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trf_chan decided this was Saint-Just's month, here I post something related to him.
I tried to translate one of Saint-Just’s early texts, which he wrote around April 1789, after Organt. I say "tried", because some parts of Saint-Just’s writing can be very obscure in French, so the translating work makes it just a lot worse. Thus I tried to give this text as much sense as it could... judging from what I understood of it.
The context of it is another very obscure thing. Abensour and Kupiec present it this way, in the Œuvres complètes : “ The decision which condemned Guillaume Kornmann and gave reason to his wife shocked public opinion. This woman had a lover she financially supported – who was named Daudet – and for this, her husband had her arrested and locked up. In this case, Beaumarchais defended the accused woman's side.
The facts themselves are not what interest Saint-Just the most, but rather the sense of the verdict. This decision was very far from the use of reason and resulted from the state in which royalty, nobility and clergy were. This is precisely through this parable that Saint-Just explains the failure of reason.
This short text is both in continuity and in rupture with Organt. Folly, foolishness, hypocrisy represent the morality of the Court and of the Church, which are still denounced by Saint-Just, but the Third Estate itself doesn’t escape from the critics, inspired from cynicism, illustrated by the presence of Reason at the morgue. But the evocation of the future reunion of the Estates General introduces a connection to reality which is no longer masked, as in Organt.”
A lot of political references which are difficult to understand then. Nevertheless, the subject is very interesting: the death of Reason. Modern theme, isn't it? Actually, it's one of the themes I love to speak about very often...
La Raison à la morne
The day following the verdict on Kornmann’s case, at 7 o’clock in the morning, an unknown woman was found dead in the great staircase. She was brought in the great room, she was exposed to the public, nobody recognised her ; nobody had dared to touch her, since she was dressed in rags and tatter. Daudet, who was walking there like usual, searched through the poor woman’s pocket, he found a letter which was addressed: 'to Reason'. He opened it and read it.
“I am despaired to see the hope to which you are reduced to. There must be no other retreats on Earth for you to be in France. I would have brought you with me, but which figure could you show to the Court? I didn’t wish for the others to see that I knew you. See if you can take the looks of folly to please the queen, those of a whore to please M. De Breteuil, those of a fool to please M. de Barentin, those of Priapus’ hypocrisy and of greed to please the Clergy, those of arrogance and foolishness to please Nobility, and, those of Liberty to please the Third Estate. Truly, I suffer because of your suffering, which lasted for so many centuries. I spoke of you to the king. He answered that he didn't want to welcome strangers in his kingdom. The queen was present and asked me, whispering to my ear, if you were pretty. She proposed to give you the position of Mmes de Polignac and Lebrun (*) but, in the only case that you would be vigorous and plump, and, pretty. Yet, since you don’t like flattery, I’ll admit to you that I presented you the way you were, aged by misfortune, emaciated by an angry hunger and misanthropic by means of men’s discounts, the eyes punctured by the prince de Condé, badly dressed and smeared by the prince de Conti. The queen answered to me “oh, well”…
I suggest you should find the duc d’Orléans, he’s the only one able to recognise you, and he could give you the boutique of a novelties merchant in his Palais-Royal. Once, foolishness sold wisdom ; wisdom will then sell foolishness.
I am quite unhappy of not being able to dare to do the good, and, I don’t know how I will exit from my labyrinth. The cloud of the Estates General will burst, and a storm will get out of it, a storm which will wrap us up with dust ; we will enter one-eyed, we will exit blind. (**)
Don’t give me any advice anymore. You would lose me. Gold is needed and since I can only find some in exchange of honour, you would turn me away from it and we would perish.
Swear that you will remain silent during the holding of the Estates, exactly like you did during the last three years. Tomorrow, Kornmann is being judged ; the wish of the queen and of the whores is against him. I demand you to go and listen the verdict so you can tell it to me after. You can go without fearing M. Lenoir [the police chief] ; nobody will recognise you.”
NEKER [sic]
Thus Daudet started laughing and monseigneur Séguier got back into his carriage to dream of a charge against Reason.
The corpse was brought at the morne (***) where it remained for long.
(*) I suppose he's refering to Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun. Wiki says she shared with Marie-Antoinette the reputation to be "debauched", so it makes sense.
(**) I don't know for you, but I really like that part...
