From the book
The Green Notebook
Maurice de Guérin · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThe country retreat named in the June 25, 1834 heading.
- In GuérinAt Le Parc the wished-for combination of human welcome and natural liberty becomes available.
- In this editionThe locality is supplied by the printed heading.
- A reading distinctionThe six-week interval is Guérin’s own retrospective measure, not a reconstructed travel chronology.
Meaning
The country retreat named in the June 25, 1834 heading. Guérin subsequently recalls a six-week interval of freedom and contemplative idleness before returning to Paris.
Use in the book
At Le Parc the wished-for combination of human welcome and natural liberty becomes available. Country lanes, hedges, and familiar products evoke Brittany; relief from material anxiety gives the imagination more room. Yet Guérin immediately tests the adequacy of this apparent cure. If society alone caused his trouble, protected rural life ought to restore order. Instead, its tender impressions can stimulate the very faculties that keep him restless. The retreat is therefore a place of discrimination as well as refreshment. By August he nevertheless claims real growth: free days, long exposure to the living landscape, and apparently idle perception have strengthened his capacities without books or laborious study. After his return he describes inward activity continuing beneath bodily rest, using magnetic sleep as an analogy. The positive account does not erase the earlier self-correction. Le Parc shows that a place can genuinely nourish an intelligence while failing to grant the perfect repose initially expected from it.
Places to read
- 25 June 1834 · ¶1The heading fixes Le Parc in Eure-et-Loir; resemblances to Brittany enliven memory.
- 26 June 1834 · ¶1An achieved ideal of half-wild, half-social life still fails to silence inward instability.
- 4 August 1834 · ¶1Before returning to Paris, Guérin credits six weeks of free contemplation with substantial growth.
- 20 August 1834 · ¶2The retrospective account interprets rest as a period of hidden activity rather than wasted time.
Translation in this edition
The locality is supplied by the printed heading. No host’s name or further estate history is inferred. Translator note 13 explains magnetic sleep as the historical mesmeric analogy used in the retrospect.
Source note
1864 Journal, June 25–26 and August 4–20, 1834. The six-week interval is Guérin’s own retrospective measure, not a reconstructed travel chronology.