diff options
Diffstat (limited to '58723-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 58723-0.txt | 4813 |
1 files changed, 4813 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/58723-0.txt b/58723-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..39be8cc --- /dev/null +++ b/58723-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4813 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58723 *** + + + + + + + + + ++-------------------------------------------------+ +|Transcriber's note: | +| | +|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. | +| | ++-------------------------------------------------+ + + + + +THE GREAT FRENCH WRITERS + +BERNARDIN DE ST. PIERRE + + + + +The Great French Writers. + +MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ BY GASTON BOISSIER. +GEORGE SAND BY E. CARO. +MONTESQUIEU BY ALBERT SOREL. +VICTOR COUSIN BY JULES SIMON. +TURGOT BY LÉON SAY. +THIERS BY PAUL DE RÉMUSAT. +MADAME DE STAËL BY ALBERT SOREL. +BERNARDIN DE ST. PIERRE BY ARVÈDE BARINE. + +OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION. + +_Uniform in style. Price, $1.00 a volume._ + + + + +The Great French Writers + + +BERNARDIN DE ST. PIERRE + +BY + +ARVÈDE BARINE + +_TRANSLATED BY J. E. GORDON_ + +WITH A PREFACE BY + +AUGUSTIN BIRRELL + +[Illustration: Logo] + +CHICAGO + +A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY + +1893 + + + + +CONTENTS. + +CHAPTER PAGE + I. YOUTH--YEARS OF TRAVEL 1 + + II. PERIOD OF UNCERTAINTY--VOYAGE TO THE ISLE + OF FRANCE; ACQUAINTANCE WITH J. J. ROUSSEAU; + THE CRISIS 42 + +III. THE "ÉTUDES DE LA NATURE" 87 + + IV. PAUL AND VIRGINIA 149 + + V. WORKS OF HIS OLD AGE--THE TWO MARRIAGES--DEATH + OF BERNARDIN DE ST. PIERRE--HIS + LITERARY INFLUENCE 179 + + + + +PREFACE. + + +The life of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre is so unusual, so interesting, +so suggestive and amusing, that the grumpiest of Anglo-Saxons need +not complain of the fact that no series of Great French Writers would +be complete which did not contain the name of the author of "Paul and +Virginia." Even "Shakespeare's heirs" must accept the judgment of other +nations about their own authors. Our duty is to comprehend a verdict we +are powerless to upset. Dorian women, as Gorgo says in the famous ode +of Theocritus, have a right to chatter in a Dorian accent, and a great +French writer is not necessarily the worse for a strong infusion of +French sentiment. + +Saint-Pierre was no ordinary person, either as man or author. His +was a strong and original character, more bent on action than on +literature. Though a master of style and a great painter in words, he +was ever a preacher, a _sermonneur_, as Sainte-Beuve calls him. His +masterpiece--as the French reckon "Paul and Virginia" to be--came by +chance, and is but a chapter in a huge treatise, a parable told by the +way in a voluminous gospel. It is as if Ruskin's _chef d'oeuvre_ were a +novelette, or as if Carlyle's story had been a perfect whole, instead +of a fragment and a failure. + +To understand "Paul and Virginia" aright, one should read the "Études +de la Nature," first published in 1784. Our grandparents read them +greedily enough, either in the original or in the excellent translation +of Dr. Henry Hunter, the accomplished minister of the Scots Church, +London Wall. A hundred years have, however, pressed heavily upon these +Studies, but to this day a tender grace clings to them. Even so will +our own descendants in 1984 turn the pages of Ruskin and inhale a stray +whiff of the breath which once animated a generation. + +Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was as obstinate a theorist as ever lived, +and his theory was that Providence had fashioned the whole world with +one intent only, namely, the happiness of man. That man was not happy, +Saint-Pierre sorrowfully admitted; but there was no reason whatever, +save his own folly, why he should not be as happy as the days were +long. Nothing could shake this faith of Saint-Pierre's. The terrible +catastrophes of life--plague, pestilence, and famine, earthquakes and +shipwreck--counted with him as nothing. That sombre view of human +affairs which so oppressed with gloom the great mind of Bishop Butler, +and drove the lighter but humaner spirit of Voltaire into a revolt +half desperate, half humorous, never affected the imagination of +Saint-Pierre, who none the less had a tender heart, had travelled far +by land and sea, and often had laid down his head to rest with the poor +and the miserable. + +Walking once in the fertile district of Caux, he has described how he +saw something red running across the fields at some distance, and +making towards the great road. "I quickened my pace and got up in time +enough to see that they were two little girls in red jackets and wooden +shoes, who, with much difficulty, were scrambling through the ditch +which bounded the road. The tallest, who might be about six or seven +years old, was crying bitterly. 'Child,' said I to her, 'what makes you +cry, and whither are you going at so early an hour?' 'Sir,' replied +she, 'my poor mother is very ill. There is not a mess of broth to be +had in all our parish. We are going to that church in the bottom to see +if the Curé can find us some. I am crying because my little sister is +not able to walk any farther.' As she spoke, she wiped her eyes with a +bit of canvas which served her for a petticoat. On her raising up the +rag to her face, I could perceive she had not the semblance of a shift. +The abject misery of the children, so poor in the midst of plains so +fruitful, wrung my heart. The relief which I could administer them was +small indeed. I myself was then on my way to see misery in other forms." + +These woebegone little figures scrambling across a great French ditch +in search of broth attest the tenderness of Saint-Pierre's heart, whose +descriptions are free from all taint of affectation and insincerity. He +has neither the leer of Sterne nor the affected stare of Chateaubriand. +He had, however, a theory which was proof against all sights and +sounds. The great earthquake of Lisbon is reported to have made many +atheists, and certainly no event of the kind has ever so seized hold +of men's imaginations. Saint-Pierre brushes it contemptuously on one +side. Says he in his Seventh Study: "The inhabitants of Lisbon know +well that their city has been several times shattered by shocks of +this kind, and that it is imprudent to build in stone. To persons +who can submit to live in a house of wood, earthquakes have nothing +formidable. Naples and Portici are perfectly acquainted with the fate +of Herculaneum. After all, earthquakes are not universal; they are +local and periodical. Pliny has observed," etc. + +And so he works his way through the long list of human miseries. +Tigers, indeed! Who need care for tigers? Have they not dusky stripes +perceptible a great way off on the yellow ground of their skin? Do not +their eyes sparkle in the dark? How easy to avoid a tiger! With all the +enthusiasm of a theorist, he heaps up his authorities for statements +great and small, and levels his quotations from all and sundry at +his reader's head, much after the fashion of Mr. Buckle. Of a truly +scientific spirit these Studies have not a trace, but they contain much +attractive and delightful writing, and, though dominated by a fantastic +and provoking theory, are full of shrewdness and wisdom as well as of +lofty eloquence. + +Thus, whilst combating what he conceives to be the error of supposing +that morality is determined by climate, he points out that there is as +much difference in manners, in opinions, in habiliments, and even in +physiognomy, between a French opera actor and a Capuchin friar as there +is between a Swede and a Chinese, and concludes by observing: "It is +not climate which regulates the morality of man; it is opinion, it +is education, and such is their power that they triumph not only over +latitudes, but even over temperament." + +Saint-Pierre's views on governments and supreme authority are worth +reading, even after a course of Bodin or Hobbes. He says in the same +Seventh Study:-- + +"Without paying regard to the common division of governments into +democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy, which are only at bottom +political forms that determine nothing as to either their happiness +or their power, we shall insist only on their moral constitution. +Every government of whatever description is internally happy and +respectable abroad when it bestows on all its subjects their natural +right of acquiring fortune and honors, and the contrary takes place +when it reserves to a particular class of citizens the benefits which +ought to be common to all. It is not sufficient to prescribe limits +to the people, and to restrain them within those limits by terrifying +phantoms. They quickly force the person who puts them in motion to +tremble more than themselves. _When human policy locks the chain round +the ankle of a slave, Divine Justice rivets the other end round the +neck of the tyrant._" + +Nor is there much amiss with Saint-Pierre's political economy. + +"It has always appeared to me strangely unaccountable that in France, +where there are such numerous and such judicious establishments, we +should have ministers of superintendence in foreign affairs, for war, +the marine, finance, commerce, manufactures, the clergy, public +buildings, horsemanship, and so on, but never one for agriculture. It +proceeds, I am afraid, from the contempt in which the peasantry are +held. All men, however, are sureties for each other, and, independently +of the uniform stature and configuration of the human race, I would +exact no other proof that all spring from one and the same original. +It is from the puddle by the side of the poor man's hovel which has +been robbed of the little brook whose stream sweetened it the epidemic +plague shall issue forth to devour the lordly inhabitants of the +neighboring castle." + +But I must stop my quotations, which have been made only because by +their means better than by any other the English reader can be made +to perceive the manner of man the author of "Paul and Virginia" was, +and how it came about that he should write such a book. Saint-Pierre +was a missionary. He longed to convince the whole world that he was +right, and to win them over to his side and make them see eye to eye +with him. Hence his fervor and his force. He had not the genius of +Rousseau, with whom he had some odd conversations, but by virtue of his +wondrous sincerity he has an effectiveness which vies with the charm +of the elder and greater writer. There is an air of good faith about +Saint-Pierre. Though he deliberately sets to work and manufactures +descriptions, he seems to do so with as much honesty of purpose and of +detail as Gilbert White made his famous jottings in the parsonage of +Selborne. + +Of "Paul and Virginia" little need be said. It is a French classic, by +the same title as "Robinson Crusoe" is a British one. Defoe has made +English boys by the thousand want to be shipwrecked, and Saint-Pierre +has made French boys by the thousand want to cry. The position of +"Paul and Virginia" in French literature is attested in a score of +ways. Editions abound both for the rich and for the poor. It is +everywhere, in every bookshop and on every bookstall. The author of +"Mademoiselle de Maupin" has left it on record that "Paul and Virginia" +made his youthful soul burn within him, and he solemnly pronounces it +a dangerous book. That Theophile Gautier was an expert in such matters +cannot be disputed. His evidence, therefore, must be admitted, though +as expert evidence it may be criticised. Sainte-Beuve is unfailing in +praise of "Paul and Virginia." He discerns in it the notes of reality +and freshness, the dew of youth is upon it,--it is sweet and comely. +"What will ever distinguish this graceful pastoral is its truth, its +humane and tender reality. The graces and sports of childhood are +not followed by an ideal and mythical youth. From the moment when +Virginia is agitated by an unknown trouble, and her beautiful blue +eyes are rimmed with black, we are in the midst of genuine passion, +and this charming little book, which Fontanes with an almost stupid +superficiality judgment placed between 'Telemachus' and the 'Death +of Abel,' I should myself classify between 'Daphnis and Chloe' and +the immortal Fourth Book in honor of Dido. A quite Virgilian genius +breathes through it." + +That arch-sentimentalist, Napoleon Bonaparte, kept "Paul et Virginie" +under his pillow during his Italian campaign; so at least he assured +Saint-Pierre, but as he is known to have made precisely the same remark +to Tom Paine about the "Rights of Man," he must not be understood _au +pied de la lettre_. He is known to have read the book over again in the +last sad days at Saint Helena, and no one can doubt that it was much to +his taste. + +I cannot disguise from myself--I wish I could--my own dislike of the +book. We may, many of us, be disposed to believe, with Lord Palmerston, +that all babies are born good; but we feel tolerably certain that no +babies, if left to themselves, would grow up like Paul and Virginia. +What is more, we would not wish them to do so. To tell the truth, we +cannot weep over Virginia. A young woman who chooses to drown in sight +of land and her lover, with strong arms ready to save her, rather than +disarrange her clothing, makes us contemptuously angry. Bashfulness is +not modesty, nor can it be necessary to die under circumstances which +might possibly render a blush becoming. But the French cannot be got to +see this, and "Paul et Virginie" was written for the French, to whom +the spectacle of the drowning Virginia "one hand upon her clothing, the +other on her heart," has long seemed sublime,--a human sacrifice to +_la pudeur_. "And we also," exclaims one fervent spirit, "had we been +on that fatal strand, should have cried to Virginia, 'Let yourself be +saved! Quit your clothing, forget an instant the scruples of modesty. +Live!' Do we not hear, however, in despite of our pity, a voice severer +and more delicate than the cries of all these spectators moved by so +many dangers and so much courage. Virginia cannot with the pure and +innocent heart which God has given her, with the chaste love she has +for Paul,--Virginia cannot throw off her garments and let herself be +saved by this sailor. Let her die, therefore, that she may remain as +pure as her soul! Let her die, since she has known how to distinguish, +amidst the howling of the tempest and the cries of the spectators, the +gentle but powerful voice of modesty." + +It is interesting after this explosion of French feeling to call to +mind Carlyle's remarks about "Paul and Virginia" in the second book of +his prose poem, "The French Revolution." + +"Still more significant are two books produced on the eve of the +ever-memorable explosion itself, and read eagerly by all the +world,--Saint-Pierre's 'Paul et Virginie' and Louvet's 'Chevalier de +Faublas,'--noteworthy books, which may be considered as the last speech +of old Feudal France. In the first there rises melodiously, as it were, +the wail of a moribund world. Everywhere wholesome Nature is in unequal +conflict with diseased perfidious Art; cannot escape from it in the +lowest hut, in the remotest island of the sea. Ruin and Death must +strike down the loved one, and what is most significant of all, death +even here not by necessity, but by etiquette. What a world of prurient +corruption lies visible in that super-sublime of modesty! Yet on the +whole our good Saint-Pierre is musical, poetical, though most morbid. +We will call his book the swan-song of old dying France." + +So far Carlyle, who was a sentimentalist at heart. + +It is noticeable, however, that M. Barine, whose biography of +Saint-Pierre is here introduced to the English reader, and who, I have +no doubt, represents modern criticism, lays no stress upon the death +of Virginia, observing, with much composure, "The shipwreck of the +'Saint Geran' and the death of Virginia, which made us all shed floods +of tears when we were children, are, it must be allowed, somewhat +melodramatic, and, from a literary point of view, very inferior to +the passionate scenes" (p. 173). It is as a love-story glowing and +fervent, full of the unrestfulness and tumult which are the harbingers +of passion in virgin breasts, that "Paul et Virginie" must now be +regarded. So M. Barine says, and he is undoubtedly right; and the +English reader, however much his moral sense rejects the climax of the +tale, must be dull of heart who does not recognize, even though he fail +to admire, the power which depicts the woful plight of poor Virginia +when she becomes Love's thrall. + +The pages of "Paul et Virginie" are frequently enlivened by aphorism +and ennobled by description. One of its sayings is quoted with +great effect by Sainte-Beuve in his "Causerie" on Cowper: "Il y a +de plus dans la femme une gaieté légère qui dissipe la tristesse de +l'homme." In the same way there is a certain quality in the writings +of Saint-Pierre, perceptible even to the foreigner, which renders +acquiescence in the judgment of France upon his fame as a writer easier +than might have been expected. + +A. B. + + + + +BERNARDIN DE ST. PIERRE. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +YOUTH--YEARS OF TRAVEL. + + +In looking over the collection of the portraits of Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre, we are witnesses of a strange transformation. That +of Lafitte, engraved in 1805, during the lifetime of the original, +represents a fine old man with a long face, strongly marked features, +and locks of white hair falling to his shoulders. His expression has +more penetration than sweetness, and certain vertical lines between the +brows reveal an unaccommodating temper. This is certainly no ordinary +man; but we are not surprised that he had many enemies. + +In 1818, four years after the death of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, a +less realistic work begins to idealize his features for posterity. An +engraving by Frédéric Lignon from a drawing by Girodet represents him +as younger, and in an attitude of inspiration. There is an almost +heavenly look upon his innocent face, surrounded by an abundant crop +of hair artistically curled and falling to his shoulders. Everything +in this second portrait is rounded off and toned down, and this is +only the beginning of things. The type created by Girodet became more +angelic and more devoid of significance at each new reproduction. The +eyes get larger, the features are less marked, and we have a hero of +Romance, a dreamy, sentimental youth, the apocryphal Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre which a vignette of the time of the Restoration shows us, +seated at a cottage door, his eyes cast up to heaven, his handkerchief +in his hand, while his dog fixes his eyes tenderly upon him, and a +negress contemplates him with rapture. Legend has decidedly got the +better of history. An insipid and rather ridiculous silhouette has +insinuated itself in the place of a countenance full of originality and +energy. + +At the present day we do a service to the author of _Paul and Virginia_ +by treating him without ceremony. The time has come to resuscitate him +as he appeared to his contemporaries, with his lined forehead, and his +uneasy expression, lest the mawkish Bernardin de Saint-Pierre invented +by sentimentalists should make us forget altogether the real man who +dared to disagree with the philosophers, and to beard the Academy. +One appreciates his work better, knowing that it did not spring from a +purely elegiac soul, but from a deliberate and dogged mind which knew +what it wanted, and did not play its part of literary pioneer at random. + +Jacques Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was born at Havre in 1737, of a +family in which there was little common sense, but great pretensions. +The father believed himself to be of noble origin, and was never tired +of discoursing to his children of their illustrious ancestors. He had +three sons, and one daughter. One of the sons, who took his ancestral +glory quite seriously, unable to bear up against the mortifications +which awaited him in the world, went out of his mind. The daughter, +refusing with disdain all the offers of marriage she received, repented +when it was too late, and ended her days in sadness and obscurity. The +mother was good and kind, free from vanity, and richly gifted with +imagination. Bernardin was fond of relating a conversation which they +had had together when he was quite a child about the growing corn. Mme. +de Saint-Pierre had explained to him that if every man took his sheaf +of corn there would not be enough on the earth for every one, from +which they came to the conclusion "that God multiplied the corn when it +was in the barns." Here we have already the scheme of the _Études de +la Nature_ and we need not ask from whom Bernardin held his method of +reasoning. + +In spite of the touch of folly which spoilt some members of the family, +it was an ideal home for the children's happiness. The life there was +simple, and humble friends were by no means despised. A servant of +the old-fashioned kind, an old woman called Marie, had her place in +it, gave her advice and spoilt the children. A Capucine monk, Brother +Paul, would bring sugar-plums and delight the whole household with his +stories, which bore no trace of morose religious views. Their studies +were a little desultory, their recreations delightfully homely. They +gardened, played games in the granary, paddled about on the sea-shore, +and fought with the street boys, for all the world as though they had +no belief in their noble ancestors. Occasionally they got old Marie to +do up their hair in numberless starched curl-papers, which stiffened it +and filled the good woman with admiration; they would then put on their +best clothes and go to visit Bernardin's godmother, Mme. de Bayard. +Those were happy days. + +Mme. de Bayard was a countess of ruined fortunes, rather too fond of +borrowing, but she had been at the court of Louis XIV. and had known La +Grande Mademoiselle, which amounts to saying that M. de Saint-Pierre +thought it due to his aristocratic dreams to get her to "name" one +of his children, as they called it in those days. The honour of +being her godson devolved upon the future author, who soon learnt to +appreciate his good luck. Mme. de Bayard was a handsome old lady, who +had preserved in her changed fortunes manners of exquisite courtesy and +the airs of a queen. Reduced to all sorts of shifts, and constrained +at such times to forget her pride, no sooner had she obtained the +necessary money than she raised her head again, and hastened to prepare +a fête for those who had obliged her with their purse. Her grace and +dignity of manner made them her slaves. They would form a circle round +her to listen to her stories of the hero Monsieur le Prince, of Louis +XIV., amorous and gay, of the Grande Mademoiselle, grown old, and still +weeping over the memory of the ungrateful Lauzun, of the wonders of +Versailles, and of the romantic nocturnal revels on the grand canal at +Fontainebleau. She told such good stories, had so much wit and cheerful +kindliness, that no one ever had the heart to ask for a return of the +loans they had made to her. + +She brought into play the same fascinations to win the heart of the +first comer, were it only a child, so that she appeared to her godson +as a being quite apart, dazzling and adorable. He was not ignorant of +the straits she was put to, and it had even happened to him, seeing +her in tears, to slip his only silver-piece under her cushion; but +none the less for that did she seem to soar above him in a superior +world. Under her faded finery she was to him the personification of +supreme elegance, and he was right. She talked as no one else in Havre +knew how to talk, and