Chapter XVIII
Original French
Elle délivre son amant et un janséniste.
Au point du jour elle vole à Paris, munie de l’ordre du ministre. Ilest difficile de peindre ce qui se passait dans son coeur pendant cevoyage. Qu’on imagine une âme vertueuse et noble, humiliée de sonopprobre, enivrée de tendresse, déchirée des remords d’avoir trahi sonamant, pénétrée du plaisir de délivrer ce qu’elle adore! Ses amertumes,ses combats, son succès, partageaient toutes ses réflexions. Ce n’étaitplus cette fille simple dont une éducation provinciale avait rétréciles idées. L’amour et le malheur l’avaient formée. Le sentiment avaitfait autant de progrès en elle que la raison en avait fait dansl’esprit de son amant infortuné. Les filles apprennent à sentir plusaisément que les hommes n’apprennent à penser. Son aventure était plusinstructive que quatre ans de couvent.
Son habit était d’une simplicité extrême. Elle voyait avec horreur lesajustements sous lesquels elle avait paru devant son funestebienfaiteur; elle avait laissé ses boucles de diamants à sa compagnesans même les regarder. Confuse et charmée, idolâtre de l’Ingénu, et sehaïssant elle-même, elle arrive enfin à la porte de
… cet affreux château, palais de la vengeance,Qui renferme souvent le crime et l’innocence.
Quand il fallut descendre du carrosse, les forces lui manquèrent; onl’aida; elle entra, le coeur palpitant, les yeux humides, le frontconsterné. On la présente au gouverneur; elle veut lui parler, sa voixexpire; elle montre son ordre en articulant à peine quelques paroles.Le gouverneur aimait son prisonnier; il fut très aise de sa délivrance.Son coeur n’était pas endurci comme celui de quelques honorablesgeôliers ses confrères qui, ne pensant qu’à la rétribution attachée àla garde de leurs captifs, fondant leurs revenus sur leurs victimes, etvivant du malheur d’autrui, se fesaient en secret une joie affreuse deslarmes des infortunés.
Il fait venir le prisonnier dans son appartement. Les deux amants sevoient, et tous deux s’évanouissent. La belle Saint-Yves restalong-temps sans mouvement et sans vie: l’autre rappela bientôt soncourage. C’est apparemment là madame votre femme, lui dit legouverneur; vous ne m’aviez point dit que vous fussiez marié. On memande que c’est à ses soins généreux que vous devez votre délivrance.Ah! je ne suis pas digne d’être sa femme, dit la belle Saint-Yves d’unevoix tremblante; et elle retomba encore en faiblesse.
Quand elle eut repris ses sens, elle présenta, toujours tremblante, lebrevet de la gratification, et la promesse par écrit d’une compagnie.L’Ingénu, aussi étonné qu’attendri, s’éveillait d’un songe pourretomber dans un autre. Pourquoi ai-je été renfermé ici? commentavez-vous pu m’en tirer? où sont les monstres qui m’y ont plongé? Vousêtes une divinité qui descendez du ciel à mon secours.
La belle Saint-Yves baissait la vue, regardait son amant, rougissait,et détournait, le moment d’après, ses yeux mouillés de pleurs. Elle luiapprit enfin tout ce qu’elle savait, et tout ce qu’elle avait éprouvé,excepté ce qu’elle aurait voulu se cacher pour jamais, et ce qu’unautre que l’Ingénu, plus accoutumé au monde et plus instruit des usagesde la cour, aurait deviné facilement.
Est-il possible qu’un misérable comme ce bailli ait eu le pouvoir de meravir ma liberté? Ah! je vois bien qu’il en est des hommes comme desplus vils animaux; tous peuvent nuire. Mais est-il possible qu’unmoine, un jésuite confesseur du roi, ait contribué à mon infortuneautant que ce bailli, sans que je puisse imaginer sous quel prétexte cedétestable fripon m’a persécuté? M’a-t-il fait passer pour unjanséniste? Enfin, comment vous êtes-vous souvenue de moi? je ne leméritais pas, je n’étais alors qu’un sauvage. Quoi! vous avez pu sansconseil, sans secours, entreprendre le voyage de Versailles! Vous yavez paru, et on a brisé mes fers! Il est donc dans la beauté et dansla vertu un charme invincible qui fait tomber les portes de fer, et quiamollit les coeurs de bronze!
