Letter 124 — CXXIV
Original French
Le 9 janvier 1809.
Moustache m’apporte une lettre de toi, du 31 décembre. Je vois, mon amie, que tu as l’inquiétude noire. L’Autriche ne me fera pas la guerre. Si elle me la fait, j’ai 150 000 hommes en Allemagne, et autant sur le Rhin, et 400 000 Allemands pour lui répondre. La Russie ne se séparera pas de moi. On est fou à Paris; tout marche bien. Je serai à Paris aussitôt que je le croirai utile. Je te conseille de prendre garde aux revenants; un beau jour, à deux heures du matin… Mais, adieu, mon amie; je me porte bien, et suis tout à toi.
Musean translation
Machine-assisted Musean English translated from the French of the 172 Napoleon letters selected from Tancrède Martel, ed., Œuvres littéraires de Napoléon Bonaparte, tome 1 (Albert Savine, Paris, 1888). French Wikisource contributors supplied the scan-backed transcription: https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Livre:Bonaparte_-_Œuvres_littéraires,_tome_1,_1888.djvu (page histories credit contributors). The transcription is CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/; this adapted text and translations are shared under the same license. Extraction removes markup and editorial notes; selected transcription repairs were checked against print images.
January 9, 1809.
Moustache brings me a letter from you, dated December 31. I see, my dear friend, that you are sunk in the darkest anxiety. Austria will not make war on me. If she does, I have 150,000 men in Germany, as many on the Rhine, and 400,000 Germans to answer her. Russia will not part from me. People in Paris are mad; all is going well. I shall be in Paris as soon as I believe it useful. I advise you to beware of ghosts; one fine day, at two in the morning… But farewell, my dear friend; I am well, and wholly yours.
Plain English translation
Independent machine-assisted Plain English translation from the 1888 Martel French edition, not a historical English translation. French Wikisource contributors supplied the scan-backed transcription: https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Livre:Bonaparte_-_Œuvres_littéraires,_tome_1,_1888.djvu (page histories credit contributors). The adapted transcription and translation are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. Extraction removes markup and editorial notes and makes documented transcription repairs. French-source model review is not human specialist certification or a complete scan collation.
January 9, 1809.
Moustache has brought me your letter of December 31. I see, my friend, that you are sunk in gloomy anxiety. Austria will not wage war against me; if she does, I can answer her with 150,000 men in Germany, another 150,000 on the Rhine, and 400,000 Germans. Russia will not break with me. Paris has gone mad; everything is proceeding well. I will be in Paris as soon as I think it useful. You had better beware of ghosts: one fine day, at two in the morning… But goodbye, my friend. I am in good health and wholly yours.
About this section
Letter 124 — CXXIV is part of Letters to Josephine by Napoléon Bonaparte. This page sets the French original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is part 124 of 172 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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