "Is it true? What! The
same shape, the same exterior?" Well, the existence of these things,
these men, as people call them, whose existence he used to deny, who he
saw, to his great surprise, recognized by many of his equals, whose
existence, for that reason, he no longer officially denied, about whom he
had very pardonable and completely involuntary doubts, against whom
he simply protested with haughtiness, disregard for propriety, or
disdainful kindness; what is he to do about the existence of all these
doubtlessly ill-defined creatures? How can he explain them? How can
this phenomenon agree with his theory? In what physical, metaphysical,
or if necessary mythological system will he find the solution to this
problem? He reflects, he dreams, he has good faith; the objection is
specious; it is shaken out of him. He is intelligent and knowledgeable.
He is going to find the answer to this enigma; he finds it, he holds onto
it; joy shines in his eyes. Silence. One knows from Persian theology
the doctrine of the two principles, that of Good and that of Evil. Well!
You don't understand? Nothing is simpler. Geniuses, talents,
and virtues are inventions of the evil principle, of Ahriman, of the Devil,
in order to bring to light, for everyone to see, certain wretches,
recognized plebeians, true commoners, instead of aristocrats.
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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One wishes for laziness in wicked men and silence in fools.
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
There is a superior prudence to what is usually meant by this

name: the one is the prudence of eagles, and the other, of moles. The
first consists in boldly following one's character, while accepting with
courage the disadvantages and inconveniences that it may produce.
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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monstrosities that would be committed there? This is the reflection

that it's necessary to make to console oneself for the abuses attached to
these surprising gatherings of men.
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
Most of the men who live in society live there so scatterbrainedly,

and think so little, that they do not know the world that is constantly
under their eyes. "They do not know it", said M. de B... pleasantly, "for
the same reason that beetles do not know natural history."
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
In great things, men show themselves as they want to be seen; and in

little ones they show themselves as they are.
53
What is a philosopher? It is a man who supports nature as opposed

to law, reason as opposed to custom, his conscience as opposed
to opinion, and his judgment as opposed to error.
54
A fool who shows a moment of intelligence surprises and scandalizes

the people around him, like when a horse-drawn cab enters a gallop.
55
Not to be in the hands of anyone, to be a man of one's own heart,

of one's own principles, of one's own feelings, that is what I have found
to be most rare.
56
Instead of wanting to correct men for certain unbearable wrongs that

they commit in society, it is necessary to correct the weakness of the
people who suffer it.
57
Three quarters of madness is only folly.
58
Opinion is the queen of the world because foolishness is the queen of

fools.
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59
A person must be able to do foolish things that require character.
60
Being important without merit attracts consideration without esteem.
61
Rulers and commoners can do whatever they like, it is always necessary

to say the same thing as the carriage-driver said to the courtiers in "le
Moulin de Javelle"; "You and us, we cannot do without each other."
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
Physical plagues and the calamities of nature made society necessary.

Society added to the misfortunes of nature. The inconveniences of
society brought the necessity of government, and the government added
to the misfortunes of society. This is the history of human nature.
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
The fable of Tantalus has nearly only ever served as an emblem of

avarice. However, it is at least as much a symbol of ambition, of the
love of glory, and of nearly every passion.
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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A philosopher who wants to extinguish his passions is like a chemist

who wants to put out his fire [or less literally, stove].
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
Why are men such fools, so subjugated by custom or by fear of

making a final will, in a word, such imbeciles, that they leave all of their
wealth to people who laugh at their death rather than to people who cry
over it?
76
Nature wanted wise men to have as many illusions as fools, so that

they wouldn't become too unhappy through their wisdom.
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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Most madnesses are only follies.
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
Intelligence often has the same relation to a person's heart as the

library of a chateau has to the character of the master of the house.
85
What poets, orators, and even philosophers say to us about love of

glory is the same as what people said to us in the colleges to encourage
us to compete for prizes. What people tell children to make them prefer
the praise of their nurses to something silly is the same thing that
people repeat to men to make them prefer the praise of their
contemporaries or of posterity to their own self-interest.
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
It is with the value of men as with that of diamonds, which, at a

certain size, purity, and perfection, have a fixed and marked price, but
when they go beyond that, they remain priceless and no one buys them.
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Chapter II
Continuation of General Maxims
89
In France, everyone seems to be witty, and the reason is simple: since

everything here follows from contradictions, the lightest possible
attention is enough to allow someone to notice and reconcile two things
that are contradictory. This gives rise to very natural contrasts that lend
the person who said them an air of being very witty. When a person tells
a story he makes grotesques. A simple novelist becomes a jokester, just
as a historian one day takes on the air of a satirist.
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
No man who is alone can be as contemptible as a body of men. No

body of men can be as contemptible as the public.
92
There are centuries when public opinion is the worst opinion.
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
A man who is poor, but independent of others, only has to obey

necessity. A man who is rich, but dependent, must obey another man or
many others.
95
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An ambitious person who failed at what he wanted to do and who

lives in despair, reminds me of Ixion, who was put on his wheel for
having embraced a cloud.
96
There is, between an intelligent man whose character is full of malice,

and an intelligent man who is good and honest, the difference that there
is between an assassin and a man of the world who is skilled at arms.
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
Such is the miserable condition of men, that they have to look in

society for consolations to the evils in nature, and they have to look in
nature for consolations to the evils in society. How many men haven't
found, neither in the one nor the other, distractions to their pains!
99
The most inimical and absurd pretension, which would be condemned

with scorn as unbearable in a society of honest people chosen to judge,
provides matter for a law suit in civil courts. Every law suit can succeed
or fail, and there is no more reason to bet on the former than the latter:
in the same way, every opinion, every assertion, however ridiculous it
may be, provides matter for a debate between two different parties in a
body of people, in an assembly, and can gain the majority of votes.
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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found this word inconvenient; and to bring everything back to what is

simple, to prevent all abuse of words, it has established that honor
belongs to every man who has never been a hardened criminal. Once,
this word was a source of equivocations and contestations; at present,
nothing is clearer. Has a man been put into a hard-labor prison? That is
the question. It is a simple question of fact, which can easily be clarified
at the office of the court clerk. A man has not been put into a hard-labor
prison: he is an honorable man, who has a claim to everything, to be
minister of state, etc.; he enters into public bodies, into academies, into
the courts of sovereigns. One feels the degree to which neatness and
precision can spare quarrels and discussions, and how very convenient
and easy life can become.
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
A person who arbitrates justly between us and our enemy seems to us to

be more friendly to our enemy. This results from the laws of optics,
just like when a fountain spurts from the middle of a basin of water and
seems closer to the other side than to the one where we are.
104
Public opinion is a jurisdiction that an honest man must never perfectly

recognize, and that he must never decline.
105
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Vain means empty; and vanity is so miserable that it finds no name

worse than it's own. It shows itself for what it is.
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
When a person wants to avoid being a charlatan, he must avoid getting

up before assemblies; because, if he does so, he is very forced to be one,
or to have the assembly throw stones at him.
110
Few vices can prevent a man from having as many friends as too great
of qualities can.
111
There are certain superiorities and pretensions that can be completely

destroyed by not regarding them, certain others that are made ineffectual
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by not noticing them.
112
A person would have advanced very far in a study of

morality if he could distinguish all of the traits that differentiate pride
from vanity. The first is high, calm, proud, tranquil, unshakable. The
second is vile, unsure, mobile, anxious, and delicate. The one makes
man great, the other swells him up. The first is a source of a thousand
virtues, the other a source of nearly every vice and fault. There is a type
of pride that is comprised of all of God's commandments, and a type of
vanity that contains the seven deadly sins.
113
To live is a sickness that sleep comforts every sixteen hours. It's a

palliative. Death is the cure.
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
If Diogenes were alive today, his lantern would have to be dim.
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
Everything is mixed in things, and also in man. In morality and physics,

everything mingles. Nothing is one thing, nothing is pure.
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
A man without principles is usually also without character, because if

he were born with character, he would have felt the need to create
principles.
130
It is likely that every public idea, every received convention, is folly,

because the majority of men consented to it.
131
Esteem is worth more than celebrity, consideration is worth more than

fame, and honor is worth more than glory.
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
It is easier to legalize certain things than legitimize them.
135
Celebrity: the advantage of being recognized by people who don't know

you.
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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A certain man may be feared because of his talents, hated because of

his virtues, and only reassured by his own character. But how much time
passes before justice catches up with him!
138
In the order of nature as in the order of society, a person mustn't want to

be more than he is.
148
Concord between brothers is so rare that myths only mention two

brothers who were friends [Castor and Pollux], and it supposes that they
never saw each other, since they each spent alternating days in the
Elysian fields, which is what prevented any disputes or ruptures.
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
Conviction is the conscience of intelligence.
152
One is happy or unhappy because of a great number of things that are

never apparent, that one never sees clearly, and that one cannot see
clearly.
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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in every respect, the happiest, I remember the Indian proverb: "It is

better to be sitting than standing, lying down than sitting; but it is better
to be dead than any of these."
156
Cleverness is to trickery what dexterity is to swindling.
157
Stubborness represents character a little like having an amorous

temperament represents love.
158
Love, pleasant folly; ambition, serious foolishness.
159
Prejudice, vanity, and calculation, that is what governs the world. A

person whose conduct is only ruled by reason, truth, and feeling has
nearly nothing in common with society. He must look for nearly all of
his happiness in himself.
160
A person must be just before being generous, just as he has to have

shirts before having lace.
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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vanity of the rich.
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
There is sometimes a false resemblance of character between two men,

who come together for a certain time. But scorn slowly goes away, and
they are both surprised to find themselves put off by each other, and
repulsed in a way by their every point of contact.
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
Someone who wants his happiness to be too supported by reason, who

examines it, who so to say quibbles over what he enjoys, and only
allows himself pleasures that have delicacy, ends by not having any. He
is a man who, because he wants his mattress to fit perfectly on his bed,
continuously has to make it smaller, and ends up sleeping on the floor.
171
Time lessens the intensity of our absolute pleasures, as metaphysicians

say; but it seems to increase our relative pleasures: and I suspect that
this is how nature ties men to life after they have lost the things and
pleasures that made it most attractive.
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
False modesty is the most decent lie.
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
Virtue, like health, is not a sovereign good. It provides an occasion for

good things rather than being those good things themselves. Vice is
more certain to make a person unhappy than virtue is to make him
happy. The reason that virtue is so desirable is because it is so opposed
to vice.
Chapter III
On society, the powerful, wealth, and people of the world
177
A person never comes to know society through books, as people have

said before, but what they haven't said is the reason: here it is. It's
because knowledge of society is the result of a thousand small
observations that a persons pride wouldn't confide to anyone, even to his
best friend. A person is afraid to present himself as occupied with little
things, even though these little things are very important for the success
of great ones.
178
Looking through the memoirs and monuments from the century of

Louis XIV, one finds, even in the bad people of the time, something that
even the good people lack in ours.
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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thoughts, of true good-will? A fair, a gambling den, an inn, a forest, an

unpleasant street with small houses: that is all it is, each in turn, for the
majority of people who live in it.
180
One can consider the metaphysical edifice of society like a material

building that has different niches for people to stand in that are variedly
large or small. Societal offices with prerogatives, rights, etc., would be
symbolized by these different niches. They endure and different men are
placed in them. The people placed there are sometimes large,
sometimes small, and no one, or nearly no one, is the right size for his
niche. Look, a giant hunched and squatting in his niche; and there, a
dwarf under an arcade; rarely does the niche fit the person; around the
building circulates a crowd of men of different heights. They all wait for
an empty niche so that they can stand in it, whatever it may be.
Everyone shows his right to be there, that is, his high birth, or the people
protecting him. People would whistle away someone who, to prove that
he should stand there, showed how he and the niche, the instrument and
its case, were the same size. The other competitors
themselves don't object when an adversary is completely
disproportionate to his niche.
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
What people say in certain circles, in salons, at dinners, in public

assemblies, and in books, even when it is supposed to help people to
know society, is false and insufficient. A person may respond to all of it
with the italian phrase per la predica [for a sermon] or the latin one ad
populum phaleras [glittering tinsel for the people]. What is true and
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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
A fool who is proud of a ribbon seems to me to be above a ridiculous

man who, to display his pleasures, places a peacock feather behind his
mistresses. At least the former has the pleasure of... But the other!... The
baron de Breteuil is far below Peixoto.
[The baron de Breteuil was a minister under Louis XVI and Peixoto
was the banker of the marechal de Richelieu]
187
One sees by the example of de Breteuil that a person can have

the diamond-studded portraits of twelve or fifteen sovereigns jangling in
his pockets and only be a fool.
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
Nothing is more difficult to destroy than a trivial idea or proverb that

has been officially approved. Louis XV declared bankruptcy three or
four times, and people still swore he was a gentleman. M. de Guemenee
was just the same.
[M. de Guemenee was the great chamberlain of Louis XVI]
192
I have seen men who betrayed their conscience to please someone

wearing a judicial cap or gown. Then be surprised that men exchange
their conscience for the judicial cap or gown itself. Both are equally
vile, and the former is more absurd than the latter.
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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A person spends ten or twenty louis on a dinner for a number of people

who individually he wouldn't give a single ecu for, and he does this so
that these people will be able to bear having dinner with each other.
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:
Everything pleased him, and as soon as he walked in
He felt as though he was where he belonged.
198
Sometimes when a person sees the roguery of poor people and

the thievery of people in high positions, he is tempted to regard society
as a forest full of robbers, the most dangerous of which are the
policemen that are set up to stop the others.
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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recommendation of someone, provided that this scorn is true, sincere,

naive, without affection, without swaggering.
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
Friendship at court, good faith between foxes, society of wolves.
203
I would tell anyone who wanted to obtain a favor from a minister of

state to approach him with a sad air rather than a happy one. People do
not like to see others who are happier than themselves.
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
The favorites of kings and men in high places sometimes try to

attach people who have merit to themselves, but first they expect a sort
of abasement that would repel any decent person. I've even seen men
who a minister of state could have bought very cheaply be as upset
about the required debasement as someone would be who had a perfect
virtue. One such person said to me: "Rulers want a person to degrade
himself, not for a favor, but for a hope. They want to buy you not with a
prize, but with a lottery ticket; and I know scoundrels who seem to be
very well treated by them who are in fact no better off than the most
honest men in the world."
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
A person cannot imagine how much wit is necessary in order never to

seem ridiculous.
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
When princes put aside their miserable etiquette, it is never because of
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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
There is a certain profound insensibility to virtue that is much more
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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
What does a person see in society? Everywhere a naive and sincere

respect for absurd conventions, for folly (fools saluting their queen),
or else for a constrained caution toward this same folly (people with
spirit fearing their tyrant).
217
The bourgeois, because of ridiculous vanity, use their daughters as

manure for the estates of the nobility.
[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
Whatever follies certain physionomists have written in our times, it is

certain that our habitual way of thinking can determine our physical
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traits. Many courtiers have a lazy eye for the same reason that many
tailors are pigeon-toed.
221
It is perhaps not true that enormous fortunes always presuppose

intelligence, as I've often heard even intelligent people say; but it is very
true that there are certain types of intelligence and cleverness that
always acquire some fortune, even when the person who has them also
has the purest honesty, which, as is known, is the greatest obstacle for
acquiring a fortune.
222
When Montaigne said with regard to nobility: 'When we cannot acquire

it, we avenge ourselves by speaking badly about it', he said something
amusing, often true, but scandalous, and which armed fools that were
favored by fortune. It is often because of pettiness that people hate
inequality; but a truly wise and honest man could hate it as a barrier that
separates certain souls that belong together. There are a few men who
have sincere characters who have to deny the feelings they have for
certain people with a higher rank; who have to do violence to
themselves to do without a certain friendship that would have been a
source of pleasure and consolation. These people, instead of repeating
the phrase of Montaigne, can say: 'I hate the title of nobility that makes
me flee what I love or what I would have loved.'
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
Are you the friend of a courtier, of a nobleman, as people say, and do

you want to inspire him with the liveliest affection for you that the
human heart can hold? Do not limit yourself to caring for him with the
tenderest friendship, to comforting him in misfortune, to consoling his
suffering, to devoting all of your attention to him, to saving his life or
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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
Bodies (Parliaments, Academies, Assemblies) are difficult to deface;

they maintain themselves with their bulk, and one can do nothing
against them. Dishonor and ridicule skip off of them, like bullets off of a
wild boar or a crocodile.
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
To the same degree that philosophy makes progress, foolishness

redoubles its efforts to establish an empire of prejudices. Observe how
the government favors the nobility. That has gone so far that there are
only two roles for women anymore: noblewomen, or girls; the rest are
nothing. No virtue can lift a woman above her position; she can only
raise herself above it through vice.
233
To earn a fortune or consideration, without having noble ancestors, in

competition with very many people of noble birth, is to win a game of
chess after having given a rook to one's opponent before the game
begins. Often others have too many conventional advantages over
you, and then you must give up another piece. They can take a rook, but
not the queen.
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
To have ties to people who are considerable or even illustrious can no
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longer be considered a merit for anyone, in a country where a

person often pleases others with his vices, and where he is
sometimes sought after because of how laughable he is.
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
Experience, which makes makes private citizens more clear-sighted,

corrupts princes and people in high positions.
240
The public at present is like modern tragedy; absurd, outrageous, and

tasteless.
241
People have tried to turn the job of a courtier into a science. Everyone
wants to elevate himself.
242
Most of the ties in society, companionship, etc., are to friendship what

cicisbeism is to love.
["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
The art of the parenthesis is one of the great secrets of eloquence in

society.
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244
At the court, everyone is a courtier: the prince, the weekly chaplain,

the neighborhood surgeon, the apothecary.
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
Joking is what is needed to do justice to the failings of men and of

society. It is through joking that a person avoids compromising himself.
It's through joking that he puts everything in its place, without
exceeding his own. Our ability to joke testifies to our superiority above
the people and things that are made fun of, without people being
offended, at least if they have gaiety or mores. A reputation for knowing
how to handle this weapon gives a man with a lower rank in society and
in company, the same consideration that soldiers have who are very
skilled with a sword. I heard someone say to an intelligent man: 'Take its
power away from joking, and I would leave society tomorrow.' It is a
sort of duel where no blood is spilt, and which, like regular duels, makes
men more measured and polite.
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
Some things cannot be guessed by a young man who is well-born. How

can one distrust, at twenty years old, a police spy who has a red ribbon?
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
The most absurd and unjust pretension that would be hissed at by an

assembly of honest people, can become the subject of a lawsuit and
there be declared legitimate; because every lawsuit can win or lose, just
as in bodies of people the maddest and most ridiculous opinion can
be accepted and the wisest view rejected with scorn. It is only a matter
of regarding the two as a party affair, and nothing is easier between the
two opposed parties that divide nearly every body of people.
251
What is a fop without his self-satisfaction? Take the wings off of a

butterfly and it is a caterpillar.
252
Courtiers are poor people made rich through begging.
253
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It is easy to reduce the precise worth of celebrity to simple terms:

someone who makes himself known through some talent or virtue gives
himself up to the inactive good-will of some honest people, and the
active malignity of every dishonest person. Consider these two cases,
and weigh their strengths.
254
Few people can love a philosopher. A man is nearly a public enemy

who, surrounded by the different pretensions of men, and the lies about
things, says to each man and thing: "I will only take you for what you
are; I will only appreciate you for what you are worth." It is not a small
enterprise to make oneself loved and esteemed after announcing this
firm resolve.
Peu de personnes peuvent aimer un philosophe. C'est presque un

ennemi public qu'un homme qui, dans les différentes prétentions des
hommes, et dans le mensonge des choses, dit à chaque homme et à
chaque chose: « Je ne te prends que pour ce que tu es; je ne t'apprécie
que ce que tu vaux. » Et ce n'est pas une petite entreprise de se faire
aimer et estimer avec l'annonce de ce ferme propos.
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."
Quand on est trop frappé des maux de la société universelle et des

horreurs que présentent la capitale ou les grandes villes, il faut se dire: «
Il pouvait naître de plus grands malheurs encore de la suite de
combinaisons qui a soumis 25 millions d'hommes à un seul, et qui a
réuni sept cent mille hommes sur un espace de deux lieues carrées. »
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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Des qualités trop supérieures rendent souvent un homme moins propre

à la société. On ne va pas au marché avec des lingots; on y va avec de
l'argent ou de la petite monaie.
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
These days, a painter makes your portrait in seven minutes; another

teaches you to paint in three days; a third teaches you English in four
lessons. People want to teach you eight languages with engravings that
represent things and their names below, in eight languages. In the end, if
they were able to put all of the pleasures, the feelings, or the ideas of life
together, and go through them in the space of twenty four hours, they
would do it; they would have you swallow this little pill, and would tell
you: "Go away, you're done."
De nos jours, un peintre fait votre portrait en sept minutes; un autre

vous apprend à peindre en trois jours; un troisième vous enseigne
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l'anglais en quarante leçons. On veut cous apprendre huit langues avec

des gravures qui représentait les choses et leurs noms au-dessous, en
huit langues. Enfin, si on pouvait mettre ensemble les plaisirs, les
sentiments ou les idées de la vie entière et les réunir dans l'espace de
vingt-quatre heures, on le ferait; on vous ferait avaler cet pilule, et on
vous dirait: « Allez-vous-en. »
260
One needn't regard Burrus as absolutely virtuous. He is only so in

opposition to Narcissus. Seneca and Burrus were the honest people of a
century when there weren't any.
Il ne faut pas regarder Burrhus comme un homme vertueux absolument.

