The following is a reasonably literal translation (made by me from the French original) of the published article: Jean Bénabou, Jacques Roubaud. Monades et descente.Monades et descente. C. R. Acad. Sc. Paris, t. 270 (12 Janvier 1970), Série A, 96–98.
While I do think that I got it mostly right, and chose the modern technical terms conscientiously, I do not take any responsibility for this translation, neither for its form nor its content, and there might be a few places where it might be possible to improve the translation. Do not take it to be a 'sworn translation', or anything like that. If in doubt, consult the original article.
(0) I do not have anything against someone developing this answer further, if it is an on-topic improvement.
(1) I am mentioning (0) since:
(1.0) Translating is an art and a craft of its own, with its own professional associations customs, and translating well takes considerable work and knowledge of both the source- and target-language and the subject matter, and many translators would not like to see their work changed by others, so (0) does not go without saying.
(1.1) It will not be possible for me to henceforth be responsible for this translation, let alone even check this thread at regular intervals.
Please consider my translation to be in the public domain, and please do not 'ping' me too much about it.
Please go ahead if you think you are sure that a relevant improvement should be made.
(2) In contrast to (0), I am not sure whether the authors of the translated article have something against expanding the translation here. The resason for that is that I think that then the result of the process will not be literal translation anymore. The boundaries between 'literal translation of' and 'some-sort-of-group-blog-exposition of' a given mathematical classic will blur. Maybe one should keep these two genres separate, I am not sure.
(3) Why I did I write this: simply because this question was asked and I think this is an answer to the OP. Morevoer, I myself have to work with similar things recently, and I had planned to understand descent-theory a little better anyway. And now there appeared this request which harmonized with that. Incidentally, the comment to the effect that the author of the blog-post has been emailed the OP, which may lead to the OP getting another translation soon, was read by me only after my translation was almost finished. Moreover, I can find little wrong with there being several translations of classics; there are several translations of, say, the classics of Latin poetry, too, so why should there not be multiple translations of French classics of category theory?
Beginning of reasonably literal translation.
ALGEBRA. -- Monads and descent. Note (${}^\ast$) by Jean Bénabou and Jacques Roubaud. Transmitted by Henri Cartan.
By means of category theory, we interpret the 'descent data' in a simple and natural manner as 'algebras over a monad'. This allows one, in very general situations, to recognize whether a morphism is a descent morphism or an effective descent morphism.
[Edit by DR Apr 2020: additional notes moved to the bottom of the answer]Beginning of reasonably literal translation.
ALGEBRA. -- Monads and descent. Note (${}^\ast$) by Jean Bénabou and Jacques Roubaud. Transmitted by Henri Cartan.
By means of category theory, we interpret the 'descent data' in a simple and natural manner as 'algebras over a monad'. This allows one, in very general situations, to recognize whether a morphism is a descent morphism or an effective descent morphism.
1. The bifibrations of Chevalley, and descent. -- In the following, $P\colon \textbf{M}\rightarrow \textbf{A}$ denotes a bifibrant functor $({}^1)$. If $A$ is an object of $\textbf{A}$ the fiber over $A$ is denoted $\textbf{M}(A)$. We assume that $A$ has all binary pullbacks.
(C) For every commutative diagram
(C) For every commutative diagram $\require{AMScd}$ \begin{CD} \mathbf{M}'_0 @<\chi'<< \mathbf{M}'_1\\ @V k_0 V V @VV k_1 V\\ \mathbf{M}_0 @<<\chi< \mathbf{M}_1 \end{CD}
3.5. If in a pullback square
\begin{CD} \mathbf{M} @<\chi'<< f^*(\mathbf{M})\\ @V P V V @VV f^*(P) V\\ \mathbf{A} @<<f< \mathbf{X} \end{CD}
While I do think that I got it mostly right, and chose the modern technical terms conscientiously, I do not take any responsibility for this translation, neither for its form nor its content, and there might be a few places where it might be possible to improve the translation. Do not take it to be a 'sworn translation', or anything like that. If in doubt, consult the original article.
(0) I do not have anything against someone developing this answer further, if it is an on-topic improvement.
(1) I am mentioning (0) since:
(1.0) Translating is an art and a craft of its own, with its own professional associations customs, and translating well takes considerable work and knowledge of both the source- and target-language and the subject matter, and many translators would not like to see their work changed by others, so (0) does not go without saying.
(1.1) It will not be possible for me to henceforth be responsible for this translation, let alone even check this thread at regular intervals.
Please consider my translation to be in the public domain, and please do not 'ping' me too much about it.
Please go ahead if you think you are sure that a relevant improvement should be made.
(2) In contrast to (0), I am not sure whether the authors of the translated article have something against expanding the translation here. The reason for that is that I think that then the result of the process will not be literal translation anymore. The boundaries between 'literal translation of' and 'some-sort-of-group-blog-exposition of' a given mathematical classic will blur. Maybe one should keep these two genres separate, I am not sure.
(3) Why I did I write this: simply because this question was asked and I think this is an answer to the OP. Moreover, I myself have to work with similar things recently, and I had planned to understand descent-theory a little better anyway. And now there appeared this request which harmonized with that. Incidentally, the comment to the effect that the author of the blog-post has been emailed the OP, which may lead to the OP getting another translation soon, was read by me only after my translation was almost finished. Moreover, I can find little wrong with there being several translations of classics; there are several translations of, say, the classics of Latin poetry, too, so why should there not be multiple translations of French classics of category theory?