Diotimos Library · Literary Fiction Collection · Bilingual Edition
Swipe or use the arrow keys.
English Page · Branch 29 of 94
René · p. 144
French
p. 144quelquefois aussi nous murmurions des vers que nous inspiroit le spectacle de la nature. Jeune, je cultivois les muses ; il n’y a rien de plus poétique, dans la fraîcheur de ses passions, qu’un cœur de seize années. Le matin de la vie est comme le matin du jour, plein de pureté, d’images et d’harmonies.
» Les dimanches et les jours de fête, j’ai souvent entendu, dans le grand bois, à travers les arbres, les sons de la cloche lointaine qui appeloit au temple l’homme des champs. Appuyé contre le tronc d’un ormeau, j’écoutois en silence le pieux murmure. Chaque frémissement de l’airain portoit à mon âme naïve l’innocence des mœurs champêtres, le calme de la solitude, le charme de la religion, et la délectable mélancolie des souvenirs de ma première enfance. Oh ! quel cœur si mal fait n’a tressailli au bruit des cloches de son lieu natal, de ces cloches qui frémirent de joie sur son berceau, qui annoncèrent son avénement à la vie, qui marquèrent le premier battement de son cœur, qui publièrent dans tous les lieux d’alentour la sainte allégresse de son père, les douleurs et les joies encore plus ineffables de sa mère ! Tout se trouve dans les rêveries enchantées où nous plonge le bruit de la cloche natale : religion,
René
Source p. 144sometimes too we murmured verses that the spectacle of nature inspired in us. Young, I cultivated the Muses; there is nothing more poetic, in the freshness of its passions, than a heart of sixteen years. The morning of life is like the morning of the day, full of purity, of images and of harmonies.
“On Sundays and feast days I have often heard, in the great wood, through the trees, the sounds of the distant bell calling the man of the fields to the temple. Leaning against the trunk of an elm, I would listen in silence to the pious murmur. Each tremor of the bronze carried to my artless soul the innocence of country ways, the calm of solitude, the charm of religion, and the delectable melancholy of the memories of my earliest childhood. Oh! what heart so ill-made has never quivered at the sound of the bells of its native place, those bells that trembled with joy above its cradle, that announced its coming into life, that marked the first beat of that heart, that proclaimed through all the country round the holy gladness of its father, the pains and the still more ineffable joys of its mother! Everything is found in the enchanted reveries into which the sound of the native bell plunges us: religion,
Socrates
Reading René · René · René · p. 144
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Chateaubriand’s tale of René and Amélie, with the Preface of 1805, two contemporary reviews, and the longer readings of 1802. This French–English edition preserves the 1826 printed pages, with a new English translation, author’s notes, variant readings, introduction and glossary.
Historical Text and Translation
François-René de Chateaubriand, Œuvres complètes, tome XVI (Paris: Ladvocat, 1826), pp. 1–16, 137–192 and 351–358, University of Toronto Library copy. Earlier witness: Génie du Christianisme, tome II (Paris: Migneret, 1802), pp. 158–216, Bibliothèque nationale de France copy.
About Diotimos Editions
This historical edition credits Diotimos Editions as its English translator.
Rights
The historical French source is in the public domain in the United States. New English translation and editorial matter © 2026 Diotimos Editions. Chateaubriand’s author notes and historical variants remain separately attributed.