Sebastien-Roch Nicolas
dit Chamfort
1740-1794.
French
author, wit, moralist and writer of maxims, thoughts
and anecdotes.
About
Chamfort:
Chamfort
(a pseudonym, whence "dit Chamfort") was not
an optimist, but then he was extra-ordinarily
intelligent and perceptive, and a man of
considerable courage and independence of mind.
Chamfort was an ill man
for a more than half of his life. He supported the
French Revolution originally, and was secretary of
the Jacobin Club until August 1791. Under the régime
of Marat and Robespierre he was arrested, was ill
treated in prison, and grew more ill.
In September 1793 he
feared another arrest, and attempted suicide, both
by shooting himself and opening his veins. He
failed, and wrote when he was found in his own
blood, part of his cheek and one eye shot to pieces
“I, Sebastien-Roch
Nicolas Chamfort, declare that I rather wanted
to die as a free man than be taken to and
enslaved in a prison."
After that he lingered
on till April 13, 1794, when he died. To a friend he
said
“Ah! my firend, I
finally leave this world, where one's heart must
break or turn to brass."
His "Maximes et
Pensées" was admired by Hazlitt,
Mill,
Schopenhauer, Burckhardt
and Nietzsche,
to name some.
On this site there are
(or will be)
The English translation
and my comments have my copyright.
My edition is based on
(1) a literal french reproduction of the first
edition of the "Maximes et Pensées" (2) a
paperback edition of "Produits de la civilisation
perfectionnée" that I bought in 1969 and that
includes (a) the "Questions", (b) the "Maximes
et Pensées", (c) the two "Appendices",
and (d) "Caractères et Anecdotes". The last
item is not on this site. Also, I have used Merwin's
translation of (a) and (b) when in doubt about my
own.
The French edition I
present is intermediate between (1) and (2): The
paperback edition has too many capital letters of
non-initial nouns in a sentence for my taste (while
the first edition seems to have had hardly any), and
the literal reproduction has too many empty spaces
in front of " ' ", " ; " and the like. Apart from
these differences, (1) and (2) seem the same, and
therefore so is my edition, with these
qualifications just made.
Those who want to be
sure of Chamfort's actual text should get a good
printed edition; those who want to improve my
translations of his texts may roll their own, though
I am willing to see my mistakes corrected.
There is a little
more about Chamfort and his life in my
first note.
About this edition
and notes:
The texts that follow
have many links, and come all with a group of
usually four arrows at the beginning and the end of
each text, that look thus:
These have in general the following effect when
clicked:
- previous file
- Table of Contents
- Notes or Text
associated with the file
- next file
Every file
of Chamfort's text in my translation links to a file
with my notes and conversely, by using the arrows or
the "Text" or "Notes" links in the upper left.
All the
aphorisms in the various chapters are separated by a
star from the next one:
*
Any star
if underlined is a link to the note on the aphorism
immediately above it. At the end of each of my notes
there is a 'Back' link that moves the reader back to
the beginning of the aphorism it annotates in the
text.
The above
holds for my English translation and English notes.
You can also read the original French
text, that is without notes. Also, as the reader who
compares may find, I have in my English translation
frequently added an empty line or two in longer
aphorisms, to stress separate ideas in it, and make
them stand off more clearly. The French editions I
have seen all print the longer aphorisms as one
paragraph of text.
Those who
download my edition of Chamfort's "Maximes et
Pensées" and my notes should realize that the
links to and from the notes are retained only if
they are placed in directory-structures of the
following form:
"/Chamfort/"
- that includes the introduction
"/Chamfort/French/" - that includes the
original French text
"/Chamfort/English/" - that includes my
English translation
"/Chamfort/English/Notes" - that includes
my notes to the last
How this
directory and its subdirectory are otherwise
attached to a filesystem on the computer you use is
irrelevant, but the above is required for having the
many links work when reading off line.
There are
also some links to my Philosophical Dictionary (and
possibly other items on my site) that will not work
off line.
And this
Chamfort-project started at the end of October 2007,
and will take some time to be completed as regards
the translation and notes, though the full French
text is available from the start.
Updates
2008:
Chapter
1 + notes
were done by January 9, 2008, first version.
Chapter
2 + notes
were done by January 16, 2008, first version.
Updates
2009:
11-feb-09: It seems titles with accened e-s - as in
"Pensées" are still too difficult for filenames on
the internet. Accordingly, I restyled the French
files-titles and renamed the links, but I have so
far not done anything else on Chamfort on my sute.