in listening to her he was borne away to a new +world peopled with great princes and beautiful princesses who welcomed +Mme. de Bayard with distinction. He himself became a great noble and +showered riches upon his beloved godmother. He would have been a poor +creature not to prefer these beautiful dreams to gifts of any kind, and +besides, the old Countess made presents just as she gave her fêtes, at +the most unexpected moments. M. de Saint-Pierre respected her, and she +had a great influence, and it was always a beneficent one upon little +Bernardin's early education. + +He was not an easy child to manage. Some one who knew Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre very well, and who loved and admired him greatly,[1] said +that he united in himself all the good and all the bad qualities of +his brothers and his sister who were themselves neither ordinary nor +accommodating, with the exception, perhaps, of the youngest of the +boys. They were a nervous race, full of ambition, prompt to illusion, +and bitterly resenting deception and injustice. "A single thorn," said +Bernardin, "gives me more pain than the odour of a hundred roses gives +me pleasure." He did not exaggerate, nature had exquisitely adapted him +for suffering. + +From his earliest years he showed himself to be of an unequal temper, +which his father utterly failed to understand. The child was often lost +in the clouds, or absorbed in the contemplation of a blade of grass, +a flower, or a fly. One day when M. de Saint-Pierre was calling his +attention to the beauties of the spires of the Cathedral of Rouen, he +cried out in a sort of ecstacy: "Ah, how high they fly!" He had only +noticed the swallows wheeling about in the air. His father looked upon +him as an idiot, a strange undisciplined creature, and he was very +far from guessing at what was taking place in the mind of his little +son. The boy had unearthed from a cabinet an enormous folio containing +"all the visions of the hermits of the Desert," taken from the _Lives +of the Saints_. It became his habitual study, and from it he learnt +that God comes to the help of all those who call upon Him. There +could, therefore, be nothing for him to fear from his masters, his +parents, old Marie, or in fact from any one. He could abandon himself +in peace to his beautiful dreams, and withdraw himself into the ideal +world, where his imagination showed him only tenderness, flowers, and +sunshine. In case of need he would call God to his aid, and God would +surely deliver him. + +He did in fact call upon Him, and God came, as He always comes to +those who cry to Him in faith. One day, when his mother had punished +him unjustly, he prayed to heaven to open the door of his prison, +and to make known his innocence. The door remained closed, but a ray +of sunlight suddenly pierced the gloom and lighted up the window. +The little prisoner fell upon his knees, and burst into tears in a +transport of joy. The miracle was accomplished. It is with a ray of +sunshine that God has ever opened the prisons of His children. + +But the more Providence showed an interest in him, the more +ungovernable he became. The child so gentle, so compassionate to +animals, became passionate and violent, whenever the shocks of +real life unhinged him, so that he was almost beside himself. His +father raged, and then it was that the godmother interfered. She, +who understood it all, found her godson interesting, and while she +comforted him tenderly, she pacified and reassured his parents. To her +he owed his recall from exile after some innocent escapade which had +terrified his family. To her he owed some of his masters. To her he +owed the book which determined the bent of his mind, and the influence +of which one can trace everywhere in his works: _Robinson Crusoe_. + +Mme. de Bayard had made him a present of it, just at a moment when it +was thought necessary to change the current of his thoughts. Before he +was twelve he had set his heart upon becoming a Capucine monk, ever +since the time when Brother Paul had taken him with him for a tour on +foot through Normandy. The journey had been a perpetual enchantment, +one long junketing. They stopped at the convents, at the country +houses, with well-to-do peasants, and there was nothing but feasting +and kindliness everywhere. Brother Paul told stories all the way, the +weather was fine, the fields were in bloom, and little Bernardin adored +nature, whom nobody just then seemed to think much about, with the +exception of one other dreamer who had found her "dead in the eyes of +men," and who was just then engaged in resuscitating her. But as yet +young Saint-Pierre did not even know the name of J. J. Rousseau. He +only knew that in the country "the air is pure, the landscape smiling, +walking pleasant, and living easy"; that he was very happy, and never +wished to do anything else in the future than to watch the growth of +the plants, and listen to the woodland sounds. He made up his mind to +take the monk's habit and staff in order to be able to spend the rest +of his days wandering about the lanes, and this resolution he announced +as soon as he reached home. His father laughed at him, his godmother +gave him _Robinson Crusoe_. + +This book had a great influence upon his career. It suggested to +him the idea of his famous island, where Friday was replaced by a +people whom Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, by wise laws and by force of +example, had recalled to the "innocence of the golden age." The more he +reflected upon it the more the enterprise appeared to him practicable +and worthy of a man's powers, so much so that, having served as the +sport of his imagination, it became the aim of his existence. After +some months, no longer able to curb his impatience, he obtained leave +to embark for Martinique in a vessel belonging to one of his uncles. +It seemed to him quite impossible that he should not find somewhere on +the wide ocean a desert island, of which he would make himself king. +Nevertheless, the impossible happened, and he returned to Havre greatly +disappointed but not discouraged. While awaiting another opportunity +he matured his plans, in which the suppression of all schools held a +prominent place. Time only served to strengthen him in his design, and +we shall find him giving up the best part of his youth to the search +for his island. His long journeys had no other object. Being unable to +find it, he wished at least to demonstrate to the world what it might +have been, and he laboured indefatigably to describe it. One of the +results of this fortunate obstinacy is entitled _Paul and Virginia_. +We can understand that Bernardin always preserved a feeling of the +liveliest gratitude towards his godmother and towards _Robinson Crusoe_. + +It was again Mme. de Bayard, who on his return from Martinique +interposed to see that he finished his studies. M. de Saint-Pierre did +not trouble himself about it, being discouraged by the capricious and +senseless method in which his incorrigible son studied. He yielded, +however, and sent Bernardin to the Jesuits at Caen, who completed +the work begun by the _Lives of the Saints_ and _Robinson Crusoe_. +They made their pupils read the narratives of their missionaries, and +those great voyages to foreign countries, the daring adventures, the +sublime sufferings, the martyrs and the miracles finally set on fire +the imagination of young Bernardin. He worked no more, played no more, +talked no more, entirely given up to his determined resolution that he +also would become a missionary and go upon these wonderful voyages, and +be a martyr too. The Jesuit father in whom he confided, smiled, but +did not discourage him. M. de Saint-Pierre hastened to recall him, and +old Marie went to meet him outside the town to say, with tears in her +eyes, "Then you mean to become a Jesuit?" That was the first blow to +his vocation. The grief of his mother, and the lectures of Brother Paul +finally put an end to it, and he thought no more of becoming a martyr. + +He had suffered an irreparable loss during his sojourn at Caen. Mme. de +Bayard was dead; there was no longer any one to pour peace into that +restless and sombre nature. It became more and more true that "all his +sensations developed at once into passions," and more than ever he +sought a refuge from reality in dreams which his age made dangerous. +Eager for solitude, isolated in the midst of his companions, he became +absorbed in his visionary projects, and expended upon the phantoms of +his imagination the vague emotions that oppressed him. + +He sustained another loss equally calamitous to him though for very +different reasons. His mother died while he was finishing his studies +at Rouen, and with her disappeared the peaceful joys and sunshine of +the home, and her son was astonished to discover that at the first +vacation he had no longer any wish to return there. + +The thought was new and painful. The following year he went to Paris, +with the intention of becoming an engineer, and when he had been there +a year, he heard that his father had married again and was no longer to +be counted upon to help his sons. One of them was a sailor, the other a +soldier. Bernardin found himself alone in the streets of Paris, without +money, and almost without friends. His real education was about to +commence. He was twenty-three, good-looking, very impressionable, with +a delicate, keen imagination, courage, and unstable character. + +Almost all his biographers have deplored the use he made of his time +up to the age of thirty and after. It is true that in the eyes of +prudent people, who approve of a regulated career with promotion at +stated intervals, his entrance into the world must appear absurd, even +reprehensible. No one could make a worse bungle of his future than he +did, his excuse is that it was not intentional. On the contrary, he +took great pains to seek appointments, and believed himself to be a +model employé. But instinct, stronger than reason, constantly drove +him from a line which was not his own. He has very happily expressed +in one of his works[2] the combat which takes place under such +circumstances in a highly-endowed mind. + +He has just said that among animals, it is upon the innate and +permanent instinct of each species that depend their character, their +manners and, perhaps, even their expression. "The instincts of animals, +which are so varied," he continues, "seem to be distributed in each one +of us in the form of secret inward impulses which influence all our +lives. Our whole life consists in nothing else but their development, +and it is these impulses, when our reason is in conflict with them, +which inspire us with immovable constancy, and deliver us up among +our fellows to perpetual conflicts with others and with ourselves." +Bernardin de Saint-Pierre knew of these struggles with instinct by +his own experience. Thanks to them he was so fortunate as to succeed +in nothing for twelve years, and to be in the end obliged to abandon +himself in despair to those "secret inward impulses," which predestined +him to take up the pen. But prudent people have never forgiven him for +his inability to settle down, and they have suggested that his conduct +was detestable. + +He entered the army with the greatest ease, owing, as it happened, to +a misunderstanding. They were just in the middle of the Seven Years' +War, and a great personage to whom Bernardin had applied mistook him +for somebody else and without any further investigation gave him a +commission in the Engineers. He went through the campaign of 1760, +fell out with his superior officers, and was dismissed. On his return +to France, having been to see his father, his stepmother made him feel +that he was not wanted, and he returned to Paris as destitute and +lonely as it is possible to be. Youth takes these things to heart, and +by reason of them bears a grudge against the world and life. + +The following year he succeeded in being sent to Malta, quarrelled with +his superiors and with his comrades, and was shelved. From his return +from Malta we may date the first of the innumerable memorials he wrote +upon all subjects--administrative, political, commercial, military, +moral, scientific, educational, philanthropic, and utopian--with which +he never ceased from that time to overwhelm the ministers and their +offices, his friends and protectors; in fact, the whole universe, and +which made many people look upon him as a plague. One cannot with +impunity undertake to be a reformer and to make the happiness of the +human race Bernardin was eager to point out to men in office the +mistakes and faults in their administration, and to suggest innovations +in the interests of the public good, and he was unaffectedly astonished +at their ingratitude. He claimed recompense for his good advice, and +received no answer; he insisted, got angry, and ended by exasperating +the most kindly disposed, even his old friend Hennin, Chief Clerk in +the Foreign Office, who was obliged to write to him one day: "You +deceive yourself sir, the King owes you nothing, because you have +not acted by his orders. Your memorials, however useful they may be, +do not in the least entitle you to ask favours from the King as a +matter of right." Such lessons, only too well deserved, irritated +the simple-minded petitioner, who had struck out the forgiveness of +injuries from amongst the duties of philanthropy. "I have always needed +the courage," he said, "to forgive an insult, do what I will the scar +remains, unless the occasion arises for returning good for evil; +for any one under an obligation to me is as sacred in my sight as a +benefactor." In the midst of his self-torment he began again, and his +affairs went from bad to worse. + +Meanwhile he had to live. In the ministry they gave him no hope +whatever of being restored to his rank. He had written to all his +relations to ask for help, and had received nothing but refusals. He +had given lessons in mathematics and lost his pupils. The baker refused +to give him credit any longer, and his landlady threatened to turn him +out of doors. There was no other resource left to him but to found his +kingdom, which, upon reflection, he had converted into a republic. It +was to this that he devoted himself without further delay. + +He no longer thought it essential that it should be an island; any +desert would suffice, provided it had a fertile soil and a good +climate. He fixed his choice upon the shores of the Sea of Aral, and +at once set about his preparations for departure; which consisted in +taking his books to the second-hand bookseller, and his clothes to the +old-clothes man, and in borrowing right and left a few crowns. He thus +scraped together a few sovereigns, and took the diligence to Brussels, +whence be counted on reaching Russia and the Sea of Aral. Why Russia? +Why the Sea of Aral? He has given his reasons in a pamphlet, in which +he goes back to the Scythian migration, to Odin and Cornelius Nepos, +and which explains nothing, unless it is that Bernardin de Saint-Pierre +became almost a visionary when his hobby was in question. Here are +the reasons which he gives for his choice: "If there were some place +upon earth, under a bright sky, where one could find at one and the +same time, honour, riches, and society, all due to the security of +possession, that place would soon be filled with inhabitants. _This +happy country is to be found on the east coast of the Caspian Sea_; +but the Tartars who inhabit it have only made of it a desert." That +is all. On the other hand, a note at the bottom of the page shows us +where the future legislator had sought his models, reserving to himself +the liberty to improve upon them. "The English peopled Pennsylvania +with no other invitation than this: _He who shall here plant a tree +shall gather the fruits thereof. That is the whole spirit of the law._" +This note was the reply to a famous apostrophe in the _Discours sur +l'inégalité_ of J. J. Rousseau. + +"The first man who, having enclosed a territory, ventured to say _this +is mine_, and who found people simple enough to believe him, was the +real founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders, miseries +and horrors, would he not have spared the human race who should have +pulled up the stakes, filled in the ditch, and cried to his fellows, +'Beware of listening to this impostor; _you are lost if you forget that +the fruits of the earth are for all, and that the earth belongs to no +man_.'" + +One might point out other disagreements between the _Discours sur +l'inégalité_ and the pamphlet upon the colony of the Sea of Aral, but +they all bear upon questions of detail. Jean Jacques and Bernardin +agree at bottom as to the end to aim at and the path to follow. Young +Saint-Pierre was already and for ever a disciple of Rousseau. He +steeped himself in his philosophy, in anticipation of the day when he +was to come to him for lessons in sentiment. Master and pupil both +believed that our ills come from society. Nature arranged everything +for our happiness, and man was good; if we are wicked and unhappy the +fault is in ourselves, who have provoked the evil by disregarding her +laws. One can easily see the consequences of these misanthropical +views. As we have been the authors of our own unhappiness and know +where we have been mistaken, there is certainly a remedy. It rests +with us to overcome most of our sufferings by reforming society, and +changing our laws and our morality. Humanity only needs a clear-sighted +and courageous guide, who would dare to fling in its face its follies +and cruelties--who would bring it back into the right path. Rousseau +was this guide in words and on paper; Saint-Pierre wished to become the +same in deed and in fact. He purposed to put into practice what his +century was dreaming of, and that is why he set out one fine night for +a fabulous country. One may maintain that he could have found other and +more useful ways of employing his time, but, at least, his way was not +commonplace or egotistical. + +He travelled as an apostle, solely occupied with his mission, trusting +to Providence to bring him with his 150 francs to the feet of Peter +III.; for it was from the Emperor of Russia that he meant to ask +help and protection to found his ideal republic, by which should be +demonstrated the vast inferiority of monarchies. He never doubted but +that the Czar would share his zeal, then why disturb himself about the +means of accomplishing his design? Had he not in old times travelled +with brother Paul without money and without thought for the morrow? Had +he come to any harm from it? What people gave to the mendicant friar +for the love of God, they would give to him for the love of humanity. +And so it turned out. He arrived in Russia after having spent his last +crown at the Hague. His journey had been a perpetual miracle. One lent +him money, another lodged him, a third introduced him to others because +of his good looks. At Amsterdam they even offered him a situation +and a wife, which he did not think it right to accept because of his +republic. He felt that he owed a duty to his people. + +He landed at St. Petersburg with six francs in his pocket, and the +miracle continued. He did not dine every day, thank heaven! or the +romance would have had no further interest. But on the eve of dying +of hunger he always encountered some generous person who, like his +godmother, thought him interesting. He must indeed have been charming, +this fine young fellow, full of fire and good faith, starting out from +his garret to regenerate the world. So much so indeed that, passed on +from one to another, from introduction to introduction, he arrived at +last in the train of a general at Moscow, where the court then was, +received a commission as sub-lieutenant of Engineers, and replaced the +clothes sold to the old-clothes man in Paris by a brilliant uniform. +When his new friends saw him in his scarlet coat with black facings, +his fawn-coloured waistcoat, his white silk stockings, his beautiful +plume, and his glittering sword, they foretold a great fortune for him. +One of them called him _cousin_, and offered to present him to the +Empress Catherine, whom the Revolution of 1762 had just placed upon +the throne. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was transported with joy at this +proposal. It was only four months since he had quitted France, and he +already neared his goal. Providence evidently watched over his republic. + +What remained for him to do appeared mere child's play after what he +had accomplished. His pamphlet upon his projected colony was ready--it +was the same from which we have quoted some fragments above--and it was +not too ill-conceived. In it the author spoke little of the happiness +of peoples, and much of the utility to Russia of securing a route to +the Indies. The settlement which he proposed to found on the Sea of +Aral lost under his pen its doubtful character as a philosophical +and humanitarian enterprise, to take on the innocent aspect of a +military colony intended to keep the Tartars in check, and to serve as +an emporium for merchandise from India. In fact he thought he ought +to support it with a speech, which he composed, his Plutarch in his +hand, and in which he celebrated "the happiness of kings who establish +republics." But this speech had no unpleasant consequences as we shall +see presently. + +On the day appointed for the audience he put his pamphlet in his +pocket, glanced over his speech, and followed his guide to the palace. +They entered a magnificent gallery, full of great nobles glittering +with gold and precious stones, who inspired our young enthusiast on +the spot with keen repugnance. There they were those vile slaves of +monarchy, whose lying tongues knew no other language than that of +flattery! What would be their surprise, what their attitude, on hearing +a free man speak boldly of freedom to their sovereign? All at once the +door was thrown open with a loud noise, the Empress appeared, every one +was silent and remained motionless. The grand master of the ceremonies +presented M. de Saint-Pierre, who kissed her hand, and forgot his +pamphlet, his speech imitated from Plutarch, his republic, all mankind, +and only remembered how to reply gallantly to the great lady who +deigned to smile upon his youth and his beautiful blue eyes. + +And thus was buried for ever the project of a colony by the Sea of +Aral. The author took it the next morning to the favourite of the +day, Prince Orloff, and explained its advantages to him without being +able to inspire him with the least interest. The Prince indeed seemed +relieved when they came to tell him that the Empress was asking for +him. "He waited upon her at once in his slippers and dressing-gown, and +left M. de Saint-Pierre profoundly distressed and in a mood to write +a satire against favourites."[3] He returned, intensely discomfited, +to his room at the inn, and took up the education of his manservant +while awaiting another opportunity of founding his ideal republic. +His servant was a poor devil of a moujik, who had been kidnapped from +his family and made a soldier, and who would sing, with tears in his +eyes, sweet and melancholy folk songs. He would put his master's shoes +into a bucket of water to clean them, only taking them out when they +were wanted. