La traducción española de 1807 del Catecismo para el uso de todas las Iglesias del Imperio francésla invasión de almas ajenas

Résumé

In 1807, many contemporaries -among the Spaniards living then� would very probably guess the very dramatic course the national social-political events were about to take in the short-term of a few weeks and months, in 1808. However, the limitless urge for importing everything French, the so-called afrancesamiento, seemed to continue fully undisturbed. Meanwhile the Corsian and his armies did not find any hindrance when implementing their plans: territories, crowns, legal codes o, even, the texts for the Christian education of the people. I am referring, within the Hispanic environment, to the Spanish translation from the French, dated 1807, of the so-called Catecismo para el uso de todas las Iglesias del Imperio francés. In other words, the main reception of the great Napoleonic catechism, published in Spanish very shortly after the production of the unifying and consolidating French original. The translation was provided a telling translator�s preface where all the limitations, precautions and curiosities of that delicate historical moment are reflected, when everybody was divided between two strong opposing forces: that of reason and that of feeling, which made necessary all kinds of ambiguity displays. This article will try to show some explicit textual examples of the influence of such powerful contextual constraints.