Giguère - Collected Maxims and Other Reflections : With Parallel French Text

OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

COLLECTED MAXIMS AND OTHER REFLECTIONS

FRANOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, a member of a prominent French aristocratic family, was born in Paris in 1613. He was married at the age of 14 and took part in his first military campaign the following year. For the next quarter of a century he participated actively in military life, supporting the interests of the hereditary French aristocracy not only against foreign armies, but at times also against the king and his chief minister (Richelieu under Louis XIII, Mazarin under Louis XIV). When Louis XIV finally gained control of Paris in 1652, La Rochefoucauld retired from public life. In 16578 he began to compose the sayings published in 1664 as Rflexions ou Sentences et Maximes morales (Moral Reflections or Sententiae and Maxims). The work was carefully revised several times, its fifth and final authorized edition appearing in 1678. La Rochefoucauld died in Paris in 1680. Many further maxims, and the nineteen essays now known as the Rflexions diverses (Miscellaneous Reflections), were published posthumously from his manuscripts.

E. H. and A. M. BLACKMORE and FRANCINE GIGURE have translated Twelve Plays by Alfred de Musset and George Sands Five Comedies and The Devils Pool and Other Stories. E. H. and A. M. Blackmore have also edited and translated nine other volumes of French literature, including, in Oxford Worlds Classics, Six French Poets of the Nineteenth Century, The Essential Victor Hugo, and Stphane Mallarms Collected Poems and Other Verse. Their work has been awarded the American Literary Translators Association Prize and the Modern Language Association Scaglione Prize for Literary Translation. Their other publications include literary criticism and studies in psycholinguistics and grammatical awareness.

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OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

FRANOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Translated with an Introduction and Notes by
E. H. AND A. M. BLACKMORE
and FRANCINE GIGURE

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E. H. and A. M. Blackmore and Francine Gigure 2007

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First published as an Oxford Worlds Classics paperback 2007

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

La Rochefoucauld, Franois, duc de, 16131680.
[Maximes, English]
Collected maxims and other reflections/Franois de la Rochefoucauld;
translated with an introduction and notes by
E. H. and A. M. Blackmore and Francine Gigure.
(Oxford worlds classics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
I. Blackmore, E. H. II. Blackmore, A. M. III. Gigure, Francine. IV. Title.
PQ1815, A72 2007 848.402dc22 2006019481
ISBN-13: 9780192806499 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0192806491 (alk. paper)

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ISBN 97801992806499

Further information can be found in the Note on the Text and Translation (p. xxxiii).

Neither the sun nor death can be looked at steadily, declares La Rochefoucauld (v: 26). The same may be said of his Moral Reflections or Sententiae and Maxims. Few books as widely read have provoked as much resistance. Most of us can no more look at it without wavering than we could the sun. We cannot bear the thought that it might be true; the consequences would be too painful. So, to shut our eyes to it, to avoid facing it, we rely on every psychological defence we can muster. The book is a work of cynicism, pessimism, scepticism, Jansenism, or some other limited and limiting -ism; we ourselves are much wiser, and take a broader, more balanced view of humanity. Or it is inconsistent, and contains its own refutation. Or it is true only of La Rochefoucauld himself (how corrupt he must be, to be capable of thinking