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, having taught him how to brush +a coat, he was ready to throw himself at his feet and adore him as a +superior being. + +Meanwhile his master remained inconsolable at having by his own fault +failed to accomplish the happiness of mankind. Russia had lost its +attraction, he now only saw in it matter for disgust and anger, and he +was angry with himself for having come so far simply to contemplate +"slaves" and "victims." His profession bored him. He had addressed to +the Russian government several memorials upon the military position and +means of defence of Finland, whither his duties as officer of Engineers +had called him, and his labours had met with no better fortune there +than in France; nobody paid any attention to it. Anger grew upon him, +then bitterness, and he seized upon the first pretext to send in his +resignation, and cross the frontier in order to seek elsewhere a "land +of liberty" where the antique virtues still lived. A happy inspiration +induced him with this idea to follow the road through Poland where +the people were at that time the most oppressed and most miserable in +Europe. At sight of Warsaw "he felt in his heart all the virtues of a +republican hero." + +They did not remain with him long; other and more tender interests +were soon to replace them. Warsaw is the scene of the romance of his +youth, the adventure that his imagination as time went on turned into +a devouring passion, which he ended in believing in himself, and which +his biographers have related sometimes with virtuous indignation, +accusing him of having lived for more than a year at the expense of a +woman, sometimes with the respect due to great sufferings and unmerited +misfortunes. Unhappily or happily, some letters of his, published for +the first time thirty years ago,[4] show him to have been at once less +culpable and less worthy of compassion. These letters are addressed to +a friend in Russia, M. Duval, a Genevese merchant established at St. +Petersburg. In them Saint-Pierre speaks of his love affairs with the +indiscretion of youth and the vanity of a bourgeois anxious to announce +to the world that he has made a conquest of a princess. It is amusing +to compare this sincere report, confirmed by the _Correspondence_ +published in his complete works,[5] with the official story no less +sincere, which the hero of the adventure liked to circulate in his old +age. + +He arrived at Warsaw on the 17th of June, 1764, and was at once +received into the houses of several of the nobility. Some weeks passed +in festivities, which gave him more just views upon the subject of +Polish austerity, and the antique virtues of the country, and he very +soon wished to leave. On the 28th of July he wrote to his friend +Hennin: "You think my position here agreeable, so it appears from afar, +but if you only knew how empty is the world in which I wander; if you +knew how much these dances and grand repasts stupefy without amusing +me!" He then begs M. Hennin to use his interest for him at Versailles, +and to obtain for him a mission to Turkey, "the finest country in the +world as he has been told." + +On the 20th of August there is another letter to M. Hennin, in which +he shows that he is more and more impatient to leave Poland: "If +nothing keeps me here I shall leave in the beginning of the month of +September for ... Vienna, for I am tired of so much idleness, of which +the least evil is that I am growing accustomed to an indolent life." +This is certainly not the language of a man desperately in love, whose +heart would be broken if one tore him away from the spot where his +divinity breathed. But if we believe the legend, that was, however, +the moment in which Bernardin de Saint-Pierre surpassed the passion of +Saint-Preux, and lived the life of _The Modern Heloïse_, because it +was his fate to realise all that Rousseau had been content to write +about, as well in his romances as in his plans of social reform. This +is briefly what the legend tells us. + +Among the persons who had thrown open their doors to him at Warsaw, +was a young princess named Marie Miesnik, remarkable for "her love +of virtue." We see that this is exactly the starting-point of _The +Modern Heloïse_, a plebeian falls in love with a patrician. "From the +first day," says Aimé Martin, "M. de Saint-Pierre felt the double +ascendancy of her genius and her beauty, and she became at once the +sole thought of his life." On her side the Julia of Poland did not +remain insensible. We pass over the emotions which filled and lacerated +their souls to the day blessed and fatal, when overtaken by a storm +in a lonely forest, they repeated the scene of the groves of Clarens, +adding thereto recollections of Dido's grotto. "She gave herself up +like Julia, and he was delirious with joy like Saint-Preux," continues +Aimé Martin, whose phrase proves how much the resemblance with _The +Modern Heloïse_ was part of the tradition. Long intoxication followed +these first raptures. _More than a year passed in forgetfulness of the +whole world_, but Princess Marie's family began, like Julia's, to be +irritated with the insolence of this plebeian who dared to make love to +a Miesnik, and the end of it was an order to depart, given by the lady +to her lover, like Rousseau again, and which was obeyed with the same +passionate lamentations. + +That is what time and a little good-will made of the adventure of +Warsaw. Now for history. + +We have seen just now that nothing bound Bernardin de Saint-Pierre +to Warsaw on the 20th of August, 1764. Fifteen days after, the 5th +of September, he writes to M. Duval at St. Petersburg: "I must tell +you, my dear friend, for I hide nothing from you, that I have formed +an attachment here which almost deserves to be called a passion. It +has had a good effect in that it has cured me of my humours. Love is +therefore a good remedy to recommend to you above all, love gratified. +I have had such a pleasant experience of it, that I impart it to you +as an infallible secret, which will be as useful to you as to me. My +hypochondria is almost cured. + +"I might flatter my self-love by naming to you the object of my +passion, but you know I have more delicacy than vanity. I have then +found all that could attach me, graces without number, wit enough, and +reciprocal affection. + +"Another time you shall know more, but be persuaded that with me love +does no wrong to friendship." + +We are a long way from the genius, the intoxicating beauty, the +unheard-of delights. A young man, full of worries, finds distraction +and amuses himself with a lovely young lady who has "enough wit," and +who is not unkind to him. He is really in love with her, but in a +quite reasonable manner, for he writes the same day to Hennin, then at +Vienna, that the approach of the bad weather obliges him to make up his +mind, and that he will delay no longer in leaving Warsaw. In fact, on +the 26th of September he announces his departure to Duval in a letter +of which I give the essential passages: + +"My very worthy friend, the offers which you make me, the interest +which you take in me, your tender attentions, are in my heart subjects +of everlasting attachment. I do not know what Heaven has in store for +me, but it has never before poured so much joy into my soul. It was +something to have given me a friend, love has left me nothing further +to desire; it is into your bosom that I pour out my happiness. + +"I will not give you the name of the person who after you holds the +first place in my heart. Her rank is high above mine, her beauty not +extraordinary, but her graces and her wit merit all the homage which +I was not able to deny to them. I have received help from her which +prevents me from actually accepting your offers. It was pressed upon me +so tenderly, that I could not help giving it the preference. I beg you +to forgive me for it. I have accepted from her about the value of the +sum you offered me.... + +... "I am spending part of the night in writing to you. I start +to-morrow, and my trunks are not yet ready." + +One is sorry to learn that he had accepted money from his Princess. +His excuse, if there were one for that sort of thing, will be found in +the letter of _The Modern Heloïse_, where Julia persuades her lover, +by means of eloquent invective, to receive money for a journey. "So I +offend your honour for which I would a thousand times give my life? +I offend thine honour, ungrateful one! who hast found me ready to +abandon mine to thee. Where is then this honour which I offend, tell +me, grovelling heart, soul without delicacy! Ah! how contemptible art +thou if thou hast but one honour of which Julia does not know," &c. +Saint-Preux had submitted to this torrent. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre +imitated his model in this also. See where literary loves lead one. + +He left Warsaw on the 27th of September, after remaining there three +months and some days. Three months in which to meet, to love, to part, +was really the least one could allow. Certainly there was an epilogue, +but how transitory! + +He had gone to rejoin M. Hennin at Vienna, where he received a letter +from the Princess M., who had thought proper to depict for him the +sufferings of absence. With his ordinary ingenuousness he took her at +her word, got into a carriage, returned to Warsaw unannounced, arrived +in the midst of a reception, was received with fiery glances and +insulting words, would take no denial, and after the departure of the +guests, wrested his pardon then and there. The next day when he awoke, +they gave him the following note: + +"Your passion is a fury which I can no longer endure. Return to your +senses. Think of your position and your duties. I am just starting, I +am going to rejoin my mother in the Palatinate of X. I shall not return +until I hear that you are no longer here, and you will receive no +letters from me until such time as I can address them to you to France. +Marie M--." + +She had in fact departed. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre felt outraged, and +never saw her again. + +He returned to his vagrant excursions through Dresden, Berlin, and +Paris, to Havre, where he found only his old nurse. His father was +dead, his sister in a convent, his brothers far away. "Ah! sir," said +the good woman, upsetting her spinning-wheel in her emotion, "the times +are indeed changed. There is no one here to receive you but me!" She +invited him to dine in her bare lodging, beside her bed of straw, and +served up an omelet and a pitcher of cider. Then she opened her trunk, +and took out a chipped glass, which she placed gently beside her guest, +saying, "It was your mother's." They wept together, and then they +talked over the news of the country, of Brother Paul, who was dead, of +those who had left the town, of those who had made their fortunes. They +spoke also of Russia, of what they drank there, and of the price they +paid for bread. Above all things they talked of the happy times when +old Marie used to do up the children's hair in starched curl-papers, +admired their nonsense, and with her own money bought the class books +lost by Bernardin, so as to save him from a scolding. They wept +together again, kissed each other, and the young adventurer set out +once more, less discontented with humanity than usual. He was also less +satisfied with himself, after the lesson of resignation which he had +received from this poor old woman, who lived upon three pence a day, +and praised God for taking care of her. + +Returned to Paris he again overwhelmed the ministers of the king, +Louis XV., with memorials which no one wanted, with complaints and +petitions. He continued to invent schemes on all sorts of subjects, and +to cover scraps of paper with a thousand scattered ideas. M. Hennin, +clearly discerning where his talent lay, persuaded him to write his +travels, but the time was not yet come, and the fragments of this +date which have been preserved to us contain nothing but information +upon political, commercial, and agricultural subjects. Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre himself felt that it was too soon. Announcing one day +to Hennin that he had conceived a new idea about the movement of the +earth, he added: + +"You can see by that, that I grapple with everything, and that I leave +floating here and there threads, like the spider, until I can weave my +web.... + +"Give me time to lick my cub. Time, which ripens my intellect, will +make the fruits thereof more worthy of you." (Letter of the 9th of +July, 1767). + +He had a sort of instinct that all those Northern scenes which he had +passed through were of no use to him. He tried to find employment in +the countries of the sun--in the East or West Indies--without knowing +himself why there more than anywhere else. It was the exotic that +sought him, and it came to him in a most unexpected manner in the +autumn of 1767. + +It is hardly necessary to say that whoever knew him knew his project +of an ideal republic. To whom had he not mentioned it? He had never +ceased to believe in it--to be sure that people would come to it, +one day or another; but his ill-luck at Moscow had made his belief +less confident and less active. He resigned himself to await until +Humanity should call upon him to help it. Great then was his joy when +one of his patrons announced to him in confidence one fine day that +the French government, converted to his ideas, was going to send him +to Madagascar, under the command of a certain person from the Isle of +France, to found the colony of his dreams, and to attach the island to +France by "the power of wisdom" and "the example of happiness." There +was certainly some surprise mixed with his delight, but not sufficient +to make him ask himself whether his protector wished merely to get rid +of him, or for what reason an expedition entrusted solely to himself +had for leader a planter from the Isle of France. He only thought of +his preparations for his great enterprise. + +His first care was to re-read Plato and Plutarch, and to determine the +legislation of his colony. He remained faithful to his first idea of a +state entirely free, under the control completely absolute, arbitrary, +and irresponsible, of M. de Saint-Pierre. Some one, of course, would +have to compel the people to be "subject only to virtue." That was the +system put in force later by the Jacobins. + +He next drew out the plan of his chief town, and employed the small +inheritance which came to him from his father, in buying scientific +instruments and works upon politics, the navy, and natural history. +The expedition was to embark at Lorient. He hastened to rejoin it, +and was at first disappointed with its composition, for instead of +artisans and agriculturalists, the Commander-in-chief had collected +secretaries, valets, cooks, and a small troupe of comedians of both +sexes. However, Saint-Pierre took heart at once on learning that the +Commander-in-chief had amongst his luggage all the volumes that had +yet appeared of the _Encyclopædia_. He was, therefore, in spite of +all, "a true philosopher," and things were pretty evenly balanced. The +_Encyclopædia_ took the place of the artisans, and made the actresses +pass muster. Take note that Bernardin de Saint-Pierre always reproached +his contemporaries, especially the encyclopædists, with being mere +visionaries, destitute of practical sense. He flattered himself that he +was the practical man in this world of Utopians, but at the same time +he looked upon their work as a sort of supernatural book. Such is the +power of opinion. + +The expedition set sail under the most promising auspices, but once on +the open sea, the Commander wished to bring Bernardin de Saint-Pierre +to a more reasonable view of the situation, and explained to him that +he had never had any other design than to sell his subjects. I leave to +the imagination the effects of this thunderclap. They were taking him +to join them in the slave trade of the people of Madagascar! The horror +of such a thought increasing the shame of having been duped, voyage, +companions, projects for the future, and the very name of Madagascar, +all became odious to him on the spot. His ship touched at the Isle +of France. He hastened to disembark, took a situation as engineer, +and left his Commander to go on alone to Madagascar, where, it may be +remarked by the way, the expedition perished of fever. For himself, +discouraged and justly embittered, he lived in a lonely little cottage +from which he could see nothing but the sea, arid plains, and forests. +Seated in front of his one window, he spent long hours in letting +his gaze wander aimlessly. Or, perhaps, a melancholy pedestrian, he +wandered about on the shore, in the mountains, in the depths of those +tropical forests which we picture to ourselves as so beautiful, and +which he found so sad, because nothing there recalled to him the +pleasant scenes of his own country, and because he saw the Isle of +France under such gloomy auspices. + +"There is not a flower," he wrote, "in the meadows, which, moreover, +are strewn with stones, and full of an herb as tough as hemp; no +flowering plant with a pleasant scent. Among all the shrubs not +one worth our hawthorn. The wild vines have none of the charms of +honeysuckle or ground ivy. There are no violets in the woods, and as to +the trees, they are great trunks, grey and bare, with a small tuft of +leaves of a dull green. These wild regions have never rejoiced in the +songs of birds or the loves of any peaceable animal. Sometimes one's +ear is offended by the shrieks of the parroquet, or the strident cries +of the mischievous monkey."[6] + +His melancholy lasted throughout his stay and was good for him: "One +enjoys agreeable things," he said afterwards, "and the sad ones make +one reflect." That was the lesson which the Isle of France had given +to him. He had been there much thrown back upon himself, and he had +gained at last a glimpse of the right road. Instead of continuing to +cram his notes of travel with technical details, good at most to adorn +his memorials to the ministers, he had set himself to note down what +he observed from his window, or during his walks. He made a note of +the lines and forms of the landscape, of its general appearance, the +formation of the ground, the structure of the rocks, the outlines of +the trees and plants. He observed their colours, their most subtle +shades, their variations according to the weather or time of day, their +smallest details, such as the red fissure on a grey stone, or the white +underside of a green leaf. He notes the sounds of his solitude, the +particular sound of the wind on a certain day in a certain place, the +murmur belonging to each kind of tree, the rhythm of a flight of birds, +the imperceptible rustling of a leaf moved by an insect. He noted the +movements of inanimate nature, the waving of the grass, the parts of a +circle described by the force of the wind in the tree tops, the swaying +of a leaf upon which a bird had perched itself, the flowing of the +streams, the tossing of the sea, the pace of the clouds.[7] + +Sometimes he drew, and his sketches were only another form of notes. +During the crossing, while full of acute sorrow, he had drawn +numberless clouds. He studied their forms, their colour, their +foreground and background, their combinations, by themselves or +with the sea, the play of light upon them, with the attention and +conscientiousness of a painter of to-day, exacting in the matter of +truth. + +This rage for taking notes seems a simple thing to us now; it is the +method of to-day, but it was unique and unheard of in 1769. No one, in +France at least, had bethought himself of these descriptions, for which +one must have materials. Moreover, no one was then in a position to +note the details of a landscape, for the simple reason that no one was +capable of seeing them, not even Rousseau. Not that he had not the same +keen perception for nature that Bernardin de Saint-Pierre had, but it +struck him in a somewhat different way, as we shall see later. Besides, +the _Confessions_ and the _Reveries_ did not appear till after his +death, and could not have had any influence whatever on the birth at +the Isle of France in 1769 of picturesque literature. + +It was a birth as yet obscure and seemingly uncertain. This young +engineer, who sketched sunsets instead of making plans, did not know +very well what he would do with his "observations." He felt that +they would not be wasted, and that they were not like other stories +of travel; but the definite initiation into his own sphere was still +wanting. + +It concerns us little what Bernardin de Saint-Pierre did at the Isle +of France, outside his dreamings, or whether he was right or wrong in +his quarrels, his disagreements, and his lamentations. It suffices for +us that he returned to Paris in the month of June, 1771, his portfolio +full of scraps of paper, his trunks full of shells, plants, insects and +birds, and what was of more value, his head full of pictures. He was as +poor as when he set out, and still more unsociable, but he was ripe for +his task. "He had seen, he had felt, he had suffered, he had heaped up +emotions and colours, he had made himself different from other men. To +the vulgar crowd he had been an adventurer, but he had passed through +the school which develops painters, poets, and men of talent. That is +what he had gained by his long travels."[8] It is a great advantage +when one is oneself an exceptional being, to have had a youth which +was not like that of everybody else. An ordinary man would have run +a great chance of coming out diminished in energy, and on the wrong +road, from those dangerous years of apprenticeship which led the +author of _Paul and Virginia_ to be himself. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre +came through them without too many mishaps. His travels only made +him a little more original, and more misanthropic than he was in the +beginning. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Aimé Martin, author of the great biography entitled _Memoirs of the +Life and Works of J. H. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre_. [1 vol. 8vo. 1820.] + +[2] _Harmonies of Nature_, book v. + +[3] Aimé Martin. + +[4] In the appendix to vol. vi. of the _Causeries du lundi_. + +[5] Three vols. in 8vo., edited by Aimé Martin, Paris, 1826, Ladvocat. + +[6] _Voyage to the Isle of France._ + +[7] The papers of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre are in the possession of +the family Aimé Martin. M. Aimé Martin had beside him, when he was +writing Bernardin's biography, the numerous notes taken by the latter +from nature. + +[8] Villemain, _The Literature of the Eighteenth Century_. