Napoleon to Joséphine · 3 April 1796
Letters from Napoleon · Chapter I To Italy · Port-Maurice (Porto Maurizio, today Imperia)
Listen to the first sentence (French)
The letter and its translation
J'ai reçu toutes tes lettres, mais aucune n'a fait sur moi l'impression de ta dernière.
I have received all your letters, but none has moved me like your last one.
Quel style ! Quels sentiments que ceux que tu peins ! Ils sont de feu, ils brûlent mon pauvre cœur.
What a style! What feelings you paint! They are fire; they burn my poor heart.
Mon unique Joséphine, loin de toi il n'est point de gaieté ; loin de toi le monde est un désert où je reste isolé, et sans éprouver la douceur de m'épancher.
My one and only Joséphine, far from you there is no joy; far from you the world is a desert where I remain alone, without the sweetness of opening my heart.
Si je suis ennuyé du tracas des affaires, si j'en crains l'issue, si les hommes me dégoûtent, si je suis prêt à maudire la vie, je mets la main sur mon cœur : ton portrait y bat.
If I am weary of the worries of business, if I fear how it will end, if people disgust me, if I am ready to curse life, I put my hand on my heart: your portrait beats there.
C'est une magie, ma douce amie, qui ne finira qu'avec moi. Vivre pour Joséphine, voilà l'histoire de ma vie.
It is a magic, my sweet love, that will end only with me. To live for Joséphine: that is the story of my life.
Selected sentences from the letter. The translation is our own.
Bonaparte married Joséphine in Paris on 9 March 1796 and left two days later to command the Army of Italy. After reaching headquarters at Nice he moved east along the coast road, and wrote this letter at Porto Maurizio: a bridegroom of twenty-six writing to his bride of thirty-two. The English traveller Charles Tennant printed it in 1824 as a ‘correct transcript from the original’. The picture is the young general as Gros painted him in Italy that same year.
In the app the letter arrives line by line like a message, with the meaning under each word, and you can talk with the writer. Chapter I is free.
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Credits
- Picture: Antoine-Jean Gros · Bonaparte au pont d'Arcole · 1796 · Musée du Louvre, Paris (étude, 1796) · Public domain (PD-Art) · source
- Letter text: Tennant 1824, Appendix No. II · Charles Tennant, A Tour through parts of the Netherlands, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Savoy and France, in the year 1821-2 (London, Longman, 1824), vol. II, Appendix, No. II, pp. 444–445 · public domain · archive.org
- Narration: made with Supertonic 3 (Supertone Inc.), model licence OpenRAIL-M.
- All sources: Lingua Museum sources and licences