Il ne l'est qu'en opposition avec Narcisse. Sénèque et Burrhus sont les
honnêtes gens d'un siècle où il n'y en avait pas.
261
When a person wants to please people in society, he must allow himself

to learn very many things that he already knows from people who are
ignorant about them.
Quand on veut plaire dans le monde, il faut se résoudre à se laisser

apprendre beaucoup de choses qu'on sait par des gens qui les ignorent.
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
In a country where everyone wants to seem like something, many

people must believe, and in fact do, that it is better to be bankrupt than
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to be nothing.
Dans un pays où tout le monde cherce à paraître, beaucoup de gens

doivent croire, et croient en effet, qu'il vaut mieux être banqueroutier
que de n'être rien.
264
The menace of a continuing cold is for doctors what purgatory is for

priests, a Peru.
La menace du rhume négligé est pour les médecins ce que le purgatoire

est pour les prêtres, un Pérou.
[My impression is that by Peru he meant a place from which they could
get very much gold. It may be wrong.]
265
Conversations resemble voyages that we make on boats: we step off

land nearly without sensing it, and we only perceive that we have
left the shore when we are already very far from it.
Les conversations ressemblent aux voyages qu'on fait sur l'eau: on

s'écarte de la terre sans presque le sentir, et l'on ne s'aperçoit qu'on a
quitté le bord que quand on est déjà bien loin.
266
An intelligent man was claiming, in front of millionaires, that one could

be happy with making 2,000 écus a year. They bitterly and even
passionately maintained the contrary. When he left where they had been,
he looked for the cause of this bitterness on the part of people who were
his friends. Finally, he found it. It's because with a proposition like his, a
person makes rich people see that he is not dependant on them. Every
man who has few needs seems to menace the wealthy with the
constant threat of escaping from them. Tyrants see in such a proposition
the loss of a slave. One can apply this reflection to all passions in
general. A man who has conquered his inclination to fall in love shows
an indifference to women that is always odious to them. They
immediately stop being interested in him. It's perhaps for this reason that
no one is interested in the good or bad fortune of a philosopher: he does
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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.
Un homme d'esprit prétendait, devant des millionnaires, qu'on pouvait

être heureux avec 2.000 écus de rente. Ils soutinrent le contraire avec
aigreur, et même avec emportement. Au sortir de chez eux, il cherchait
la cause de cette aigreur de la part de gens qui avaient de l'amitié pour
lui. Il la trouva enfin. C'est que par là il leur faisait entrevoir qu'il n'était
pas dans leur dépendance. Tout homme qui a peu de besoins semble
menacer les riches d'être toujours prêt à leur échapper. Les tyrans voient
par là qu'ils perdent un esclave. On peut appliquer cette réflexion à
toutes les passions en général. L'homme qui a vaincu le penchant à
l'amour, montre une indifférence toujours odieuse aux femmes. Elles
cessent aussitôt de s'intéresser à lui. C'est peut-être pour cela que
personne ne s'intéresse à la fortune d'un philosophe: il n'a pas les
passions qui émeuvent la société. On voit qu'on ne peut presque rien
faire pour son bonheur, et on le laisse là.
267
It is dangerous for a philosopher who is attached to a ruler (if rulers

ever have philosophers near them) to completely show his
disinterestedness: people would treat him accordingly. He would have to
hide his true feelings, and would be, so to say, a hypocrite of ambition.
Il est dangereux pour un philosophe attaché à un grand (si jamais les

grand ont eu auprès d'eux un philosophe) de montrer tout son
désintéressement: on le prendrait au mot. Il se trouve dans la nécessité
de cacher ses vrais sentiments, et c'est, pour ainsi dire, un hypocrite
d'ambition.
Chapter IV
On the taste for retirement from society [perhaps solitude would do],
and on the dignity of ones character
Du goût pour la retraite et de la dignité du caractère
268
A philosopher regards what people call a position in society in the same

way that Tartars regard a city, that is, as a prison. It is a circle where
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ideas become narrower, more one-sided, and take vastness

and expansion away from a persons soul and intelligence. A man who
has a high position in society has a grander and more ornate prison.
Someone who only has a small position is in solitary confinement. The
man who does not have a position is the only man who is free, provided
that he has sufficient funds, or at least that he doesn't have any need of
men.
Un philosophe regarde ce qu'on appelle un état dans le monde, comme

les Tartares regardent les villes, c'est-à-dire comme une prison. C'est un
cercle où les idées se resserrent, se concentrent, en ôtant à l'âme et à
l'esprit leur étendue et leur développement. Un homme qui a un grand
état dans le monde a une prison plus grande et plus ornée. Celui qui n'y
a qu'un petit état est dans un cachot. L'homme sans état est le seul
homme libre, pourvu qu'il soit dans l'aisance, ou du moins qu'il n'ait
aucun besoin des hommes.
269
When the most modest man is living in society, he must, if he is poor,

have a very confident bearing and a certain ease, which prevents others
from taking advantage of him. In this case, he must decorate his
modesty with his pride.
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
Weakness of character or lack of ideas, in a word everything

that prevents us from living by ourselves, are the things that keep very
many people from becoming misanthropic.
La faiblesse de caractère ou le défaut d'idées, en un mot tout ce qui peut

nous empêcher de vivre avec nous-mêmes, sont les choses qui
préservent beaucoup de gens de la misanthropie.
271
A person is happier in solitude than in society. Isn't this because in
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solitude one thinks of things, and in society one is forced to think

about men?
On est plus heureux dans la solitude que dans le monde. Cela ne

viendrait-il pas de ce que dans la solitude on pense aux choses, et que
dans le monde on est forcé de penser aux hommes?
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.
Les pensées d'un solitaire, homme de sens, et fût-il d'ailleurs médiocre,

seraient bien peu de chose, si elles ne valaient pas ce qui se dit et se fait
dans le monde.
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.
Un homme qui s'obstine à ne laisser ployer ni sa raison ni sa probité, ou

du moins sa délicatesse, sous le poids d'aucune des conventions
absurdes ou malhonnêtes de la société, qui ne fléchit jamais dans les
occasions où il a intérêt de fléchir, finit infailliblement par rester sans
appui, n'ayant d'autre ami qu'un être abstrait qu'on appelle la vertu, qui
vous laisse mourir de faim.
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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ce serait le besoin d'un amour-propre trop délicat et trop

difficile à contenter; mais il faut ne placer le fond de sa vie habituelle
qu'avec ceux qui peuvent sentir ce que nous valons. Le philosophie
même ne blâme point ce genre d'amour-propre.
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
Is it certain that a man with a perfect ability to reason, a perfectly

exquisite moral sense, could live with someone? By live, I don't mean
be in a room together without fighting; I mean please someone, love
someone, take pleasure in someone's company.
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
A man with spirit is lost if he doesn't add to his intelligence an energetic

character. When a person has the lantern of Diogenes, he must have his
pole.
Un homme d'esprit est perdu s'il ne joint pas à l'esprit l'énergie de

caractère. Quand on a la lanterne de Diogène, il faut avoir son bâton.
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.
Les idées du public ne sauraient manquer d'être presque toujours viles

et basses. Comme il ne lui revient guère que des scandales et des actions
d'une indécence marquée, il teint de ces mêmes couleurs presque tous
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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."
La nature ne m'a point dit: « Ne sois point pauvre »; encore moins

« Sois riche »; mais elle me crie: « Sois indépendant. »
282
It is very easy to understand that a philosopher, who makes a point

of only giving men their true value, has a manner of judging that isn't
pleasant to anyone.
Le philosophe, se portant pour un être qui ne donne aux hommes que

leur valeur véritable, il est fort simple que cette manière de juger ne
plaise à personne.
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']
L'homme du monde, l'ami de la fortune, même l'amant de la gloire,
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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
There is no need to be surprised that J.-J. Rousseau had a taste for

solitude: such souls find themselves alone and live isolated, like eagles;
but, like them, the breadth of their vision and the height of their flight is
the charm of their solitude.
Il ne faut point s'étonner du goût de J.-J. Rousseau pour la retraite: de

pareilles âmes sont exposées à se voir seules, à vivre isolées, comme
l'aigle; mais, comme lui, l'étendue de leurs regards et la hauteur de leur
vol est le charme de leur solitude.
285
Whoever does not have character is not a man, but a thing.
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:
Nerine: After such a great

reversal of fortune, what is left to you?
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.
*Corneille, Médée: Nérine: « Dans un si grand revers, que vous

reste-t-il? »
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.
Quand un homme s'est élevé par son caractère, au point de mériter

qu'on devine quelle sera sa conduite dans toutes les occasions qui
intéressent l'honnêteté, non seulement les fripons, mais les demi-
honnêtes gens le décrient et l'évitent avec soin. Il y a plus: les gens
honnêtes, persuadés que par un effet de ses principes ils le trouveront
dans les rencontres où ils auront besoin de lui, see permettent de le
négliger, pour s'assurer de ceux sur lesquels ils ont des doutes.
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.
Tout homme qui se connaît des sentiments élevés a le droit, pour se

faire traiter comme il convient, de partir de son caractère, plutôt que de
sa 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.
Les philosophes reconnaissent quatre vertus principales dont ils font

dériver toutes les autres. Ces vertus sont la justice et la tempérance, et
qu'elle supplée, en quelque sorte, à la force, en sauvant à l'homme qui a
le malheur d'en manquer, une grande partie des occasions où elle est
nécessaire.
293
Moralists, together with philosophers who have made physical or

metaphysical systems, have generalized too much, and have too often
multiplied their maxims. What becomes of this phrase by Tacitus for
example: Neque mulier, amissà pudicità, alia abnueri [Note in the book:
After Sejan seduced Livia, the wife of Drusus, he suggested a plan to
kill her husband to her: " A woman who has sacrificed her chastity won't
refuse to do anything else."] after the example of so many women that
such a weakness has not deprived of possessing many virtues? I saw
madame de L..., after spending her youth in a way very similar to
Manon Lescaut, have, at a mature age, a passion worthy of Héloïse. But
these examples are dangerous to establish in books for morals. It's only
necessary to take note of them, so as not to be duped by the charlatanism
of moralists.
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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society; it's a reform that dates to the last ten years.
On a, dans le monde, ôté des mauvaises mœurs tout ce qui choque le

bon goût; c'est une réforme qui date des dix dernières années.
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.
L'âme, lorsqu'elle est malade, fait précisément comme le corps: elle se

tourmente et s'agite en tous sens, mais finit par trouver un peu de calme.
Elle s'arrête enfin sur le genre de sentiments et d'idées le plus nécessaire
à son repos.
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.
Le sentiment qu'on a pour la plupart des bienfaiteurs, ressemble à la

reconnaissance qu'on a pour les arracheurs de dents. On se dit qu'ils
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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.
Un bienfaiteur délicat doit songer qu'il y a dans le bienfait une partie

matérielle dont il faut dérober l'idée à celui qui est l'objet de sa
bienfaisance. Il faut, pour ainsi dire, que cette idée se perde et
s'enveloppe dans le sentiment qui a produit le bienfait, comme, entre
deux amants, l'idée de la jouissance s'enveloppe et s'anoblit dans le
charme de l'amour qui l'a fait naître.
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
Most benefactors who claim to be anonymous after having done you a

favor are like the Galatea of Virgil: Et se cupit ante videri. [Note in
book: Bucolics, III: Et fugit ad salices... (She fled toward the willow
trees, but hoping she had already been seen.)
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.
La calomnie est comme la guêpe qui vous importune, et contre laquelle

il ne faut faire aucun mouvement, à moins qu'on ne soit sûr de la tuer,
sans quoi elle revient à la charge, plus furieuse que jamais.
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
In the naiveties of a well-born child, there is sometimes a very lovely

philosophy.
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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La plupart des amitiés sont hérissées de si et de mais, et aboutissent à

de simples liaisons, qui subsistent à force de sous-entendus.
306
There is the same difference between ancient mores and ours as

between Aristides, the controler general of the Athenians, and the abbé
Terray.
[Note: the abbé Terray was the contoler general of finances]
Il y a entre les mœurs anciennes et les nôtres le même rapport qui se

trouve entre Aristide, contrôleur général des Athéniens, et l'abbé Terray.
307
Human beings, villainous by nature, become worse in society. Each

man carries the faults: 1st of humanity; 2nd of the individual; 3rd of the
class he belongs to in the social order. These faults increase with time;
and each man, advancing in age, hurt by the people around him and
made unhappy through his own faults, begins to scorn humanity and
society in a way that makes him turn against both.
Le genre humain, mauvais de sa naturem est devenu plus mauvais par

la société. Chaque homme y porte les défauts: 1o de l'humanité; 2o de
l'individu; 3o de la classe dont il fait partie dans l'ordre social. Ces
défauts s'accroissent avec le temps; et chaque homme, en avançant en
âge, blessé de tous ces travers d'autrui, et malheureux par les siens
mêmes, prend pour l'humanité et pour la société un mépris qui ne peut
tourner que contre l'une et l'autre.
308
It is with happiness as with clocks. The least complicated ones break

the least often. A clock that rings on the hour is more subject to
variations. If it marks minutes, it is more unequal; the ones that mark the
days of the week and the month of the year are always about to break.
Il en est du bonheur comme des montres. Les moins compliquées sont

celles qui se dérangent le moins. La montre à répétition est plus sujette
aux variations. Si elle marque de plus les minutes, nouvelle cause
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d'inégalité; puis celle qui marque le jour de la semaine et le mois de

l'année, toujours plus prête à se détraquer.
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
Someone who dissembles tyranny, guardianship, or even favors behind

an air or the name of friendship reminds me of that villainous priest who
was preparing to poison his host.
Celui qui déguise la tyrannie, la protection, ou même les bienfaits, sous

l'air et le nom de l'amitié, me rapelle ce prêtre scélérat qui empoisonnait
dans une hostie.
311
Few benefactors don't say the same words as Satan: Si cadens

adoraveris me. [Note in book: "If you love me, on your knees." (Saint
Mathew, IV, IX).]
Il y a peu de bienfaiteurs qui ne disent comme Satan: Si cadens

adoraveris me.
312
Poverty makes crime seem less costly.
La pauvreté met le crime au rabais.
313
Stoics are an inspired type of people who carry exaltation and

poetic enthousiasm into morality.
Les stoïciens sont des espèces d'inspirés qui portent dans la morale
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l'exaltation et l'enthousiasme poétiques.
314
If it were possible for an unintelligent person to sense grace, subtlety,

vastness, and other qualities in the spirit of others, and to show that he
senses them, the company of such a person, even though he wouldn't
produce anything himself, would be very sought after. Given the same
presuppositions but with respect to peoples souls, the same thing would
result again.
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.
En voyant ou en éprouvant les peines attachées aux sentiments

extrêmes, en amour, en amitié, soit par la mort de ce qu'on aime, soit par
les accidents de la vie, on est tenté de croire que la dissipation et la
frivolité ne sont pas de si grandes sottises, et que la vie ne vaut guère
que ce qu'en font les gens du monde.
316
In certain passionate friendships, the happiness of one's passions and

the avowal of one's reason are above any price.
Dans de certaines amitiés passionnées, on a le bonheur des passions et

l'aveu de la raison par-dessus le marché.
317
Extreme and delicate friendship is often hurt by the absence of a rose.
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[This may be a figure of speech that I don't know; I translated it

literally.]
L'amitié extrême et délicate est souvent blessée du repli d'une rose.
318
Generosity is only the pity of noble souls.
La générosité n'est que la pitié des âmes nobles.
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
Education must have two foundations, morality and carefulness:

morality to support virtue; carefulness to defend against others' vices.
By inclining this balance to the side of morality, you only make dupes
and martyrs; by inclining it to carefulness, you make calculating egoists.
The principle of all society is to do justice to oneself and to others. If it
is right to love the person next to us as ourselves, it is at least as right to
love ourselves as much as the people next to us.
L'éducation doit porter sur deux bases, la morale et la prudence: la

morale, pour appuyer la vertu; la prudence, pour vous défendre contre
les vices d'autrui. En faisant pencher la balance du côté de la morale,
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vous ne faites que des dupes ou des martyrs; en la faisant pencher de

l'autre côté, vous faites des calculateurs égoïstes. Le principe de toute
société est de se rendre justice à soi-même et aux autres. Si l'on doit
aimer son prochain comme soi-même, il est au moins juste de s'aimer
comme son prochain.
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
ou n'amènera pas les circonstances qui me feront faire de mes

acquisitions un emploi profitable. Dans tous le cas, j'aurai eu l'avantage
inestimable de ne pas me contrarier, et d'avoir obéi à ma pensée et à
mon caractère.
325
I have destroyed my passions, a little like a violent man kills a horse

that he cannot govern.
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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passes by the tomb of his friend.
Je conserve pour M. de la B... le sentiment qu'un honnête homme

éprouve en passant devant le tombeau d'un ami.
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.
J'ai à me plaindre des choses très certainement, et peut-être des

hommes; mais je me tais sur ceux-ci; je ne me plains que des choses, et
si j'évite les hommes, c'est pour ne pas vivre avec ceux qui me font
porter les poids des choses.
329
In order for fortune to come to me, it has to pass through the

conditions of my character.
La fortune, pour arriver à moi, passera par les conditions que lui impose
mon caractère.
330
When my heart needs tenderness, I remember the loss of the friends I

no longer have, and the women whom death has wrenched from me;
I occupy their coffins, I see my soul wander around theirs. Alas! I
possess three tombs.
Lorsque mon cœur a besoin d'attendrissement, je me rappelle la perte

des amis que je n'ai plus, des femmes que la mort m'a ravies; j'habite
leur cercueil, j'envoie mon âme errer autour des leurs. Hélas! je possède
trois tombeaux.
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
When I renounced society and fortune, I found happiness, calm, health

and even wealth; and despite the proverb, I find that whoever quits a
game wins it.
En renonçant au monde et à la fortune, j'ai trouvé le bonheur, le calme,

la santé, même la richesse; et en dépit du proverb, je m'aperçois que qui
quitte la partie la gagne.
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.
La célébrité est le châtiment du mérite et la punition du talent. Le mien,

quel qu'il soit, ne me paraît qu'un délateur, né pour toubler mon repos.
J'éprouve, en le détruisant, la joie de triompher d'un ennemi. Le
sentiment a triomphé chez moi de l'amour-propre même, et la vanité
littéraire a péri dans la destruction de l'intérêt que je prenais aux
hommes.
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.
[M stands for Mirabeau, the famous statesman]
L'amitié délicate et vraie ne souffre l'alliage d'aucun autre sentiment.

Je regarde comme un grand bonheur que l'amitié fût déjà parfaite entre
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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
My whole life is full of apparent contrasts with my principles. I do not

like princes at all, and I am tied to a princess and to a prince. People
know my republican feelings, and many of my friends are coated with
monarchical decorations. I love voluntary poverty, and I live with rich
people. I shun honors, and some have been given to me. Letters are
nearly my only consolation, and I never see literary men or go to the
Académie. Add that I think that illusions are necessary for men, and that
I live without them; that I think that passions are more useful than
reason, and I no longer have them, etc.
Ma vie entière est un tissu de contrastes apparents avec mes principes.

Je n'aime point les princes, et je suis attaché à une princesse et à un
prince. On me connaît des maximes républicaines, et plusieurs de mes
amis sont revêtus de décorations monarchiques. J'aime la pauvreté
volontaire, et je vis avec des gens riches. Je fuis les honneurs, et
quelques-uns sont venus à moi. Les lettres sont presque ma seule
consolation, et je ne vois point de beaux esprits, et ne va point à
l'Académie. Ajoutez que je crois les illusions nécessaires à l'homme, et
je vis sans illusions; que je crois les passions plus utiles que la raison, et
je ne sais plus ce que c'est que les passions, etc.
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.
Un des grands malheurs de l'homme, c'est que ses bonnes qualités

même lui sont quelquefois inutiles, et que l'art de s'en servir et de les
bien gouverner n'est souvent qu'un fruit tardif de l'expérience.
338
Indecision and anxiety are to the spirit and the soul what a search is to
the body.
L'indécision, l'anxiété sont à l'esprit et à l'âme ce que la question est au

corps.
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.
L'honnête homme, détrompé de toutes les illusions, est l'homme par

excellence. Pour peu qu'il ait d'esprit, sa société est très aimable. Il ne
saurait être pédant, ne mettant d'importance à rien. Il est indulgent, parce
qu'il se souvient qu'il a eu des illusions, comme ceux qui en sont encore
occupés. C'est un effet de son insouciance d'être sûr dans le commerce,
de ne se permettre ni redites, ni tracasseries. Si on se les permet à son
égard, il les oublie ou les dédaigne. Il doit être plus gai qu'un autre,
parce qu'il est constamment en état d'épigramme contre son prochain. Il
est dans le vrai, et rit des faux pas de ceux qui marchent à tâtons dans le
faux. C'est un homme qui, d'un endroit éclairé, voit dans une chambre
obscure les gestes ridicules de ceux qui s'y promènent au hasard. Il brise
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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.
La vie contemplative est souvent misérable. Il faut agir davantage,

penser moins, et ne pas se regarder vivre.
342
Men can aspire to virtue; they cannot reasonably claim to have found
the truth.
L'homme peut aspirer à la vertu; il ne peut raisonnablement prétendre

de trouver la vérité.
343
Christian jansenism is pagan stoicism that has been given a degraded

countenance and placed within the reach of a christian mob; and this
sect has had Pascals and Arnauds for defenders!
Le jansénisme des chrétiens, c'est le stoïcisme des païens, dégradé de

figure et mis à la portée d'une populace chrétienne; et cette secte a eu
des Pascal et des Arnaud pour défenseurs!
CHAPITER VI
CHAPITRE VI
ON WOMEN, ON LOVE, ON MARRIAGE AND ON GALLANTRY
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DES FEMMES, DE L'AMOUR, DU MARIAGE ET DE LA

GALANTERIE
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
Love is a feeling that, in order to be honest, has to only be due to itself,

and not live or subsist on other interests than its own.
L'amour est un sentiment qui, pour paraître honnête, a besoin de n'être

composé que de lui-même, de ne vivre et de ne subsister que par lui.
346
Every time I see infatuation in a woman, or even in a man, I begin to

distrust that persons sensibility. This rule has never misled me.
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
With regard to feelings, anything that can be evaluated has no value at

all.
En fait de sentiments, ce qui peut être évalué n'a pas de valeur.
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.
On demande pourquoi les femmes affichent les hommes; on en donne

plusieurs raisons dont la plupart sont offensantes pour les hommes. La
véritable, c'est qu'elles ne peuvent jouir de leur empire sur eux que par
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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
Society, which makes very many men smaller, reduces women to

nothing.
La société, qui rapetisse beaucoup les hommes, réduit les femmes à

rien.
355
Women have fantasies, infatuations and sometimes tastes. They can

even elevate themselves to passions: they are least susceptible to bonds.
They indulge mens weaknesses and follies, but not their reason. They
and men have sympathy between their epidermises, and very litte
sympathy between their esprit, soul, and character. This is proved by
how little attention women give to a man who is 40 years old, even
women who are close to this age. Observe that when they show
preference for such a man, it's always because of some dishonest design,
for calculated self-interest or vanity, and then the exception proves the
rule and even more than the rule. This is not the place for the axiom:
Who proves too much proves nothing.
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.
Ôtez l'amour-propre de l'amour, il en reste trop peu de chose. Une fois

purgé de vanité, c'est un convalescent affaibli, qui peut à peine se
traîner.
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
To get you to go to the house of this or that woman, people

sometimes say: She is very lovely; but suppose I don't want to love her!
It would be better to say: She is very loving, because there are more
people who want to be loved than people who want to love.
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."
« Il me semble, disait M. de... à propos des faveurs des femmes, qu'à la

vérité, cela se dispute au concours, mais que cela ne se donne ni
au sentiment, ni au 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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Il y a telle fille qui trouve à se vendre, et ne trouverait pas à se donner.
368
The most honest love exposes a persons soul to petty passions.

