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Letter 074 — LXXIV

74 of 172 parts in Letters to Josephine by Napoléon Bonaparte

Original French

Golimin, le 29 décembre 1806, cinq heures du matin.

Je ne t’écris qu’un mot, mon amie, je suis dans une mauvaise grange. J’ai battu les Russes, je leur ai pris trente pièces de canon, leurs bagages, et fait six mille prisonniers; mais le temps est affreux; il pleut, nous avons de la boue jusqu’aux genoux.

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.

Golimin, December 29, 1806, five in the morning.

I write you only a word, my friend; I am in a wretched barn. I have beaten the Russians, taken thirty cannon and their baggage, and made six thousand prisoners; but the weather is dreadful; it is raining, and we have mud up to our knees.

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.

Golimin, December 29, 1806, five in the morning.

Just a word, my friend: I am in a poor barn. I have defeated the Russians, taking thirty cannon and their baggage and capturing six thousand prisoners. But the weather is dreadful; it is raining and we are knee-deep in mud.

About this section

Letter 074 — LXXIV 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 74 of 172 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.

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