A ce mot de vertu, des sanglots échappèrent à la belle Saint-Yves.Elle ne savait pas combien elle était vertueuse dans le crime qu’ellese reprochait.
Son amant continua ainsi: Ange, qui avez rompu mes liens, si vous avezeu (ce que je ne comprends pas encore) assez de crédit pour me fairerendre justice, faites-la donc rendre aussi à un vieillard qui m’a lepremier appris à penser, comme vous m’avez appris à aimer. La calamiténous a unis; je l’aime comme un père, je ne peux vivre ni sans vous nisans lui.
Moi! que je sollicite le même homme qui….—Oui, je veux tout vousdevoir, et je ne veux devoir jamais rien qu’à vous: écrivez à cet hommepuissant, comblez-moi de vos bienfaits, achevez ce que vous avezcommencé, achevez vos prodiges. Elle sentait qu’elle devait faire toutce que son amant exigeait: elle voulut écrire, sa main ne pouvaitobéir. Elle recommença trois fois sa lettre, la déchira trois fois;elle écrivit enfin, et les deux amants sortirent après avoir embrasséle vieux martyr de la grâce efficace.
L’heureuse et désolée Saint-Yves savait dans quelle maison logeait sonfrère; elle y alla; son amant prit un appartement dans la même maison.
A peine y furent-ils arrivés que son protecteur lui envoya l’ordre del’élargissement du bon-homme Gordon, et lui demanda un rendez-vous pourle lendemain. Ainsi, à chaque action honnête et généreuse qu’ellefesait, son déshonneur en était le prix. Elle regardait avec exécrationcet usage de vendre le malheur et le bonheur des hommes. Elle donnal’ordre de l’élargissement à son amant, et refusa le rendez-vous d’unbienfaiteur qu’elle ne pouvait plus voir sans expirer de douleur et dehonte. L’Ingénu ne pouvait se séparer d’elle que pour aller délivrer unami: il y vola. Il remplit ce devoir en réfléchissant sur les étrangesévénements de ce monde, et en admirant la vertu courageuse d’une jeunefille à qui deux infortunés devaient plus que la vie.
Musean translation
Complete machine-assisted Musean translation made directly from the French, independently of the Plain English edition. All twenty chapters and Voltaire’s three author notes are retained; Beuchot’s editorial apparatus is omitted.
She frees her lover and a Jansenist.
At daybreak she flew to Paris, armed with the minister's order. It is difficult to portray what passed in her heart during that journey. Imagine a virtuous and noble soul, humbled by her disgrace, intoxicated with tenderness, torn by remorse for having betrayed her lover, filled with the joy of freeing the man she adored! Her bitterness, her struggles, her success divided all her thoughts among them. She was no longer the simple girl whose provincial upbringing had narrowed her ideas. Love and misfortune had formed her. Feeling had advanced as far in her as reason had in the mind of her unfortunate lover. Girls learn to feel more readily than men learn to think. Her ordeal had taught her more than four years in a convent.
Her dress was of the utmost simplicity. She looked with horror on the finery in which she had appeared before her fatal benefactor; she had left her diamond earrings with her companion without even looking at them. Mortified and delighted, idolizing the Ingénu and hating herself, she arrived at last at the gates of
… that dreadful castle, palace of revenge,Which often holds both crime and innocence.
When the time came to step down from the carriage, her strength failed her; she was helped out. She entered with a pounding heart, wet eyes, and a stricken face. She was shown to the governor; she tried to speak to him, but her voice died away. She showed him her order, scarcely able to articulate a few words. The governor liked his prisoner and was very glad of his release. His heart was not hardened like those of certain honorable jailers, his colleagues, who thought only of the fees attached to the custody of their captives, founded their income on their victims, lived on the misfortunes of others, and secretly took a dreadful joy in the tears of the unhappy.