(***) Somehow, I don’t really know what the « morne » means. I’m guessing it should be the morgue, since it would be logical, but my dictionary also says it could refer to a hill or a mound… which would also make a lot of sense, where the corpse of Reason could be buried.
trf_chan decided this was Saint-Just's month, here I post something related to him. I tried to translate one of Saint-Just’s early texts, which he wrote around April 1789, after Organt. I say "tried", because some parts of Saint-Just’s writing can be very obscure in French, so the translating work makes it just a lot worse. Thus I tried to give this text as much sense as it could... judging from what I understood of it.
The context of it is another very obscure thing. Abensour and Kupiec present it this way, in the Œuvres complètes : “ The decision which condemned Guillaume Kornmann and gave reason to his wife shocked public opinion. This woman had a lover she financially supported – who was named Daudet – and for this, her husband had her arrested and locked up. In this case, Beaumarchais defended the accused woman's side.
The facts themselves are not what interest Saint-Just the most, but rather the sense of the verdict. This decision was very far from the use of reason and resulted from the state in which royalty, nobility and clergy were. This is precisely through this parable that Saint-Just explains the failure of reason.
This short text is both in continuity and in rupture with Organt. Folly, foolishness, hypocrisy represent the morality of the Court and of the Church, which are still denounced by Saint-Just, but the Third Estate itself doesn’t escape from the critics, inspired from cynicism, illustrated by the presence of Reason at the morgue. But the evocation of the future reunion of the Estates General introduces a connection to reality which is no longer masked, as in Organt.”
A lot of political references which are difficult to understand then. Nevertheless, the subject is very interesting: the death of Reason. Modern theme, isn't it? Actually, it's one of the themes I love to speak about very often...
La Raison à la morne
The day following the verdict on Kornmann’s case, at 7 o’clock in the morning, an unknown woman was found dead in the great staircase. She was brought in the great room, she was exposed to the public, nobody recognised her ; nobody had dared to touch her, since she was dressed in rags and tatter. Daudet, who was walking there like usual, searched through the poor woman’s pocket, he found a letter which was addressed: 'to Reason'. He opened it and read it.
“I am despaired to see the hope to which you are reduced to. There must be no other retreats on Earth for you to be in France. I would have brought you with me, but which figure could you show to the Court? I didn’t wish for the others to see that I knew you. See if you can take the looks of folly to please the queen, those of a whore to please M. De Breteuil, those of a fool to please M. de Barentin, those of Priapus’ hypocrisy and of greed to please the Clergy, those of arrogance and foolishness to please Nobility, and, those of Liberty to please the Third Estate. Truly, I suffer because of your suffering, which lasted for so many centuries. I spoke of you to the king. He answered that he didn't want to welcome strangers in his kingdom. The queen was present and asked me, whispering to my ear, if you were pretty. She proposed to give you the position of Mmes de Polignac and Lebrun (*) but, in the only case that you would be vigorous and plump, and, pretty. Yet, since you don’t like flattery, I’ll admit to you that I presented you the way you were, aged by misfortune, emaciated by an angry hunger and misanthropic by means of men’s discounts, the eyes punctured by the prince de Condé, badly dressed and smeared by the prince de Conti. The queen answered to me “oh, well”…
I suggest you should find the duc d’Orléans, he’s the only one able to recognise you, and he could give you the boutique of a novelties merchant in his Palais-Royal. Once, foolishness sold wisdom ; wisdom will then sell foolishness.
I am quite unhappy of not being able to dare to do the good, and, I don’t know how I will exit from my labyrinth. The cloud of the Estates General will burst, and a storm will get out of it, a storm which will wrap us up with dust ; we will enter one-eyed, we will exit blind. (**)
Don’t give me any advice anymore. You would lose me. Gold is needed and since I can only find some in exchange of honour, you would turn me away from it and we would perish.
Swear that you will remain silent during the holding of the Estates, exactly like you did during the last three years. Tomorrow, Kornmann is being judged ; the wish of the queen and of the whores is against him. I demand you to go and listen the verdict so you can tell it to me after. You can go without fearing M. Lenoir [the police chief] ; nobody will recognise you.”
Thus Daudet started laughing and monseigneur Séguier got back into his carriage to dream of a charge against Reason.
The corpse was brought at the morne (***) where it remained for long.
(*) I suppose he's refering to Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun. Wiki says she shared with Marie-Antoinette the reputation to be "debauched", so it makes sense.
(**) I don't know for you, but I really like that part...
(***) Somehow, I don’t really know what the « morne » means. I’m guessing it should be the morgue, since it would be logical, but my dictionary also says it could refer to a hill or a mound… which would also make a lot of sense, where the corpse of Reason could be buried.
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