Marriage exposes your soul to the petty passions of your wife, to
ambition, to vanity, etc.
L'amour le plus honnête ouvre l'âme aux petites passions. Le mariage

ouvre votre âme aux petites passions de votre femme, à l'ambition, à la
vanité, etc.
369
Be as kind and as honest as possible, love the most perfect woman

imaginable; you will be no less able to pardon her either for the lovers
she had before you or the ones she has after you.
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
Perhaps it is necessary to have felt love in order to know friendship

well.
Peut-être faut-il avoir senti l'amour pour bien connaître l'amitié.
371
The commerce between men and women resembles the commerce

between Europeans and the natives in India; it is a martial commerce.
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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Pour qu'une liaison d'homme à femme soit vraiment intéressante, il faut

qu'il y ait entre eux jouissance, mémoire ou désir.
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.
Je me souviens d'avoir vu un homme quitter les filles d'Opéra, parce

qu'il y avait vu, disait-il, autant de fausseté que dans les honnêtes
femmes.
376
Things can become repetitive to a person's ear and to his intelligence,

but not to his heart.
Il y a des redites pour l'oreille et pour l'esprit; il n'y en a point pour le

cœur.
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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.
Sentir fait penser. On en convient assez aisément; on convient moins

que penser fait sentir, mais cela n'est guère moins vrai.
378
What is a mistress? A woman near whom one forgets everything he

knows in his heart, that is, any fault of her sex.
Qu'est-ce que c'est qu'une maîtresse? une femme près de laquelle on ne

se souvient plus de ce qu'on sait par cœur, c'est-à-dire de tous les défauts
de son sexe.
379
With regard to gallantry, time has let piquant scandals give way
to piquant mysteries.
Le temps a fait succéder dans la galanterie le piquant du scandale au

piquant du mystère.
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.
Il semble que l'amour ne cherche pas les perfections réelles; on dirait

qu'il les craint. Il n'aime que celles qu'il crée, qu'il suppose; il ressemble
à ces rois qui ne reconnaissent de grandeurs que celles qu'ils ont faites.
381
Naturalists say that in every species, degeneration begins with females.

Philosophers can apply this observation to morals in civilized society.
Les naturalistes disent que, dans toutes les espèces animales, la
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dégénération commence par les femelles. Les philosophes peuvent

appliquer au moral cette observation, dans la société civilisée.
382
What makes interaction with women so piquant is that there is always a

large number of things that are implied or silently understood; the same
thing that is implied or silently understood between men that is
uncomfortable, or at least insipid, is pleasant between a man and a
woman.
Ce qui rend le commerce des femmes si piquant, c'est qu'il y a toujours

une foule de sous-entendus, et que les sous-entendus qui, entre hommes,
sont gênants, ou du moins insipides, sont agréables d'un homme à une
femme.
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.
On dit communément: « La plus belle femme du monde ne peut donner

que ce qu'elle a »; ce qui est très faux: elle donne précisément ce qu'on
croit recevoir, puisqu'en ce genre c'est l'imagination qui fait le prix de ce
qu'on reçoit.
384
Indecency and lack of modesty are absurd in every system: in the

philosophy that enjoys it and in the one that refrains from it.
L'indécence, le défaut de pudeur sont absurdes dans tout système: dans

la philosophie qui jouit, comme dans celle qui s'abstient.
385
I noticed, when reading Scripture, that in many passages when it wants

to reproach humanity for its violence or crimes, the writer mentions: 'the
children of men'; and when it wants to reproach humanity for its follies
and weaknesses, he mentions: 'the children of women'.
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J'ai remarqué, en lisant l'Écriture, qu'en plusieurs passages, lorsqu'il

s'agit de reprocher à l'humanité des fureurs ou des crimes, l'auteur dit:
les enfants des hommes; et quand il s'agit de sottises ou de faiblesses, il
dit: les enfants des femmes.
386
A person would be too unhappy if, when he was around women, he

remembered the smallest thing that he knew in his heart.
On serait trop malheureux si, auprès des femmes, on se souvenait le

moins du monde de ce qu'on sait par cœur.
387
It seems that nature, in giving men a completely indestructible

inclination for women, guessed that without this precaution, the scorn
that the vices of this sex would inspire, mainly its vanity, would be a
great obstacle to the maintenance and propagation of the human species.
Il semble que la nature, en donnant aux hommes un goût pour les

femmes, entièrement indestructible, ait deviné que, sans cette
précaution, le mépris qu'inspirent les vices de leur sexe, principalement
leur vanité, serait un grand obstacle au maintien et à la propagation de
l'espèce humaine.
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
Marriage and celibacy both have disadvantages; it's necessary to prefer

the one whose disadvantages can be made up for.
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Le mariage et le célibat ont tous deux des inconvénients; il faut préférer

celui dont les inconvénients ne sont pas sans remède.
390
In love, it is enough to please with ones pleasant qualities and charms.

However, to be happy in marriage, two people must love each other, or
at least accept each others faults.
En amour, il suffit de se plaire par ses qualités aimables et par ses

agréments. Mais en mariage, pour être heureux, il faut s'aimer, ou du
moins, se convenir par ses défauts.
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
Marriage comes from love, like smoke from a fire.
L'hymen vient après l'amour, comme la fumée après la flamme.
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.
En fait de mariages, il n'y a de reçu que ce qui est sensé, et in n'y a

d'intéressant que ce qui est fou. Le reste est un vil calcul.
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
Marriage, as it is practiced by the nobility, is an agreed upon indecency.
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.
Nous avons vu des hommes réputés honnêtes, des société

considérables, applaudir au bonheur de Mlle..., jeune personne, belle,
spirituelle, vertuese, qui obtenait l'avantage de devenir l'épouse de M...,
vieillard malsain, repoussant, malhonnête, imbécile, mais riche. Si
quelque chose caractérise un siècle infâme, c'est un pareil sujet de
triomphe, c'est le ridicule d'une telle joie, c'est ce renversement de toutes
les idées morales et naturelles.
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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
Divorce is so natural that in many houses it sleeps between spouses

every night.
Le divorce est si naturel que, dans plusieurs maisons, il couche toutes

les nuits entre deux époux.
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
The worst of all misalliances is that of hearts.
La pire de toutes les mésalliances est celle du cœur.
402
Being loved isn't everything, a person needs to be appreciated, and this

can only be done by people who are similar to us. That is the reason
why love doesn't exist, or at least doesn't endure, between two people,
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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.
Les femmes ne donnent à l'amitié que ce qu'elles empruntent à l'amour.

Une laide impérieuse, et qui veut plaire, est un pauvre qui commande
qu'on lui fasse la charité.
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.
L'amant, trop aimé de sa maîtresse, semble l'aimer moins, et vice versa.

En serait-il des sentiments du cœur comme des bienfaits? Quand on
n'espère plus pouvoir les payer, on tombe dans l'ingratitude.
405
A woman who thinks well of herself more because of the qualities of

her soul or esprit than her beauty is superior to her sex. One who thinks
well of herself more because of her beauty than her esprit or the
qualities of her soul belongs to her sex. But one who thinks well of
herself more because of her birth or rank than because of her beauty
doesn't belong to her sex and is below it.
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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
It seems that there is compartment less in the brains of women and a

fiber more in their hearts than in men. A particular organization is
necessary to make them capable of bearing, caring for and caressing
children.
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.
C'est à l'amour maternel que la nature a confié la conservation de tous

les êtres; et pour assurer aux mères leur récompense, elle l'a mise dans
les plaisirs, et même dans les peines attachées à ce délicieux sentiment.
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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Un homme amoureux, qui plaint l'homme raisonnable, me paraît

ressembler à un homme qui lit des conte de fées, et qui raille ceux qui
lisent l'histoire.
410
Love is a tempestuous commerce that always ends in bankruptcy; and it

is the person who was made bankrupt who is dishonored.
L'amour est un commerce orageux qui finit toujours par une

banqueroute; et c'est la personne à qui on fait banqueroute qui est
déshonorée.
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.
Un des meilleures raisons qu'on puisse avoir de ne se marier jamais,

c'est qu'on n'est pas tout à fait la dupe d'une femme, tant qu'elle n'est
point la vôtre.
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
However badly a man might think of women, there is a woman who

thinks still worse.
Quelque mal qu'un homme puisse penser des femmes, il n'y a pas de
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femme qui n'en pense encore plus mal que lui.
414
Some men have what is necessary to lift themselves above the

miserable considerations that belittle them below their merit; but
marriage or liaisons with women put them on a level with people they
do not belong with. Marriage and gallantry are a sort of carriage driver
who conducts petty passions to them.
Quelques hommes avaient ce qu'il faut pour s'élever au-dessus des

misérables considérations qui rabaissent les hommes au-dessiys de leur
mérite; mais le mariage, les liaisons des femmes, les ont mis au niveau
de ceux qui n'approchaient pas d'eux. Le mariage, la galanterie sont une
sorte de conducteur qui fait arriver ces petites passions jusqu'à eux.
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.
J'ai vu, dans le monde, quelques hommes et quelques femmes qui ne

demandent pas l'échange du senitment contre le sentiment, mais du
procédé contre le procédé, et qui abandonnerait ce dernier marché, s'il
pouvait conduire à l'autre.
CHAPTER VII
CHAPITRE VII
ON SAVANTS AND ON MEN OF LETTERS
DES SAVANTS ET DES GENS DE LETTRES
416
There is a certain ardent energy, the mother or necessary companion of
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a particular species of talent, which usually condemns those who

possess it to the misfortune, not of being without morals, not of being
without very beautiful feelings, but of frequently indulging in flights
that presuppose an absence of all morality. It's a devouring harshness
which they are not the masters of, and which makes them very hateful.
It's afflicting to think that Pope and Swift in England, Voltaire and
Rousseau in France, were judged not out of hatred, not out of jealousy,
but out of equity and good-will, based on facts that were witnessed or
admitted by their friends and admirers, to be stricken with and convicted
of very blameworthy actions, and sometimes of very perverse feelings.
O Altitudo!
Il y a une certaine énergie ardente, mère ou compagne nécessaire de

telle espèce de talents, laquelle pour l'ordinaire condamne ceux qui les
possèdent au malheur, non pas d'être sans morale, de n'avoir pas de très
beaux mouvements, mais de se livrer fréquemment à des écarts qui
supposeraient l'absence de toute morale. C'est une âpreté dévorante dont
ls ne sont pas maîtres et qui les rend très odieux. On s'afflige, en
songeant que Pope et Swift en Angleterre, Voltaire et Rousseau en
France, jugés non par la haine, non par la jalousie, mais par l'équité, par
la bienveillance, sur la foi des faits attestés ou avoués par leurs amis et
par leurs admirateurs, seraient atteints et convaincus d'actions très
condamnables, de sentiments quelquefois très pervers. O Altitudo!
417
People have observed that writers of physics, natural history,

physiology, or chemistry were usually very tranquil, regular, and
generally happy men; and that on the contrary, writers of politics,
legislation, and even of morality were of a sad humor, melancholic, etc.
Nothing is simpler: the first study nature, the second society: the first
contemplate the work of a great being, the second limit their sight to the
work of men. The results must be different.
On a observé que les écrivains en physique, histoire naturelle,

physiologie, chimie, étaient ordinairement des hommes d'un caractère
doux, égal, et en général heureux; qu'au contraire les écrivains de
politique, de législation, même de morale, étaient d'une humeur triste,
mélancolique, etc. Rien de plus simple: les uns étudient la nature, les
autres la société: les uns contemplent l'ouvrage du grand Être; les autres
arrêtent leurs regards sur l'ouvrage de l'homme. Les résultats doivent
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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.
Si l'on examinait avec soin l'assemblage de qualités rares de l'esprit et

de l'âme qu'il faut pour juger, sentir et apprécier les bons vers; le tact, la
délicatesse des organes, de l'oreille et de l'intelligence, etc., on se
convaincrait que malgré les prétentions de toutes les classes de la
société, à juger les ouvrages d'agrément, les poètes ont dans le fait
encore moins de vrais juges que les géomètres. Alors les poètes,
comptant le public pour rien, et ne s'occupant que des connaisseurs,
feraient à l'égard de leurs ouvrages ce que le fameux mathématicien
Viete faisait à l'égard des siens dans un temps où l'étude des
mathématiques était moins répandue qu'aujourd'hui. Il n'en tirait qu'un
petit nombre d'exemplaires qu'il faisait distribuer à ceux qui pouvaient
l'entendre et jouir de son livre ou s'en aider. Quant aux autres, il n'y
pensait pas. Mais Viete était riche, et la plupart des poètes sont pauvres.
Puis un géomètre a peut-être moins de vanité qu'un poète; ou s'il en a
autant, il doit la calculer mieux.
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.
Il y a des hommes chez qui l'esprit (cet instrument applicable à tout)
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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
I would willingly say about metaphysicians what Scaliger said about

the Basques: "People say that they understand each other, but I don't
believe it at all."
Je dirais volontiers des métaphysiciens ce que Scaliger disait des

Basques: « On dit qu'ils s'entendent, mais je n'en crois rien. »
421
Does a philosopher who does everything because of vanity have the

right to scorn a courtier who does everything because of self-interest? It
seems that the one carries away louis d'ors [valuable gold pieces] and
the other rests content after having heard the clatter. Is d'Alembert, who
courted Voltaire out of vanity, very much above this or that courtier of
Louis XIV, who wanted a pension or a government post?
Le philosophe, qui fait tout pour la vanité, a-t-il droit de mépriser le

courtisan, qui fait tout pour l'intérêt? Il me semble que l'un emporte les
louis d'or et que l'autre se retire content, après en avoir entendu le bruit.
D'alembert, courtisan de Voltaire par un intérêt de vanité, est-il bien au-
dessus de tel ou tel courtisan de Louis XIV, qui voulait une pension ou
un gouvernement?
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.
Quand un homme aimable ambitionne le petit avantage de plaire à

autres qu'à ses amis comme le font tant d'hommes, surtout de gens de
lettres, pour qui plaire est comme un métier, il est clair qu'ils ne peuvent
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y être portés que par un motif d'intérêt ou de vanité. Il faut qu'ls

choisissent entre le rôle d'une courtisane et celui d'une coquette, ou si
l'on veut d'un comédien. L'homme qui se rend aimable pour une société,
parce qu'il s'u plaît, est le seul qui joue le rôle d'un honnête homme.
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.
Les vers ajoutent de l'esprit à la pensée de l'homme qui en a quelquefois

assez peu; et c'est ce qu'on appelle talent. Souvent ils ôtent de l'esprit à
la pensée de celui qui a beaucoup d'esprit, et c'est la meilleure preuve de
l'absence du talent pour les vers.
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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le croire les gens de lettres. Le tact, c'est le bon goût appliqué au

maintien et à la conduite; le bon ton, c'est le bon goût appliqué aux
discours et à la conversation.
427
Aristotle made an excellent remark in his Rhetoric, that an analogy

must be equally just in the reverse sense. Thus, people say that old age
is the winter of life; reverse the metaphor and you find it equally just,
that winter is the old age of the year.
C'est une remarque excellente d'Aristote, dans sa rhétorique, que toute

métaphore fondée sur l'analogie doit être également juste dans le sens
renversé. Ainsi, l'on a dit de la vieillesse qu'elle est l'hiver de la vie;
renversez la métaphore et vous la trouverez également juste, en disant
que l'hiver est la vieillesse de l'année.
428
To be a great man in literature, or at least to carry out a sensible

revolution, it's necessary, just as in politics, to find everything prepared
for it and to be born at the right time.
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.
Les grands seigneurs et les beaux esprits, deux classes qui se

recherchent mutuellement, veulent unir deux espèces d'hommes dont les
uns font un peu plus de poussière et les autres un peu plus de bruit.
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
What is a man of letters who is not elevated by his character, by the

merit of his friends and by a little leisure? If he lacks this last advantage
to the point that he can't live decently in the society that his merit calls
him to, what need does he have of society? Isn't he obliged then to
choose a solitude in which he can cultivate his soul, his character and
his reason in peace? Is it necessary for him to carry the weight of society
without collecting any of the advantages that it gives to other types
of citizens? A man of letters who is forced into going alone will find the
happiness there that he has sought elsewhere in vain. It is such a person
who can say that by having been refused everything, he has been given
everything. On how many occasions can't a person repeat the phrase of
Themistocles: "Alas! We would have perished if we hadn't perished!"
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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On dit et on répète, après avoir lu quelque ouvrage qui respire la vertu:

« C'est dommage que les auteurs ne se peignent pas dans leurs écrits, et
qu'on ne puisse pas conclure d'un pareil ouvrage que l'auteur est ce qu'il
paraît être. » Il est vrai que beaucoup d'exemples autorisent cette pensée;
mais j'ai remarquée qu'on fait souvent cette réflexion pour se dispenser
d'honorer les vertus dont on trouve l'image dans les écrits d'un honnête
homme.
433
An author, a man with taste, is, among this blasé public, what a young
woman is in a circle of old libertines.
Un auteur, homme de goût, est, parmi ce public blasé, ce qu'une jeune

femme est au milieu d'un cercle de vieux libertins.
434
A little philosophy makes a person scorn erudition; very much

philosophy makes him esteem it.
Peu de philosophie mène à mépriser l'érudition; beaucoup de

philosophie mène à l'estimer.
435
The work of a poet, and often of a man of letters, is seldom very

profitable to him; and with regard to the public, he finds himself
between a thank you very much and a go take a walk. His fortune
reduces itself to enjoying himself and his time.
Le travail du poète, et souvent de l'homme de lettres, lui sont bien peu

fructueux à lui-même; et de la part du public, il se trouve placé entre le
grand merci et le va te promener. Sa fortune se réduit à jouir de lui-
même et du temps.
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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doesn't speak badly.
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.
Ce qui fait le succès de quantité d'ouvrages est le rapport qui se trouve

entre la médiocrité des idées de l'auteur et la médiocrité des idées du
public.
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']
A voir la composition de l'Académie française, on croirait qu'elle a pris

pour devise ce vers de Lucrèce: Certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate.
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.
L'honneur d'être de l'Académie française est comme la croix de Saint-

Louis, qu'on voit également au souper de Marly et dans les auberges à
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.
Il en est un peu des réputations littéraires, et surtout des réputations de

théâtre, comme des fortunes qu'on faisait autrefois dans les îles. Il
suffisait presque d'y passer, pour parvenir à une grande richesse, mais
ces grandes fortunes même ont nui à celles de la génération suivante: les
terre épuisées n'ont plus rendu si abondamment.
442
In our days, success in the theatre and in literature is almost always

ridiculous.
De nos jours, les succès de théâtre et de littérature ne sont guère que des
ridicules.
443
Philosophy discovers useful virtues in morality and in politics.

Eloquence makes them popular. Poetry makes them proverbial.
C'est la philosophie qui découvre les vertus utiles de la morale et de la

politique. C'est l'éloquence qui les rend populaires. C'est la poésie qui
les rend pour ainsi dire proverbiales.
444
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A sophist who is eloquent, but devoid of logic, is to a philosophical

orator what a magician is to a mathematician, what Pinetti is to
Archimedes.
Un sophiste éloquent, mais dénué de logique, est à un orateur

philosophe ce qu'un faiseur de tours de passe-passe est à un
mathématicien, ce que Pinetti est à Archimède.
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.
On n'est point un homme d'esprit pour avoir beaucoup d'idées, comme

on n'est pas un bon général pour avoir beaucoup de soldats.
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.
On se fâche souvent contre les gens de lettres qui se retirent du monde.