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +PERIOD OF UNCERTAINTY--VOYAGE TO THE ISLE OF FRANCE--ACQUAINTANCE WITH +J. J. ROUSSEAU--THE CRISIS. + + +He felt about for some time longer before finally taking up the pen. +In vain his friend Hennin urged him: "Above all, do not keep saying as +you have done hitherto, 'I will write, I will publish;' write, publish, +and leave it to your friends to make your work a success." Bernardin +de Saint-Pierre hesitated: "I am occupying myself," he replied, "in +putting in order the journal of my travels; not that I wish to become +an author, that is too distasteful a career and leads to nothing, but I +imitate those who learn to draw in order to adorn their rooms." (Letter +of the 29th of December, 1771). He speaks to him in the same letter of +getting the Government to give him a mission to the Indies, so that +he may be able to regale the ministers with a few more memorials on +politics or strategy. + +He hesitated because he did not know how to set to work. He thought +he saw a manner of describing nature for which he knew of no models; +and instead of trusting to himself, he appealed to his writers, who +could do nothing for him. In the _Harmonies de la Nature_, his last +great work, into which he put all his fragments, there is a rhetorical +lecture upon the rules of landscape painting, which bears witness +to the care with which he had analysed the methods of Virgil. In it +Saint-Pierre explains to some imaginary pupils the means employed by +the poet to obtain the desired effect: "When Virgil tells us, 'The +ash-tree is very beautiful _in the woods_, the poplar _on the banks +of the rivers_,' he puts the tree in the singular and the site in the +plural, _in order to enlarge his horizon_. If he had put the vegetation +in the plural, and the sites in the singular, they would not have had +the same scope. He would have contracted his different scenes if he +had said: 'The ash-trees are very beautiful _in a wood_; the poplars +_on the bank of a river_.' The lines of the picture once fixed, Virgil +throws the flash of light upon his landscape, and it appears either +sad or smiling. He succeeds in enlivening it with bees, swans, birds +and flocks; or in saddening it by painting it desolate. A landscape is +always melancholy when it includes nothing but the primitive forces of +nature." + +It is a subtle piece of observation, but the feeling for nature which +was awakening in Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, and for which he was +striving to find expression, was more complicated than that of Virgil. +Neither the _Eclogues_ nor the _Georgics_ taught him anything about +what were to be the great novelties of descriptive literature. The +ancients did not feel this need for precise and picturesque detail, +which has enabled us to take the portrait of a corner of country as we +do that of a person, with the same minutiæ, and the same care about the +resemblance. On the other hand, they had little of the intuition for +that mysterious correspondence between the scene and the spectator, for +that reciprocal action of nature upon our feelings, and of our feelings +upon the manner in which we look upon nature that in our day gives so +personal an emphasis to literary pictures of scenery, and can lend a +tragedy to the description of a bit of meadow. The only one of the +Greek or Latin writers, who has described the relations of our souls +with the world around us, has done it magnificently; but Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre had not read him. He was a Father of the Church of the +fourth century, Saint Gregory of Nazianzen, some of whose pages make us +think of Chateaubriand. + +"Yesterday, tortured by my regrets, I seated myself under the shade +of a thick wood, eating my heart in solitude; for in trouble this +silent communing with one's soul is a consolation that I love. From +the tree-tops where the breeze murmured, and the birds were singing, +gladdened by the sunlight, there fell a soft influence of sleep. The +grasshoppers hidden in the grass echoed through the wood, a clear +stream softly gliding through its cool glades bathed my feet; as for +me, I remained pre-occupied with my grief, and had no care for these +things; for when the soul is overwhelmed with sorrow it cannot yield +itself up to pleasure. In the tumult of my troubled heart, I spoke +aloud the thoughts which were contending within me: 'What have I been? +What am I? What shall I become? I know not. One wiser than I knows no +better. Lost in clouds I wander to and fro; having nothing, not even +the dream of what I desire.'"[9] + +One might urge that Bernardin de Saint-Pierre had not read the poets +of the sixteenth century any more than the Fathers of the Church. +It was not the fashion of his day, and he was not the sort of man +to go and explore the libraries; he was too much occupied in making +discoveries in the fields. Like almost all his contemporaries, he +jumped from antiquity to the seventeenth century with only Montaigne +in the interval. After Homer, Virgil, the Gospel, and Plutarch, his +intellectual sustenance had been Racine, La Fontaine, Fénélon, and at +last coming to his contemporaries, Jean Jacques Rousseau. In vain he +questioned them upon the idea which pursued him; not one of them gave +him a satisfactory answer. Racine, who they say was enchanted with +the valley of Port Royal, had had no room in his tragedies for word +pictures. La Fontaine had more the feeling for the country than for +nature. Fénélon saw the woods and the fields from the point of view of +the ancients. We have purposely not mentioned Buffon; Bernardin did not +understand or appreciate him. + +There remained Rousseau, who loved the beauty of the universe with all +his passionate heart; but the fine descriptions of Rousseau appear in +his posthumous works--in the _Confessions_ and the _Reveries_ which +were published, it is well to insist upon this, nine years after the +_Voyage to the Isle of France_. The celebrated landscapes in _La +Nouvelle Heloïse_, which Saint-Pierre had certainly studied, have about +them something conventional, which makes them appear cold. Call to mind +Saint-Preux in the mountains of Valais: + +"Here immense rocks hung in ruins above my head; there high and +thundering cascades drenched me with their thick mist; again, an +eternal torrent would open beside me an abyss, of which my eyes did +not dare to sound the depths. Sometimes I lost myself in the obscurity +of a thick wood. Sometimes on emerging from a ravine my eyes would +suddenly be rejoiced by a pleasant plain. An astonishing admixture of +wilderness and cultivation showed everywhere the hand of men, where one +would have thought that they had never penetrated: beside a cavern you +found houses, dried vine branches where one only sought brambles, vines +growing upon landslips, excellent fruit upon rocks, and fields in the +midst of precipices." + +In this bit, almost all the adjectives are abstract. The torrent is +_eternal_, the meadow _agreeable_, the fruits _excellent_. It is still +in the style of Poussin, and nothing in it foretells the pictures +in the manner of Corot and Théodore Rousseau, which Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre was soon to give to us. Let us say at once, in order +to establish the claim of the author of _Paul and Virginia_ to the +character of an innovator and pioneer, that the posthumous works of +Jean Jacques only give us his own impressions of a picture which he +suggests rather than shows to us. The immortal summer night of the +_Confessions_, on the road near Lyons, or the walk to Ménilmontant of +the _Reveries_, after the vintage and through the leafless country, +leave in the memory recollections of sensations rather than pictures. +One recalls a breeze of voluptuous warmth, a soft light of autumn; but +the physiognomy of the country escapes us. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre +will be the first to paint it for us accurately. Just because he is +much less great than his glorious predecessor, we must give him his +due, and insist upon his originality. + +Thus thrown upon his own resources, and finding by great good fortune +no one to imitate, he decided to take up the pen, and wrote, as well as +he could, and with many erasures, his _Voyage to the Isle of France_. +He had succeeded in sufficiently clearing up his ideas to know very +well what he wanted to do. He had two objects in view: in the first +place he wished to awaken a love of nature amongst the public. "By dint +of familiarising ourselves with the arts," he says in _The Voyage_, +"Nature becomes alien to us; we are even so artificial that we call +natural objects curiosities." He was shocked that the multitude who +became enamoured of the works of men could pass by the works of God +without seeing them, and he boasted for his part that he "preferred a +vine-stock to a column ... the flight of a gnat to the colonnade of +the Louvre." Moreover, he could not understand how one could separate +man from his surroundings, from the air which he breathed, the soil +which he trod upon, the plants and animals which were about him. "A +landscape," he says in his preface, "is the background of the picture +of human life." + +The second object of his work was in his eyes still more important +than the first. The awakening of a love of nature amongst men was not +to be a simple artistic pleasure. Saint-Pierre designed to make use of +it to teach these same multitudes to seek evidences of the Divinity +elsewhere than in books. He wished to restore to the France of the +philosophers the sense of the presence of God in the universe, and the +best way to do it seemed to him to be to draw attention towards the +marvels of creation. No argument in his eyes was worth a day passed in +the fields in looking at what was about him and at his feet. "Nature," +he wrote, "presents such ingenious harmonies, such benevolent designs; +mute scenes so expressive and little noticed, that if one could present +even a feeble picture of them to the most thoughtless man, he would +be forced to exclaim, 'There is some moving spirit in all this.'" In +another place he apologises himself for having written about plants and +animals without being a naturalist, and he adds: "Natural history not +being confined to the libraries it seemed to me that it was a book +wherein all the world might read. I have thought I could perceive the +tangible evidence of the existence of a Providence, and I have spoken +of it, not as a system which amuses my mind but as a feeling of which +my heart is full." + +We notice in the two last lines the avowal, as yet timid and obscure, +of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's favourite maxim, the key to all his +schemes philosophical, scientific, political, or educational. He always +strove, and more and more openly as he gained reputation and authority, +to persuade the world that feeling is ever a better guide than reason +in all questions, and that it gives us greater certainty. He himself +gave an example in applying it to everything, and in particular to the +truths of religion. We should say truthfully, that he was sufficiently +of his day, sufficiently imbued with the spirit of the encyclopædists +to believe himself already conquered if he appealed to reason in favour +of God. He thought it safest to address himself to the feelings of the +reader rather than to his intelligence, in order to reconcile him with +a personage so little in favour. + +This fine programme was unhappily very indifferently realised in the +_Voyage to the Isle of France_. Bernardin had first and foremost an +immense difficulty to contend against in the absence of a picturesque +vocabulary. "The art of depicting nature is so new," he said in the +course of his narrative, "that its terminology is yet uninvented. Try +to describe a mountain so that it shall be recognisable: when you have +spoken of the foundation, of the sides, and the summit, you will have +said everything. But what variety is there in those forms bulging, +rounded, extended, here flattened, there hollowed, &c.! You can find +nothing but paraphrases. There is the same difficulty with the plains +and valleys.... It is not astonishing, then, that travellers give such +poor accounts of natural objects. If they describe a country to you, +you will see in it towns, rivers, mountains; but their descriptions are +as barren as a geographical map: Hindostan resembles Europe; _there is +no character in it_." + +There are, in fact, accounts of travels of the eighteenth century +in which one might confound a landscape in the East, with one in +Touraine. Not only they did not see so much difference as we do: they +wanted words to give to each its own idiosyncrasy. To Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre is due the honour of having begun the work of enriching +the language, which was one of the glories of the Romantic School. + +Having to some extent overcome this first difficulty, Bernardin +encountered a second before which he succumbed. That was his +inexperience, and the timidity of a novice who dares not let himself +go. His narrative is dry and often tiresome. There are here and +there fine descriptions, written with a certain breadth and musical +expression, but the whole only creates an interest because it is an +attempt to achieve something new. The picture of the port at Lorient is +one of the best things in it. It is at the beginning and it makes one +hope for better things. + +"A strong wind was blowing. We had crossed through the town without +meeting any one. From the walls of the citadel I could see the inky +horizon, the island of Grois covered with mist, the open sea tossing +restlessly; in the distance great ships close-reefed, and poor +sailing luggers in the trough of the sea; upon the shore troops of +women benumbed with cold and fear; a sentinel on the top of a bastion +surprised at the hardihood of those poor men who fish with the gulls in +the midst of the tempest." + +There is grandeur and emphasis in this passage. It has character, to +use Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's expression; the sea which he paints for +us is the real ocean, and the ocean as seen from the coast of France +on a stormy day. He is no less happy in describing familiar things; +witness his description of the fish market. "We returned well buttoned +up, very wet, and holding on our hats with our hands. In passing +through Lorient we saw the whole market-place covered with fish; skates +white and dark-coloured, others bristling with spines; dog-fish, +monstrous conger-eels writhing upon the ground; large baskets full +of crabs and lobsters; heaps of oysters, mussels, and scallops; cod, +soles, turbot, in fine a miraculous draught like that of the apostles." + +The tempest at sea in the Mozambique Channel is perhaps the best page +in the book. In order to enjoy it thoroughly, we must turn first to the +classical tempests before Saint-Pierre's time, which are still more +featureless, more destitute of character, than the landscapes. The +following example is taken from _Telemachus_: "While they thus forgot +the dangers of the sea a sudden tempest agitated the heavens and the +sea. The unchained winds roared with fury in the sails; dark waves beat +against the sides of the vessel, which groaned under their blows. Now +we rose on to the summits of the swollen waves; now the sea seemed to +disappear from under the ship and to plunge us into the abyss." When +one has read one of these accounts one has read them all. The same +terms, few in number, serve to fashion indefinitely the same images of +groaning vessels which roaring winds precipitate into the abyss, and it +is not even necessary to have seen the sea in order to acquit oneself +quite respectably: it is enough if one consults the proper authors. Not +a word of the description which we have been reading belonged really to +Fénélon. He took it in its entirety from Virgil and Ovid: + + + ... stridens aquilone procella. + Velum adversa ferit. + + (Virgil. _The Eniad._) + + + Sæpe? dat ingentem fluctu latus icta fragorem. + + (Ovid. _The Metamorphosis._) + + + Hi summo in fluctu pendent; his unda dehiscens + Terram inter fluctus aperit. + + (Virgil. _The Eniad._) + + +Now compare with this literary tempest the realistic description of +Saint-Pierre, taken from hour to hour, minute to minute, and put down +in a note-book as the rolling of the vessel permitted. + +"On the 23rd (June, 1768), at half-past twelve, a tremendously heavy +sea stove in four windows out of five in the large saloon, although +their shutters were fastened with crossbars. The vessel made a backward +movement as if she were going down by the stern. Hearing the noise, I +opened the door of my cabin, which in a moment was full of water and +floating furniture. The water escaped by the door of the grand saloon +as though through the sluices of a mill; upwards of twenty hogsheads +had come in. The carpenters were called, a light was brought, and they +hastened to nail up other port-holes. We were then flying along under +the foresail; the wind and the sea were terrible.... + +"As the rolling of the ship prevented me from sleeping, I had thrown +myself into my berth in my boots and dressing-gown; my dog seemed to +be seized with extraordinary fear. While I was amusing myself trying +to calm him, I saw a flash of lightning through the dim light of my +port-hole, and heard the noise of thunder. It might have been about +half-past three. An instant later a second peal of thunder burst +overhead, and my dog began to tremble and howl. Then came a third +flash of lightning, followed almost immediately by a third peal of +thunder, and I heard some one in the forecastle cry that the ship +was in danger; in fact, the noise was like the roar of a cannon +discharged close to us; there was no reverberation. As I smelt a +strong odour of sulphur, I went up on deck, where at first I felt it +intensely cold. A great silence reigned there, and the night was so +dark that I could see nothing. However, I made out dimly some one +near me. I asked him what had happened; he replied, 'They have just +carried the officer of the watch to his cabin; he has fainted, as has +also the pilot. The lightning struck our vessel, and our mainmast is +split.' I could in fact distinguish the yard of the topsail, which +had fallen upon the cross-trees of the main-top. Above it there was +neither mast nor rigging, and the whole of the crew had retired into +the chart-room. They made a round of the decks, and found that the +lightning had descended the whole length of the mast. A woman who had +just been confined had seen a globe of fire at the foot of her berth; +nevertheless, they found no trace of fire. Everybody awaited with +impatience the end of the night. + +"At daybreak I went up on deck again. In the sky were some clouds, +white and copper-coloured. The wind blew from the west, where the +horizon appeared of a ruddy silver, as though the sun were going to +rise there; the east was entirely black. The sea rose in huge waves, +resembling jagged mountain ranges, formed of tier upon tier of hills. +On their summit were great jets of spray tinted with the colours of +the rainbow. They rose to such a height that from the quarter-deck +they seemed to us higher than the topmast. The wind made so much noise +in the rigging it was impossible for us to hear one another. We were +scudding before the wind under the foresail. A stump of the topmast +hung from the end of the mainmast, which was split in eight places down +to the level of the deck. Five of the iron bands with which it was +bound had been melted away...." + +Here are now some extracts from one of Pierre Loti's storms. We shall +thus be able to estimate the progress which descriptive literature has +made in the last two centuries. + +"The waves, still small, began to chase one another and melt together; +they were at first marbled with white foam, which on their crests broke +into spray. Then with a kind of hiss there rose a smoke: you would have +said the water was boiling or burning, and the strident clamour of it +all increased from moment to moment.... The great bank of clouds which +had gathered on the western horizon in the shape of an island, was +beginning to break up from the top and the fragments were scudding over +the sky. It seemed to be inexhaustible; the wind drew it out, elongated +it, and stretched it, bringing out of it dark curtains, which it spread +over the clear yellow sky, now become livid, cold, and dark. + +"And all the while it grew stronger and stronger, this mighty breath +which made all things to tremble. + +"The ship, the _Marie_, prepares for bad weather, and begins to fly to +leeward. + +"Overhead it had become quite dark, a dead vault that seemed as if +it would crush you--with a few spots of a yet blacker blackness, +which were spread over it in formless patches. It seemed almost like +a motionless dome, and you had to look closely to see that it was in +the full whirl of movement. Great sheets of grey cloud hurrying by and +unceasingly replaced by others, rose from the bottom of the horizon, +like gloomy curtains unrolling from an endless coil. + +"The _Marie_ fled faster and faster before the storm, and the storm +fled after her as if from some mysterious terror. Everything--the wind, +the sea, the ship, the clouds--was seized with the same panic of flight +and speed towards the same point. And all this passion of movement grew +greater, under an ever-darkening sky, in the midst of ever-increasing +din. + +"From everything arose a Titanic clamour, like the prelude of an +apocalypse foreboding the horror of a world's catastrophe. Amidst it +you could distinguish thousands of voices; those above were shrill +or deep, and seemed far off because they were so mighty; that was +the wind, the great soul of this confusion, the invisible power that +dominated it all. It filled one with fear, but there were other sound +nearer, more material, more ominous of destruction, which came from the +writhen water, that hissed as it were upon embers."[10] + +After the pages which we have just read there is nothing more in the +way of progress possible. The only thing to be done would be to return +to the great simplicity of Homer, Lucretius, and Virgil, to obtain the +same emotions in two or three lines. + +Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's style is bald beside that of Pierre Loti; +it requires an effort to return to it. The arrival at Port Louis +of the ship, disabled, and filled with scurvy-smitten people, is, +however, striking in its simplicity. "Just imagine this riven mainmast, +this ship with her flag of distress, firing guns every minute; a few +sailors, looking like spectres, seated on the deck; the open hatches, +whence rose a poisonous vapour; the 'tween-decks full of dying people, +the deck covered with invalids exposed to the heat of the sun, and +who died whilst speaking to one. I shall never forget a young man of +eighteen, to whom the evening before I had promised a little lemonade. +I sought him on the deck amongst the others; they pointed him out to me +lying on a plank; he had died during the night." + +The passages in which the thought and the expression are thus wedded +are unfortunately rare in the _Voyage to the Isle of France_. In +general, the writer does not yet understand how to make the best use +of his sketches and notes; and he did not hesitate later on to go over +his first sketches and develop them. This makes it very convenient for +following his progress in the difficult art which he was creating. One +can judge of it in his account of a sunset at sea in the tropics, which +he re-wrote for the _Études de la Nature_. Here is the sketch as it +appeared in the _Voyage to the Isle of France_: + +"One evening the clouds gathered towards the west in the form of a vast +net, resembling in texture white silk. As the sun passed behind it each +strand appeared in relief surrounded with a circle of gold. The gold +gradually dissolved into flame-colour and crimson tints, and low on the +horizon appeared pale tones of purple, green, and azure. + +"Often in the sky there are formed landscapes of singular variety, +where you can find the most fantastic shapes, promontories, steep +declivities, towers, and hamlets, over which the light throws in +succession all sorts of prismatic colours." + +This is but a summary account of the scene, a sort of table of contents +of the state of the sky on a certain evening. The second description +is almost too excessive, and contains too much imagery and too many +colours. + +"Sometimes the winds roll up the clouds as though they were strands of +silk; then they drive them to the west, crossing them over one another +like the withies of a basket. They throw to one side of this network +the clouds which they have not made use of, and which are not few in +number. They roll them up into immense white masses like snow, and pile +them up one upon another, like the Cordilleras of Peru, giving to them +the forms of mountains, caverns, and rocks. Then towards the evening +they calm down a bit, as if they feared to disarrange their work. When +the sun goes down behind this magnificent tracery, one sees through +all the interstices a multitude of luminous rays, which, lighting up +two sides of each mesh, seem to illuminate it with a golden aureole, +while the other two sides, which are in shadow, are tipped with superb +tones of pale red. Four or five rays of light rise from the setting sun +right to the zenith, and edge with a golden fringe the vaguely-defined +outline of this celestial barrier, throwing their glowing reflections +upon the pyramids of the airy mountains beside them, which appear gold +and vermilion. It is then that you see in the midst of their numerous +ridges a multitude of valleys which extend into space, and are marked +at their entrance by some shade of flesh-colour or pink. The celestial +valleys present in their diverse contours inimitable tones of white, +which melt away into space as far as the eye can reach, or shadows +which lengthen out towards the other clouds without losing themselves +in them. You see here and there, emerging from the cavernous sides of +these cloud mountains, streams of light which are thrown in bars of +gold and silver upon rocks of coral. Here are gloomy rocks pierced +through so that you can see the pure blue of heaven through their +apertures; there appear long stretches of golden sands, which extend +into the wondrous depths of the crimson, scarlet, and emerald-green +sky. By degrees the luminous clouds become faint-coloured, and the +faint-coloured fade into shadow. Their forms are as varied as their +tints, and in turn they appear as islands, hamlets, hills planted with +palms, great bridges across rivers, countries of gold, of amethysts, +of rubies, or rather there is nothing of all this but just colours and +heavenly forms, which no brush can paint, and no tongue express." + +The landscapes of the _Voyage to the Isle of France_ are for the most +part very sad. