Letter 093 — XCIII
Original French
Osterode, le 27 mars 1807.
Mon amie, ta lettre me fait de la peine. Tu ne dois pas mourir; tu te portes bien, et tu ne peux avoir aucun sujet raisonnable de chagrin. Je pense que tu dois aller au mois de mai à Saint-Cloud; mais il faut rester tout le mois d’avril à Paris… Tu ne dois pas penser à voyager cet été; tout cela n’est pas possible; tu ne dois pas courir les auberges et les camps. Je désire, autant que toi, te voir et vivre tranquille. Je sais faire autre chose que la guerre; mais le devoir passe avant tout. Toute ma vie, j’ai tout sacrifié, tranquillité, intérêt, bonheur à ma destinée.
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.
Osterode, March 27, 1807.
My dear friend, your letter grieves me. You must not die; you are well, and you can have no reasonable cause for sorrow. I think you should go to Saint-Cloud in May; but you must stay in Paris throughout April… You must not think of traveling this summer; none of that is possible; you must not go wandering through inns and camps. I long as much as you do to see you and live in peace. I know how to do things besides wage war; but duty comes before all else. All my life, I have sacrificed everything—peace, interest, happiness—to my destiny.
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.
Osterode, March 27, 1807.
My dear, your letter makes me unhappy. You must not die; you are healthy and have no reasonable cause for grief. I think you should go to Saint-Cloud in May, but you must stay in Paris all through April… You must not think of traveling this summer. None of that is possible; you must not go from inn to inn and camp to camp. I want to see you and live quietly just as much as you do. I know how to do things besides wage war, but duty comes before everything. All my life I have sacrificed everything—peace, self-interest, happiness—to my destiny.
About this section
Letter 093 — XCIII 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 93 of 172 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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