On veut qu'ils prennent intérêt à la société dont ils ne tirent presque
point d'avantage; on veut les forcer d'assister éternellement aux tirages
d'une loterie où ils n'ont point de billet.
447
What I admire in the ancient philosophers is the desire to conform their

mores to their writings; one sees this in Plato, Theophrastus, and many
others. Practical morality was such an essential part of their philosophy
that many were put at the head of schools without having written
anything: such was the case with Xenocrates, Polemon, Heusippus, etc..
Socrates, without having written a single work, and without having
studied any other science than morality, was nonetheless the foremost
philosopher of his century.
Ce que j'admire dans les anciens philosophes, c'est le désir de

conformer leurs moeurs à leurs écrits: c'est ce que l'on remarque dans
Platon, Théophraste et plusieurs autres. La morale pratique était si bien
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la partie essentielle de leur philosophie, que plusieurs furent mis à la tête

des écoles, sans avoir rien écrit: tels que Xénocrate, Polémon. Heusippe,
etc. Socrate, sans avoir donné un seul ouvrage et sans avoir étudié
aucune autre science que la morale, n'en fut pas moins le premier
philosophe de son siècle.
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.
Ce qu'on sait le mieux, c'est: 1o ce qu'on a deviné; 2o ce qu'on a appris

par l'expérience des hommes et des choses; 3o ce qu'on a appris, non
dans les livres, mais par les livres, c'est-à-dire par les réflexions qu'ils
font faire; 4o ce qu'on a appris dans les livres ou avec des maîtres.
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.
Les succès produisent les succès, comme l'argent produit l'argent.
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
It is nearly impossible for a philosopher or a poet not to be a

misanthrope: 1st because his taste and talent make him observe society,
a study which constantly afflicts the heart; 2nd since his talent is nearly
never recompensed by society (he is even lucky if he is not punished for
it), the aforementioned affliction only redoubles his tendency to be
melancholy.
Il est presque impossible qu'un philosophe, qu'un poète ne soient pas

misanthropes: 1o parce que leur goût et leur talent les portent à
l'observation de la société, étude qui afflige constamment le coeur; 2o
parce que leur talent n'étant presque jamais récompensé par la société
(heureux même s'il n'es pas puni), ce sujet d'affliction ne fait que
redoubler leur penchant à la mélancolie.
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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talents nous donnent sur la société.
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.
La vanité des gens du monde se sert habilement de la vanité des gens de

lettres. Ceux-ci ont fait plus d'une réputation qui a mené à de grandes
places. D'abord, de part et d'autre, ce n'est que du vent; mais les
intrigants adroits enflent de ce vent les voiles de leur fortune.
457
Economists are surgeons who have an excellent scalpel and chipped

scissors, who operate marvellously on the dead and who make martyrs
of the living.
Les économistes sont des chirugiens qui on un excellent scalpel et un

bistouri ébréché, opérant à merveille sur le mort et martyrisant le vif.
458
Men of letters are rarely jealous of the sometimes exaggerated

reputations of certain works by the people at court; they regard such
successes in the same way that noblewomen regard the fortunes of
young girls.
Les gens de lettres sont rarement jaloux des réputations quelquefois

exagérées qu'ont certains ouvrages de gens de la cour; ils regardent ces
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succès comme les honnêtes femmes regardent la fortune des filles.
459
The theatre reinforces mores or changes them. It necessarily either

corrects what is ridiculous or it propagates it. One has seen it do both of
these things in turn in France.
Le théâtre renforce les moeurs ou les change. Il faut de nécessité qu'il

corrige le ridicule ou qu'il le propage. On l'a vu en France opérer tour à
tour ces deux effets.
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.
Plusieurs gens de lettres croient aimer la gloire et n'aiment que la

vanité. Ce sont deux choses bien différentes et même opposées; car l'une
est une petite passion, l'autre en est une grande. Il y a, entre la vanité et
la gloire, la différence qu'il y a entre un fat et un amant.
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.
La postérité ne considère les gens de lettres que par leurs ouvrages, et

non par leurs places. Plutôt ce qu'ils ont fait que ce qu'ils ont été semble
être leur devise.
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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Spéron-Spéroni explique très bien comment un auteur qui s'énonce très

clairement pour lui-même est quelquefois obscur pour son lecteur:
« C'est, dit-il, que l'auteur va de la pensée à l'expression et que le lecteur
va de l'expression à la pensée. »
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.
En fait de beaux-arts, et même en beaucoup d'autres choses, on ne sait

bien que ce que l'on n'a point appris.
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
When La Fontaine is bad, it is because he is negligent; when Lamothe

is bad, it's because he is trying.
Quand La Fontaine est mauvais, c'est qu'il est négligé; quand Lamothe
l'est, c'est qu'il est recherché.
467
The perfection of a comedy of character consists in treating an intrigue

in such a way that it couldn't be used in any other play. Perhaps Tartuffe
is the only play that can demonstrate this statement.
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La perfection d'une comédie de caractère consisterait à disposer

l'intrigue, de façon que cette intrigue ne pût servir à aucune autre pièce.
Peut-être n'y-a-t-il au théâtre que celle du Tartuffe qui pût supporter
cette épreuve.
468
It would be amusing to show how in France philosophers are the worst

citizens in the world. The reason is this: having published a large
amount of important truths in politics and economics, having given
much useful advice and recorded it in their books, this advice has been
followed by nearly every sovereign in Europe, nearly everywhere except
for in France; after which the prosperity of these foreign countries has
increased their power while France has stayed the same, conserved its
abuses, etc., and finished by being an inferior state relative to the others;
and it is apparently the fault of its philosophers. One knows the response
the duc of Tuscany made to a Frenchman on this subject, regarding the
happy innovations he made in his state: "You praise me too much for
this," he said, "I've taken all my ideas from your french books."
Il y aurait une manière plaisante de prouver qu'en France les

philosophes sont les plus mauvais citoyens du monde. La preuve, la
voici: C'est qu'ayant imprimé une grande quantité de vérités importantes
dans l'ordre politique et économique, ayant donné plusieurs conseils
utiles, consignés dans leur livres, ces conseils ont été suivis par presque
tous les souverains de l'Europe, presque partout, hors en France; d'où il
suit que la prospérité des étrangers augmentait leur puissance, tandis que
la France reste aux mêmes termes, conserve ses abus, etc., elle finira par
être dans l'état d'infériorité, relativement aux autres puissances; et c'est
évidemment la faute des philosophes. On sait, à ce sujet, la réponse du
duc de Toscane à un Français, à propos des heureuses innovations faites
par lui dans ses États: « Vous me louez trop à cet égard, disait-il; j'ai pris
toutes mes idées dans vos livres français. »
469
In Anvers, in one of the principal churches, I saw the tomb of the

famous printer Plantin, adorned with superb paintings by Rubens,
dedicated to his memory. Upon seeing this, I remembered the Étienne
brothers (Henri and Robert) who, through their greek and latin learning,
did the greatest services to letters, and who endured a miserable old age
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in France; then Charles Étienne, their successor, who died in a hospital

after having contributed nearly as much as them to the progress of
literature. I remembered André Duchêne, who can be regarded as the
father of history in France, and who was chased from Paris by misery
and was reduced to seeking refuge in a small farm that he had in
Champagne. He killed himself by falling off of a cart loaded with hay at
an immense height. Adrien de Valois, the creator of the natural history
of metals hardly had a better destiny. Samson, the father of geography,
walked on foot, at seventy years old, to give lessons in order to have
food to stay alive. Everyone knows the destiny of du Ryer, Tristan,
Maynard, and so many others. Corneille lacked soup broth when he was
ill before he died. La Fontaine was hardly better. If Racine, Boileau,
Molière and Quinault had a happier fate, it was because their talents
more noticeably glorified the King. The abbé de Longuerue, who
discovered and brought together many of the anecdotes about the sad
fate of the illustrious men of letters in France, added: "That is how they
have always been treated in this miserable country." The list which is so
famous of the men of letters that the king wanted to pension and who
were presented to Colbert, was the work of Chapelain, Perrault,
Tallemand, and the abbé Gallois, who omitted any of their fellow
citizens who they hated, while they suggested the names of learned
foreigners, knowing very well that the king and his minister would be
flattered to find themselves praised 400 lieues away from Paris.
J'ai vu à Anvers, dans une des principales églises, le tombeau du

célèbre imprimeur Plantin, orné de tableaux superbes, ouvrages de
Rubens, et consacrés à sa mémoire. Je me suis rappelé à cette vue que
les Étienne (Henri et Robert) qui, par leur érudition grecque et latin, ont
rendu les plus grands services aux lettres, traînèrent en France une
vieillesse misérable, et que Charles Étienne, leur successeur, mourut à
l'hôpital, après avoir contribué presque autant qu'eux aux progrès de la
littérature. Je me suis rappelé qu'André Duchêne, qu'on peut regarder
comme le père de l'histoire de France, fut chassé de Paris par la misère
et réduit à se réfugier dans une petite ferme qu'il avait en Champagne. Il
se tua en tombant du haut d'une charrette chargée de foin, à une hauteur
immense. Adrien de Valois, créateur de l'histoire métallique, n'eut guère
une meilleur destinée. Samson, le père de la géographie, allait, à 70 ans,
faire des leçons, à pied, pour vivre. Tout le monde sait la destinée des du
Ryer, Tristan, Maynard, et de tant d'autres. Corneille manquait de
bouillon, à sa dernière maladie. La Fontaine n'était guère mieux. Si
Racine, Boileau, Molière et Quinault eurent un sort plus heureux, c'est
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que leurs talents étaient consacrés au Roi plus particulièrement. L'abbé

de Longuerue, qui rapporte et rapproche plusieurs de ces anecdotes sur
le triste sort des hommes de lettres illustres en France, ajoute: « C'est
ainsi qu'on en a toujours usé dans ce misérable pays. » Cette liste si
célèbre des gens de lettres que le roi voulait pensionnerm et qui fut
présentée à Colbert, était l'ouvrage de Chapelain, Perrault, Tallemand,
l'abbé Gallois, qui omirent ceux de leurs confrères qu'il haïssaient,
tandis qu'ils y placèrent les noms de plusieurs savants étrangers, sachant
très bien que le roi et le ministre seraient plus flattés de se faire louer à
400 lieues de Paris.
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPITRE VIII
ON SLAVERY AND ON FREEDOM; ON FRANCE BEFORE AND

AFTER THE REVOLUTION
DE L'ESCLAVAGE ET DE LA LIBERTÉ; DE LA FRANCE AVANT

ET DEPUIS LA RÉVOLUTION
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.
On s'est beaucoup moqué de ceux qui parlaient avec enthousiasme de

l'état sauvage en opposition à l'état social. Cependant je voudrais savoir
ce qu'on peut répondre à ces trois objections: il est sans exemple que,
chez les sauvages, on ait vu: 1o un fou; 2o un suicide; 3o un sauvage qui
ait voulu embrasser la vie sociale; tandis qu'un grand nombre
d'Européens, tant au Cap que dans les deux Amériques, après avoir
vécu chez les sauvages, se trouvant ramenés chez leurs compatriotes,
sont retournés dans les bois. Qu'on réplique à cela sans verbiage, sans
sophisme.
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471
The misfortune of humanity, considered in the state of society, is that

although in morality and politics a person could give the definition that
what is bad is what is harmful, he cannot say that what is good is what is
helpful; because something that is helpful one moment can be harmful
for a long time or forever.
Le malheur de l'humanité, considérée dans l'état social, c'est que

quoiqu'en morale et en politique on puisse donner comme définition que
le mal est ce qui nuit, on ne peut pas dire que le bien est ce qui sert; car
ce qui sert un moment peut nuire longtemps ou toujours.
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?
Lorsque l'on considère que le produit du travail et des lumières de

trente ou quarante siècles, a été de livrer trois cents millions d'hommes
répandus sur le globe à une trentaine de despotes, la plupart ignorants et
imbéciles, dont chacun est gouverné par trois ou quatre scélérats,
quelquefois stupides: que penser de l'humanité, et qu'attendre d'elle à
l'avenir?
473
Nearly all of history is only a string of horrors. If tyrants dismiss it

while they are alive, it seems that their successors allow people
to transmit to posterity the crimes of their predecessors, in order to offer
diversion away from the horror that they inspire themselves. In effect,
there is nearly no way to console peoples except to tell them that their
ancestors were as unfortunate or more unfortunate than they are.
Presque toute l'histoire n'est qu'une suite d'horreurs. Si les tyrans la

détestent, tandis qu'ils vivent, il semble que leurs successeurs souffrent
qu'on transmette à la postérité les crimes de leurs devanciers, pour faire
diversion à l'horreur qu'ils inspirent eux-mêmes. En effet, il ne reste
guère, pour consoler les peuples, que de leur apprendre que leurs
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ancêtres ont été aussi malheureux, ou plus malheureux.
474
The natural character of a Frenchman is composed of the qualities of a

monkey and of a lying dog. Drôle and frolicking like a monkey, and also
very malignant at bottom like one; he is similar to a hunting dog, born
base, caressing, licking the master who strikes him, letting himself be
chained up, then leaping with joy when he is untied to go to the hunt.
Le caractère naturel du Français est composé des qualités du singe et du

chien couchant. Drôle et gambadant comme le singe, et dans le fond très
malfaisant comme lui; il est comme le chien de chasse, né bas,
caressant, léchant son maître qui le frappe, se laissant mettre à la chaîne,
puis bondissant de joie quand on le délié pour aller à la chasse.
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.
Autrefois le trésor royal s'appelait l'épargne. On a rougi de ce nom qui

semblait une contrevérité, depuis qu'on a prodigué les trésors de l'État,
et on l'a tout simplement appelé le trésor royal.
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!
Le titre le plus respectable de la noblesse française c'est de descendre

immédiatement de quelques-uns de ces trente mille hommes casqués,
cuirassés, brassardés, cuissardés, qui, sur de grands chevaux bardés de
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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
The requirement of being a nobleman in order to be the captain of a

ship is as reasonable as the requirement of being secretary of the king in
order to be a sailor or a deck-hand.
La nécessité d'être gentilhomme, pour être capitaine de vaisseau, est

tout aussi raisonnable que celle d'être secrétaire du roi pour être matelot
ou mousse.
478
The requirement of being a nobleman in order to be appointed to the

highest positions is one of the most disastrous absurdities in nearly any
country. It seems to me to allow asses to defend their places in carousels
and tournaments against horses.
Cette impossibilité d'arriver aux grandes places, à moins que d'être

gentilhomme, est une des absurdités les plus funestes, dans presque tous
les pays. Il me semble voir des ânes défendre les carrousels et les
tournois aux chevaux.
479
When nature wants to make a virtuous man or a man of genius, it is not

going to consult Chérin.
[Note from book: Chérin was the genealogist to the king. He verified
the well-foundedness of titles of nobility.]
La nature, pour faire un homme vertueux ou un homme de génie, ne va

pas consulter Chérin.
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480
What does it matter that there is a Tiberius or a Titus on the throne, if

Sejanus is his minister?
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
The secret reason that reading Tacitus is so interesting is the continual

contrast between ancient republican liberty and the vile slaves of the
authors day. It is the comparison between the ancient Scaurus, Scipio,
etc., with the baseness of their descendants. In a word, what makes
Tacitus so effective is Livy.
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
By prohibiting suicide, kings and priests have wanted to ensure the

duration of our slavery. They want to keep us confined in a dungeon
without an exit; similar to the wicked man in Dante who built a wall
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over the door to the prison where the unfortunate Ugolin was shut in.
Les rois et les prêtres, en proscrivant la doctrine du suicide, ont voulu

assurer la durée de notre esclavage. Ils veulent nous tenir enfermés dans
un cachot sans issue; semblables à ce scélérat, dans le Dante, qui fait
murer la porte de la prison où était enfermé le malheureux Ugolin.
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
The true Turkey of Europe is France. One finds in twenty English

writers: Despotic countries, like France and Turkey. La vraie Turquie
d'Europe, c'était la France. On trouve dans vignt écrivains anglais: Les
pays despotiques, tels que la France et la Turquie.488
Ministers of state are only lackeys, and are only more important
because the nobleman their master owns more land.
Les ministres ne sont que des gens d'affaires, et ne sont si importants

que parce que la terre du gentilhomme leur maÎtre est très considérable.
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.
Un ministre, en faisant faire à ses maîtres des fautes et des sottises

nuisibles au public, ne fait souvent que s'affermir dans sa place: on dirait
qu'il se lie davantage avec eux par les liens de cette espèce de
complicité.
490
Why is it that in France a minister of state keeps his position after a

hundred failed operations, and why is he chased out for the one good
thing that he does?
Pourquoi arrive-t-il qu'en France un ministre reste placé après cent

mauvaises opérations, et pourquoi est-il chassé pour la seule bonne qu'il
ait faite?
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.
Croirait-on que le despotisme a des partisans, sous le rapport de la

nécessité d'encouragement pour les beaux-arts? On ne saurait croire
combien l'éclat du siècle de Louis XIV a multiplié le nombre de ceux
qui pensent ainsi. Selon eux, le dernier terme de toute société humaine
est d'avoir de belle tragédies, de belles comédies, etc. Ce sont des gens
qui pardonnent à tout le mal qu'ont fait les prêtres, en considérant que
sans les prêtres, nous n'aurions pas la comédie du Tartuffe.
492
In France, merit and reputation give people no more rights to high

positions than a rose crown gives a villager the right to be presented at
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court.
En France, le mérite et la réputation ne donnent pas plus de droits aux

places que le chapeau de rosière ne donne à une villageoise le droit
d'être présentée à la cour.
493
France, a country where it is often useful to shows ones vices, and

always dangerous to show ones virtues.
La France, pays où il est souvent utile de montrer ses vices, et toujours

dangereux de montrer ses vertus.
494
Paris, a singular place where a person needs 30 sols to have dinner, 4

francs to take a walk, 100 louis for superfluous necessary things and 400
louis to have only the necessary superfluous things.
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
Paris, a city of amusement, of pleasure, etc., where fourth fifths of the

inhabitants die of chagrin.
Paris, ville d'amusements, de plaisirs, etc., où les quatre cinquièmes des

habitants meurent de chagrin.
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."
On pourrait appliquer à la ville de Paris les propres termes de sainte

Thérèse, pour définir l'enfer: « L'endroit où il pue et où l'on n'aime
point. »
497
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It is remarkable how many etiquettes there are in a nation as lively

and that has as much gaiety as ours. A person could also be amazed at
the pedantic spirit and the gravity of bodies of people and of clubs; it
seems that a legislator tried to give a counterweight that would act
against the light-mindedness of the French.
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
It is a known fact that at the moment when M. de Guibert was named

governor of the Invalides, he found 600 soldiers there none of whom
had been wounded, nearly none who had taken part in any seige, in any
battle, but who, in recompense, had been coachmen or lackeys of grands
seigneurs or of people in high places. What a consideration, and what
matter for reflection!
C'est une chose avérée qu'au moment où M. de Guibert fut nommé

gouverneur des Invalides, il se trouva aux Invalides 600 prétendus
soldats qui n'étaient point blessés et qui, presque tous, n'avaient jamais
assisté à aucun siège, à aucune bataille, mais qui, en récompense,
avaient été cochers ou laquais de grands seigneurs ou de gens en place.
Quel texte et quelle matière à réflexions!
499
In France, people leave alone the person who started the fire and
persecute the one who rings the bell.
En France, on laisse en repos ceux qui mettent le feu, et on persécute

ceux qui sonnent le tocsin.
500
Nearly all women, whether at Versailles or at Paris when these latters

are in considerable positions, are nearly nothing other than noble
bourgeoises, Madame Naquarts, whether they present themselves as
such or not.
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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
In France there is no longer a public or a nation, for the same reason

that lint isn't cloth.
En france, il n'y a plus de public ni de nation, par la raison que de la

charpie n'est pas du linge.
502
The public is governed as it reasons. It's right is to say foolish things,

like that of ministers of state is to do them.
Le public est gouverné comme il raisonne. Son droit est de dire des
sottises, comme celui des ministres est d'en faire.
503
When a foolish thing is done publicly, I think of the small number of

foreigners who are in Paris, and it afflicts me, because I always love my
country.
Quand il se fait quelque sottise publique, je songe à un petit nombre

d'étrangers qui peuvent se trouver à Paris, et je suis prêt à m'affliger, car
j'aime toujours ma patire.
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.
Comment se fait-il que, sous le despotisme le plus affreux, on puisse se

résoudre à reproduire? C'est que la nature a ses lois plus douces, mais
plus impérieuses que celles des tyrans; c'est que l'enfant sourit à sa mère
sous Domitien comme sous 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."
Un philosphe disait: « Je ne sais pas comment un Français qui a été une

fois dans l'antichambre du roi, ou dans l'oeil-de-boeuf, peut dire de qui
que ce puisse être: C'est un 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.
Dans la lutte éternelle que la société amène entre le pauvre et le riche,

le noble et le plébéien, l'homme accrédité et l'homme inconnu, il y a
deux observations à faire: la première est que leurs actions, leurs
discours sont évalués à des mesures différentes, à des poids différents,
l'une d'une livre, l'autre de dix ou de cent, disproportion convenue, et
dont on part comme d'une chose arrêtée; et cela même est horrible. Cette
acception de personnes, autorisée par la loi et par l'usage, est un des
vices énormes de la société, qui suffirait seul pour expliquer tous ses
vices. L'autre observation est qu'en partant même de cette inégalité, il se
fait ensuite une autre malversation: c'est qu'on diminue la livre du
pauvre, du plébéien, qu'on la réduit à un quart; tandis qu'on porte à cent
livres les dix livres du riche ou du noble, à mille ses cent livres, etc.
C'est l'effet naturel et nécessaire de leur position respective: le pauvre et
le plébéien ayant pour envieux tous leurs égaux, et le riche, le noble,
ayant pour appuis et pour complices le petit nombre des siens qui le
secondent pour partager ses avantages et en obtenir de pareils.
510
It is an incontestable truth that there are seven million men in France

who beg alms, and twelve million who cannot afford to give any.
C'est une vérité incontestable qu'il y a en France sept millions

d'hommes qui demandent l'aumône, et douze millions hors d'état de la
leur faire.
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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.
« La noblesse, disent les nobles, est une intermédiaire entre le roi et le

peuple... » Oui, comme le chien de chasse est un intermédiaire entre le
chasseur et les lièvres.
512
What is a cardinal? It is a priest in red clothing who receives one

hundred thousand écus from the king in order to mock him in the name
of the pope.
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
The objective of most social institutions seems to be maintaining men

in a mediocrity of ideas and feelings that makes them more fit to govern
or to be governed.
La plupart des institutions sociales paraissent avoir pour objet de

maintenir l'homme dans un médiocrité d'idées et de sentiments qui le
rendent plus propre à gouverner ou à être gouverné.
514
A citizen of Virginia owns 50 acres of fertile land, pays 42 sols in our

money to enjoy peace under just and gentle laws, the protection of the
government, the safety of his person and property, civil and religious
liberty, the right to vote in elections, to be a member of Congress, and
so to legislate laws, etc. A similar peasant in France, from Auvergne or
Limousin, is crushed under taxes, the vingtièmes [an income tax],
manual drudgery of every sort, can be insulted on the caprice of a
subdelegate, arbitrarily imprisoned, etc., and hands down to his stripped
family this heritage of misfortune and abasement.
Un citoyen de Virginie, possesseur de 50 acres de terre fertile, paie 42
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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.
L'Amérique septentrionale est l'endroit de l'univers où les droits de

l'homme sont le mieux connus. Les Américains sont les dignes
descendants de ces fameux républicains qui se sont expatriés pour fuir la
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tyrannie. C'est là que se sont formés des hommes dignes de combattre et

de vaincre les Anglais même, à l'époque où ceux-ci avaient recouvré
leur liberté et étaient parvenus à se former le plus beau gouvernement
qui fût jamais. La révolution de l'Amérique sera utile à les Anglais
même, en la forçant à faire un examen nouveau de sa constitution et à en
bannir les abus. Qu'arrivera-t-il? Les Anglais, chassés du continent de
l'Amérique septentrionale, se jetteront sur les îles et sur les possessions
françaises et espagnoles, leur donneront leur gouvernement qui est
fondé sur l'amour naturel que les hommes ont pour la liberté, et qui
augmente cet amour même. Il se formera dans ces îles espagnoles et
françaises, et surtout dans le continent de l'Amérique espagnoles, alors
devenue anglaise, il se formera de nouvelles constitutions dont la liberté
sera le principe et la base. Ainsi les Anglais auront la gloire unique
d'avoir formé presque les seuls des peuples libres de l'univers, les seuls,
à proprement parler, dignes du nom d'hommes, puisqu'ils seront les
seuls qui aient su connaître et conserver les droits des hommes. Mais
combien d'années ne faut-il pas pour opérer cette révolution? Il faut
avoir purgé de Français et d'Espagnoles ces terres immenses, où il ne
pourrait se former que des esclaves, y avoir transplanté des Anglais,
pour y porter les premiers germes de la liberté. Ces germes se
développeront, et, produisant des fruits nouveaux, opéreront la
révolution qui chassera les Anglais eux-mêmes des deux Amériques et
de toutes les îles.
516
An Englishman respects the law and fights off or scorns authority. A

