Diotimos Library · Journals, Notebooks & Fragments Collection · Bilingual Edition
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French Page · Branch 52 of 121
1833 · Le 14.
French
p. 103Le 14.
Après une longue série de jours éclatants, j’aime assez à trouver un beau matin le ciel tendu de gris et toute la nature se reposant en quelque sorte de ses jours de fête dans un calme mélancolique. C’est bien cela aujourd’hui. Un voile immense, immobile, sans le moindre pli, couvre toute la face du ciel; l’horizon porte une couronne de vapeurs bleuâtres; pas un souffle dans l’air. Tous les bruits qui s’élèvent dans le lointain de la campagne arrivent à l’oreille à la faveur de ce silence : ce sont des chants de laboureur, des voix d’enfants, des piaulements et des refrains d’animaux, et de temps à autre un chien qui aboie je ne sais où et des coqs qui se répondent comme des sentinelles. Au dedans de moi, tout aussi est calme et reposé. Un voile gris et un peu triste s’est étendu sur mon âme, comme ont fait les nuages paisibles sur la nature. Un grand silence s’est établi, et j’entends comme les voix de mille souvenirs doux et touchants, qui s’élèvent dans le lointain du passé et viennent bruire à mon oreille.
The Green Notebook: 1833
p. 104August 14, 1833
After a long succession of brilliant days, I rather like to find, one fine morning, the sky hung with gray, and all nature resting, as it were, from her festival days in a melancholy calm. That is exactly how it is today. An immense, motionless veil, without the smallest fold, covers the whole face of the sky; the horizon wears a crown of bluish vapors; not a breath in the air. All the sounds rising in the distant countryside reach the ear thanks to this silence: a plowman’s songs, children’s voices, little cries and refrains of animals, and from time to time a dog barking I know not where and cocks answering one another like sentinels. Within me, too, everything is calm and at rest. A gray and somewhat sad veil has spread over my soul, as the peaceful clouds have over nature. A great silence has settled, and I hear something like the voices of a thousand sweet and moving memories, rising in the distance of the past and coming to murmur in my ear.
Socrates
Reading The Green Notebook · 1833 · August 14, 1833
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Maurice de Guérin’s journal moves between close attention to nature, friendship, faith, and the inward demands of poetry. This bilingual edition presents the complete Journal section of the 1864 printing, with a separate appendix of earlier printed passages from 1861.
Historical Text and Translation
The French follows G. S. Trébutien’s sixth edition of Journal, lettres et poèmes (Paris: Didier et Cie, 1864), pages 3–126. Its 116 dated entries run from July 1832 to October 1835. Five earlier passages from Reliquiae (1861) appear separately in the appendix. Completeness refers to the printed Journal, rather than the autograph notebook; the following letters and poems are outside this edition.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared this independent English translation directly from the French, preserving Guérin’s imagery, repetitions, intimate voice, and original paragraph divisions. French and English remain aligned for comparison. Translator’s notes clarify words, quotations, and allusions, while historical editor notes retain their separate attribution. The Essential setting keeps explanations useful to reading; All also includes the note on the edition’s typographic treatment.
Rights
The historical French printings are in the public domain in the United States. The independent English translation and new editorial notes are © 2026 Diotimos Editions. The linked facsimiles identify the printed witnesses used for this edition. Historical annotations and editorial conjectures remain attributed to their source editors, and the earlier variant passages are presented separately from the later Journal text.