Diotimos Library · Journals, Notebooks & Fragments Collection · Bilingual Edition

Joseph Joubert

The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Name: The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II
Author: Joseph Joubert

Complete Notebooks · French with an independent English translation.

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The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume IIMr. Hochet and Mme de Sévigné. · Entry 4693

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Mr. Hochet and Mme de Sévigné. · Entry 4693

Translator notesBook Mode

French

p. 1823

26 juin.

La haine du mal même peut rendre les hommes méchans, si elle est trop forte, trop dominante, trop seule (pour ainsi parler) parmi nos autres sentimens. Et c’est ainsi que l’inspiroient nos livres en n’offrant à notre attention que les malheurs attachés à quelques abus. De là vint cette monstruosité d’événemens dont nous avons été témoins. Des leçons violentes d’humanité en furent suivies de cruautés épouvantables. La pitié fut tournée en rage. On massacra Louis XVI, sa sœur et tout ce que la France avoit de plus vertueux par un féroce amour pour les nègres de l’Amérique et par une féroce horreur pour la Saint-Barthélemi. Les tableaux trop énergiques et trop répétés de l’humanité souffrante rendirent les cœurs inhumains. Le pathétique outré est pour les hommes une source funeste d’endurcissemens.

« Ces tableaux de l’humanité souffrante qui avoient tant de succès (dit G.) dans le temps même où l’on étoit à la veille des plus grandes inhumanités qui aient jamais souillé l’histoire des hommes. »

Tout accusé fut censé innocent; bientôt tout accusateur fut censé vertueux.

The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II: Mr. Hochet and Mme de Sévigné.

p. 1824

June 26.

Even hatred of evil can make men wicked if it is too strong, too dominant, too alone (so to speak) among our other feelings. And this is how our books inspired it, offering our attention only the misfortunes attached to certain abuses. From this came the monstrosity of events we have witnessed. Violent lessons in humanity were followed, as a result, by appalling cruelties. Pity was turned to rage. Louis XVI, his sister, and all that was most virtuous in France were massacred out of a ferocious love for the Black people of America and a ferocious horror of the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre. Pictures of suffering humanity, too forceful and too often repeated, made hearts inhuman. Overwrought pathos is for men a disastrous source of hardenings.

“These pictures of suffering humanity that had so much success (G. says) at the very time when people were on the eve of the greatest inhumanities ever to have stained the history of men.”

Every accused person was deemed innocent; soon every accuser was deemed virtuous.

T219.Too strong, too dominant, and too alone retain all three qualifications. The apparent paradox of being alone among other feelings remains explicitly qualified by so to speak. The repeated our books, our attention, and we have witnessed are Joubert’s own perspective.

T220.The causal account of the massacres and the descriptions of their victims and motives are Joubert’s assertions. Black people renders the historical racial designation nègres, consistent with this translation’s earlier entries; the French wording remains visible. America has not been narrowed to the United States or expanded to a particular colony. St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre gives the conventional English form of the event named by la Saint-Barthélemi.

T221.Humanity and inhuman retain the repeated verbal contrast. Pictures renders tableaux, and pathos renders the rhetorical noun pathétique rather than the modern disparaging adjective pathetic. Hardenings preserves the source’s plural endurcissemens and continues the preceding image of hearts made inhuman.

T365.The source’s historical and racial language is retained as Joubert’s assertion. The right margin damages parts of avons, massacra, féroce, et, inhumains, succès and censé; these readings combine surviving print with sentence context and are not independently complete glyphs. The quotation in paragraph 2 retains the unidentified G. and its relative construction without a main verb.

T222.G. remains unidentified. The opening These pictures with its following relative clause remains without a main predicate, as in the quotation printed by Beaunier. No governing sentence is added to complete it.

T223.Deemed in this paragraph renders censé and does not assert actual innocence or virtue. The later, separately printed repetition presents the same two claims as opinions and retains its different initial capitalization.

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 II continues the notebooks and includes seventy undated pieces. 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.