He had the prisoner brought to his apartment. The two lovers saw each other, and both fainted. The beautiful Saint-Yves lay motionless and lifeless for a long time; the other soon recovered his courage. "This is evidently your wife," the governor told him. "You had not told me you were married. I am informed that you owe your release to her generous efforts." "Ah! I am not worthy to be his wife," said the beautiful Saint-Yves in a trembling voice; and she fainted once again.
When she came to her senses, still trembling, she presented the warrant for the gratuity and the written promise of a company to command. The Ingénu, as astonished as he was moved, woke from one dream only to fall into another. "Why was I locked up here? How have you managed to get me out? Where are the monsters who cast me into this place? You are a divinity come down from heaven to my rescue."
The beautiful Saint-Yves lowered her gaze, looked at her lover, blushed, and a moment later turned away her tear-filled eyes. At last she told him everything she knew and everything she had endured, except what she would have wished to hide forever even from herself, and what anyone other than the Ingénu, more accustomed to the world and better acquainted with the ways of the court, would easily have guessed.
"Is it possible that a wretch like that bailiff had the power to rob me of my freedom? Ah! I see that men are like the vilest animals: all can do harm. But is it possible that a monk, a Jesuit who hears the king's confession, contributed as much to my misfortune as that bailiff, when I cannot even imagine on what pretext the loathsome scoundrel persecuted me? Did he pass me off as a Jansenist? And how did you remember me? I did not deserve it; I was only a savage then. What! Without advice, without help, you were able to undertake the journey to Versailles! You appeared there, and my chains were broken! Beauty and virtue must possess an invincible charm that brings down iron gates and softens hearts of bronze!"
At the word virtue, the beautiful Saint-Yves broke into sobs. She did not know how virtuous she was in the crime for which she reproached herself.
Her lover continued: "Angel who broke my chains, if you had enough influence—which I still do not understand—to have justice done me, then have it done as well to an old man who first taught me to think, as you have taught me to love. Calamity united us. I love him as a father; I cannot live without either you or him."
"I! Ask a favor of the same man who…" "Yes, I want to owe you everything, and never to owe anything to anyone but you. Write to that powerful man, shower me with your kindness, finish what you have begun, complete your miracles." She felt that she must do everything her lover asked. She tried to write; her hand would not obey. Three times she began her letter again; three times she tore it up. At last she wrote, and the two lovers left after embracing the old martyr to efficacious grace.
The happy, desolate Saint-Yves knew the house where her brother was staying; she went there, and her lover took an apartment in the same house.
They had scarcely arrived when her protector sent her the order for good old Gordon's release and asked her to meet him the next day. Thus her dishonor was the price of every honest and generous action she performed. She looked with loathing on this practice of selling human happiness and misery. She gave the release order to her lover and refused to meet a benefactor whom she could no longer see without dying of grief and shame. The Ingénu could tear himself away from her only to go and free a friend: he flew there. He fulfilled this duty while reflecting on the strange events of this world and admiring the courageous virtue of a young girl to whom two unhappy men owed more than life.
Plain English translation
Complete machine-assisted Plain English translation made independently and directly from the French, not from the Musean edition. All twenty chapters and Voltaire’s three author notes are retained; Beuchot’s editorial apparatus is omitted.
She frees her lover and a Jansenist.
At daybreak she rushed to Paris with the minister's order. It's hard to describe what was happening in her heart during that journey. Imagine a noble, virtuous soul, humiliated by her disgrace, drunk with love, torn by remorse for betraying her lover, and filled with the joy of freeing the man she adored! Her bitter feelings, her struggles, and her success all competed for her thoughts. She was no longer the simple girl whose provincial upbringing had kept her ideas narrow. Love and suffering had educated her. Her feelings had developed as much as reason had developed in her unfortunate lover's mind. Girls learn to feel more easily than men learn to think. Her experience had taught her more than four years in a convent.
