Ten Years Later (2 of 2)

" "Patience, monseigneur, for you do not know what Colbert is — study him quickly; it is with this dark financier as it is with meteors, which the eye never sees completely before their disastrous invasion; when we feel them we are dead." "Oh! Gourville, this is going too far," replied Fouquet, smiling; "allow me, my friend, not to be so easily frightened; M. Colbert a meteor! Corbleu, we confront the meteor. Let us see acts, and not words. What has he done?" "He has ordered two gibbets of the executioner of Paris," answered Gourville. Fouquet raised his head, and a flash gleamed from his eyes. "Are you sure of what you say?" cried he. "Here is the proof, monseigneur." And Gourville held out to the superintendent a note communicated by a certain secretary of the Hotel de Ville, who was one of Fouquet's creatures. "Yes, that is true," murmured the minister; "the scaffold may be prepared, but the king has not signed; Gourville, the king will not sign." "I shall soon know," said Gourville. "How?" "If the king has signed, the gibbets will be sent this evening to the Hotel de Ville, in order to be got up and ready by to-morrow morning." "Oh! no, no!" cried the superintendent once again; "you are all deceived, and deceive me in my turn; Lyodot came to see me only the day before yesterday; only three days ago I received a present of some Syracuse wine from poor D'Eymeris." "What does that prove?" replied Gourville, "except that the chamber of justice has been secretly assembled, has deliberated in the absence of the accused, and that the whole proceeding was complete when they were arrested." "What! are they, then, arrested?" "No doubt they are." "But where, when, and how have they been arrested?" "Lyodot, yesterday at daybreak; D'Eymeris, the day before yesterday, in the evening, as he was returning from the house of his mistress; their disappearance had disturbed nobody; but at length M. Colbert all at once raised the mask, and caused the affair to be published; it is being cried by sound of trumpet, at this moment in Paris, and, in truth, monseigneur, there is scarcely anybody but yourself ignorant of the event." Fouquet began to walk about his chamber with an uneasiness that became more and more serious. "What do you decide upon, monseigneur?" said Gourville. "If it really were as you say, I would go to the king," cried Fouquet. "But as I go to the Louvre, I will pass by the Hotel de Ville. We shall see if the sentence is signed." "Incredulity! thou art the pest of all great minds," said Gourville, shrugging his shoulders. "Gourville!" "Yes," continued he, "and incredulity! thou ruinest, as contagion destroys the most robust health, that is to say, in an instant." "Let us go," cried Fouquet; "desire the door to be opened, Gourville." "Be cautious," said the latter, "the Abbe Fouquet is there." "Ah! my brother," replied Fouquet, in a tone of annoyance, "he is there, is he? he knows all the ill news, then, and is rejoiced to bring it to me, as usual.

Источник: The Gutenberg Project

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Cette publication m'a ete conseillee, comme mes autres etudes sur la _Divine Comedie_ et sur la personne de Dante, par le desir de vulgariser dans notre pays l'oeuvre du grand Italien, dont le nom a conquis l'immortalite, tandis que les produits de son genie sont a peine connus chez nous, en dehors d'un cercle bien restreint de lecteurs et d'admirateurs.

La _Vita nuova_ est une oeuvre pleine de charme, et suggestive au plus haut point. C'est une oeuvre humaine, dont l'interet ne se limite pas aux personnages qu'elle met en scene et a l'epoque ou ils se meuvent.

Restent le coloris du style et l'harmonie des vers, dont le traducteur a cherche a s'inspirer, mais qu'il ne lui etait pas possible de s'approprier. Voici cependant ce que dit Dante lui-meme a ce propos: «Les ecrits poetiques ne sauraient se preter a la transportation dans une autre langue. Neanmoins, s'il est impossible au traducteur de donner un equivalent litteral au langage allegorique et aux expressions mysterieuses de ses vers, et d'en reproduire les beautes, on peut au moins en penetrer le sens litteral et suivre le poete dans la succession de ses sentiments et de ses pensees.»[3]

MAX DURAND-FARDEL.

1897.

INTRODUCTION

I

Toute l'histoire de Dante tient entre trois dates precises. Il naquit a Florence en 1265. Il fut eleve au Priorat, la plus haute magistrature de son pays, en 1300. Il mourut a Ravenne en 1321, age de 56 ans.

Apres avoir pris part, pendant un temps bien court, au gouvernement de la Republique florentine, il fut soudain precipite du pouvoir par le jeu mortel des factions et, victime d'accusations infames, condamne en 1301 a la confiscation de sa modeste fortune, a l'exil, et au bucher s'il reparaissait dans sa patrie...

Данте Алигьери (Dante Alighieri)
«La Vita Nuova»