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre found the Isle of France ugly +and gloomy, perhaps because he had had nothing but trouble there. +Throughout his narrative he tries to convey the impression of a barren, +cheerless country, in some places covered with scorched grass, which +makes it look "black as a coal-pit," in others paved with stones of +an iron-grey colour, which form an unpleasant surface to a rugged +country. Plants, which he generally loves so much, do not appeal to him +there. Many are thorny, others mal-odorous, and the flowers are not +pretty. He does not like the trees, they have not the superb bearing +of French oaks and chestnuts, and their stiff leaves of dark green +give an effect of sadness to the verdure. Here and there, however, one +comes across delightful spots where the great woods are enlivened by +babbling brooks, but these solitudes, the refuge for runaway slaves, +are the theatre of hideous man-hunts. You see this unhappy quarry +killed or wounded with gun-shots, and hear the crack of the whip in the +air like pistol-shots, and cries which rend one's heart, "Spare me, +master, have pity!" To the heart thus oppressed the beauties of the +landscape disappear, and one only sees in it "an abominable country." +Abominable country, abominable abode, abominable inhabitants, for +the most part--that is, the Isle of France of the _Voyage_--little +in all conscience to impress our minds with the idea of a beneficent +Providence, careful of our needs. The author saw this, for he +abandoned this part of his programme and kept to picturesque effects, +producing in the end a meagre book, only a rough sketch of what he had +in his head. + +The volume appeared in the first months of the year 1773, and in the +article of the _Correspondence littéraire_, by Grunin, in the end of +February. The letter which accompanied the copy destined for Hennin +is dated March 17: "Here at last, sir and dear friend, is some of +the fruit of my garden.... Send me your opinion of my _Voyage_." +Saint-Pierre added in another letter of the 1st of June: "My book has +had a great literary success; but that is almost the only profit which +I have obtained from it." + +Did he really have a great success? It is doubtful as regards the +masculine public. Hennin kept an obstinate silence on the subject in +his letters, to the great disgust of the author, who had the bad taste +to persist, and who wrote to him two years later: "Why do you not talk +to me of my _Voyage_?" Duval, his friend at St. Petersburg, insinuated +among his compliments a few words on the passages which suggested "an +imitation of Rousseau, of Voltaire, or of Montesquieu." Grunin did not +understand it at all. Here is the essential part of his notice: "M. de +Saint-Pierre is not wanting in wit, still less in feeling; this last +quality appears to be his especial and distinctive characteristic. +The greater part of the work consists of observations made at sea, +and details of natural history. That struck me as very superficial." +Nothing about the style, nor the descriptive scenes, of which the +number ought, one would think, to have arrested his observation. +Grunin took the _Voyage_ for a scientific work and found it bad; its +originality entirely escaped him. It was the same thing with Leharpe, +who does not even mention Bernardin de Saint-Pierre in his _Cours de +Litterature_, that is to say that he took little notice of secondary +works. Then Sainte-Beuve, who collected his information with so much +care, has contradicted himself about the effect produced by the _Voyage +to the Isle of France_. One reads in his first article upon Bernardin +de Saint-Pierre: "This narrative had a well-deserved success,"[11] and +in his second article, written thirteen years later: "The work received +very little notice."[12] + +It is curious to compare the indifference of the men towards Bernardin +de Saint-Pierre's attempt, with the enthusiasm of the women for the +young unknown author who had spoken to them of the colour of the +clouds and the melancholy of the great forests. Women arrive at a +conclusion much more quickly than men when it is a question of feeling. +The women who read the _Voyage to the Isle of France_ understood at +once that there was something in it beyond mere observations made at +sea and natural history details, more even than sentimental tirades +upon the negroes. They divined that they were being introduced to +new joys, and they hastened to seek them under the guidance of the +sympathetic master who interpreted Nature to them, her beauties, her +gentleness, and her passion. The interest which they took in this first +work, not very attractive as a whole, was a sort of miraculous instinct +on their part. + +The _Voyage to the Isle of France_ had hardly appeared before Bernardin +de Saint-Pierre set to work again, in spite of all his protestations +against ever becoming an author. His diffidence had disappeared. He +felt himself to be full of courage and spirit, and it was not to his +success that he owed this, but simply to a visit which he chanced to +pay, and which was in its consequences the great event of his career. +"In the month of May, 1772, a friend having proposed to take me to see +J. J. Rousseau, he conducted me to a house in the rue Plâtrière, nearly +opposite to the Post Office. We ascended to the fourth story and +knocked at the door, which was opened by Mme. Rousseau, who said to us, +'Enter, gentlemen, you will find "my husband" in.' We passed through +a tiny ante-room, in which were neatly arranged all the household +chattels, to a room where J. J. Rousseau was sitting, in a frock-coat, +with a white cap on his head, occupied in copying music. He rose with a +smile, offered us seats, and returned to his work, giving his attention +all the while to the conversation."[13] + +Rousseau was sixty in 1772; his infirmities, his morbid ideas on +the subject of persecution, and his disputes with Hume, had put the +finishing touch to his reputation as a dangerous lunatic. His visitor +was struck with the sad expression underlying his "smiling air." But +he was irresistible when he was not roused. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre +joyfully yielded to this all-powerful fascination. He felt that he had +found the master in literature who had been wanting to him, he who was +to give him the right impulse and direction, and that by oral teaching, +so much more fruitful than written instruction. + +"Near him," he continues, "was a spinet, on which from time to time +he tried over some airs. Two little beds, covered with coarse print, +striped blue and white like the hangings of his room, a chest of +drawers, a table, and a few chairs completed his furniture. On the +walls hung a map of the forest and park of Montmorency, where he +had lived, and a print of his old benefactor the king of England. +His wife was seated sewing; a canary sang in its cage suspended +from the ceiling; some sparrows came to pick up bread-crumbs from +the window-sills on the side of the street, and on those of the +ante-room one saw boxes and pots full of plants such as Nature chose +to sow there. The whole effect of this little household was one of +cleanliness, peace, and simplicity, which gave one pleasure." + +It suggests one of those interiors of Chardin, where the neat little +mistress of the house in white cap and apron is busy about the +children's dinner. It is the most charming picture we possess of +Rousseau at home. + +The conversation turned upon travels, the news of the day, and the +works of the master of the house. Rousseau was most gracious all the +time, and reconducted his visitors to the head of the stairs; but who +could tell with so capricious a being whether this first visit would +lead to anything? It did, in fact, to Bernardin's intense satisfaction. +"Some days after that he came to return my visit. He had on a round +wig, well powdered and curled, a nankeen suit, and carried his hat +under his arm. In his hand he held a small cane. His whole appearance +was modest but very neat, as was that of Socrates, we are told." + +This second interview also passed off most agreeably, in looking at +tropical plants and seeds, but it was followed by the first tiff. +Deceived by the good-natured air of his new friend, Saint-Pierre +included him in a distribution he was making of coffee, which he had +received from the Colonies. Rousseau wrote to him: "Sir, we have only +met once, and you already begin to make me presents; that is being a +little too hasty it seems to me. As I am not in a position to make +presents myself, it is my custom, in order to avoid the annoyance of +unequal friendships, not to receive the persons who make me presents; +you can do as you like about leaving this coffee with me, or sending to +fetch it; but in the first case please accept my thanks, and there will +be an end of our acquaintanceship." + +They made it up on condition that Saint-Pierre received "a root of +ginseng[14] and a work on Ichthyology," in exchange for his coffee. +Rousseau, appeased, invited him to dinner for the next day. After the +repast he read his MSS. to him. They talked, the hours flew by, and +there resulted from these difficult beginnings an intimacy, stormy, as +it was bound to be with Jean Jacques, but wonderfully fruitful for the +disciple, who drank in deep draughts of the nectar of poetry, if not of +wisdom, which fell from the master's lips. All this took place during +their long walks together in the environs of Paris. They would start +on foot, early in the morning, each choosing in turn the direction +of their walk. Rousseau loved the banks of the Seine and the heights +above them, as deserted then as they are peopled to-day. They would go +through the bois de Boulogne, botanizing as they went along, and they +sometimes saw in "these solitudes" young girls occupied in making their +toilet in the open air. A ferry boat would land the two friends at the +foot of Mount Valérien, and they would climb up to visit the hermit +at the top, who would give them food; or perhaps Rousseau would lead +his companion towards the height of Sèvres, promising him "beautiful +pine-woods and purple moors." The "deserted commons" of Saint Cloud +had also their attractions; nevertheless all that side of Paris rather +erred in the way of extreme wildness. Such a powerful effect did Nature +have upon these her first lovers, intoxicated with their discoveries, +and whose sensations had not been discounted by descriptions taken from +books. + +When Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was the guide they chose by preference +the direction of Prés-Saint-Gervais and Romainville. The familiar +and peaceful nooks and corners around these attracted him more than +the extreme wildness of Sèvres and Ville-d'Avray. "You have shown me +the places which please you," he said; "I am now going to show you +one which is to my taste." They passed by the park of Saint-Fargean, +absorbed to-day into Belleville, and, by almost imperceptible degrees, +gained the gentle heights of those charming solitudes--for they +were also solitudes, but less severe than those chosen by Rousseau; +green grass there took the place of the brambles of Saint Cloud, and +cherry-trees and gooseberry-bushes the dark pines of Sèvres. One had +not to seek hospitality from hermits; there were inns, where Rousseau +liked himself to make an omelet of bacon, while Saint-Pierre made +the coffee, a luxury brought in a box from Paris. They would return +by another road, gathering plants and digging up roots as they went; +and nothing can express the charm with which the cantankerous and +suspicious Jean Jacques knew how to surround these excursions. He +showed himself a simple-minded, good fellow, an easy-going and cheery +comrade, interesting himself in everything, talking of everything, and +lavishing his ideas with the magnificent prodigality of the rich. + +Whether Bernardin de Saint-Pierre turned the conversation upon +philosophy or questions of economy, upon the Greeks and Romans, or +hygiene, upon his father the watchmaker, or upon Voltaire, the stream +flowed on in great waves, pouring out pell-mell anecdotes, aphorisms, +theories, descriptions of scenery, and literary opinions. One might +have said that he was taking his revenge for those conversations in +society in which he was known to fall short. "My wit is always half +an hour after that of others," he said of himself. It was not so in +a _tête-a-tête_, and every one of his words entered like the stroke +of a plummet into his young companion's mind, whose ideas had need of +a little help before they could burst forth. The effect of all this +was not long in showing itself. Saint-Pierre has fixed the dates in a +letter to Hennin of July 2, 1778, six years after his intimacy with +Rousseau. "At last I hope to find water in my wells; for six years I +have jotted down a great many ideas, which require putting in order. +Amongst much sand there are, I hope, some grains of gold." + +The enchantment of the walks lasted until their return to Paris. Then +Rousseau's brow would grow dark at the sight of the first houses of +the suburb. His mania resumed possession of him. He frowned, hastened +his steps, became taciturn and morose. One day, when his friend tried +to distract him, he stopped short, to say to him all at once, in the +middle of the street: "I would rather be exposed to the arrows of +the Parthians than to the gaze of men." This mood would sometimes be +prolonged as long as they were in the town, and no one was then safe +from the strokes of his sarcasm. + +"One day, when I went to return a book ... he received me without +saying a word, and with an austere and gloomy air. I spoke to him; he +only replied in monosyllables, continuing all the time to copy music; +he struck out or erased his work every minute. To distract myself, I +opened a book which was on the table. 'You like reading, sir?' he said, +in a discontented tone. I got up to go; he rose at the same time, and +reconducted me to the head of the stairs, saying, when I begged him not +to trouble himself: 'One must be ceremonious with persons with whom one +is not on a familiar footing.'" Saint-Pierre, hurt, swore that he would +never return; but they met, arranged another walk, and Rousseau once +more became amiable at sight of the first bushes. "At last," he said, +"here we are beyond the carriages, pavements, and men."[15] + +Their intimacy lasted until after Rousseau's departure for +Ermenonville in 1778, a short time before his death. His friend +mourned his loss bitterly, and always spoke of him with tenderness and +admiration. He did not forget how much he owed to him. He acknowledged, +at least in part--which is, after all, fine and praiseworthy--that +if he had shown a spark of the sacred fire, it was Rousseau who had +lighted it in their intercourse. He has never sought to hide the fact +that his works are strewn with ideas which occurred to them during +their walks, and which they had discussed as they sauntered together +under the shadow of some tree, or in the green woodland paths. The +results of these walks with Jean Jacques will be found in the _Études +de la Nature_. In comparing this work with the _Voyage to the Isle of +France_, one can see exactly what Bernardin owed to his illustrious +friend. The _Voyage_ proves to us that he knew what he wished to do +long before he met the author of the _Reveries_, but that, at the same +time, he would never have reached the goal without the impulse given to +him by a genius more robust than his own. + +It hung on quite a small chance that his career was not blighted at the +very moment when his fancy was preparing to take flight. The success +which the _Voyage to the Isle of France_ had with the fair sex nearly +proved fatal to its author. Their approval had to be paid for, as is +always the case. M. de Saint-Pierre was invited into the fashionable +world, and charming women flung themselves at his head, with their +habitual indiscretion, and caused him acute suffering. He had scruples, +and he was vain. The world laughed at his scruples, his vanity could +not console him for its scoffs, and the women did not thank him for +his respect; so that his soul was filled with bitterness and disgust. +He could not get over the depravity of society, and was seized with a +morbid irritation against it. Some months after he had mixed in it, +his imagination made it appear to him to be wholly and solely occupied +in making fun of him, of his goodness, of his gentleness, of his +pride, of all the virtues that he liked to attribute to himself, and +which he chose, as is the habit of all of us, amongst those he least +possessed. Soon he could not hear any one laugh without thinking they +were laughing at him, and every gesture made him suspicious. He said +later: "I could not even walk along a path in a public garden where +a few people were assembled without thinking, if they looked at me, +that they were disparaging me, even if they were quite unknown to me." +Thirty years later he was still persuaded that Mlle. de Lespinasse had +intended to insult him one day when she offered him a sweetmeat, at the +same time praising him for his kindness on a recent occasion. + +He fought duels in order to put a stop to the whispered raillery which +he thought he heard around him. Two fortunate affairs were powerless +to soothe his nerves, and strange disorders began to make him fear for +his reason. He consulted physicians, who recommended diverse remedies; +but he required money for them, and his bookseller had not paid him. +Meanwhile the evil grew from bad to worse, and at last came the crisis. +"Flashes of light, resembling lightning, disturbed my sight; every +object appeared to me to be double, and as though in motion.... My +heart was not less troubled than my head. On the finest summer day +I could not cross the Seine in a boat without feeling intolerable +qualms.... If in a public garden I but passed near the basin of a +fountain full of water, I felt a sensation of spasm and horror. There +were times when I believed that I must have been bitten by a mad dog +without knowing it." + +Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was mad, not incurably so, or enough to be +shut up; but, for all that, mad. He knows it, acknowledges it, and +adds to his heartrending confession a note, which explains how he was +able to hide his condition from the world around him. "God granted me +this signal favour, that however much my reason was disturbed, I never +lost the consciousness of my condition myself, or forgot myself before +others. Directly I felt the approach of the paroxysms of my malady, +I would retire into solitude." Here follows a slight metaphysical +discussion upon "this extraordinary reason," which warned him "that his +ordinary reason was disturbed." + +Just about the same time his brother Dutailly began the series of +extravagances which obliged them to shut him up. + +Meantime, the world from which Bernardin de Saint-Pierre had succeeded +in hiding himself, was without indulgence for him, and pronounced +him to be wicked, while he was in reality only unhappy. We have now +arrived at the years of pain, of physical and moral distress, of +equivocal ills, absurd suspicions, quarrels, ill-will, and, alas! of +begging. Some of his friends became estranged by his incomprehensible +humour, others gave him up, and of this number were "the philosophers," +d'Alembert, Condorcet, all the intimates of Mlle. de Lespinasse. +Bernardin de Saint-Pierre has, in an _Apologie_ addressed to Mme. +Necker to beg her protection, naïvely explained that he quarrelled +with "the philosophers" because they failed to induce Turgot to help +him. "If they had been my friends," he adds, with indignation, "could +they have acted so? Pensions, easy posts, rings for their fingers, are +distributed to their clients, while to me they only come to advise me +to leave the country, although I showed them that I had the greatest +repugnance to such a course."