Letter 005 — V
Original French
Albenga, le 18 germinal (7 avril 1796).
Je reçois une lettre que tu interromps pour aller, dis-tu, à la campagne; et, après cela, tu te donnes le ton d’être jalouse de moi, qui suis ici accablé d’affaires et de fatigues. Ah! ma bonne amie!… Il est vrai que j’ai tort. Dans les premiers temps, la campagne est belle; et puis, l’amant de dix-neuf ans s’y trouvait sans doute. Le moyen de perdre un instant de plus à écrire à celui qui, éloigné de trois cents lieues de toi, ne vit, ne jouit, n’existe que pour ton souvenir, qui lit tes lettres comme on dévore, après six heures de chasse, les mets que l’on aime. Je ne suis pas content. Ta dernière lettre est froide comme l’amitié. Je n’y ai pas trouvé ce feu qui allume tes regards, ce que j’ai cru quelquefois y voir. Mais quelle est ma bizarrerie! J’ai trouvé que tes lettres précédentes oppressaient trop mon âme; la révolution qu’elles y produisaient attaquait mon repos, et asservissait mes sens. Je désirais des lettres plus froides, mais elles me donnent le glacé de la mort. La crainte de ne pas être aimé de Joséphine, l’idée de la voir inconstante, de la… Mais je me forge des peines. Il en est tant de réelles! Faut-il encore s’en fabriquer? Tu ne peux m’avoir inspiré un amour sans bornes sans le partager, et avec ton âme, ta pensée et ta raison, l’on ne peut pas, en retour de l’abandon, du dévouement, donner en échange le coup de mort… Un souvenir de mon unique femme et une victoire du destin, voilà mes souhaits: un souvenir unique, entier, digne de celui qui pense à toi à tous les instants.
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.
Albenga, 18 Germinal (April 7, 1796).
I receive a letter you interrupt to go, you say, to the country; and after that you put on an air of jealousy toward me, who am overwhelmed here with affairs and fatigue. Ah, my dear friend! … It is true, I am wrong. In the early days the country is beautiful; and besides, the nineteen-year-old lover was no doubt there. How could you waste another moment writing to the man who, three hundred leagues away from you, lives, takes pleasure, exists only for the memory of you, who reads your letters as one devours a favorite dish after six hours of hunting? I am not content. Your last letter is cold as friendship. I did not find in it the fire that lights your eyes, what I sometimes thought I saw there. But how strange I am! I found that your earlier letters oppressed my soul too much; the upheaval they caused disturbed my rest and enslaved my senses. I wanted colder letters, but they give me the chill of death. The fear of not being loved by Joséphine, the thought of seeing her inconstant, of … But I invent troubles for myself. There are so many real ones! Must I manufacture more? You could not have inspired boundless love in me without sharing it, and with your soul, your mind and your reason, one cannot give a deathblow in return for surrender and devotion… A remembrance from my only wife and a victory of fate: those are my wishes—a singular, complete remembrance, worthy of the man who thinks of you at every moment.
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.
Albenga, 18 Germinal (April 7, 1796).
A letter arrives from you which you break off, you say, to go into the country; and then you take it upon yourself to be jealous of me, overwhelmed here by work and exhaustion. Ah, my dear friend!... It is true, I am wrong. The countryside is beautiful at the beginning of the season, and no doubt the nineteen-year-old lover was there too. How could you waste another moment writing to a man three hundred leagues away, who lives, enjoys anything and exists only for the memory of you, and reads your letters as one devours a favorite meal after six hours of hunting? I am not pleased. Your last letter is as cold as friendship. I found none of the fire that lights your eyes, that I thought I had sometimes seen in them. Yet how inconsistent I am! I thought your earlier letters weighed too heavily on my soul; the upheaval they caused disturbed my peace and enslaved my senses. I wished your letters less ardent, but their coolness is the chill of death. The fear that Joséphine does not love me, the thought of finding her inconstant, of... But I am imagining troubles. There are already so many real ones! Must I manufacture others? You cannot have awakened such limitless love in me without feeling it yourself; with a soul, a mind and a reason like yours, you could not repay surrender and devotion with a mortal blow... A thought from my only wife and a victory over fate: those are my wishes. A single, complete thought, worthy of the man who thinks of you every moment.
About this section
Letter 005 — V 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 5 of 172 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
Open the work page for the full contents, every edition, and the download links, or go back to Explore to browse other complete works in the European tradition. The reader keeps your place when you are signed in and lets you compare the original with each translation, one edition at a time.