Frenchman, on the contrary, respects authority and scorns the law. It is
necessary to teach them to do the contrary, and perhaps that is
impossible, seeing the ignorance in which the nation is retained, an
ignorance that mustn't be contested because of the learning that is found
in the capitals.
L'Anglais respecte la loi et repousse ou méprise l'autorité. Le Français,

au contraire, respecte l'autorité et méprise la loi. Il faut lui enseigner à
faire le contraire, et peut-être la chose est-elle impossible, vu l'ignorance
dans laquelle on tient la nation, ignorance qu'il ne faut pas contester en
jugeant d'après les lumières répandues dans les capitales.
517
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Me, everything; the rest, nothing: that is despotism, aristocracy, and

their partisans. - Me, that is another; another, that's me: that is popular
regimes and their partisans. After this, decide.
Moi, tout; le reste, rien: voilà le despotisme, l'aristocratie et leurs

partisans. - Moi, c'est un autre; un autre, c'est moi: voilà le régime
populaire et ses partisans. Après cela décidez.
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
The poor are the negroes of Europe.
Les pauvres sont les nègres de l'Europe.
520
Resembling animals who cannot breathe the air at a certain height

without perishing, the slave dies in an atmosphere of liberty.
Semblable aux animaux qui ne peuvent respirer l'air à une certaine

hauteur sans périr, l'esclave meurt dans l'atmosphère de la liberté.
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
It is necessary to begin human society over again, just as Bacon said it

was necessary to begin human understanding over again.
Il faut recommencer la société humaine, comme Bacon disait qu'il faut

recommencer l'entendement humain.
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.
Diminuez les maux du peuple, vous diminuez sa férocité, comme vous

guérissez ses maladies avec du bouillon.
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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en liaison. Philippe avait tout préparé pour la guerre de Perse, avant sa

mort. Plusieurs sectes d'hérétiques, déchaînées contre les abus de la
communion romaine, précédèrent Luther et Calvin, et même Viclef.
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!
On croit communément que Pierre le Grand se réveilla un jour avec

l'idée de tout créer en Russie; M. de Voltaire avoue lui-même que son
père, Alexis, forma le dessein d'y transporter les Arts. Il y a dans tout
une maturité qu'il faut attendre. Heureux l'homme qui arrive dans le
moment de cette maturité!
526
The national Assembly of 1789 has given the French people a

constitution that is stronger than it is. We must hasten to elevate the
nation to its height through good public education. Legislators should do
the same as those clever doctors who, when treating exhausted sick
people, get them to eat a good meal by giving them medicines that
increase their appetite.
L'Assemblée nationale de 1789 a donné au peuple français une

constitution plus forte que lui. Il faut qu'elle se hâte d'élever la nation à
cette hauteur, par une bonne éducation publique. Les législateurs
doivent faire comme ces médecins habiles qui, traitant un malade
épuisé, font passer les restaurants à l'aide des stomachiques.
527
Upon seeing the great number of deputies at the national Assembly of

1789 and all of the prejudices that the majority of them are filled with, a
person would think that they only destroyed the old government to say
that it is theirs, like people who knock a building down so that they can
live in the ruins.
En voyant le grand nombre des députés à l'Assemblée nationale de
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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.
Dans l'instant où Dieu créa le monde, le mouvement du chaos dut faire

trouver le chaos plus désordonnée que lorsqu'il reposait dans un
désordre paisible. C'est ainsi que chez nous l'embarras d'une société qui
se réorganise doit paraître l'excès du désordre.
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
128 of 201
l'étable d'Augias avec un plumeau.
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!
Dans l'ancien régime, un philosophe écrivait des vérités hardies. Un de

ces hommes que la naissance ou des circonstances favorables appelaient
aux places, lisait ces vérités, les affaiblissait, les modifiait, en prenait un
vigntième, passait pour un homme inquiétant, mais pour homme
d'esprit. Il tempérait son zèle et parvenait à tout. Le philosophe était mis
à la Bastille. Dans le régime nouveau, c'est le philosophe qui parvient à
tout; ses idées lui servent, non plus à se faire enfermer, non plus à
déboucher l'esprit d'un sot, à le placer, mais à parvenir lui-même aux
places. Jugez comme la foule de ceux qu'il écarte peuvent s'accoutumer
à ce nouvel ordre de choses!
532
Isn't it too amusing to see the marquis de Bièvre (grandson of the

surgeon marshal) think he is obliged to flee to England, along with M.
de Luxembourg and the great aristocrats, all fugitives after the
catastrophe of the 14 of July 1789?
N'est-il pas trop plaisant de voir le marquis de Bièvre (petit-fils du

chirugien Maréchal) se croire obligé de fuir en Angleterre, ainsi que M.
de Luxembourg et les grands aristocrates, fugitifs après la catastrophe
du 14 juillet 1789?
533
Theologians, always loyal to the project of blinding men, and the
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henchmen of the government, always faithful to oppressing men, freely

suppose that the great majority of them are condemned to the stupidity
that comes from purely mechanical or manual labor; they suppose that
artisans cannot elevate themselves to the understanding necessary for
valuing the rights of men and of citizens. Don't they say that this
understanding is too complicated? Let's suppose that people would
employ a quarter of the time that they have given to stupefying the
lowest classes to enlightening them; let us suppose that instead of
putting a catechism of absurd and unintelligible metaphysics in their
hands, people gave them one that contained the first principles of the
rights of men and of their duties, founded on their rights; one would be
surprised how far they would go after following this route, indicated by
a good basic work. Suppose that instead of preaching the doctrine of
patience, suffering, abnegation of oneself and degradation to them,
which are so useful to usurpers, people preached to them to know their
rights and their duty to defend them, one would see that nature, who
formed men for society, gave them all the good sense necessary for
forming a reasonable one.
Les théologiens, toujours fidèle au projet d'aveugler les hommes, les

suppôts des gouvernements, toujours fidèles à celui de les opprimer,
supposent gratuitement que la grande majorité des hommes est
condamnée à la stupidité qu'entraînent les travaux purement mécaniques
ou manuels; ils supposent que les artisans ne peuvent s'élever aux
connaissances nécessaires pour faire valoir les droits d'hommes et de
citoyens. Ne dirait-on pas que ces connaissances sont bien compliquées?
Supposons qu'on eût employé, pour éclairer les dernières classes, le
quart du temps et des soins qu'on a mis à les abrutir; supposons qu'au
lieu de mettre dans leurs mains un catéchisme de métaphysique absurde
et inintelligible, on en eût fait un qui eût contenu les premiers principes
des droits des hommes et de leurs devoirs, fondés sur leurs droits, on
serait étonné du terme où ils seraient parvenus en suivant cette route,
tracée dans un bon ouvrage élémentaire. Supposez qu'au lieu de leur
prêcher cette doctrine de patience, de souffrance, d'abnégation de soi-
même et d'avilissement, si commode aux usurpateurs, on leur eût prêché
celle de connaître leurs doits et le devoir de les défendre, on eût vu que
la nature qui a formé les hommes pour la société, leur a donné tout le
bon sens nécessaire pour former une société raisonnable.
APPENDIX
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APPENDICE
534
A man, making a move on a woman without being ready, said to her:

"Madame, would you be willing to have fifteen more minutes of
virtue?"
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
M. de Pl..., being in England, wanted to convince a young English

woman not to marry a man who was too inferior to her in every sense of
the word. The young person listened to everything that he said and, with
a very tranquil air, replied: "What do you want! When he arrives in my
bedroom, his esprit changes."
M. de Pl..., étant en Angleterre, voulait engager une jeune Anglaise à ne

pas épouser un homme trop inférieur à elle dans tous les sens du mot. La
jeune personne écouta tout ce qu'on lui dit et, d'un air fort tranquille:
« Que voulez-vous! dit-elle, en arrivant, il change l'air de ma chambre. »
536
Most benefactors resemble those generous blunderers who capture a

city and leave alone the citadel.
La plupart des bienfaiteurs ressemblent à ces généraux maladroits qui

prennent la ville et qui laissent la citadelle.
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."
Un amant de la duchesse d'Olonne, la voyant faire des coquetteries à

son mari, sortit en lui disant:
« Parbleu! il faut être bien coquine; celui-là est trop fort. »
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
A country priest exhorted his parishioners: "Messieurs, pray to God for

the owner of this château, who died in Paris from his wounds." (He had
been beaten up.)
Un curé de compagne dit au prône à ses paroissiens:
« Messieurs, priez Dieu pour le possesseur de ce château, mort à Paris
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de ses blessures. » (Il avait été roué.)
542
The definition of a despotic government: an order of things in which

the superiors are base and the inferiors are abased.
Définition d'un gouvernement despotique: Un ordre de choses où le

supérieur est vil et l'inférieur avili.
543
Ministers of state have brought on the destruction of royal authority,

just as priests have brought on the destruction of religion. God and the
king have paid the price for the foolishness of their valets.
Les ministres ont amené la destruction de l'autorité royale, comme le

prêtre celle de la religion. Dieu et le roi ont porté la peine des sottises de
leurs valets.
544
A doctor of the Sorbonne, furious over the System of Nature, said: "It's
an execrable, abominable book; it is atheism with demonstrations."
Un docteur de Sorbonne, furieux contre le Système de la nature, disait:

« C'est un livre exécrable, abominable; c'est l'athéisme démontré. »
545
A man with esprit, perceiving that he was being jeered at by two

tasteless jokesters, said to them: "Messieurs, you are mistaken, I am
neither a fool nor a brute, I am between the two."
Un homme d'esprit, s'apercevant qu'il était persiflé par deux mauvais

plaisants, leur dit:
« Messieurs, vous vous trompez, he ne suis ni sot ni bête, je suis entre

deux. »546
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."
« M. était passionné et se croyait sage. J'étais folle, mais je m'en

doutais, et, sous ce point de vue, j'étais plus près que lui de la sagesse. »
548
A doctor said: "Only the people who are going to inherit something pay
me well."
Un médecin disait: « Il n'y a que les héritiers qui payent bien. »
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.
M. le Dauphin, père du roi (Louis XVI), aimait passionnément sa

première femme, qui était rousse et qui avait le désagrément attaché à
cette couleur. Il fut longtemps sans aimer la seconde Dauphine, et en
donnait pour raison qu'elle ne sentait pas la femme. Il croyait que cette
odeur était celle du sexe.
550
M. D... refused the advances of a pretty woman. Her husband began to
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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."
M..., à qui on demandait fréquemment la lecture de ses vers, et qui s'en

impatientait, disait qu'en commençant cette lecture il se rappelait
toujours ce qu'un charlatan du Pont-Neuf disait à son singe, en
commençant ses jeux:
« 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
There is a melancholy that belongs to grandeur of spirit.
Il y a une mélancolie qui tient à la grandeur de l'esprit.
557
It is with philosophers as with monks, most of whom become so

despite themselves, and are annoyed their entire life. Some others take
patience; finally, a small number are happy and quiet and never look for
proselytes, whereas those who despair at their undertaking look to solicit
novices.
136 of 201
Il en est des philosophes comme des moines, dont plusieurs le sont

malgré eux, et enragent toute leur vie. Quelques autres prennent
patience; un petit nombre enfin est heuruex, se tait et ne cherche point à
faire des prosélytes, tandis que ceux qui sont désespérés de leur
engagement cherchent à racoler des novices.
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.
M... disait plaisamment qu'à Paris chaque honnête homme contribue à

faire vivre les espions de police, comme Pope dit que les poètes
nourrissent les critiques et les journalistes.
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."
Un homme disait naïvement à un de ses amis: « Nous avons, ce matin,

condamné trois homme à mort. Il y en avait deux qui le méritaient bien.
»
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.
Un homme fort riche disait en parlant des pauvres:
« On a beau ne leur rien donner, ces drôle-là demandent toujours. » Plus

d'un prince pourrait dire cela à ses courtisans.
561
Chi manga facili, caga diavoli.

Il pastor romano non vuole pecora senza lana.
[Whoever eats beans, shits devils.
137 of 201
A Roman shepard doesn't want sheep without wool.]
There is no virtue that poverty doesn't spoil.
It is not the cats fault when he takes the servants dinner.
[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. ]
Chi manga facili, caga diavoli.
Il pastor romano non vuole pecora senza lana.

Il n'est vertu que pauvreté ne gâte.
Ce n'est pas la faute du chat quand il prend le dîner de la servante.
562
"People say spiritual power", said M..., "as opposed to the power of
beasts. Spiritual, because it had enough spirit [esprit] to seize authority."
« On dit la puissance spirituelle, disait M..., par opposition à la

puissance bête. Spirituelle, parce qu'elle a eu l'esprit de s'emparer de
l'autorité. »
563
M. de..., passionately in love after having lived many years in

indifference, said to his friends who were making fun of how he lived
like an old man while young: "You spend your time badly; I have been
very old for some years, but now I am very young."
M. de..., amoureux passionné, après avoir vécu plusieurs années dans

l'indifférence, disait à ses amis qui le plaisantaient sur sa vieillesse
prématurée:
« Vous prenez mal votre temps; j'étais bien vieux il y a quelques années,
138 of 201
mais je suis bien jeune à présent. »
564
There is a base sort of gratitude.
Il y a une sorte de reconnaissance basse.
565
In the time of the Assembly of Notables (1787), when it was a question

of the power it was necessary to grant to the intendants in the provincial
assemblies, a certain important personage was very favorable to them.
Someone spoke about it to a man with esprit who was tied to him. This
person promised to change his opinion and he succeeded in doing so.
Someone asked him how he achieved this; he responded: "I did not
insist at all on the tyrannical abuses that come from the influence of the
intendants; but you know he is very stubborn about nobility, and I told
him that very good gentlemen would be obliged to call him
Monseigneur. He felt that this was enormous, and that is what brought
him to our opinion."
[Note on the Assembly of Notables: http://en.wikipedia.org

/wiki/Assembly_of_Notables ]
A l'époque de l'Assemblée des notables (1787), lorsqu'il fut question du

pouvoir qu'il fallait accorder aux intendants dans les assemblées
provinciales, un certain personnage important leur était très favorable.
On en parla à un homme d'esprit lié avec lui. Celui-ci promit de le faire
changer d'opinion et il y réussit. On lui demanda comment il s'y était
pris; il répondit: « Je n'ai point insisté sur les abus tyranniques de
l'influence des intendants; mais vous savez qu'il est très entêté de
noblesse, et je lui ai dit que de fort bons gentilshommes étaient obligés
de les appeler Monseigneur. Il a senti que cela était énorme, et c'est ce
qui l'a amené à notre avis. »
566
When M. the duc de Richelieu was received into the Académie

Française, people praised his speech very highly. They told him one day
in a great assembly that the tone of it was perfect, full of grace and
facility; that men of letters perhaps wrote more correctly, but not with
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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."
Lorsque M. le duc de Richelieu fut reçu de l'Académie française, on

loua beaucoup son discours. On lui disait un jour dans une grande
assemblée que le ton en était parfait, plein de grâce et de facilité; que les
gens de lettres écrivaient plus correctement peut-être, mais non pas avec
cet agrément.
« Je vous remercie, Messieurs, dit le jeune duc, et je suis charmé de ce

que vous me dites. Il ne me reste plus qu'à vous apprendre que mon
discours est de M. Roy, et je lui ferai mon compliment de ce qu'il
possède le bon ton de la cour. »
567
Someone asked the abbé Trublet how much time he devotes to making
his books. He responded: "It depends on the society I see."
On demandait à l'abbé Trublet combien de temps il mettait pour faire un

livre. Il répondait: « C'est selon le monde qu'on voit. »
568
A person could write a small chapter entitled: The necessary vices in

good society. He could add another on mediocre qualities.
On pourrait faire un petit chapitre qui serait intitulé: Des vices

nécessaires de la bonne compagnie. On pourrait ajouter celui des
qualités médiocres.
569
A provincial, at the dinner of the king, pressed his neighbor with

questions: "Who is this lady? - It's the queen. - This one? - Madame. -
That one, that one? - The countess d'Artois. - This other one?" The
inhabitant of Versailles, becoming impatient, responded to him: "That's
the late queen."
Un provincial, à la messe du roi, pressait de questions son voisin:
140 of 201
« Quelle est cette dame? - C'est la reine. - Celle-ci? - Madame. - Celle-

là, là? - La comtesse d'Artois. - Cette autre? » L'habitant de Versailles,
impatienté, lui répondit: « C'est la feue reine. »
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:
« Monsieur, vous avez fait un livre sur l'Italie? - Oui, mademoiselle. - Y

avez-vous été? - Certainement. - Est-ce avant ou après votre voyage que
vous avez fait votre livre? »
571
It is a pretty allegory that presents Minerva, the goddess of Wisdom,

throwing away the flute when she sees that this instrument was not
suited to her.
[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.
141 of 201
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:
« Pour moi, je ne le crains pas. Quand une femme me convient et qu'elle

me rend heureux, je me livre aux sentiments qu'elle m'inspire, me
réservant de n'être pas sa dupe si elle ne me convient. Mon imagination
est le tapissier que j'envoie meubler mon appartement, quand je vois que
j'y serai bien logé; sinon, je ne lui donne aucun ordre, et voilà les frais
d'un mémoire épargnés. »
576
142 of 201
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.
M. de L... m'a dit qu'au moment où il apprit l'infidélité de Mme de B...,

il sentit au milieu de son chagrin qu'il n'aimerait plus, que l'amour
disparaissait pour jamais, comme un homme qui, dans un champ, entend
le bruit d'une perdrix qui lève et qui s'envole.
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
People have compared blundering benefactors with a goat that leaves

milk and, from thoughtlessness, tips over the bowl that it filled with a
kick of its foot.
On a comparé les bienfaiteurs maladroits à la chèvre qui se laisse traire

et qui, par étourderie, renverse d'un coup de pied la jatte qu'elle a
remplie de son lait.
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.
Son imagination fait naître une illusion au moment où il vient d'en

perdre une, semblable à ces rosiers qui produisent des roses dans toutes
les saisons.
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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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for the imperfection of man.
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."
Mme de Fourq... disait à une demoiselle de compagnie qu'elle avait:
« Vous n'êtes jamais au fait des choses qu'il y a à me dire sur le

circonstances où je me trouve, de ce qui convient à mon caractère, etc.,
par exemple dans quels temps il est très vraisemblable que je perdrai
mon mari. J'en serai inconsolable. Alors il faudra me dire, etc. »
586
M. d'Osmond was gambling in a certain society two or three days after

the death of his wife, who died in a province. "But d'Osmond," someone
said to him, "it is not decent that you gamble two days after the death of
your wife." - "Oh!" he said, "the news has not reached me yet." - "That
doesn't matter, it isn't good." - "Oh! oh!" he said, "I'm only diddling."
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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des livres; mais il faut que sa femme fasse des chemises. »
588
A doctor recommended a cautery to M. de ***. This man didn't want to

have it done at all. A few months passed, and the health of the sick
fellow came back. The doctor, who ran into him and saw that he was
doing better, asked him what remedy he took. "None." said the sick
fellow. "I was cheerful all summer; I have a mistress, and I am pleased.
But now winter is approaching: I am afraid that the humor that afflicts
my eyes will return. Don't you recommend that I get the cautery done?"
- "No," the doctor said to him gravely; "you have a mistress: that is
enough. It would be wiser to leave her and to have the cautery done; but
you can perhaps do without it, and I think that the cautery you have
found is enough."
Un médecin avait conseillé un cautère à M. de ***. Celui-ci n'en voulut

point. Quelques mois se passèrent, et la santé du malade revint. Le
médecin, qui le rencontra, et le vit mieux portant, lui demanda quel
remède il avait fait.
« 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."
Un homme d'une grande indifférence sur la vie disait en mourant:
« Le docteur Bouvard sera bien attrapé. »
590
It's a curious thing to see the power of custom. M. de la Trémoille,

separated from his wife, who he neither loved nor esteemed, learned that
she had smallpox... He closed himself up with her, caught the same
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illness, died and left her a great fortune with the right to remarry.
C'est une chose curieuse de voir l'empire de la mode. M. de la