[16] (January 26, 1780.) + +He retired from the world, living an unsociable life in a miserable +lodging-house, not willingly seeing any one but Rousseau, so well able +to understand a misanthrope, and a few faithful friends who put up +with all his moods, at the head of whom was Hennin, whose patience was +admirable. The position which the latter held in the Foreign Office +led to his being charged with the presentation of the petitions that +his gloomy and needy friend addressed to the ministers; and the task +was not an easy or pleasant one, as their correspondence testifies. +Saint-Pierre begged shamelessly. "I have neither linen nor clothes; my +excursions on foot have worn them out. If you wish to see me again, +induce them to give me the means of appearing. You know that your +department decidedly owes me something.... Do remember to think of me +in the distribution of the king's favours; I need them greatly.... I +am reduced to borrowing, and I have nothing to expect till February of +next year." And so on from month to month, if not from week to week. +If there was delay in sending the money, M. Hennin would receive a +bitter letter, in which M. de Saint-Pierre would excuse himself for not +having visited him on account of the bad weather, adding: "If I had +received the favour which you led me to hope for, I should have taken a +carriage." If the money was forthcoming, it was still worse for Hennin, +because of the ceremonies with which it had to be conveyed to its +recipient. There is amongst their correspondence a series of letters +which are quite comic, about a sum of £300 that Saint-Pierre had begged +hard for, and which he wished M. de Vergennes personally to press him +to accept. He demands a "letter of satisfaction and kindness" from +the minister, written with his own hand, without which he refuses the +£300. Silence on the part of Hennin, who is evidently overcome by this +extraordinary pretentiousness; uneasiness on the part of Bernardin, who +trembles lest he should be taken at his word. The £300 are sent to him; +he pockets them, spends them, and continues to claim his letter. A +year later he is still claiming it, without having ceased to beg in the +meantime. + +It is true that this took place at a time when the bounties of the king +conferred honour upon the recipient, and when the nobility of France +set the example of holding out the hat to catch the royal manna. It +is true that it took place very near the time when the man of letters +lived upon his servile dedications, upon inferior employments among +the rich and great, and considered himself only too happy, in the +absence of copyright, to repay in flatteries the rent of a room at +the Louvre or the Condé mansion. It is true that one must not ask for +a strict account from a brain disturbed by hallucinations, and that +nothing could relieve the mind of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre of the idea +that the French Government owed him compensation for his journey to +Poland, where he assured them he had run the risk of being taken by the +Russians and sent to Siberia. It was the same with the memorials, with +which for fifteen years he harassed people in office, and the others +which he promised to send them. The same with the situations which he +had lost through his own fault, and those which had been refused to +him. The same with his literary works, to which he gave up his time, +and which had for their aim the happiness of mankind; and the same +with the services which he had rendered to his country, a long list +of which appears in the _Apologie_. "I remember that in the park at +Versailles I pacified an infuriated Breton peasant woman, who intended, +she informed me, to go and get up a riot under the very windows of the +king. This was during the bread riots. Another time I had a discussion +with an atheistical reaper." How was it possible to refuse a pension to +a man who had done that! + +In common justice they owed him also compensation for the great and +glorious things they had prevented him from accomplishing. He had +ripened his plan of an ideal colony, and sent project after project +to Versailles. Sometimes he offered himself to civilise Corsica, +sometimes to conquer Jersey, or North America, or to found a small +state in France itself, within the king's dominions. Nobody had deigned +to take any notice of his plans, unless perhaps "some intriguing, +avaricious protegé" should have stolen his ideas and was preparing to +carry them out in his stead; such things did happen sometimes. He laid +the blame of the culpable negligence of the Government upon the head +clerk of the Foreign Office, and he did not spare his reproaches. The +excellent Hennin groaned, grieved over it, but did not get angry. He +himself counted upon recompense also, and he did not count in vain. +As soon as this mind diseased recovered itself a little, there were +most delightful outpourings to the good and true friend who was never +harsh or unfeeling. Then there are periods in their correspondence +like oases of peace and poetry. In the beginning of 1781 Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre, at Hennin's suggestion, quitted his wretched furnished +room, and took a lodging in the rue Neuve-Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, +which he called his donjon, and where cheerfulness streamed in at +every window. The staircase was in the courtyard to the right, and on +ascending to the fourth story under the roof, one found four small +bright rooms, from which one looked out upon a little bit of country. +It was nothing but gardens, orchards, convents, peaceful little +cottages, the wide sky overhead, and the low horizon. Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre felt that he was saved. He wrote a letter to Hennin which +is a song of joy. He says:-- + +"I shall come to see you with the first violet; I shall have to walk +five miles, but shall do it joyfully, and I intend to give you such a +description of my abode as will make you long to come and see me and +take a meal with me. Horace invited Mecænas to come to his cottage at +Tivoli, to eat a quarter of lamb and drink Falernian wine. As my purse +is getting very low, I shall only offer you strawberries and mugs of +milk, but you will have the pleasure of hearing the nightingales sing +in the groves of the convent of the English nuns, and of seeing the +young novices play in their garden." (February 7, 1781.) + +Another year April perfumes the air, and Hennin has promised to come +and dine in the donjon. His friend describes the menu to him: "Simple +viands, amongst which will be found a big pie that Mme. Mesnard is +going to give me; a pure wine, good of its kind; excellent coffee, +and punch, which I make well, let me say without vanity." It is a +question of fixing a day. "Nature must undertake the chief cost of +this little feast, therefore I expect she will have carpeted the paths +with verdure and decorated the groves of trees in my landscape with +leaves and flowers. If you were an observer of nature, I should say to +you start the very first day that you see the chestnut tree set out +its chandeliers; but you are one of those who only have eyes for the +evolution of human forces. Let me know the day you choose," &c. + +The dinner was as charming as the invitation. It was talked of at +Versailles, and some fair dames lamented aloud that they had not been +invited. + +To most of them the donjon would have appeared a hateful abode: one +froze in it in winter and was roasted in summer, and every gust of +wind threatened to blow it away. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, obstinate +dreamer that he was, preserved all his life the most tender and +faithful remembrance of his aërial lodging: "It was there," he wrote +in his mature age, "in the midst of a profound solitude, and under a +bewitching horizon, that I experienced the sweetest joys of my life. +I should perhaps still be there if for a whim they had not forced +me to turn out in order to pull it down. It was there that I put +the finishing touches to my _Études de la Nature_, and from there I +published it."[17] And it is there that one must look upon him in order +to do him justice after our earlier sad pictures of him. + +Before he had become a morose beggar, suffering with weak nerves, he +was, we must remember, possessed with the idea that to a man carrying +in his head a book which he believes to be good and useful, all +means are fair for accomplishing his destiny of creative artist and +intellectual guide. He recognises no choice of means, he is the slave, +and at need the victim of a superior power, which commands him to +sacrifice his repose and his pride on condition that he acquits himself +of his debt towards mankind by giving to it a work which will bring a +little happiness to our poor world. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was quite +certain that he possessed the magic word which lifts up the heart, and +rather than throw it to the four winds of heaven, he would have begged +alms on the highway. Was he right? was he wrong? We owe it to his great +faith to leave our verdict undecided. + +Think of him in his garret, and you will understand that he begged not +for himself, but for his book, which is a very different matter. He is +avaricious because he hopes still to write another chapter before going +on the tramp again. He has only one coat for the whole year, winter and +summer. He does his own housekeeping, sweeps, cleans, cooks. He allows +himself so little firing that in winter the water remains frozen for +eight days in his rooms, and his pitchers burst. He goes on foot to +Versailles to see Hennin, and returns in the same way at night; all +the better if it is moonlight, all the worse if it rains. His health +suffers, but his head recovers, and he is happy; he has a "whole trunk" +full of rough draughts, which he copies, corrects, and arranges. "You +cannot imagine," he writes to Hennin, "the tenderness of an author for +his production; that of a mother for her son is not to be compared to +it. I am always adding to or cutting out something of mine. A bear +does not lick her cub with more care than I; I fear in the end I shall +rub away the muzzle of mine with my licking. I do not wish to touch it +any more.... There have been moments when I have caught a glimpse of +heaven." (December 18, 1783.) + +When the moment arrives to have his work printed, he redoubles his +economy. He is sordid and at the same time a greater borrower, more +in debt than ever; for after all it is in order to commit some +extravagance for his "child"--to have fine paper, to add a print here, +a pretty frontispiece there. The extravagance accomplished, he writes +to Hennin, one of his principal lenders, to demonstrate to him that +this is an excellent speculation:-- + +"It is not a superfluous expense, even if the print in 12º itself +comes to fourteen or fifteen pounds, because it is possible that many +people will buy my work for the print alone, as has happened to others. +Moreover, I shall raise the price of my edition with it, so as to reap +more than I sowed. So...." (June 29, 1784.) + +Thus it was as clear as noonday that this lovely engraving would make +his fortune, a very important matter to his creditors. We do not +possess Hennin's reply, but there is no doubt, after what we know of +his kindness, that he made pretence of being convinced. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9] _Poems._ Translated by Villemain. + +[10] Pecheur d'Islande. + +[11] Portraits littéraires, 1836. + +[12] Causeries du lundi, 1852. + +[13] Essay upon J. J. Rousseau. + +[14] Chinese name for a bitter-sweet root used in medicine.--TRANSLATOR. + +[15] He has expressed the same sentiment, only more energetically, in +a passage of the _Huitième Promenade_, where he represents himself as +escaping at last from the "procession of the wicked." + +[16] This curious note does not appear in the complete works. It +formed part of the collection of autographs belonging to M. Feuillet +de Conches. I owe the information to the kindness of Mme. Feuillet de +Conches. + +[17] Sequel to the _Vows of a Hermit_. + + + + +III. + +THE "ÉTUDES DE LA NATURE." + + +The _Études de la Nature_ appeared in three volumes towards the end +of 1784. It did not then comprise the fragments of _l'Arcadie_, which +have been since added to it, nor _Paul and Virginia_, which the author +had cut out in consequence of an adventure that has been recounted a +thousand times, and that we must recount yet again in order to give +consolation to any disappointed young man who may be breaking his heart +because he is not understood. + +Mme. Necker had invited him to come and read some of his MSS. aloud, +promising that he should have for his audience some distinguished +judges. Amongst them were in fact Buffon, the Abbé Galiani, Thomas, +Necker, and some others. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre chose _Paul and +Virginia_. At first they listened in silence, then they began to +whisper, to pay less attention, to yawn, and finally not to listen at +all. Thomas fell asleep, those nearest the door slipped out, Buffon +looked at his watch and called for his carriage. Necker smiled at +seeing some of the women, who dared not appear otherwise touched, in +tears. The reading ended, not one of these persons, though trained in +the world's deceits, could find a word of praise for the author. Mme. +Necker was the only person to speak, and it was to remark that the +conversations between Paul and the old man suspended the action of the +story, and chilled the reader; that it was "a glass of iced water": +a very just definition, but ungracious, and it reduced Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre to despair. + +He thought he was condemned without appeal, and returned to his house +so prostrated in spirit that he thought of burning _Paul and Virginia_, +the _Études_, and _l'Arcadie_--all his papers in fact--so as not to +be tempted to touch them again. One of the Vernets turned up at this +crisis, took pity upon his suffering, had the despised work read over +to him, and recognised the charm of it. He applauded, wept, proclaimed +it a masterpiece, the MSS. are saved, and the author consoled, without, +however, gaining sufficient courage to print a work which had sent +Thomas to sleep, and put Buffon to flight. _Paul and Virginia_ remained +in a drawer. + +It was the same with the fragments of the _Arcadie_, and with much +more reason. _L'Arcadie_, begun after the publication of the _Voyage to +the Isle of France_, was to be an epic poem in prose in twelve books, +and was inspired by _Telémaque_ and _Robinson Crusoe_. Saint-Pierre +proposed "to represent the three successive states through which most +nations pass: that of barbarism, of nature, and of corruption."[18] +Notice in passing this progression. The state of nature is not the +first state, it is between the two, after the state of barbarism +and before the state of over-civilisation, which proves that before +admiring or despising natural man, according to the eighteenth century, +it is as well to understand the sense which each writer gives to the +words. + +The picture of these three states furnished our author with the means +of expressing his ideas upon the ideal republic which he proposed +to form. Thus _l'Arcadie_ became the instrument of propagandism, +just the thing to lead M. de Saint-Pierre to fortune, and he never +forgave himself for having given up this work, a little through +Rousseau's fault, who proclaimed the plan of the book admirable, but, +nevertheless, advised him to re-write it from beginning to end. Jean +Jacques acknowledged at the same time, with a smile, that he had ceased +to believe in poetical and virtuous shepherds since a certain journey +which he had taken beside the Lignon: "I once made an excursion to +Forez," he continued, with the geniality of his good days, "solely to +see the country of Celadon and Astrea, of which Urfé gives us such +charming pictures. Instead of loving shepherds, I only saw on the banks +of the Lignon farriers, blacksmiths, and edge-tool makers." "What!" +cried Saint-Pierre, overwhelmed with astonishment, "that all, in so +delightful a country?" "It is only a country of smithies," replied +Rousseau. "It was that journey to Forez which cured me of my illusion; +up to that time never a year passed without my reading Astrea from end +to end. I was acquainted with all its characters. Thus does science rob +us of our pleasures.[19]" + +It was in the bois de Boulogne, seated under a tree, that Jean Jacques +Rousseau taught his astonished disciple not to take the Astrea for +history. He also told him with great modesty that he felt himself +incapable of governing the Republic of their dreams; that all he +could do would be to live in it. This declaration piqued Bernardin +de Saint-Pierre; he thought he perceived an underlying criticism, +and enlarged with enthusiasm upon the sublime virtues of his future +subjects which would make them easy to govern. But even while +disputing about it he grew disgusted with _l'Arcadie_, put it on one +side, and used up the materials for his _Études_. Posterity has no +reason to regret it. The fragments which have reached us suggest a +work in which the ideas are false and the characters conventional. +One reads in it for example: "One could see by her timidity that she +was a shepherdess." The contrary is the case in point of fact, and +Saint-Pierre knew it better than any one; he who had trotted on foot +through the whole of Normandy in quest of models for his heroes, before +tracing the portraits of the beautiful Cyanée of Tirteé, her father, +and their guest Amasis. His rustics seem to be drawn by a wit who is a +clumsy imitator of Fénélon. He was quite wise to give it up. + +According to his correspondence, the _Études de la Nature_ was begun +in 1773. The plan of it was at that time gigantic. He informs us on +the first page that he wished "to write a general history of nature, +in imitation of Aristotle, of Pliny, of Bacon, and other modern +celebrities." He set to work, but he soon acknowledged, in making his +observations of a strawberry-plant, that he would never have the time +to observe all that there is on the earth. Although the page upon the +strawberry-plant has become classical, it is as well to re-read it in +order to be able to realise its effect upon readers, who up to that +time had dwelt upon our beautiful Mother Earth deaf and blind, without +hearing the pulsation of her life, without seeing her prodigious +eternal productiveness. + +"One summer day ... I perceived upon a strawberry-plant, which had +by chance been placed upon my window-sill, a lot of little flies, so +pretty, that I became possessed of the wish to describe them. The next +day I saw another kind, and of them also I wrote a description. During +three weeks I observed thirty-seven different species of them; but they +came in such numbers at last, and in so many varieties, that I gave +up the study of them, although it was most interesting, because I had +not sufficient leisure, or, to tell the truth, sufficient command of +language for the task. + +"The flies which I did observe were distinguished from each other by +their colours, their forms, and their habits. There were some of a +golden hue, some silver, some bronze, speckled, striped, blue, green, +some dusky, some irridescent. In some the head was round like a turban; +in others, flat like the head of a nail. In some they appeared dark +like a spot of black velvet; in others, they shone out like a ruby. +There was no less variety in their wings; some had them long and +brilliant like a sheet of mother-o'-pearl; in others, they were short +and broad, resembling the meshes of the finest gauze. Each one had its +own way of carrying its wings and of using them. Some carried them +erect, and others horizontally, and they seemed to take pleasure in +spreading them out. Some would fly, fluttering about like butterflies; +others would rise in the air, flying against the wind by aid of a +mechanism somewhat resembling toy beetles. Some would alight upon a +plant to deposit their eggs; others simply to seek shelter from the +sun. But most of them came for reasons which were quite unknown to +me; for some flew to and fro in perpetual movement, while others only +moved their backs. There were some who remained quite immoveable, and +were, perhaps, like me, engaged in making observations. I disdained, +as I already knew them so well, all the tribes of other insects which +were attracted to my strawberry-plant: such as the snails which +nestled under its leaves; the butterflies which fluttered around it; +the beetles which dug at its roots; the little worms which found the +means of living in the cellular tissue, that is to say, simply in the +thickness of a leaf; the wasps and the bees which hummed about its +flowers; the aphis which sucked the stems, the ants which ate up the +aphis; and last of all, the spiders which wove their webs near at hand +in order to catch all these different victims." + +He then had recourse to the microscope to examine into the world of the +infinitely little, and saw that the only limit to his observation was +the imperfections of our instruments; each leaf of the strawberry-plant +was a little universe in which creatures invisible to the naked eye +were born, lived, and died. This led to the reflection that his +plant would be more densely peopled if it had not been in a pot, in +the midst of the smoke of Paris; that, moreover, he had only made +his observations of it at one hour of the day, and at one season of +the year; and he perceived that the complete history of one species +of plant, comprising its relations with the animal world, would be +sufficient to occupy several naturalists. His thoughts turned to the +immense number of plants and animals known to us, and to the small +amount of attention which up to that time had been given to their +instincts, their appearances, their friendships and enmities, so that +almost everything remained still to be found out. He thought over the +weakness of his intention, and acknowledged himself vanquished at the +outset. Far from being able to embrace in his work this formidable +mass of information which we call creation, he felt himself incapable +of explaining fully even its details. "All my ideas," he wrote to +Hennin, "are but the shadows of nature, collected by another shadow." +He also compared himself to a child who has dug a hole in the sand +with a shell, to contain the sea. So he gave up his project of writing +a general history, and lowered his ambition till it was more in +accordance with his powers, declaring himself satisfied that he had +given his readers some new delights, and extended their views in the +infinite and mysterious world of nature. + +Nevertheless, if his work was given to the public only in a curtailed +and mutilated form, his object remained. The _Études de la Nature_ +was destined to paraphrase the first part of Fénélon's _Traité de +l'existence de Dieu_, especially of the second chapter, entitled +"Proofs of the Existence of God, taken from the Consideration of +the Chief Marvels of Nature." Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was born +religious at heart in an age which had "lost the taste for God," to +use Bossuet's expression, when believers themselves were wanting in +spirit and tenderness. He was brought up upon the celebrated phrase of +Voltaire--"The people must have a religion"--and never could reconcile +himself to hear repeated around him that in truth, "Religion is the +portion of the people, just a kind of political engine invented to keep +them in check" (_Études_). Atheism seemed to him a diminution of our +being, a lessening of its most noble sensations and its most elevated +emotions. "It is only religion," he said, "which gives to our passions +a lofty character"; and he related, apropos of this, that the day on +which he himself had perceived most vividly the power of the "divine +majesty" of suffering was in contemplating a peasant woman from Caux +prostrated at the foot of the cross one stormy day, praying, with +clasped hands, her eyes cast up to heaven, for a boat which was in +danger. The seventeenth century would not have admitted for poetical +reasons that they believed thus in God. Men's minds were then too +serious; and the great spiritual directors of the time of Bossuet and +Bourdaloue, without mentioning the Jansenists, would have been shocked +at the sentimental religion of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. But the +eighteenth century had taught men to be less nice, and such things +appeared to it to be sublime. + +It must be said that they were very tired of arguments and philosophy, +and the idea that they might seek for truth by some less tiresome +paths was very pleasing. They had for so long lived like the Carthusian +friars of the _Harmonies_. "One day one of my friends went to visit a +Carthusian friar. It was the month of May; the garden of the recluse +was covered with flowers, in the borders and on the fruit-trees. As +for him, he had shut himself up in his room, from which he could see +absolutely nothing. 'Why,' asked my friend, 'have you closed your +shutters?' 'In order,' replied the friar, 'to be able to meditate +without distraction on the attributes of God.' 