Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Tuesday, 2 January 1883

All this noise and the newspaper articles on Gambetta's death still fail to make one believe it is true. This great event is too close — one can only judge it from a certain distance. Here is an article from La Justice,1 Clemenceau's newspaper and hostile to Gambetta — I recommend it. It has moved me deeply.

Tout ce bruit et les articles de journaux sur la mort de Gambetta ne reussissent pas encore a faire croire que c'est vrai. Ce grand evenement est trop pres, on ne peut en juger qu'a une certaine distance. Voici un article de "La Justice" journal de Clemenceau et hostile a Gambetta que je vous recommande. Il m'a emue profondement.

We were to have some people for dinner this evening, and no one comes. The Duchesse de Fitz-James came to thank us for the flowers we sent her — this old parrot-woman talks of Gambetta and of a restoration that his death might make possible. It does not seem probable; although this death is such a formidable blow that I, a foreigner, unknown, insignificant, am moved by it to the depths of my being... I hope that the friends of this man so stupidly slandered will give him an apotheosis worthy of his genius. Who after him? Clemenceau — with his doctrinaire, dry and precise eloquence. I saw him the other evening at the Opéra, and the day before yesterday at Vaillant the florist — this little Clemenceau, this doctor...2 And to think that they were seven physicians...

Nous devions avoir quelques personnes a diner ce soir et il ne vient personne. La duchesse de Fitz-James est venue remercier pour les fleurs qu'on lui a envoyees, cette vieille a perruche parle de Gambetta et d'une restauration que sa mort rendrait possible. Ca ne parait pas probable, bien que cette mort soit un coup si formidable, que moi etrangere, inconnue, chetive j'en suis emue jusqu'au fond de mon etre... j'espere que les amis de cet homme si betement calomnie lui feront une apotheose digne de son genie. Qui apres lui ? Clemenceau avec son eloquence doctrinaire, seche et precise. Je l'ai vu l'autre soir a l'Opera et avant hier chez le fleuriste Vaillant, ce petit Clemenceau, ce docteur... Et dire qu'ils etaient sept...

How wretched I am to live in Paris and beside everything that makes the Paris I adore. Always beside! When I would give everything in the world to boil with the others in this divine furnace.

Que je suis donc malheureuse de vivre a Paris et a cote de tout ce qui fait le Paris que j'adore. Toujours a cote ! Quand je donnerais tout au monde pour bouillir avec les autres dans cette divine fournaise.

And in the first place, I feel day by day that my faculties are declining.

Et d'abord je sens de jour en jour que mes facultes baissent.

Even imbeciles become tolerable through contact with certain people and in a certain environment; while intelligent people become superior — whereas I consume myself in the blackest intellectual misery...

Les imbeciles meme deviennent passables au contact de certaines personnes et dans un certain milieu, tandis que les gens intelligents deviennent superieurs, moi je me consume dans la plus noire misere intellectuelle...

Géry came to tell us that his son has just been decorated by the Sultan.

Gery est venu raconter que son fils vient d'etre decore par le sultan.

Notes

La Justice: the daily newspaper founded by Georges Clemenceau in 1880, the voice of the Radical Republicans. Its article on Gambetta — despite being politically hostile — was evidently a tribute of sufficient generosity to move Marie. ↩
Clemenceau the doctor: Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) held a degree in medicine before entering politics, and was known for the precise, dissecting quality of his oratory. He had been Gambetta's opponent within the Republican movement; the "And to think they were seven" refers to the seven doctors attending Gambetta's deathbed. ↩