Portrait of the French

Poem by Fanny De Beauharnais Period 18th century

All your tastes are inconsistent:
A trifle changes your characters;
A trifle commands your inclinations.
You take for ardent fires
The lightest little sparks.
Novelty, its mad attraction,
Inflames you to the point of delirium:
A trifle is enough to seduce you
And childhood is your portrait.
Whoever amuses you, masters you;
Do they make you laugh? All is done!
And you love only by surprise.
You all have but a single jargon,
So frivolous, so inconvenient.
If reason were in fashion,
You would all have reason.

fanny-de-beauharnais

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-portrait-of-the-french-fanny-de-beauharnais/