She was dressed very simply. She looked with horror on the finery she had worn before her disastrous benefactor. She had left her diamond earrings with her companion without even looking at them. Ashamed and delighted, worshiping the Ingénu and hating herself, she finally arrived at the gate of
… that terrible castle, a palace of revenge,Where the guilty and the innocent are often held.
When it was time to get out of the carriage, her strength failed. Someone helped her. She went in with her heart pounding, her eyes wet, and her face full of distress. She was taken to the governor. She tried to speak to him, but her voice died away. She showed him her order, barely managing a few words. The governor liked his prisoner and was very glad he was being freed. His heart hadn't hardened like those of some of his honorable fellow jailers. Thinking only of the payment they received for guarding their captives, basing their income on their victims, and living off other people's misery, those men took a dreadful, secret pleasure in the tears of the unfortunate.
He had the prisoner brought to his rooms. The two lovers saw each other, and both fainted. The beautiful Saint-Yves lay motionless and lifeless for a long time. The Ingénu soon recovered his strength of mind. "This is your wife, I assume," the governor told him. "You hadn't told me you were married. I'm informed that you owe your release to her generous efforts." "Oh, I'm not worthy to be his wife," said the beautiful Saint-Yves in a trembling voice, and she fainted again.
When she came to, she showed him, still trembling, the document granting the payment and the written promise of command of a company. The Ingénu, as astonished as he was moved, seemed to wake from one dream only to fall into another. "Why was I locked up here? How did you manage to get me out? Where are the monsters who put me here? You're a goddess coming down from heaven to help me."
The beautiful Saint-Yves lowered her eyes, looked at her lover, blushed, and a moment later turned her tearful eyes away. At last she told him everything she knew and everything she had gone through, except what she wished she could hide from herself forever. Anyone but the Ingénu, anyone with more experience of the world and more knowledge of the ways of the court, would easily have guessed it.
"Can a wretch like that bailiff really have had the power to take my freedom away? Oh, I see that people are like the lowest animals: all of them can do harm. But can a monk, a Jesuit who hears the king's confessions, really have done as much to cause my suffering as that bailiff? I can't even imagine what excuse that hateful scoundrel used to persecute me. Did he claim I was a Jansenist? And how did you remember me? I didn't deserve it. I was only a savage then. What! With no advice and no help, you managed to set out for Versailles! You appeared there, and my chains were broken! Then beauty and virtue do have an irresistible charm that brings down iron doors and softens hearts of bronze!"
At the word virtue, the beautiful Saint-Yves broke into sobs. She didn't know how virtuous she had been in committing the crime she blamed herself for.
Her lover went on: "Angel who broke my chains, if you had enough influence to get justice for me—something I still don't understand—please get it for an old man too. He first taught me to think, just as you taught me to love. Misery brought us together. I love him like a father. I can't live without either you or him."
"Me! Ask a favor of the same man who…" "Yes, I want to owe everything to you, and never owe anything to anyone else. Write to that powerful man. Shower me with your kindness. Finish what you've begun. Complete your miracles." She felt she had to do everything her lover asked. She tried to write, but her hand wouldn't obey. Three times she began her letter again, and three times she tore it up. At last she wrote it, and the two lovers left after embracing the old martyr to efficacious grace.
Saint-Yves, happy and miserable, knew where her brother was staying and went there. Her lover took rooms in the same house.
Hardly had they arrived when her protector sent her the order for good old Gordon's release and asked to meet her the next day. So her dishonor was the price of every decent, generous act she performed. She looked with disgust on this practice of selling human misery and happiness. She gave her lover the release order and refused to meet a benefactor she could no longer see without dying of sorrow and shame. The Ingénu could leave her only to free a friend. He rushed there. As he fulfilled this duty, he reflected on the strange events of this world and admired the courageous virtue of a young woman to whom two unhappy men owed more than their lives.
About this section
Chapter XVIII is part of L’Ingénu, histoire véritable tirée des manuscrits du P. Quesnel by Voltaire. This page sets the French original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is chapter 18 of 20 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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