Trémoille, séparé de sa femme, qu'il n'aimait ni n'estimait, apprend
qu'elle a la petite vérole... Il s'enferme avec elle, prend la même maladie,
meurt et lui laisse une grande fortune avec le droit de convoler.
591
There is a bad sort of modesty, founded on ignorance, which sometimes

harms superior spirits and keeps them in a sort of mediocrity: which
reminds me of what a man of known merit said to some courtiers at
lunch one day: "Ah! Messieurs, how I regret the time I lost in learning
that I was worth more than you!"
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.
Les conquérants passeront toujours pour les premiers des hommes,

comme on dira toujours que le lion est le roi des animaux.
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."
M..., ayant voyagé en Sicile, combattait le préjugé où l'on est que
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l'intérieur des terres est rempli de voleurs. Pour le prouver, il ajoutait

que partout où il avait été, on lui avait dit:
« Les brigands sont ailleurs. » M. de B..., misanthrope gai, lui dit: «

Voilà, par exemple, ce qu'on ne vous dirait pas à Paris. »
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."
On sait qu'il y a dans Paris des voleurs connus de la police, presque

avoués par elle et qui sont à ses ordres, s'ils ne sont pas les délateurs de
leurs comarades. Un jour, le lieutenant de police en manda quelques-uns
et leur dit:
« 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
This beautiful phrase is a turkish proverb: "O misfortune! I thank you, if

you are alone."
C'est un proverbe turc que ce beau mot: « Ô malheur! je te rend grâce, si

tu es seul. »
596
The Italians say: Sotto umbilico ne religione ne verita. [Below the navel
there is neither religion nor truth.]
Les Italiens disent: Sotto umbilico ne religione ne verita.597
To account for providence, saint Augustine says that it leaves the
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wicked on earth so that they may become good, or so that the good may
become better upon seeing them.
Pour justifier la providence, saint Augustin dit qu'elle laisse le méchant

sur la terre pour qu'il devienne bon, ou que le bon devienne meilleur par
lui.
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."
M..., vieillard détrompé, me disait: « Le reste de ma vie me paraît une

orange à demi sucée, que je presse je ne sais pas pourquoi, et dont le suc
ne vaut pas la peine que je l'exprime. »
601
Our language [french] is, people say, a friend of clarity. It's as much,
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observed M..., because a person loves what he most needs; because, if it

is not handled very adroitly, it is always ready to fall into obscurity.
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
A man of imagination, such as a poet, must believe in God:
Ab Jove principium Musis, [The Muses begin with Jupiter]
or
Ab Jove Musarum primordia. [What belongs to the Muses
begins with Jupiter]
Il faut que l'homme à imagination, que le poète, croie en Dieu:
Ab Jove principium Musis,

ou:
Ab Jove Musarum primordia.603
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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une femme riche va chez un marchand d'étoffes s'assortir pour son

argent.
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..., a true pedant on Greece, recalls a piece of antiquity whenever

someone mentions something modern. You speak to him about the abbé
Terray; he cites Aristides, the controller general of the Athenians.
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
Someone offered a man of letters a collection of the Mercure newspaper

at three sols per volume. "I'll wait for it to go on sale", he responded.
On offrait à un homme de lettres la collection du Mercure à trois sols le

volume. « J'attends le rabais », répondit-il.
SECOND PART
SECONDE PARTIE
CHARACTERS AND ANECDOTES
CARACTÈRES ET ANECDOTES
Characters and 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...
Notre siècle a produit huit grands comédiennes: quatre du théâtre et

quatre de la société. Les quatres premières sont Mlle d'Angeville, Mlle
Dumesnil, Mlle Clairon et Mme Saint-Huberti; les quatres autres sont
Mme de Mont..., Mme de Genl..., Mme N... et 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."
M... me disait: « Je me suis réduit à trouver tous mes plaisirs en moi-

même, c'est-à-dire dans le seul exercice de mon intelligence. La nature a
mis dans le cerveau de l'homme une petite glande appelée cervelet,
laquelle fait office d'un miroir; on se représente, tant bien que mal, en
petit et en grand, en gros et en détail tous les objets de l'univers et même
les produits de sa propre pensée. C'est une lanterne magique dont
l'homme est propriétaire et devant laquelle se passent des scènes où il
est acteur et spectateur. C'est là proprement l'homme; là se borne son
empire. Tout le reste lui est étranger. »
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."
On sait le discours fanatique que l'évêque de Dol a tenu au roi, au sujet

du rappel des protestants. Il parla au nom du clergé. L'évêque de Saint-
Pol lui ayant demandé pourquoi il avait parlé au nom de ses confrères,
sans les consulter: « J'ai consulté, dit-il mon crucifix. - En ce cas,
répliqua l'évêque de Saint-Pol, il fallait répéter exactement ce que votre
crucifix vous avait répondu. »
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
The maréchal de Richelieu, having proposed a great lady as mistress to

Louis XV, I forget which one, the king didn't want her, saying that it
would be too expensive to get her to go away.
Le maréchal de Richelieu, ayant proposé pour maîtresse à Louis XV une

grande dame, j'ai oublié laquelle, le roi n'en voulut pas, disant qu'elle
coûterait trop cher à renvoyer.
614
M. de Tressan wrote some couplets against M. le duc de Nivernois in

1738, and in 1780 he was solliciting him so that he could be elected to
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the Académie française. He went to M. de Nivernois' home, where the

latter received him marvelously, spoke to him about the success of his
most recent works, and overwhelmed him with hope, when, seeing M.
de Tressan ready to mount his carriage, he said to him: "Adieu,
Monsieur le comte, I congratulate you on no longer having a memory."
M. de Tressan avait fait en 1738 des couplets contre M. le duc de

Nivernois, et sollicita l'Académie en 1780. Il alla chez M. de Nivernois,
qui le reçut à merveille, lui parla du succès de ses derniers ouvrages, et
le renvoyait comblé d'espérance, lorsque, voyant M. de Tressan prêt à
remonter en voiture, il lui dit: « Adieu, monsieur le comte, je vous
félicite de n'avoir pas plus de mémoire. »
615
The maréchal de Biron was very dangerously ill; he wanted to confess,

and said before many of his friends: "What I owe to God, what I owe to
the king, what I owe to the State..." One of his friends interrupted him:
"Be quiet," he said, "you are going to die insolvent."
Le maréchal de Biron eut une maladie très dangereuse; il voulut se

confesser, et dit devant plusieurs de ses amis:
« Ce que je dois à Dieu, ce que je dois au roi, ce que je dois à l'État... »

Un de ses amis l'interrompt: « Tais-toi, dit-il, tu mourras insolvable. »
616
Duclos had the habit of ceaselessly pronouncing, in the middle of the

Académie, B...'s and F...'s; the abbé du Renel, who, because of his long
figure, was called a great serpent without venom, said to him:
"Monsieur, know that in the Académie one must only pronounce words
that can be found in the dictionary."
Duclos avait l'habitude de prononcer sans cesse, en pleine Académie,

des B..., des F...; l'abbé du Renel, qui à cause de sa longue figure était
appelé un grand serpent sans venin, lui dit:
« Monsieur, sachez qu'on ne doit prononcer dans l'Académie que des

mots qui se trouvent dans le dictionnaire. »
617
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M. de L... was speaking with his friend M. de B..., a very respectable

man, and yet very little spared by the public; he admitted the rumors and
false judgments that were said about him. This fellow responded coldly:
"It's just like the beast and the rogue that the actual public is to judge a
character of my temper."
M. de L... parlait à son ami M. de B..., homme très respectable, et

cependant très peu ménagé par le public; il lui avouait les bruits et les
faux jugements qui couraient sur son compte. Celui-ci répondit
froidement:
« C'est bien à une bête et à un coquin comme le public actuel à juger un

caractère de ma trempe. »
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:
« On lui crache au visage, on le lui essuye avec le pied et il remercie. »
620
D'Alembert, already enjoying the greatest reputation, found himself at

the home of Mme du Defant, with M. the president Henault, and M. de
Pont-de-Veyle. A doctor arrived named Fournier who, upon entering,
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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."
D'Alembert, jouissant déjà de la plus grande réputation, se trouvait chez

Mme du Défant, où étaient M. le président Hénault et M. de Pont-de-
Veyle. Arrive un médecin, nommé Fournier, qui, en entrant, dit à Mme
du Défant: « Madame, j'ai l'honneur de vous présenter mon très humble
respect »; à M. le président Hénault: « Monsieur, j'ai bien l'honneur de
vous saluer »; à M. de Pont-de-Veyle: « Monsieur, je suis votre très
humble serviteur »; et à d'Alembert: « Bonjour, 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, with the sweetest manners, was a woman without

principles and was capable of everything, to be exact. One day someone
praised her sweetness: "Yes," said the abbe Trublet, "if she decided to
poison you, she would choose the sweetest poison possible."
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:
The first man who was king was a fortunate soldier.
M. de Broglie, qui n'admire que le mérite militaire, disait un jour:
« Ce Voltaire qu'on vante tant, et dont je fais peu de cas, il a pourtant fait
un beau vers:
Le premier qui fut roi fut un soldat heureux.
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?"
On réfutait je ne sais quelle opinion de M... sur un ouvrage, en lui

parlant du public qui en jugeait autrement:
« Le public, le public! dit-il, combien faut-il de sots pour faire un

public? »
625
M. d'Argenson said to M. the count of Sébourg, who was his wife's

lover: "There are two places that would equally agree with you: the
government of the Bastille and that of the Invalides; if I give you the
position at the Bastille, everyone will say that I sent you away; if I give
you the one with the Invalides, people will think it was my wife."
[Note on the Invalides: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Invalides ]
M. d'Argenson disait à M. le comte de Sébourg, qui était l'amant de sa

femme:
« Il y a deux places qui vous conviendraient également: le

gouvernement de la Bastille et celui des Invalides; si je vous donne la
Bastille, tout le monde dira que je vous y ai envoyé; si je vous donne les
Invalides, on croira que c'est ma femme. »
626
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A certain medal exists that M. the prince of Condé told me he owned,

and which I saw he missed. This medal had Louis XIII on one side, with
the usual words underneath: Rex Franc. et Nav. [The French King, Ruler
of the Land and the Sea], and on the other side Cardinal Richelieu, with
these words around him: Nil sine Consilio [Without the Advisor,
Nothing].
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."
M..., ayant lu la lettre de saint Jérome, où il peint avec la plus grande

énergie la violence de ses passions, disait: « La force de ses tentations
me fait plus d'envie que sa pénitence ne me fait peur. »
628
M... said: "Women only have something good when they have
something better."
M... disait:
« Les femmes n'ont de bon que ce qu'elles ont de meilleur. »
629
Mme the princess of Marsan, now so pious, used to live with M. de

Bissy. She rented a little house on Plumet street, where she went while
M. de Bissy was there with girls. He refused to open the door to her; the
fruit-sellers of the street de Sève assembled around her carriage, saying:
"It's very villainous to refuse to let the princess into the house, who pays
for it, so that you can have dinner with loose women!"
[Note: Mme Marsan was the governess of the Children of France:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governess_of_the_Children_of_France .
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M. de Bissy was a lieutenant general and translator.]
Mme la princesse de Marsan, maintenant si dévote, vivait autrefois avec

M. de Bissy. Elle avait loué une petite maison, rue Plumet, où elle alla,
tandis que M. de Bissy y était avec des filles. Il lui fit refuser la porte;
les fruitières de la rue de Sève s'assemblèrent autour de son carrosse,
disant:
« C'est bien vilain de refuser la maison à la princesse qui paye, pour y

donner à souper à des filles de joie! »
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."
Un homme, épris des charmes de l'état de prêtrise, disait:
« Quand je devrais être damné, il faut que je me fasse prêtre. »
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."
Un homme était en deuil, de la tête aux pieds: grandes pleureuses,

perruque noire, figure allongée. Un de ses amis l'aborde tristement:
« 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
Mme de Bassompierre, living at the court of king Stanislas, was the

known mistress of M. de la Galaisière, chancellor to the king of Poland.
The king went to her one day and took some liberties that weren't
successful: "I shall be silent," said Stanislas, "my chancellor will inform
you of the rest."
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[Note: Mme de Bassompierre was the wife of the chamberlain to

Stanislas who was the king of Poland.]
Mme de Bassompierre, vivant à la cour de roi Stanislas, était la

maîtresse connue de M. de la Galaisière, chancelier du roi de Pologne.
Le roi alla un jour chez elle et prit avec elle quelques libertés qui ne
réussirent pas:
« Je me tais, dit Stanislas, mon chancelier vous dira le reste. »
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 ]
Autrefois on tirait le gâteau des Rois avant le repas. M. de Fontenelle fut

roi, et comme il négligeait de servir d'un excellent plat qu'il avait devant
lui, on lui dit: « Le roi oublie ses sujets. » A quoi il répondit: « Voilà
comme nous sommes, nous autres. »
634
Fifteen days before the attack of Damien, a provincial merchant, passing

through a small town six lieues from Lyon, and being in an inn, heard
someone saying in a room that was only separated from his by a
partition that a man named Damien would assassinate the king. This
merchant came to Paris: he went to present himself to M. Berrier, didn't
find him anywhere, wrote him what he had heard, returned to see M.
Berrier and told him who he was. He started off again for his province:
as he was en route, the attack of Damien occurred. M. Berrier, who
comprehended that the merchant had foretold this story, and that his
own negligence would lose him everything if it were discovered, this
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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.
[Note: 'Damien or rather Damiens. Author of an attack on Louis XV, he

was tortured in the place de Grève.'
"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)' ]
Quinze jours avant l'attentat de Damien, un négociant provençal, passant

dans une petite ville à six lieues de Lyon, et étant à l'auberge, entendit
dire dans une chambre qui n'était séparée de la sienne que par une
cloison, qu'un nommé Damien devait assassiner le roi. Ce négociant
venait à Paris: il alla se présenter chez M. Berrier, ne le trouva point, lui
écrivit ce qu'il avait entendu, retourna voir M. Berrier et lui dit qui il
était. Il repartit pour sa province: comme il était en route, arriva l'attentat
de Damien. M. Berrier, qui comprit que ce négociant conterait son
histoire, et que cette négligence le perdrait, lui Berrier, envoie un
exempt de police et des gardes sur la route de Lyon; on saisit l'homme,
on le bâillonne, on l'amène à Paris, on le met à la Bastille, où il est resté
pendant 18 ans. M. de Malesherbes, qui en délivra plusieurs prisonniers
en 1775, conta cette histoire dans le premier moment de son indignation.
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
161 of 201
prinsoners of Châtelet, on the occasion of the birth of the dauphin. A

man, seeing the great tumult around the prison, asked for the reason:
someone responded to him that it was for M. the cardinal de Rohan, who
was coming to Châtelet that day: "What", he said naively, "was he
arrested for?"
[Note on grand almoner: http://en.wikipedia.org

/wiki/Grand_Almoner_of_France]
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
M. de Roquemont, whose wife was very gallant, would sleep once a

month in Madame's room, to prevent the bad consequences of her
becoming fat, and would leave saying: "Here I am satisfied, happen
what will."
M. de Roquemont, dont la femme était très galante, couchait une fois

par mois dans la chambre de Madame, pour prévenir les mauvais propos
si elle devenait grosse, et s'en allait en disant:
« Me voilà net, arrive qui plante. »
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."
M. de ..., que des chagrins amers empêchaient de reprendre sa santé, me

disait:
« Qu'on me montre le fleuve d'oubli, et je trouverai la fontaine de

Jouvence. »
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?"
Un jeune homme sensible, et portant l'honnêteté dans l'amour, était

bafoué par des libertins qui se moquaient de sa tournure sentimentale. Il
leur répondit avec naïveté: « Est-ce ma faute à moi si j'aime mieux les
femmes que j'aime, que les femmes que je n'aime pas? »
639
They were taking a collection at the Académie française; they were

missing an écu, six francs, and a louis d'or: one of the members, known
for avarice, was suspected of not having contributed. He maintained that
he did; the person who made the collection said, "I didn't see it, but I
believe it." M. de Fontenelle ended the discussion by saying, "I did see
it, but me, I don't believe it."
On faisait une quête à l'Académie française; il manquait un écu de six

francs ou un louis d'or: un des membres, connu par son avarice, fut
soupçonné de n'avoir pas contribué. Il soutint qu'il avait mis; celui qui
faisait la collecte dit: « Je ne l'ai pas vu, mais je le crois. » M. de
Fontenelle termina la discussion en disant: « Je l'ai vu, moi, mais je ne le
crois pas. »
640
The
abbé Maury, going to visit the cardinal de La Roche-Aimon, ran into

him coming back from an assembly of the clergy. He found him in an ill
humor and asked him why. "I have very good reasons to be:" said the
old cardinal, "I was engaged to preside over this assembly of the clergy,
where everything happened in a way that couldn't be worse. Even
among the young agents of the clergy, such as this abbé de La Luzerne,
there are people who are not satisfied by bad reasons."
L'abbé Maury, allant chez le cardinal de La Roche-Aimon, le rencontra
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revenant de l'assemblée du clergé. Il lui trouva de l'humeur, et lui en

demanda la raison. « J'en ai de bien bonnes, dit le vieux cardinal: on m'a
engagé à présider cette assemblée du clergé, où tout s'est passé on ne
saurait plus mal. Il n'y a pas jusqu'à ces jeunes agents du clergé, cet
abbé de La Luzerne, qui ne veulent pas se payer de mauvaises raisons. »
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
A bishop of Saint-Brieuc, in a funeral oration to Marie-
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."
Un évêque de Saint-Brieuc, dans une oraison funèbre de Marie-Thérèse,

se tira d'affaire fort simplement sur le partage de la Pologne: « La
France, dit-il, n'ayant rien dit sur ce partage, je prendrai le parti de faire
comme la France, et de n'en rien dire non plus. »
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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said to him intrepidly: "Eh! What, monsieur, you seem surprised?" -

"Yes," said the young man while wiping his face clean, "I am surprised
that a man who had that much brains willingly exposed himself to
unnecessary danger."
Mylord Marlborough étant à la tranchée avec un de ses amis et un de ses

neveux, un coup de canon fit sauter la cervelle à cet ami et en couvrit le
visage du jeune homme, qui recula avec effroi. Marlborough lui dit
intrépidement: « Eh! quoi monsieur, vous paraissez étonné? - Oui, dit le
jeune homme en s'essuyant la figure, je le suis qu'un homme qui a autant
de cervelle restât exposé gratuitement à un danger inutile. »
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]
Mme la duchesse du Maine, dont la santé allait mal, grondait son

médecin, et lui disait:
« Était-ce la peine de m'imposer tant de privations et de me faire vivre

en mon particulier? - Mais V. A. a maintenant 40 personnes au château?
- Eh bien! ne savez-vous pas que 40 ou 50 personnes sont le particulier
d'une princesse? »
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]
Le duc de Chartres, apprenant l'insulte faite à Mme la duchesse de

Bourbon, sa soeur, par M. le comte d'Artois, dit:
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« On est bien heureux de n'être ni père ni mari. »
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!"
Un jour que l'on ne s'entendait pas dans une dispute, à l'Académie, M.

de Mairan dit:
« Messieurs, si nous ne parlions que quatre à la fois! »
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!"
[Note: Mirabeau was a famous statesmen, admired by Nietzsche and the

elder Goethe. He became close friends with Chamfort, who wrote some
of his political speeches, and Mirabeau looked to him as a sort of
conscience. Some letters of his to Chamfort survive.]
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.
« Messieurs, dit-il, je suis accusé de séduction; pour toute réponse et

pour toute défense, je demande que mon portrait soit mis au greffe. » Le
commissaire n'entendait pas: « Bête, dit le juge, regarde donc la figure
de monsieur! »
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.]
Mme de Brionne rompit avec le cardinal de Rohan, à l'occasion du duc

de Choiseul, que le cardinal voulait faire renvoyer. Il y eut entre eux une
scène violente, que Mme de Brionne termina en menaçant de le faire
jeter par la fenêtre:
« Je puis bien descendre, dit-il, par où je suis monté si souvent. »
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."
[Note: M. de Chauvelin was master of the wardrobe of the king.]
M. le duc de Choiseul était du jeu de Louis XV, quand il fut exilé. M. de

Chauvelin qui en était aussi, dit au roi qu'il ne pouvait le continuer,
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parce que le duc en était de moitié. Le roi dit à M. de Chauvelin:
« Demandez-lui s'il veut continuer. » M. de Chauvelin écrivit à

Chanteloup; M. de Choiseul accepta. Au bout du mois, le roi demanda si
le partage des grains était fait: « Oui, dit M. de Chauvelin. M. de
Choiseul gagne trois mille louis. - Ah! j'en suis bien aise, dit le roi;
mandez-le-lui bien vite. »
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
Do not praise de N...'s character to me: he is a hard, immovable man

supported by a cold philosophy, like a bronze statue on top of marble.
Ne me vantez point le caractère de N...: c'est un homme dur,

inébranlable, appuyé sur une philosophie froide, comme une statue de
bronze sur du marbre.
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."
[Note in book: The dog simile refers to a fable by La Fontaine]
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« Savez-vous pourquoi (me disait M. de...), on est plus honnête, en