'Ah!' said my friend, +'don't you think that perhaps you may find greater distraction in your +own heart than nature would give to you in the month of May? Take my +advice, open your shutters and shut the door upon your imagination.'" + +Open your shutters and shut your books, cried this new-comer in +the world of letters. Nature is the source of everything which is +ingenious, useful, pleasant and beautiful, but she must be contemplated +in all simplicity of heart. It is for our happiness that she hides +from us the laws which govern her mighty forces, and there is a kind +of thoughtless impiety in wishing to penetrate too deeply into her +mysteries. Besides, we always fail, and our imprudent efforts only +succeed in adding the mist of our errors to the cloud which veils +her divinity. Let us make up our minds to not being taken into the +Divine confidence; content to examine Nature at work, observing her +work without studying it on a system, forgetting what the scholars +and the academies have decided and decreed as a matter of doctrine. +The forces of Nature, ever young and active, form one of the most +wonderful and admirable spectacles which the universe affords us. The +same spirit of life which formed our world out of chaos, continues to +develop the germs under our eyes, to repair the wounded plants and +renew their injured tissues with fresh growths. They tell you that +Nature brings forth at hazard, producing pell-mell and indifferently +the good and the bad, annulling the good by this disorder. But I tell +you that not a blade of grass has been made at hazard, and that the +least mite testifies to the existence of a sovereign intelligence +and goodness. I assure you also that this goodness has only had one +pre-occupation--yourself; but one aim--your happiness. God made nature +for man, and man for Himself. Man is the end and aim of everything upon +the earth, and the proofs of this are infinite in number. + +A great part of the _Études_ is taken up with the gathering together of +these proofs. I do not believe that there exists another so intrepid +a partisan of final causes. Nothing turns him from his demonstration, +not facts, nor absurdities, nor ridicule. Things are so because it +is necessary to the happiness of man that they should be so: nothing +turns Bernardin de Saint-Pierre from that opinion. I do not say that he +scoffed at science; he looked upon himself as a scientific spirit who +was to set his predecessors right, including Descartes and Newton; I +only say that he speaks about it rather as though he were laughing at +it. + +Our earth, then, has been solidified, modelled and carved out by God +for our needs and our comfort. There is not a mountain whose height, +breadth, and site have not been calculated by Divine wisdom for our +advantage. One is intended to refresh us with its ice, another to +protect us from the north wind, a third to produce a healthful current +of air; this last we call eolian. Those islands of rock strewn along +the seashore, and vulgarly called sand-banks, are fortifications placed +there by Providence, without which our coasts would be demolished by +the ocean. Those which one remarks at the mouths of water-courses "form +channels for the rivers, each channel taking a different direction, so +that if one becomes stopped up by the winds or the currents from the +sea, the water can escape by another." It speaks for itself that God +does not have to try a thing over and over again before it is perfect. +Creation was perfect from the first day, and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre +suppresses the slow evolutions, due to the action of the forces of +nature, which according to some incessantly alter the surface of the +earth. That surface is unchangeable. There is no example that the sea +ever "hollowed out a bay, or detached anything from the continent;" +that the "rivers formed at their entrance into the sea sand-banks and +promontories;" that ancient ports had been effaced, islands destroyed, +or mountains denuded and levelled to the ground. In truth, the works +of God, like those of man, are subject to wear, and need reparation; +but the Divine Architect is never idle, and works without ceasing to +maintain them, which amounts to the same thing. + +The means which He employs for reparation often escape our notice from +their very simplicity. What pedestrian has not execrated the clouds of +sand or dust which the wind raises on the strand or on barren plains. +He would have been rather astonished if he had known that he was +witnessing the dispersal of materials designed by Providence to replace +the soil in the mountains, which had been worn away by water. Sand +and dust are transported to the tops of the peaks upon the wings of +storms, thanks to the "fossil attractions" of the mountains. + +It was six years after Buffon's _Époques de la Nature_ had appeared, +that Bernardin de Saint-Pierre offered to the public this astonishing +system of the Universe. It needed a certain amount of courage to be so +deliberately behindhand. + +The theory of final causes thus carried to extremes occasioned a good +deal of embarrassment to the Deist. It is no slight matter to undertake +to explain, to the advantage of Providence, everything that there is +upon the earth without any exception; so many things appear useless, +so many hurtful. Saint-Pierre never despaired of finding justification +for every one of them, with human happiness as its basis. He went on +bravely without disturbing himself that the laugh was at his expense, +and with an ardour of conviction which convinced many of the men and +almost all the women who read him. The spirit of that day was not very +scientific. + +Of what use are volcanoes? Hardly any one has failed to perceive +that rivers are, so to speak, the drains of the continent. The oils, +the resin, and the nitre of vegetables and animals are carried by +the water-courses to the sea, where all their component parts become +dissolved, covering the surface with fatty matter, which does not +evaporate because it resists the action of the air. Without the +intervention of Providence the entire ocean since the existence of the +world would be defiled with these tainted oils; but Providence made +volcanoes, and the waters were purified. In fact, volcanoes "do not +proceed from heat inside the earth, but they owe their origin to the +waters, and the matter contained in them. One can convince one's self +of this fact by remarking that there is not a single volcano in the +interior of a continent, unless it is in the neighbourhood of some +great lake like that of Mexico." Nature, obeying a Divine impulse, +has "lighted these vast furnaces on the shores of the ocean," so that +the oils of which we have spoken, being attracted towards them by a +phenomenon which the author does not explain, are burnt up as the weeds +in a garden are burnt in the autumn by a careful gardener. One does +in truth find lava in the interior of a country, but a proof that it +owes its origin to water is that the volcanoes which have produced +it have become extinct, when the waters have failed. Those volcanoes +were lighted there like those of our day, by the animal and vegetable +fermentations with which the earth was covered after the Deluge, when +the remains of so many forests and so many animals, whose trunks +and bones are still found in our quarries, floated on the surface +of the ocean, forming huge deposits, which the currents accumulated +in the cavities of the mountains, so that the ancient craters of the +Auvergne mountains prove that all volcanoes are found beside the sea. +Inundations afford us the pleasures of boating and fishing. That is +the reason that the nations which inhabit the shores of the Amazon and +the Orinico, and many other rivers which overflow their banks, looked +upon these inundations as blessings from heaven before the arrival +of Europeans, who upset their ideas: "Was it, then, so displeasing a +spectacle for them to see their immense forests intersected by long +water-roads, which they could navigate without trouble of any sort +in their canoes, and of which they could gather in the produce with +the greatest ease? Some colonies like those on the Orinico, convinced +of these advantages, had adopted the strange habit of living in the +tops of trees, like the birds, seeking board, lodging and shelter +under their foliage. In spite of the epithet _strange_, one feels that +he regretted these picturesque manners, and that it would not have +displeased him at all to see the dwellers on the banks of the Loire, +nesting with the magpies and jays in their own poplars." + +Beasts of prey rid the earth of dead bodies, which without them +would not fail to infect the air. Every year there dies a natural +death at least the twentieth part of the quadrupeds, the tenth part +of the birds, and an infinite number of insects, of which most of the +species only live a year. There are some insects even who only live +a few hours, such as the ephemera. This enormous destruction would +soon poison the air and the water without the aid of the innumerable +army of grave-diggers created and maintained by Nature to keep the +surface of the globe clean. Saint-Pierre draws a description of it +which is wonderful for its colour and spirit: "It is above all in hot +countries, where the effects of decomposition are most rapid and most +dangerous, that Nature has multiplied carnivorous animals. Tribes +of lions, tigers, leopards, panthers, civet-cats, lynxes, jackals, +hyenas, condors, &c., there come to reinforce the wolves, foxes, +martens, otters, vultures, ravens, &c. Legions of voracious crabs +make their homes in the sand there; alligators and crocodiles lie in +ambush amongst their reeds, an innumerable species of shell-fish, armed +with implements to enable them to suck, to bore, to file, to crush, +bristle on the rocks and pave their sea-shores. Clouds of sea-birds +fly screaming along the rocks, or sail round them on the tops of the +waves seeking their prey; eels, garfish, shad, and every species of +cartiaginous fish which only lives upon flesh, such as long sharks, +big skate, hammer-fish, octopuses armed with suckers, and every variety +of dog-fish, swim about in shoals, occupied all the time in devouring +the remains of the dead bodies which collect there. Nature also musters +insects to hasten on the destruction. Wasps armed with shears cut the +flesh, flies pump out the fluids, marine worms separate the bones.... +What remains of all these bodies, after having served as food to +numberless shoals of other kinds of fish, some with snouts formed like +a spoon, others like a pipe, so that they can pick up every crumb from +the vast table, at last converted by so many digestions into oils and +fats and added to the vegetable pulps which descends from all parts +into the ocean, would reproduce a new chaos of putrefaction in its +waters, if the currents did not carry it to the volcanoes, the fires of +which succeed in decomposing it and giving it back to the elements. It +is for this reason, as we have already indicated, that volcanoes ... +are all in the neighbourhood of the sea or big lakes." + +How happy are the poets! for they can talk nonsense with impunity. With +all his extravagant ideas, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre has brought home +to us like no one else, the sensation of the activity of Nature, and of +the swarming life which covers the earth, moves inside it, and fills +the air and the sea. + +He had quite foreseen that people would oppose to all this the +sufferings inflicted by beasts of prey, large and small, upon living +animals, men even, but this objection did not embarrass him in the +least. As far as animals are concerned, it would disappear of itself +only by taking a broader view of things. "It is true," he said, +"several species of carnivorous beasts devour living animals.... Let +us return to the great principle of Nature: she has made nothing in +vain. She destines few animals to die of old age, and I believe even +that it is only man whom she permits to run through the entire course +of life, because it is only man whose old age can be useful to his +fellows. Among animals what would be the use of unreflecting old age to +their posterity, which is born with the instinct which takes the place +of experience? On the other hand, how would the decrepid parents find +sustenance among their children who leave them the moment they know how +to swim, fly, or walk? Old age would be for them a weight from which +the wild beasts deliver them." Let us add that to them death means +little suffering. They are generally destroyed in the night during +their sleep. "They do not attach to this fatal moment any of the +feelings which render it so bitter to the greater part of humanity--the +regrets for the past and anxieties for the future. _In the midst of a +life of innocence, often with their dreams of love still fresh, their +untroubled spirits wing their flight into the shades of night._ It is +very prettily phrased, but unhappily no one has ever succeeded, often +as it has been tried, in convincing those who are eaten that it is for +their good." + +The objection relative to man is dismissed with the same ease. "Man +has nothing to fear from beasts of prey. Firstly, most of them only +go abroad in the night, and they possess striking characteristics +which announce their approach even before they become visible. Some +of them have strong odours of musk like the marten, the civet cat, +and the crocodile; others shrill voices which can be heard for long +distances in the night like the wolves and jackals; again, others have +strongly-marked colours which can be distinguished a long way off upon +the neutral tint of their skins: such are the dark stripes of the +tiger and the distinct spots of the leopard. They all have eyes which +shine in the darkness.... Even those which attack the human body have +distinguishing signs; either they have a strong odour like the bug, +or contrasts in colour to the parts to which they attach themselves, +like white insects on the hair, or the blackness of fleas against the +whiteness of the skin." How about fleas upon the negro? + +The flea's usefulness does not stop with its blackness. It is also +useful from the point of view of political economy, by obliging "the +rich to employ those who are destitute, in the capacity of domestics, +to keep things clean about them." Furthermore hail, with the help of +its ally, the hurricane, destroys a great many insects; earthquakes +are no less necessary and useful, their function being to purify +the atmosphere. Hail, tempests, earthquakes, are in reality so many +benefactors, unrecognised because we are not penetrated to the marrow +of our bones with these fundamental truths: the happiness of man is the +first law of the world; "nothing superfluous exists, only such things +as are useful relatively to man." + +Here are some more proofs which Bernardin de Saint-Pierre considers +striking. Nature invented the hideous scorpion to be a salutary terror +to us, to keep us away from damp, unhealthy places, its ordinary abode. +She has given four teats to the cow, which only brings forth one calf +at a time, and a dozen to the sow, which has to bring up as many as +fifteen young ones, and this because mankind liking milk and pork, the +cow had to be made to give us of "the superabundance of her milk, and +the sow of that of her young." + +What shall be said of the "royal foresight" of the Divinity when it +wishes to act upon our hearts and prepare them to learn patience, or +open them to gentle feelings? Every one of us has mourned a dog, and +has asked himself why these faithful animals have so short a life. +Listen to the answer. "If the death of the dog of the house reduces our +children, whose companion and contemporary he has been, to despair, +doubtless Nature wished to give them, through the loss of an animal so +worthy of human affection, their first experience of the privations of +which human life is full." The example of the melon and the pumpkin +is still more characteristic. While most fruits are cultivated for +the mouth of man, like cherries and plums, or for his hand like pears +and apples, the melon much larger and divided into quarters, "seems +intended to be eaten by the family." As for the enormous pumpkin, +Nature intends that one should share it with one's neighbours; it is +pre-eminently a sociable fruit. + +In spite of all these benefits, we hear our impious race accusing +Nature, and blaspheming Providence. We are angry against Heaven when +we suffer, when this or that fails us, as though Providence could be +at fault, and as though we were not ourselves the real authors of our +woes. A little faith, a little confidence, and we should be comforted, +but we do not possess it, and we rush to our ruin through ignorance and +unbelief, just as it happened one day to some men who had landed upon a +desert island where there were no cocoa-nut trees. Soon the sea "threw +upon the strand several sprouting cocoa-nuts, as if Providence were +eager to persuade them by this useful and agreeable present to remain +upon the island and cultivate it." Notice that this was not brought +about by any chance currents, because sea-currents are regular, and +those which surrounded this island had had time since the creation of +the world to sow it with all sorts of seeds. "However that may be, the +emigrants planted the cocoa-nuts, and in the course of a year and a +half they sent up shoots four feet in height. So marked a favour from +Heaven was, nevertheless, not sufficient to keep them in this happy +spot: a thoughtless desire to procure for themselves wives, induced +them to leave it, and plunged them in a long series of misfortunes, +which most of them could not survive. _For my part, I do not doubt that +if they had had that confidence in Providence which they owed to her, +she would have sent wives to them in their desert island, as she had +sent them cocoa-nuts._" + +Providence also takes touching care of the animals. The thorns of +the brambles and bushes protect the little birds in their nests, and +collect the sheep's wool to line the nests with. Ermines have the tips +of their tails black, "so that these small animals, entirely white, +when going after one another in the snow, where they leave hardly any +footmarks, may recognise one another in the luminous reflections of the +long nights of the North." Hairy animals are generally white underneath +because white keeps them warmer than any other colour, and because +"the stomach needs most heat on account of the digestive and other +functions; on the other hand, the head is always the deepest in colour, +above all in hot countries, because that part has most need of coolness +in the animal economy." It is also for the last reason that several of +the birds in hot regions have tufts and crests on their heads, to shade +them. Lastly, all animals without exception find their table set for +them ever since the world began, even those who only feed upon carrion. +"Ancient trees grow in the depths of new forests to afford sustenance +to the insects and birds who find it in their aged trunks. _Corpses +were created for the carnivorous animals._ In every age there must +come forth creatures young, old, living and dying." There is always an +essential difference in the methods of Providence towards animals and +towards man. God takes care of us for our own sakes, He only takes care +of animals or plants as they affect us, and in such measure as they are +useful or agreeable to us. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was never tired +of making remarks in support of these diverse opinions, and we could +multiply quotations indefinitely, but what has already been said gives +an adequate idea of his theory of the universe. + +At first sight we are inclined to shrug our shoulders and pity the +final causes for having found an advocate capable of such sad nonsense; +but on reflection we are obliged to admit that once the principle is +conceded, there is no means of stopping one's self in the downward +course. Why admit this final cause and reject that one? If the world +is arranged for the happiness of man, ought we not to explain the +utility of moths and weevils after that of wool and corn? And if we see +in it, as Saint-Pierre did, a means of compelling the monopolists to +sell their merchandise for fear that the poor would have to go naked +or die of hunger, have we not the right to maintain that one argument +is worth another, and that it would be difficult for you to find a +better? On the whole, Bernardin only developed Fénélon's idea, who +also subordinated the creation to man, and was led by that, in spite +of all his cleverness, to affirm that the stars were made to give us +light; that the dog is born "to give us a pleasant picture of society, +friendship, fidelity, and tender affection;" that wild beasts are +intended "to exercise the courage, strength, and skill of mankind." +Between Fénélon and Saint-Pierre, as between all determined partisans +of final causes, it is only a question of more or less ingenuity, and +Saint-Pierre was very ingenious. Grimm wrote, "I do not believe that +any man had as yet ventured to recognise Providence, or to attribute +to it more skilful attention, more refined research, more delicacy +of feeling; but his idea is carried beyond all bounds, and leads him +occasionally into all kinds of nonsense and absurd puerilities. His +book is one long collection of eclogues, hymns, and madrigals in honour +of Providence."[20] The _Études de la Nature_ makes us still better +able to understand the warmth with which Buffon repudiated the theory +of final causes. + +Bernardin de Saint-Pierre would have been immensely astonished if +he had been told that he was labouring to prepare generations of +pessimists by attributing to Providence the cares and solicitude of a +nurse in its relations with men. Nothing was further from his thoughts, +and yet nothing is more certain from the moment that his works became +a success with the public, and exerted an influence over men's minds. +Man once convinced that his happiness is the concern of God, considers +it the duty of the Divinity to secure it. In misfortune he has no +patience to bear his troubles, because he looks upon himself as injured +by Providence. The horror of the injustice done to him redoubles his +suffering, and he curses the Heaven which does not respect his rights. +It would be doing too much honour to Bernardin de Saint-Pierre if we +were to make him answerable for the gloomy and bitter turn of mind +of our contemporaries, but he certainly helped it on, since for a +thoughtful mind his philosophy has a fatal tendency to demonstrate the +fallibility of Providence. + +He perceived the difficulty quite well, and felt that it is not +sufficient to keep repeating over and over again the axiom: "All is +for the best in the best of worlds." When one has finished repeating +it, the evil is not ended nor explained. