Diotimos Library · Journals, Notebooks & Fragments Collection · Bilingual Edition
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I
Complete Notebooks · French with an independent English translation.
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Facing Pages · Branch 107 of 3781
YEAR 1786. · Entry 107
French
p. 213Le chien et les chats. La Fontaine n’y auroit pas fait ses fables. Les chevaux.
Les jeunes filles. La pudeur. Les lits.
L’embonpoint.
Ce peuple est tranquille toutes les fois qu’il n’est pas agité violemment et son caractère lui tient lieu de police. Il est d’une humeur posée et qui donne aux passions le temps de s’amasser lentement et de croître ; aussi ses sentiments sont-ils forts.
— Mrs Sidons.
— Molière ne le[s] fait pas rire. Locke y a peu de sectateurs : « Il a nié les idées innées (disent-ils) et il a bien fait ; mais il a nié aussi les perceptions innées et il a eu tort. »
Poli depuis la dernière guerre. « C’est un peuple aimable », dit-il en parlant des Français. French dog. Racall.
Il n’y a pas dans Londres une seule enseigne dont l’inscription soit française : le peuple ne la souffriroit pas.
Le nègre étendu sur la neige. Pauvresse ayant les mammelles nuës.
On parle aujourd’hui de nos ministres, à Londres, comme leurs créatures en parlent à Versailles dans leur antichambre.
Habits. Boutons. Toutes les manufactures encouragées à la fois. Quiquonque n’est pas bien vêtu y est méprisé ou comme un homme sans conduite ou comme un citoyen inutile à la prospérité de son pays.
Il s’occupe en ce moment-ci de la Norwège.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I: YEAR 1786.
p. 214No individual date printed
The dog and the cats. La Fontaine would not have made his fables there. The horses.
The young girls. Modesty. The beds.
Plumpness.
This people is peaceful whenever it is not violently agitated, and its character takes the place of policing. It has a composed disposition that gives the passions time to gather slowly and grow; and so its feelings are strong.
— Mrs. Sidons.
— Molière does not make them laugh. Locke has few followers there: “He denied innate ideas,” they say, “and was right to do so; but he also denied innate perceptions, and he was wrong.”
Polite since the last war. “They are a lovable people,” he says, speaking of the French. French dog. Racall.
There is not a single sign in London whose inscription is French: the people would not tolerate it.
The Negro stretched out on the snow. A beggar woman with bare breasts.
Today in London they speak of our ministers as their creatures speak of them at Versailles in their antechambers.
Clothes, buttons. All manufactures encouraged at once. Anyone who is not well dressed is despised there either as a man of dissolute conduct or as a citizen useless to his country’s prosperity.
At this moment he is occupied with Norway.
Socrates
Reading The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I · YEAR 1786. · Entry 107
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Joubert’s notebooks return to the work of thinking and writing, the demands of friendship, and questions of faith, beauty and conduct. This edition pairs the French with a new English translation, preserving the order of the chosen source and the unfinished character of its fragments. Dates and source references allow readers to follow a thought through time or return to its printed context.
Historical Text and Translation
The French text follows André Beaunier’s 1938 edition of Les Carnets de Joseph Joubert, published by Gallimard from Joubert’s autograph manuscripts. Volume I presents the entries on printed pages 32–475. French and English are aligned paragraph by paragraph, retaining the source order, printed dates and page references so readers can return to the facsimile.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared this new English translation directly from the French, preserving Joubert’s distinctions, recurring images, ambiguities and unfinished thoughts. Translator’s notes clarify wording, references and uncertain readings: Essential keeps notes that help explain a passage, while All includes technical detail. Annotations from the 1938 source edition remain distinct from the new translator’s notes.
Rights
The linked facsimile records identify the French source as public domain in the United States. The new English translation and editorial notes are © 2026 Diotimos, with source annotations and new editorial contributions credited separately. This edition pairs the complete French notebooks with an independent English translation, preserving the distinction between Joubert’s text and its accompanying notes.