France, dans la jeunesse, et jusqu'à trente ans que passé cet âge? C'est
que ce n'est qu'après cet âge qu'on s'est détrompé; que chez nous il faut
être enclume ou marteau; que l'on voit clairement que les maux dont
gémit la nation sont inrrémédiables. Jusqu'alors on avait ressemblé au
chien qui défend le dîner de son maître contre les autres chiens. Après
cette époque, on fait comme le même chien, qui en prend sa part avec
les autres. »
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.
[Note: M. de Choiseul-Gouffier was an archaeologist, scholar and

minister under Louis XVIII]
M. le comte d'Orsai, fils d'un fermier-général, et si connu par sa manie

d'être homme de qualité, se trouva avec M. de Choiseul-Gouffier chez le
prévôt des marchands. Celui-ci venait chez ce magistrat pour faire
diminuer sa capitation, considérablement augmentée; l'autre y venait
porter ses plaintes de ce qu'on avait diminué la sienne, et croyait que
cette diminution supposait quelque atteinte portée à ses titres de
noblesse.
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."
On disait de M. l'abbé Arnaud, qui ne conte jamais: « Il parle beaucoup,

non qu'il soit bavard, mais c'est qu'en parlant, on ne conte pas. »
657
M. d'Autrep said of M. de Ximenez: "He is a man who likes rain more

than beautiful weather, and who, when he hears the nightingale sing,
says: "Ah! The horrid animal!" "
[Note in book: M. de Ximenez was 'an author of tragedies. His mores

were dissolute.']
M. d'Autrep disait de M. de Ximenez:
« 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
M. de Vaucanson found himself the principal object of a foreign prince's
170 of 201
attention, despite that M. de Voltaire was present. Embarrassed and

ashamed that this prince had said nothing to Voltaire, he approached the
latter and said to him: "The prince just told me the following." (A
compliment very flattering for Voltaire.) This fellow saw very well that
it was an act of politeness on the part of Vaucanson, and said to him: "I
recognize all your talent in the manner which you make the prince
speak."
[Note in book: Vaucanson manufactured automatons. Wikipedia:

Jacques de Vaucanson (February 24, 1709 – November 21, 1782) was
a French inventor and artist with a mechanical background who is
credited with creating the world's first true robots, as well as for creating
the first completely automated loom. http://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/Jacques_de_Vaucanson ]
M. de Vaucanson s'était trouvé l'objet principal des attentions d'un

prince étranger, quoique M. de Voltaire fût présent. Embarrassé et
honteux que ce prince n'eût rien dit à Voltaire, il s'approcha de ce dernier
et lui dit: « Le prince vient de me dire telle chose. » (Un compliment
très flatteur pour Voltaire.) Celui-ci vit bien que c'était une politesse de
Vaucanson, et lui dit: « Je reconnais tout votre talent dans la manière
dont vous faites parler le prince. »
660
In the epoch of the assassination attempt of Louis XV by Damien, M.

d'Argenson was in open rupture with Mme de Pompadour. The day after
this catastrophe, the king summoned him so that he may give him the
order of sending Mme de Pompadour away. He conducted himself as a
master in the art of the court; knowing well that the wound of the king
was not considerable, he believed the king would, after being reassured,
call back Mme de Pompadour; consequently, he observed to the king
that, since he had the misfortune of displeasing this lady, it would
barbarous of the king to have this order related by the mouth of an
enemy, and he convinced the king to give this commission to M. de
Machaut, who was a friend of Mme de Pompadour, and who would
soften this order by all the consolations of friendship; it was this
commission which ruined M. de Machaut. But this same man, whose
clever conduct reconciled him to Mme de Pompadour, made a
schoolboy's mistake by abusing his victory and charging it with
invectives, once she had come back to him and put France at his feet.
171 of 201
[Note on Mme de Pompadour: http://en.wikipedia.org

/wiki/Madame_de_Pompadour ]
A l'époque de l'assassinat de Louis XV par Damien, M. d'Argenson était

en rupture ouverte avec Mme de Pompadour. Le lendemain de cette
catastophe, le roi le fit venir pour lui donner l'ordre de renvoyer Mme de
Pompadour. Il se conduisit en homme consommé dans l'art des cours:
sachant bien que la blessure du roi n'était pas considérable, il crut que le
roi, après s'être rassuré, rappellerait Mme de Pompadour; en
conséquence, il fit observer au roi, qu'ayant eu le malheur de déplaire à
la reine, il serait barbare de lui faire porter cet ordre par une bouche
ennemie, et il engagea le roi à donner cette commission à M. de
Machaut, qui était des amis de Mme de Pompadour, et qui adoucirait cet
ordre par toutes les consolations de l'amitié; ce fut cette commission qui
perdit M. de Machaut. Mais ce même homme, que cette conduite
savante avait réconcilié avec Mme de Pompadour, fit une faute d'écolier,
en abusant de sa victoire et en la chargeant d'invectives, lorsque revenue
à lui, elle allait mettre la France à ses pieds.
661
When Mme du Barry and the duc d'Aiguillon caused M. de Choiseul to

be dismissed, the positions that his departure left vacant were not yet
given to others. The king did not want M. d'Aiguillon at all as minister
of Foreign Affairs; M. the prince de Condé brought M. de Vergennes,
who he knew in Bourgogne; Mme du Barry brought the cardinal de
Rohan, who was attached to her. M. d'Aiguillon, then her lover, wanted
to eliminate both of them, and he is the reason that the position of
ambassador to Sweden was given to M. de Vergennes, who then was
forgotten and retired on his lands, and the position of ambassador to
Vienna was given to the cardinal de Rohan, then the prince Louis.
Lorsque Mme du Barry et le duc d'Aiguillon firent renvoyer M. de

Choiseul, les places que sa retraite laissait vacantes n'étaient point
encore données. Le roi ne voulait point de M. d'Aiguillon pour ministre
des Affaires étrangères; M. le prince de Condé portait M. de Vergennes,
qu'il avait connu en Bourgogne; Mme du Barry portait le cardinal de
Rohan, qui s'était attaché à elle. M. d'Aiguillon, alors son amant, voulut
les écarter l'un et l'autre, et c'est ce qui fit donner l'ambassade de Suède à
M. de Vergennes, alors oublié et retiré dans ses terres, et l'ambassade de
Vienne au cardinal de Rohan, alors le prince Louis.
172 of 201
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.
« Mes idées, mes principes, disait M..., ne conviennent pas à tout le

monde: c'est comme les poudres d'Ailhaut et certaines drogues qui ont
fait grand tort à des tempéraments faibles et ont été très profitables à des
gens robustes. » Il donnait cette raison pour se dispenser de se lier avec
M. de J..., jeune homme de la cour, avec qui on voulait le mettre en
liaison.
663
I saw M. de Foncemagne enjoy great consideration in his old age.

However, having had an occasion to suspect his uprightness for a
moment, I asked M. Saurin if he knew him particularly. He responded
yes to me. I insisted to know if he ever knew anything against him. M.
Saurin, after a moment of reflection, responded to me: "He has been an
honest man for a long time." I could get nothing positive from him,
except that M. de Foncemagne once used crooked and cunning conduct
in many affairs concerning his self-interest.
J'ai vu M. de Foncemagne jouir dans sa vieillesse d'une grande

considération. Cependant, ayant eu occasion de soupçonner un moment
sa droiture, je demandai à M. Saurin, s'il l'avait connu particulièrement.
Il me répondit que oui. J'insistai pour savoir s'il n'avait jamais rien eu
contre lui. M. Saurin, après un moment de réflexion, me répondit: « Il y
a longtemps qu'il est honnête homme. » Je ne pus en tirer rien de positif,
sinon qu'autrefois M. de Foncemagne avait tenu une conduite oblique et
rusée dans plusieurs affaires d'intérêt.
664
M. d'Argenson, learning at the battle of Raucoux that a a valet of the

army had been wounded by a cannon that stuck behind the place where
he himself was with the king, said: "This droll fellow didn't do us the
honor of dying.'
173 of 201
[Note on the battle of Raucoux or Rocoux: http://en.wikipedia.org

/wiki/Battle_of_Rocoux ]
M. d'Argenson, apprenant à la bataille de Raucoux qu'un valet d'armée

avait été blessé d'un coup de canon derrière l'endroit où il était lui-même
avec le roi, disait: « Ce drôle-là ne nous fera pas l'honneur d'en mourir. »
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:
« Au moins le roi se porte bien, c'est le principal. »
666
When M. the count d'Estaing, after his campaign in Grenada, came to

pay his court to the queen for the first time, he arrived supported by his
crutches, and accompanied by many officers who were wounded like
him: the queen did not know what to say to him, except: "M. count,
were you satisfied with little Laborde?"
[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." ]
Quand M. le comte d'Estaing, après sa campagne de la Grenade, vint

faire sa cour à la reine, pour la première fois, il arriva porté sur ses
béquilles, et accompagné de plusieurs officiers blessés comme lui: la
reine ne sut lui dire autre chose, sinon:
« M. le comte, avez-vous été content du petit Laborde? »
667
"In society I have only seen," said M..., "meals without digestion, dinner
174 of 201
parties without pleasure, conversations without trust, liaisons without

friendship, and beddings without love."
« 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 ]
Le curé de Saint-Sulpice étant allé voir Mme de Mazarin pendant sa

dernière maladie, pour lui faire quelques petites exhortations, elle lui dit
en l'apercevant:
« 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
I said to M. R..., a pleasant misanthrope who had presented a young man

he knew to me: "Your friend doesn't know any of the usages of the
world, nothing at all." - "Yes," he said, "and he is already sad as if he
knew everything."
Je disais à M. R..., misanthrope plaisant, qui m'avait présenté un jeune

homme de sa connaissance:
« 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. »
175 of 201
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."
« Ce n'est qu'avec beaucoup de peine, disait M..., qu'un homme de

mérite se soutient dans le monde sans l'appui du nom, d'un rang, d'une
fortune: l'homme qui a ces avantages y est, au contraire, soutenu comme
malgré lui-même. Il y a entre ces deux hommes la différence qu'il y a du
scaphandre au nageur. »
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.
176 of 201
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."
[Note in book: 'Variant: Someone asked a minister of state...'
On demandait au même, pourquoi les gouverneurs de province avaient

plus de faste que le roi:
« 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!
Un prédicateur de la Ligue avait pris pour texte de son sermon: Eripe

nos. Domine, à luto foecis, qu'il traduisait ainsi: Seigneur, débourbonez-
nous!
675
M..., the intendant of a province, an extremely ridiculous man, had

many people in his salon while he was in his office with the door open.
He assumed an occupied air and, holding some papers in his hand, he
read aloud gravely to his secretary: "Louis, by the grace of God, the
King of France and of Navarre, to all those who will see these present
letters (see the first to the last), Greetings." "The rest is as usual" he said,
handing the papers over; and he passed into the room of his audience, to
deliver himself to his public, the great man occupied by so many great
affairs.
M..., intendant de province, homme fort ridicule, avait plusieurs
177 of 201
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:
« Louis, par la grâce de Dieu, roi de France et de Navarre, à toux ceux

qui ces présentes lettres verront (verront un t à la fin), Salut. » « Le reste
est de forme », dit-il, en remettant les papiers; et il passe dans la salle
d'audience, pour livrer au public le grand homme occupé de tant de
grandes affaires.
676
M. de Montesquiou was begging M. de Maurepas to concern himself

with the prompt decision of his affair and of his pretensions to the name
of Fezenzac. M. de Maurepas said to him: "There is no hurry; M. the
count d'Artois has children." This was before the birth of the dauphin.
M. de Montesquiou priait M. de Maurepas de s'intéresser à la prompte

décision de son affaire et de ses prétentions sur le nom de Fezenzac. M.
de Maurepas lui dit:
« Rien ne presse; M. le comte d'Artois a des enfants. » C'était avant la

naissance du dauphin.
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.
Le Régent envoya demander au président Daron la démission de sa

place de premier président du Parlement de Bordeaux. Celui-ci répondit
qu'on ne pouvait lui ôter sa place sans lui faire son procès. Le Régent,
ayant reçu la lettre, mit au bas: Qu'à cela ne tienne, et renvoya pour
réponse. Le président, connaissant le prince auquel il avait affaire,
envoya sa démission.
678
178 of 201
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."
Un homme de lettres menait de front un poème et une affaire d'où

dépendait sa fortune. On lui demandait comment allait son poème:
« Demandez-moi plutôt, dit-il, comment va mon affaire. Je ne ressemble

pas mal à ce gentilhomme qui, ayant une affaire criminelle, laissait
croître sa barbe, ne voulant pas, disait-il, la faire faire, avant de savoir si
sa tête lui appartiendrait. Avant d'être immortel, je veux savoir si je
vivrai. »
679
M. de la
Reynière, obliged to choose between the position of administrator of

posts and that of farmer-general, after having filled both of these offices,
in which he had been supported by the credit of the grands seigneurs
who would dine at his home, was complaining to them about the
alternative that was proposed to him and which would diminish his
revenue very much. One of them said naively: "Eh! My God, that does
not make a great difference in your fortune. It's a million lost; and we
won't stop coming to dine here."
M. de la Reynière, obligé de choisir entre la place d'administrateur des

postes et celle de fermier-général, après avoir possédé ces deux places,
dans lesquelles il avait été maintenu par le crédit des grands seigneurs
qui soupaient chez lui, se plaignit à eux de l'alternative qu'on lui
proposait et qui diminuait de beaucoup son revenu. Un d'eux lui dit
naïvement: « Eh! Mon Dieu, cela ne fait pas une grande différence dans
votre fortune. C'est un million à mettre à fond perdu; et nous n'en
viendrons pas moins souper chez vous. »
680
M..., Provencal, who has very pleasant ideas, was saying to me with
179 of 201
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.]
M..., Provençal, qui a des idées assez plaisantes, me disait, à propos de

rois et même de ministres, que la machine étant bien montée, le choix
des uns et des autres était indifférent: « Ce sont, disait-il, des chiens
dans un tourne-broche; il suffit qu'ils remuent les pattes pour que tout
aille bien. Que le chien soit beau, qu'il ait de l'intelligence ou du nez, ou
rien de tout cela, la broche tourne, et le souper sera toujours à peu près
bon. »
681
People were making a procession with the relics of saint Geneviève, to

obtain drier weather. Hardly had the procession started on its way, when
it began to rain; at which point the bishop of Castres said jokingly:
"We're giving the saint the wrong impression; she thinks we're asking
for rain."
On faisait une procession avec la châsse de sainte Geneviève, pour

obtenir de la sécheresse. A peine la procession fut-elle en route, qu'il
commença à pleuvoir; sur quoi l'évêque de Castres dit plaisamment: «
La Sainte se trompe; elle croit qu'on lui demande de la pluie. »
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
180 of 201
viendra. »
683
Someone was starting to cite certain habits of gormandizing that many

sovereigns had. "What do you want," said the bonhomme M. de
Brequigny, "what do you want these poor kings to do? They really have
to eat."
[Note: 'bonhomme' means literally 'good man', but sometimes is taken in

the sense of a 'good, naive idiot'. I leave for you to decide the above.]
On venait de citer quelques traits de la gourmandise de plusieurs

souverains.
« Que voulez-vous, dit le bonhomme M. de Brequigny, que voulez-vous

que fassent ces pauvres rois? Il faut bien qu'ils mangent. »
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.
On demandait à une duchesse de Rohan à quelle époque elle comptait

accoucher. « Je me flatte, dit-elle, d'avoir cet honneur dans deux mois. »
L'honneur était d'accoucher d'un Rohan.
685
A jokester, having seen the famous How he died of Corneille performed

as a ballet, asked Noverre to make a ballet out of the Maxims of La
Rochefoucauld.
Un plaisant, ayant vu exécuter en ballet, à l'Opéra, le fameux Qu'il

mourût de Corneille, pria Noverre de faire danser les Maximes de La
Rochefoucauld.
686
M. de Malesherbes said to M. de Maurepas that it was necessary to have

the king go and see the Bastille. "It is very necessary to prevent that",
181 of 201
responded M. de Maurepas: "he wouldn't want to put anyone in there

any more."
M. de Malesherbes disait à M. de Maurepas qu'il fallait engager le roi à

aller voir la Bastille.
« Il faut bien s'en garder, lui répondit M. de Maurepas: il ne voudrait

plus y faire mettre personne. »
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.
Pendant un siège, un porteur d'eau criait dans la ville:
« A 6 sols la voie d'eau! » Une bombe vient et emporte un de ses seaux!

« A 12 sols le seau d'eau! » s'écrie le porteur sans s'étonner.
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
182 of 201
the door, and returned to get back to his work.
[Note on culottes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culottes ]
L'abbé de Molières était un homme simple et pauvre, étranger à tout,

hors à ses travaux sur le système de Descartes; il n'avait point de valet et
travaillait dans son lit, faute de bois, sa culotte sur sa tête par-dessus son
bonnet, les deux côtés pendant à droite et à gauche. Un matin il entend
frapper à sa porte:
« Qui va là? - Ouvrez... » Il tire un cordon et la porte s'ouvre. L'abbé de

Molières, ne regardant point: « Qui êtes-vous? - Donnez moi de l'argent.
- De l'argent? - Oui, de l'argent. - Ah! j'entends, vous êtes un voleur? -
Voleur ou non, il me faut de l'argent. - Vraiment oui, il vous en faut: eh
bien! cherchez là-dedans... » Il tend le cou, et présente un des côtés de la
culotte; le voleur fouille: « Eh bien! il n'y a point d'argent. - Vraiment
non, mais il y a ma clé. - Eh bien, cette clé... - Cette clé, prenez-la. - Je
la tiens. - Allez-vous-en à ce secrétaire; ouvrez... » Le voleur met la clé
à un autre tiroir. « Laissez donc: ne dérangez pas: ce sont mes papiers.
Ventrebleu finirez-vous? ce sont mes papiers: à l'autre tiroir, vous
trouverez de l'argent. - Le voilà. - Eh bien prenez. Fermez donc le
tiroir... » Le voleur s'enfuit. « M. le voleur, fermez donc la porte.
Morbleu! il laisse la porte ouverte!... Quel chien de voleur! Il faut que je
me lève par le froid qu'il fait! maudit voleur! » L'abbé saute en pied, va
fermer la porte, et revient se remettre à son travail.
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.
183 of 201
[Note in book: 'She was his mistress.']
La comtesse de Boufflers disait au prince de Conti qu'il était le meilleur

des tyrans.
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."
Mme de Montmorin disait à son fils:
« 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.
Une femme disait à M... qu'elle le soupçonnait de n'avoir jamais perdu

terre avec les femmes:
« Jamais, lui dit-il, si ce n'est dans le ciel. » En effet, son amour

s'accroissait toujours par la jouissance, après avoir commencé assez
tranquillement.
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.
Du temps de M. de Machaut, on présenta au roi le projet d'une cour
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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."
« Il faut, disait M..., flatter l'intérêt ou effrayer l'amour-propre des

hommes: ce sont des singes qui ne sautent que pour des noix, ou bien
dans la crainte du coup de fouet. »
695
Mme de Créqui, speaking to the duchess de Chaulnes about her

marriage with M. de Giac, after the unpleasant reaction that followed,
told her that she should have foreseen it, and insisted on the distance
between her and her husbands age. "Madame," Mme de Giac said,
"observe that a woman at court never grows old, and that a man of the
church is always old."
[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.']
Mme de Créqui, parlant à la duchesse de Chaulnes de son mariage avec

M. de Giac, après les suites désagréables qu'il a eues, lui dit qu'elle
aurait dû les prévoir, et insista sur la distance des âges. « Madame, lui
dit Mme de Giac, apprenez qu'une femme de la cour n'est jamais vieille,
et qu'un homme de robe est toujours vieux. »
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."
M. de Saint-Julien, le père, ayant ordonné à son fils de lui donner la liste

de ses dettes, celui-ci mit à la tête de son bilan 60 mille livres pour une
charge de conseiller au Parlement de Bordeaux. Le père indigné crut que
c'etait une raillerie, et lui en fit des reproches amers. Le fils soutint qu'il
avait payé cette charge. « C'etait, dit-il, lorsque je fis connaissance avec
Mme Tilaurier. Elle souhaitait d'avoir une charge de conseiller au
Parlement de Bordeaux, pour son mari; et jamais, sans cela, elle n'aurait
eu d'aimitié pour moi; j'ai payé la place, et vous voyez, mon père, qu'il
n'y a pas de quoi être en colère contre moi, et que je ne suis pas un
mauvais plaisant. »
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."
Le comte d'Argenson, homme d'esprit, mais dépravé, et se jouant de sa

propre honte, disait: « Mes ennemis ont beau faire, ils ne me culbuteront
pas: il n'y a ici personne plus valet que moi. »
698
M. de Boulainvilliers, a man without esprit, very vain and proud of a

blue ribbon showing his office, said to a man, showing him the ribbon,
for which he had paid 50 thousand écus: "Wouldn't you be very satisfied
to have such an ornament?" - "No", said the other, "but I would like to
have the money you paid for it."
M. de Boulainvilliers, homme sans esprit, très vain, et fier d'un cordon

bleu par charge, disait à un homme, en mettant ce cordon, pour lequel il
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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
The marquis de Chatelux, in love as though he were twenty, having seen

his wife occupied through a whole dinner with a young and handsome
foreigner, approached her when people were getting up from the table
and addressed her with humble reproaches; the marquis de Genlis said
to him: "Run along, run along, my good simpleton, you have already
received." (An expression said to the poor when they ask for alms a
second time.)
Le marquis de Chatelux, amoureux comme à vingt ans, ayant vu sa

femme occupée pendant tout un dîner d'un étranger jeune et beau,
l'aborda au sortir de table et lui adressait d'humbles reproches; le
marquis de Genlis lui dit: « Passez, passez, bonhomme, on vous a
donné. » (Formule usitée envers les pauvres qui redemandent l'aumône.)
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?"
Le duc de Choiseul et le duc de Praslin avaient eu une dispute pour

savoir lequel était le plus bête du roi ou de M. de la Vrilière; le duc de
Praslin soutenait que c'était M. de la Vrilière; l'autre, en fidèle sujet,
pariait pour le roi. Un jour, au Conseil, le roi dit une grosse bêtise. « Eh
bien! M. de Praslin, dit le duc de Choiseul, qu'en pensez-vous? »
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.
M. de Buffon s'environne de flatteurs et de sots qui le louent sans

pudeur. Un homme avait dîné chez lui avec l'abbé Leblanc, M. de
Juvigny et deux autres hommes de cette force. Le soir, il dit à souper
qu'il avait vu dans le coeur de Paris, quatre huîtres, attachées à un
rocher. On chercha longtemps le sens de cette énigme dont il donna
enfin le mot.
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
188 of 201
de ce mot, répétait tout bas, et d'une voix mourante: Il faut, il faut!
705
Here is an anecdote that I heard M. de Clermont-Tonnerre tell about the

baron de Breteuil. The baron, who took an interest in the affairs of M. de
Clermont-Tonnerre, reprimanded him for not showing himself enough in
society. 'I have too small a fortune', responded M. de Clermont. - 'Then
you have to borrow. You will pay with your name.' - 'But if I die?' - 'You
won't die.' - 'I hope so; but in the end, if I do?' - 'Eh, well! You will die
with debts, like so many others.' - 'I do not want to die bankrupt.' -
'Monsieur, you have to go into society: with your name, you would
arrive at everything. Ah! If I had had your name!' - 'Look at what it has
done for me.' - 'That is your fault. Me, I borrowed; you see what I have
achieved, I, who am only a low-born, vulgar scoundrel." This last
phrase was repeated two or three times, to the great surprise of the man
listening, who couldn't understand how someone could speak that way
about himself.
Voici une anecdote que j'ai oui conter à M. de Clermont-Tonnerre sur le

baron de Breteuil. Le baron, qui s'intéressait à M. de Clermont-
Tonnerre, le grondait de ce qu'il ne se montrait pas assez dans le
monde. « J'ai trop peu de fortune, répondit M. de Clermont. - Il faut
emprunter. Vous paierez avec votre nom. - Mais si je meurs? - Vous ne
mourrez pas. - Je l'espère; mais enfin si cela arrivait? - Eh bien! vous
mourriez avec des dettes, comme tant d'autres. - Je ne veux pas mourir
banqueroutier. - Monsieur, il faut aller dans le monde: avec votre nom,
vous devez arriver à tout. Ah! si j'avais eu votre nom! - Voyez à quoi il
me sert. - C'est votre faute. Moi, j'ai emprunté; vous voyez le chemin
que j'ai fait, moi qui ne suis qu'un pied-plat. » Ce mot fut répété deux ou
trois fois, à la grande surprise de l'auditeur, qui ne pouvait comprendre
qu'on parlât ainsi de soi-même.
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
189 of 201
printing of them is a matter of question, too.'
[Note in book: 'The decree of 1791 concerning literary property forbid

any representation of dramatic works without the authorization of those
who had the rights to them.' 'Cailhava d'Estandoux, author of comedies,
Memoires and anecdotes'. ]
Cailhava qui, pendant toute la révolution, ne songeait qu'aux sujets de

plaintes des auteurs contre les comédiens, se plaignait à un homme de
lettres, lié avec plusieurs membres de l'Assemblée nationale, que le
décret n'arrivait pas. Celui-ci dit: « Mais pensez-vous qu'il ne s'agisse ici
que de représentations d'ouvrages dramatiques? - Non, répondit
Cailhava, je sais bien qu'il s'agit aussi d'impression. »
707
Some time before Louis XV was officially arranged with Mme de

Pompadour, she followed him when he went hunting. The king had the
kindness of sending M. d'Étioles a set of deer antlers. This latter hung it
in his dining room, with these words: "A present given by the king to M.
d'Étioles."
[Note: M. d'Étioles was secretary to the king and husband to Mme de

Pompadour.]
Quelque temps avant que Louis XV fût arrangé avec Mme de

Pompadour, elle courait après lui aux chasses. Le roi eut la
complaisance d'envoyer à M. d'Étioles une ramure de cerf. Celui-ci la fit
mettre dans sa salle à manger, avec ces mots: « Présent fait par le roi à
M. d'Étioles. »
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.'
190 of 201
Mme de Genlis vivait avec M. de Senevoi. Un jour qu'elle avait son

mari à sa toilette, un soldat arrive et lui demande sa protection auprès de
M. de Senevoi, son colonel, auquel il demandait un congé. Mme de
Genlis se fâche contre cet impertinent; dit qu'elle ne connaît M. de
Senevoi que comme tout le monde; en un mot, refuse. M. de Genlis
retient le soldat, et lui dit: « Va demander ton congé en mon nom; et si
Senevoi te le refuse, dis-lui que je lui ferai donner le sien. »
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.'
[Note in book: 'The roués: surname given to the pleasure companions of

the regent Philippe d'Orléans.]
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
M. de Richelieu said, about the siege of Mahon by M. the duc de

Crillon: 'I took Mahon by being careless; and, in this way of doing
things, M. de Crillon seems to know more than myself.'
[Note in book: 'The maréchal de Richelieu had shown remarkable

recklessness during the siege of Mahon in 1756. But the capital of the
island of Minorca, given back to the English in 1763, was the object of a
new siege lead by Crillon in 1782.']
M. de Richelieu disait, au sujet du siège de Mahon par M. le duc de

Crillon: « J'ai pris Mahon par une étourderie; et, dans ce genre, M. de
Crillon paraît en savoir plus que moi. »
711
At the battle of Raucoux or of Lawfeld, the young M. de Thianges had

his horse killed beneath him, and he himself was thrown far off of it;
191 of 201
however, he was not wounded by this. The maréchal de Saxe said to

him: 'Little Thianges, did you feel a pretty fear?' - 'Yes, M. le maréchal,'
the other said, 'I was afraid that you were injured.'
A la bataille de Raucoux ou de Lawfeld, le jeune M. de Thianges eut

son cheval tué sous lui, et lui-même fut jeté fort loin; cependant il n'en
fut point blessé. Le maréchal de Saxe lui dit: « Petit Thianges, tu as eu
une belle peur? - Oui, M. le maréchal, dit celui-ci, j'ai craint que vous ne
fussiez blessé. »
712
Voltaire said, with regard to the Anti-Machiavel by the king of Prussia:

'He spits on it so much so that other people won't read it too.'
[ On the Anti-Machiavel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Machiavel ]
Voltaire disait, à propos de l'Anti-Machiavel du roi de Prusse: « Il crache

au plat pour en dégoûter les autres. »
713
A person was complimenting Mme Denis on her manner of playing the

character Zair: 'Oh, it would be necessary', she said, 'to be beautiful and
young to do so.' - 'Ah! Madame,' the man complimenting her replied
naively, 'you are very much the proof of the contrary.'
On faisait compliment à Mme Denis de la façon dont elle venait de jouer

Zair: « Il faudrait, dit-elle, être belle et jeune. - Ah! Madame, reprit le
complimenteur naivement, vous êtes bien la preuve du contraire. »
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
192 of 201
dramatic works?' - 'No,' responded Cailhava, 'I know very well that the
printing of them is a matter of question, too.'
[Note in book: 'The decree of 1791 concerning literary property forbid

any representation of dramatic works without the authorization of those
who had the rights to them.' 'Cailhava d'Estandoux, author of comedies,
Memoires and anecdotes'. ]
Cailhava qui, pendant toute la révolution, ne songeait qu'aux sujets de

plaintes des auteurs contre les comédiens, se plaignait à un homme de
lettres, lié avec plusieurs membres de l'Assemblée nationale, que le
décret n'arrivait pas. Celui-ci dit: « Mais pensez-vous qu'il ne s'agisse ici
que de représentations d'ouvrages dramatiques? - Non, répondit
Cailhava, je sais bien qu'il s'agit aussi d'impression. »
707
Some time before Louis XV was officially arranged with Mme de

Pompadour, she followed him when he went hunting. The king had the
kindness of sending M. d'Étioles a set of deer antlers. This latter hung it
in his dining room, with these words: "A present given by the king to M.
d'Étioles."
[Note: M. d'Étioles was secretary to the king and husband to Mme de

Pompadour.]
Quelque temps avant que Louis XV fût arrangé avec Mme de

Pompadour, elle courait après lui aux chasses. Le roi eut la
complaisance d'envoyer à M. d'Étioles une ramure de cerf. Celui-ci la fit
mettre dans sa salle à manger, avec ces mots: « Présent fait par le roi à
M. d'Étioles. »
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
193 of 201
you, tell him that I will make him give his.'
Mme de Genlis vivait avec M. de Senevoi. Un jour qu'elle avait son

mari à sa toilette, un soldat arrive et lui demande sa protection auprès de
M. de Senevoi, son colonel, auquel il demandait un congé. Mme de
Genlis se fâche contre cet impertinent; dit qu'elle ne connaît M. de
Senevoi que comme tout le monde; en un mot, refuse. M. de Genlis
retient le soldat, et lui dit: « Va demander ton congé en mon nom; et si
Senevoi te le refuse, dis-lui que je lui ferai donner le sien. »
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.'
[Note in book: 'The roués: surname given to the pleasure companions of

the regent Philippe d'Orléans.]
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
M. de Richelieu said, about the siege of Mahon by M. the duc de

Crillon: 'I took Mahon by being careless; and, in this way of doing
things, M. de Crillon seems to know more than myself.'
[Note in book: 'The maréchal de Richelieu had shown remarkable

recklessness during the siege of Mahon in 1756. But the capital of the
island of Minorca, given back to the English in 1763, was the object of a
new siege lead by Crillon in 1782.']
M. de Richelieu disait, au sujet du siège de Mahon par M. le duc de

Crillon: « J'ai pris Mahon par une étourderie; et, dans ce genre, M. de
Crillon paraît en savoir plus que moi. »
711
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At the battle of Raucoux or of Lawfeld, the young M. de Thianges had

his horse killed beneath him, and he himself was thrown far off of it;
however, he was not wounded by this. The maréchal de Saxe said to
him: 'Little Thianges, did you feel a pretty fear?' - 'Yes, M. le maréchal,'
the other said, 'I was afraid that you were injured.'
A la bataille de Raucoux ou de Lawfeld, le jeune M. de Thianges eut

son cheval tué sous lui, et lui-même fut jeté fort loin; cependant il n'en
fut point blessé. Le maréchal de Saxe lui dit: « Petit Thianges, tu as eu
une belle peur? - Oui, M. le maréchal, dit celui-ci, j'ai craint que vous ne
fussiez blessé. »
712
Voltaire said, with regard to the Anti-Machiavel by the king of Prussia:

'He spits on it so much so that other people won't read it too.'
[ On the Anti-Machiavel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Machiavel ]
Voltaire disait, à propos de l'Anti-Machiavel du roi de Prusse: « Il crache

au plat pour en dégoûter les autres. »
713
A person was complimenting Mme Denis on her manner of playing the

character Zair: 'Oh, it would be necessary', she said, 'to be beautiful and
young to do so.' - 'Ah! Madame,' the man complimenting her replied
naively, 'you are very much the proof of the contrary.'
On faisait compliment à Mme Denis de la façon dont elle venait de jouer

Zair: « Il faudrait, dit-elle, être belle et jeune. - Ah! Madame, reprit le
complimenteur naivement, vous êtes bien la preuve du contraire. »
714
M. Poissonnier the doctor, after returning from Russia, went to Ferney

and told M. de Voltaire everything false and exaggerated that he had
said about this country: 'My friend,' Voltaire responded naively, 'instead
of contradicting you, they gave me excellent furs, and I was very chilly.'
195 of 201
M. Poissonnier le médecin, après son retour de Russie, alla à Ferney, et

parlant à M. de Voltaire de tout ce qu'il avait dit de faux et d'exagéré sur
ce pays-là: « Mon ami, répondit naïvement Voltaire, au lieu de s'amuser
à contredire, ils m'ont donné de bonnes pelisses, et je suis très frileux. »
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
A woman had a lawsuit in the Parlement of Dijon. She came to Paris

and solicited M. the guard of Seals (1784) to ask him to write, in her
favor, a word that would make her win a very just lawsuit; the guard of
Seals refused. The cometesse de Talleyrand took interest in this woman;
she spoke about her to the guard of Seals: a new refusal. Mme de
Talleyrand went to speak to the queen about it: another refusal. Mme de
Talleyrand remembered that the guard of Seals was very fond of the
abbé de Périgord, his son. She made him write: an excellently worded
refusal. The desperate woman resolved to make an attempt and go to
Versailles. The next day, she left; the inconvenience of the public coach
required her to get off at Sèvres and to go the rest of the route on foot. A
man offered to take her on a more pleasant and shorter way. She
accepted, and told him her story. This man said: 'Tommorrow you will
have what you are asking for.' She looked at him and remained
confused. She went to the guard of the Seals, was refused again and
wanted to depart. The man engaged her to sleep one evening at
Versailles, and, the next morning, brought her the paper she was asking
for. He was the clerk of a clerk, named M. Étienne.
Une femme avait un procès au Parlement de Dijon. Elle vint à Paris,

sollicita M. le garde des Sceaux (1784) de vouloir bien écrire, en sa
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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.'
Le duc de la Vallière, voyant à l'Opéra la petite Lacour sans diamants,

s'approche d'elle et lui demande comment cela se fait. « C'est, lui dit-
elle, que les diamants sont la croix de Saint-Louis de notre état. » Sur ce
mot, il devint amoureux fou d'elle. Il a vécu avec elle longtemps. Elle le
subjuguait par les mêmes moyens qui réussirent à Mme du Barry près de
Louis XV. Elle lui ôtait son cordon bleu, le mettait à terre, et lui disait: «
Mets-toi à genoux là-dessus, vieille Ducaille. »
718
A famous gambler, named Sablière, had just been arrested. He was in

despair and said to Beaumarchais, who wanted to keep him from killing
197 of 201
himself: 'Me, arrested for two hundred louis! Abandoned by all of my

friends! It is I who formed them, who taught them how to be knaves.
Without me, what would B..., D..., N... be? (they are all still alive).
Finally, Monsieur, judge the excess of my abasement: in order to live, I
have to become a police spy.'
Un joueur fameux, nommé Sablière, venait d'être arrêté. Il était au

désespoir et disait à Beaumarchais, qui voulait l'empêcher de se tuer: «
Moi, arrêté pour deux cent louis! abandonné par tous mes amis! C'est
moi qui les ai formés, qui leur ai appris à friponner. Sans moi, que
seraient B..., D..., N...? (ils vivent tous). Enfin Monsieur, jugez de
l'excès de mon avilissement: pour vivre, je suis espion de police. »
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?'
On disait au satirique anglais Donne: « Tonnez sur les vices, mais

ménagez les vicieux. - Comment, dit-il, condamner les cartes, et
pardonner aux escrocs?
198 of 201
721
Someone asked M. de Lauzun how he would respond to his wife (who

he had not seen for ten years) if she wrote him: 'I just discovered that I
am pregnant.' He reflected, and responded: 'I would write her: 'I am
delighted to learn that Heaven has finally blessed our union. Take care
of your health; I will go to pay you my respects this evening.'
On demandait à M. de Lauzun ce qu'il répondrait à sa femme (qu'il

n'avait pas vue depuis dix ans), si elle lui écrivait: « Je viens de
découvrir que je suis grosse. » Il réfléchit, et répondit: « Je lui écrirais: «
Je suis charmé d'apprendre que le Ciel ait enfin béni notre union.
Soignez votre santé; j'irai vous faire ma cour ce soir. »
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.'
Mme de H... me racontait la mort de M. le duc d'Aumont. « Cela a

tourné bien court, disait-elle; deux jours auparavant M. Bouvard lui
avait permis de manger; et le jour même de sa mort, deux heures avant
la récidive de sa paralysie, il était, comme à trente ans, comme il avait
été toute sa vie: il avait demandé son perroquet, avait dit: « Brossez ce
fauteuil, voyons mes deux broderies nouvelles »; enfin, toute sa tête, ses
idées comme à l'ordinaire. »
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
199 of 201
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
J.-J. Rousseau is said to have had Mme la comtesse de Boufflers, and

even (pardon me this term) to have failed the opportunity, which left
them with very much anger toward each other. One day someone said in
front of them that love for humanity quenched love for ones country.
'For myself,' she said, 'I know, from my own example, and I also feel,
that this is not true; I am a very good Frenchwoman and I don't interest
myself any less in the happiness of all peoples.' - 'Indeed, I understand
you;' said Rousseau, 'you are a Frenchwoman with your bust and
cosmopolitan with the rest of your person.'
J.-J. Rousseau passe pour avoir eu Mme la comtesse de Boufflers, et

même (qu'on me passe ce terme) pour l'avoir manquée, ce qui leur
donna beaucoup d'humeur l'un contre l'autre. Un jour on disait devant
eux que l'amour du genre humain éteignait l'amour de la patrie. « Pour
moi, dit-elle, je sais, par mon exemple, et je sens que cela n'est pas vrai;
je suis très bonne Française et je ne m'intéresse pas moins au bonheur de
tous les peuples. - Oui, je vous entends, dit Rousseau, vous êtes
Française par votre buste et cosmopolite du reste de votre personne. »
726
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The maréchale de Noailles, still living (1780), is a mystic like Mme

Guyon, almost with esprit. Her head heated to the point of writing to the
Virgin. Her letter was put into the trunk of the church of Saint-Roch, and
the response to this letter was made by a priest of the parish. This game
lasted for a long time. The priest was discovered and was worried, but
the affair was kept quiet.
La maréchale de Noailles, actuellement vivante (1780), est une mystique

comme Mme Guyon, à l'esprit près. Sa tête s'était montée au point
d'écrire à la Vierge. Sa lettre fut mise dans le tronc de l'église Saint-
Roch, et la réponse à cette lettre fut faite par un prêtre de cette paroisse.
Ce manège dura longtemps. Le prêtre fut découvert et inquiété, mais on
assoupit cette affaire.
727
A young man had offended the pleasure companion of a minister of

state. A friend, witness to the scene, said to him after the departure of
the offended man: 'You must learn that it is better to offend the minister
himself than a man who follows him into his dressing-room.'
Un jeune homme avait offensé le complaisant d'un ministre. Un ami,

témoin de la scène, lui dit, après le départ de l'offensé: « Apprenez qu'il
vaudrait mieux avoir offensé le ministre même que l'homme qui lui suit
dans sa garde-robe. »
201 of 201

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Chamfort - The French Moralists

Chamfort - The French Moralists

Products of a Perfected Civilization

Why don't you give anything to the public any more?

It's because a reasonable man cannot act without motivation, and

Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionnée

Pourquoi ne donnez-vous rien au public?

C'est que le public me paraît avoir le comble du mauvais goût et la rage

Maxims and Thoughts

Most compilers of verse or of bon mots resemble people who eat

La plupart des faiseurs de recueils de vers ou de bons mots ressemblent

developed or proposed in the most celebrated books, in the most

There is no end to writing about education, and the works written on

On ne cesse d'écrire sur l'éducation, et les ouvrages écrits sur cette

It is a source of pleasure and philosophy to analyze the ideas that enter

C'est une source de plaisir et de philosophie de faire l'analyse des idées

It is with civilization as with cooking. When ones sees light dishes on a

Il en est de la civilisation comme de la cuisine. Quand on voit sur une

Man, in the actual state of society, seems to me more corrupted by his

L'homme, dans l'état actuel de la société, me paraît plus corrompu par

Society is not, as one usually thinks, a development of nature, but very

La société n'est pas, comme on le croit d'ordinaire, le développement de

In general, if society was not an artificial composition, every simple

A man of the people, a beggar, can let himself be scorned, without

One must agree that it is impossible to live in the world without

People sometimes make a very strange argument in society. They say to

If a person wanted to prove the perfect uselessness of all the books on

In the theater, a person wants to produce an effect; but what

Often an opinion, a custom, seems absurd when we are young, and

advancing in life, we find the reason. Musn't we conclude that certain

It seems that, according to the ideas in society and social decency, a

I read in a book by I-don't-know which traveler that certain savages in

It is necessary that there is everything in the world; it's necessary that,

The best philosophy, relative to the world, is an alliance between the

I am no more surprised to see one man tired of glory than I am to see

In society I have seen people ceaselessly sacrifice the esteem of

A strong proof that God exists, according to Dorilas, is that humans

One wishes for laziness in wicked men and silence in fools.

There is a superior prudence to what is usually meant by this

monstrosities that would be committed there? This is the reflection

Most of the men who live in society live there so scatterbrainedly,

In great things, men show themselves as they want to be seen; and in

What is a philosopher? It is a man who supports nature as opposed

A fool who shows a moment of intelligence surprises and scandalizes

Not to be in the hands of anyone, to be a man of one's own heart,

Instead of wanting to correct men for certain unbearable wrongs that

Three quarters of madness is only folly.

Opinion is the queen of the world because foolishness is the queen of

A person must be able to do foolish things that require character.

Being important without merit attracts consideration without esteem.

Rulers and commoners can do whatever they like, it is always necessary

Physical plagues and the calamities of nature made society necessary.

The fable of Tantalus has nearly only ever served as an emblem of

A philosopher who wants to extinguish his passions is like a chemist

Why are men such fools, so subjugated by custom or by fear of

Nature wanted wise men to have as many illusions as fools, so that

Most madnesses are only follies.

Intelligence often has the same relation to a person's heart as the

What poets, orators, and even philosophers say to us about love of

It is with the value of men as with that of diamonds, which, at a

Continuation of General Maxims

In France, everyone seems to be witty, and the reason is simple: since

No man who is alone can be as contemptible as a body of men. No