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was +only too glad to fall back upon his own century, on which he had turned +his back during his religious exaltation, and to explain by reasons +taken from Diderot and Jean-Jacques the sufferings of humanity in a +world created perfect. So he wrote: "Man is born good; it is society +that makes bad people, and your education which prepares them." Man +is born good; take the savages, who alone upon the earth still possess +"real virtue." A good man continues happy so long as he does not turn +aside from "the law of nature." Take the savages again--their happiness +is perfect, according to the missionaries, so long as they have no +intercourse with civilised nations. Society "makes bad people" by its +stupid and brutal laws, which ignore and defy those of nature and +precipitate us into abysses of evil. Our education prepares our young +people to be in their turn wicked, because it is founded upon the false +idea with which our whole civilisation is impregnated: it develops the +intelligence instead of developing the heart. Nature "does not wish +man to be skilful and vainglorious; she wishes him to be happy and +good." We are going against her intentions when we undertake to invent +scientific systems which "deprave the heart," instead of cultivating +sweet and tender sentiments amongst our children. In doing so we +commit a criminal error every day of our lives, the fatal consequences +of which are quite apparent. Consider what man has become under the +influence of this civilisation of which we are so proud. + +"Nature, which intended him to be loving, did not furnish him with +arms, and so he forged them himself to fight his fellows with. She +provides food and shelter for all her children; and the roads leading +to our towns are only distinguishable from afar by their gibbets! The +history of nature presents only benefits, that of man nothing but wrath +and rapine." And further on: "There are many lands which have never +been cultivated; but there are none known to Europeans which have +not been stained with human blood. Even the lonely wastes of the sea +swallow up in their depths shiploads of men sent to the bottom by their +fellows. In the towns, flourishing as they seem with their arts and +monuments, pride and cunning, superstition and impiety, violence and +treachery wage their eternal strife and fill with trouble the lot of +the unfortunate inhabitants. _The more civilised the society there, the +more cruel are its evils and the more they increase in number._" + +Bernardin de Saint-Pierre had his Rousseau beside him, when he +thus launched his anathemas against civilisation and the sciences. +He occasionally makes use of expressions which closely recall the +_Discours sur les lettres, les sciences et les arts_, and the _Discours +sur l'inegalité parmi les hommes_. Unhappily for his thesis, his +eloquent rage against our social state rings false. We feel that it is +a rhetorical artifice to help him out of the difficulty of his theory +of final causes, and to open out a way for him to bring at last his +character of legislator before the public. The occasion was unique +for showing to France what she had lost through the incapacity of her +ministers, who allowed the memorials of M. de Saint-Pierre to moulder +in their portfolios. We thus return to _Robinson Crusoe_, the ideal +colony, and those famous laws of nature which it is our mission to +contrast with the laws made by man. + +The laws of nature are "moral" and "sentimental" laws; they comprise +in the first place all the good and noble sentiments which God has +placed in our hearts. Just as reason is a miserable and inferior +faculty, so sentiment is the glory and strength of mankind; man owes +to it everything great and splendid which he has ever accomplished. +"Reason has produced many men of mind in the so-called civilised ages, +and sentiment men of genius in the so-called barbarous ages. Reason +varies from age to age, sentiment is always the same. Errors of reason +are local and transitory, the truths of sentiment are unchanging and +universal. By reason the ego is made Greek, English, Turkish; by +sentiment it becomes human, divine.... In truth, reason gives us some +pleasures; but if it reveals some portion of the order of the universe, +it shows us at the same time our own destruction, which is involved +in the laws of its preservation. It shows us at once past ills and +those that are to come.... The wider it explores it brings back to us +the evidence of our nothingness; and far from calming our anxieties by +its researches, it often only increases them by its knowledge. On the +contrary sentiment, blind in its desires, surveys the relics of all +countries and all times; it trusts in the midst of ruins, of battles, +even of death, in some vague, eternal existence; in all its yearnings +it strives after the attributes of the Divinity--infinity, scope, +duration, power, greatness, and glory; it adds ardent desire to all +our passions, gives to them a sublime impulse, and in subjugating our +reason, becomes itself the noblest and best instinct of human life." We +must correct Descartes and say: "I feel, therefore I exist." + +The apotheosis of sentiment, "blind in its desires" and indomitable +in their pursuit, which "subjugates our reason" and makes us act on +impulse, strongly resembles an apotheosis of passion, and in fact has +led to it. So George Sand strikes some roots in the insipid sensibility +of the last century, but we know already that it was not within the +scope of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre to calculate the not very remote +consequences of his principles. He dreamt, without the very least +anxiety, of a world entirely governed by sentiment, and emancipated +from that abominable reason. No danger could threaten this regenerated +community, because its leader had sorted out the sentiments common to +humanity, and only allowed such of them to prevail as pity, innocence, +admiration, melancholy, and love. This choice promised to the world +a succession of Idylls. As for the bad sentiments, hate, avarice, +jealousy, ambition, there was no need to take them into consideration +or to fear their usurpation; they would disappear from the face of +France so soon as the plan of education placed at the end of the +_Études de la Nature_ had been adopted. + +There is nothing like coming at the right time. At the beginning of +the Revolution these sorts of things were listened to with a contrite +spirit, and no one thought of laughing at them. Such sentiments +appeared as wise as they were beautiful; no one doubted his own virtue +and goodness, and all rejoiced in this picture of the delightful +emotions which awaited the new society. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre +laboured to draw seductive pictures of it, and his efforts have +procured us some analyses of public feeling which their date render +most interesting. + +His chapter on _Melancholy_ is one of the most interesting. Melancholy +had only lately come into fashion, and he exerted himself to inquire +into the source of this seductive sentiment, the sweetest and most +cherished poison of the soul. He to some extent recognised the danger +of it, for the word _voluptuous_ occurs several times under his pen: +"I do not know," he wrote, "to what physical law the philosopher may +attribute the sensations of melancholy. For my part I think that +they are the most voluptuous impressions of the soul." That is very +finely expressed and very true. Further on, apropos of people who +try by artificial means to give themselves sensations of melancholy, +he writes: "Our voluptuaries have artificial ruins erected in their +gardens.... The tomb has supplied to the poetry of Young and Gessner +pictures full of charm; therefore our voluptuaries have imitation +tombs put up in their gardens." He is himself "a voluptuary" when he +solaces his woes, by abandoning himself to the melancholy which bad +weather creates in him. "It seems to me at such times that nature +conforms to my situation like a tender friend. She is, besides, always +so interesting under whatever aspect she reveals herself, that when it +rains I seem to see a beautiful woman in tears, all the more beautiful +the more she is distressed. In order to experience these sentiments, +which I dare to call voluptuous, we must have no plans for going out, +or paying visits, or hunting, or travelling, which always put us into +a bad temper, because we are thwarted; ... to enjoy bad weather it is +necessary that our soul should travel, our body stay quiet." + +We have in these lines a great science of melancholy, given to us +by a refined "voluptuary" who understands how to give to agreeable +sensations their maximum of enjoyment. One is quite taken in to find +directly after a series of pretentious articles in the manner of +the day, in which Bernardin de Saint-Pierre explains the _pleasure +of the grave_ by the sentiment of the immortality of the soul, and +_the pleasure of decay_ by that of the infinity of time. I notice in +it, however, an effort to interest the reader in the real and native +gothic ruins, which might be called daring, at that time of mania for +filling one's garden with Greek and Roman erections, imitation temples, +imitation tombs, imitation columns, and imitation ruins, ornamented +with allegorical emblems and sentimental inscriptions. Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre did not oppose this classical bric-à-brac which pleased +him only too well, but he possessed to a greater extent than his +contemporaries the sense of the picturesque, which bore fruit in some +romantic scenes like the description of the Château of Lillebonne. + +The château is perched on a height commanding a valley. "The high walls +which surround it are rounded off at the corners, and so covered with +ivy that there are but few points from which one can mark their course. +About the middle of their length, where I should think it would not +be easy to penetrate, rise high battlemented towers, upon the tops of +which grow big trees, having the appearance of a thick head of hair. +Here and there through the carpet of ivy which covers their sides, +are gothic windows, embrasures and gaps resembling mouths of caverns, +through which one can see the stairs. The only birds to be seen flying +round this desolate habitation are buzzards, which hover about in +silence; and if occasionally the cry of a bird is heard, it is sure +to be an owl whose nest is there.... When I remember at sight of this +stronghold, that it was formerly inhabited by petty tyrants who from +there used to plunder their unlucky vassals and even travellers, I +seem to see the carcass of some great beast of prey." This conclusion +is from a man who, in default of an historical sense, has at least an +historical imagination. + +_Love_ inspires him with a charming page on the expansion of every +living thing during the love-season. The plant opens its flowers, the +bird puts on his most beautiful plumage, the wild beasts fill the +forests with their roaring, and the soul of the young man "receives +its full expansion." His soul also opens its flowers and exhales +its perfume of generosity, candour, heroism, and holy faith, and +love adorns it with wondrous graces which take the form of "all the +characteristics of virtue." It is a dazzling metamorphosis, and +it is in some sort a disguise, for the virtues, which are only a +transformation of love, run great danger of evaporating with the +age of love, like the parade dress of certain birds in the Indies, +which are only lent by nature during the pairing season. Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre remarks that certainly young men have some modesty, and +that "most of our old men have none at all, because they have lost the +feeling of love." Honour to the sentiment which thus raises us above +ourselves! It is a great thing to have felt certain things once in our +lives. + +Admiration is another of the moral laws by which nature, left to +herself, governs the earth. The author adds to it the _pleasures +of ignorance_, which he declares to be incomparable. Ignorance is +the supreme blessing from Heaven, the masterpiece of nature, "the +never-failing source of our pleasures." We owe to it the exquisite +enjoyments of mystery. It takes away all our ills, and embellishes the +good things of this life with illusion, upholds the poetry of the world +against science. "It is science which has hurled the chaste Diana from +her nocturnal chariot; has banished the wood-nymphs from our ancient +forests and the sweet naiads from our fountains. Ignorance invited the +gods to share in its joys, its sorrows, its hymeneal festivities, and +its funeral rites: science sees nothing there but the elements. It has +abandoned man to man, and thrown him upon the earth as into a desert." +Every epoch which repudiates the supernatural will recognize itself in +this _man abandoned to man_, and feeling that he is in a desert. + +It would have been best to stop there, glorifying ignorance on poetical +grounds only. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre spoilt everything by insisting +on the misdeeds of science. He wished to profit by the occasion to +crush his enemies the Academicians, men with systems, who never +appeared to take his theories seriously, and he gravely affirms that +ignorance is the only preservative against the errors into which the +"so-called human sciences" plunge us. When one knows nothing, one is +sure to know no nonsense. Let it be said in passing that the scientific +works of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre confirm this maxim; for if he had +not learnt geometry, he would not have said such absurd things as +we shall see presently, and which covered him with ridicule in the +eyes of the scholars of his day. But he did not think of himself in +celebrating the advantages of perfect ignorance; in such a case one +never does think of oneself. + +After the preceding, one does not expect study to hold a great place +in the plan of education which crowns the _Études de la Nature_, the +object of which is to expel all evil sentiments from the hearts of the +French people. To begin with, Saint-Pierre abolishes learning from +the education of women, of whom he only purposes to make housekeepers +and mistresses. Love is their only end upon earth, the sole reason +of their existence, and experience has proved that learning does not +help them in this: "Those who have been learned, have almost all been +unhappy in love, from Sappho to Christina, Queen of Sweden." It is +not with theology and philosophy that they gain a man's affection, it +is by all their feminine seductions, and it is with cookery that they +keep it. "A man does not like to find a rival or an instructor in his +wife." A husband likes good pastry when he is well, and good herb-tea +when he is ill. He likes his coffee to be good, preserves in which +"the juice is as clear as the flash of a ruby," flowers preserved in +sugar which "display more brilliant colours than the amethyst in the +rocks of Golconda." He likes his dining-room to be well lighted, the +fishing expedition well organized. Look at Cleopatra: it was with +her talents as mistress of the house that she subjugated Antony, and +made him forget "the virtuous Octavia, who was as beautiful as the +Queen of Egypt, but who as a Roman dame had neglected all the homely +womanly arts, to occupy herself with affairs of state." Let us beware +of turning our daughters into Octavias. They are to have no books; +the best are of no use to them. No theatres. Give them a dancing +master, a singing master, let them learn needlework and the science of +housekeeping; nothing more is necessary to a young girl in the interest +of her own happiness. It is thus that united families are prepared, +where contentment engenders goodness and makes virtue easy.[21] + +Boys are to leave classical studies alone, as they only delay at a +dead loss their entry into life. Seven years of humanities, two of +philosophy, three of theology; twelve years of weariness, ambition, +and self-conceit.... "I ask if, after going through that, a schoolboy, +following the denominations of these same studies, is more human, more +philosophical, and believes more in God than a good peasant who does +not know how to read? Of what use is it all to most men?" A boy ought +to have finished his studies and begun a trade at sixteen. Up to then +he is to study according to a programme which has made good its way +in the world since, and for which Bernardin de Saint-Pierre merits a +second time the title of pioneer. These boys were to learn nothing but +useful things--arithmetic, geometry, physics, mechanics, agriculture, +the art of making bread and weaving cloth, how to build a house and +decorate it. A very careful civil education. It is generally forgotten +that Bernardin de Saint-Pierre is the inventor of school-drill. It was +one of his favourite ideas; he even wished the little school-boys to +undertake the grand manoeuvres. + +"During the summer, when the harvest is gathered in, towards the +beginning of September, I should take them into the country in +battalions, divided under several flags. I should give them a picture +of war. I should let them sleep on the grass in the shadow of the +woods, where they should prepare their food themselves, and learn to +defend and attack a post, swim a river, exercise themselves in the +use of firearms, and at the same time in manoeuvres taken from the +tactics of the Greeks, who are our superiors in almost everything." + +A little Greek and Latin they might learn during their last years +at school, but taught "by use," without grammar; lessons learnt by +heart, or written exercises; a little law, something of politics, some +ideas upon the history of religion; but no abstract speculations or +researches, even in science. + +One did not expect to meet so utilitarian a Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. +In a hundred years we have not got beyond him, and yet we know +whether our generation prides itself upon its contempt of the +schools or not. The wonder is that he found means to retain his +Louis XVI. sentimentalism in spite of this overflow of practical +ideas. He corrected with one stroke of his pen the dryness of his +programme. Everything which was to be taught in his _Écoles de la +Patrie_--orthography, ethics, arithmetic, baking--all, without +exception, were to be "put into verse and set to music." Out of +school-hours the pupils were to be commanded by "the sound of flutes, +hautbois, and bagpipes." Here we find ourselves again in the land of +Utopia, and we recognise our Bernardin. + +The schemes of political and social reforms which fill the last two +volumes of the _Études de la Nature_ are full of this curious mixture +of a practical mind with a romantic imagination. Saint-Pierre is a +democrat, and rather an advanced one for the day for which he was +writing. He works with all his might to disturb the existing state of +things, and the end is always simply a dream. You have the impression +that in his regenerated state the most serious questions would be +"put into verse and set to music," like the course of geometry in +his model school. He asks for the suppression of large estates and +great capitalists, monopolies, privileged companies, the rights of +taxation. He proposes several means of putting down the nobility, whose +existence would not fail in the long run to bring about the downfall +and ruin of the State. He demands energetically the confiscation of the +property of the clergy for the good of the poor. He wishes to replace +hospitals with home nursing, by which the families of the sick persons +would benefit; to ameliorate prison regime and madhouses, to secure +pensions to aged workmen, and to construct in Paris edifices large +enough to admit of fêtes for the people being held there. All at once +he interrupts himself in these grave subjects to describe an _Elysium_ +of his invention, which will be like the visible epitome of the happy +metamorphosis of France. + +His Elysium is situated at Neuilly, in the island of the Grande-yatte, +enlarged by the small arm of the Seine and a bit of the shore. It +is encumbered with all that the eighteenth century could invent in +the way of symbols, allegories, emblems, touching combinations, and +instructive conjunctions. There are nothing but obelisques, peristyles, +tombs, pyramids, temples, urns, altars, trophies, busts, bas-reliefs, +medallions, statues, domes, columns and colonnades, epitaphs, mottoes, +maxims, complicated bowers, and "enchanted groves." There is not an +object of art in it which has not a moral signification; not a pebble +or blade of grass which does not give the passer-by a lesson in virtue +or gratitude. Thus, for example, upon a rock placed in the midst of a +tuft of strawberry-plants from Chili, one reads these words:-- + +"_I was unknown in Europe; but in such a year, such a one, born in such +a place, transplanted me from the high mountains of Chili; and now I +bear flowers and fruit in the pleasant climate of France._" + +Under a bas-relief of coloured marble, representing small children +eating, drinking, and enjoying themselves, one would read this +inscription:-- + +"_We were exposed in the streets, to the dogs, to hunger and cold; such +a one, from such a place, lodged us, clothed us, and gave us the milk +refused to us by our mothers._" + +At the foot of a statue, in white marble, of a young and beautiful +woman, seated, and wiping her eyes with symptoms of sadness and joy:-- + +"_I was hateful in the sight of Heaven and before men; but, touched +with repentance, I appeased Heaven with my tears; and I have repaired +the evil which I did to men, by serving the sorrowful._" + +Not far from this repentant Magdalen, whose marble face expresses, +according to the æsthetics of the day, at one and the same time +joy and sadness, some statues are erected to good housewives "who +shall re-establish order in an untidy house," to widows who have not +re-married on account of their children, and to women "who shall have +attained to the most illustrious position through the very modesty +of their virtues." Further on are the busts of inventors of useful +instruments, ornamented with the objects which they have invented: "the +representation of a stocking-frame and that of a silk-throwing mill." +As for the inventor of gunpowder, if he is ever discovered, there is no +place for him in the Elysium. + +Further away still, a magnificent tomb, surrounded with tobacco-plants, +is consecrated to Nicot, who imported tobacco into Europe. A tuft of +Lucern-grass, from Media, "surrounds with its tendrils the monument +dedicated to the memory of the unknown husbandman who was the first +to sow seed on our stony hills, and to present to us pasturage which +renews itself four times a year on spots which were barren." And +so on for all travellers who have brought into the country useful +or agreeable plants. Seeing an urn in the midst of a nasturtium +bed, a pedestal among the potatoes, the people would think of their +benefactors, and their hearts would be softened. They would leave +the island Grande-yatte better men; easy, too, as to their future, +for this sublime spot would make the fortune of Paris. This Elysium +would attract a crowd of rich foreigners, anxious to "deserve well" of +France, so as to obtain the honour of being buried in the pantheon of +virtuous men. + +In the eyes of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre this enormous toy-fair was +nothing less than "the re-establishment of one of the laws of nature +most important to a nation--I would say an inexhaustible perspective +of the Infinite." In the same way the reforms which have just been +expounded all have for their object "the application of the laws of +nature to the evils of society," and for a result the cure of these +ills by the return of the "harmonious laws of nature" and the "natural +affections." Unhappily for France, Saint-Pierre was not the only man +who knew what he meant when he talked this jargon, without sense to us. +In 1784 there was a large number of persons who imagined that there +was something in it, and that, in fact, nothing was simpler than to +return to the "harmonious laws of nature." The _Études de la Nature_ +corresponded with a widely-diffused current of ideas, and that adds +to their interest. They help to represent to us the condition of many +minds at the beginning of the Revolution. At that time they thought to +overthrow everything to the sound of the bagpipes, and they believed in +the panacea of Elysiums. + +We have sketched the general plan of the work; it now remains to point +out some of the ideas "by the way," which are its chief riches. The +author strongly suspected that he was never more interesting than +when he gave loose rein to his pen, and he never refused himself a +digression or fancy. "Descriptions, conjectures, insight, views, +objections, doubts, and even my errors," he says in his "Plan of Work," +"I collected them all." He did well; for it is when he wanders from the +point and forgets his system that he is original and interesting. + +In Art he could not disabuse his mind of the mania for moral effect; +he does not even spare the landscape. "If one wishes to find a great +deal of interest in a smiling and agreeable landscape, one must be +able to see it through a great triumphal arch, ruined by time. On the +contrary, a town full of Etruscan and Egyptian monuments looks much +more antique when one sees it from under a green and flowery bower." + +He is, however, much more realistic, and consequently more modern, than +his description of his Elysium would lead one to suppose. He deserves +to be pardoned his philosophical landscapes, because he was the first +to say that there is nothing ugly in nature, one only needs to know +how to look at it. Man disfigures it by his works, but that which he +has not touched always retains its beauty. "The ugliest objects are +agreeable when they are in the place where Nature put them." A crab or +a monkey which appears to you hideous in a natural history collection, +ceases to be so when you see it on the shore or in a virgin forest; +they then form an integral part of the general beauty of the landscape. + +The same with people. A fig for conventional types and mythological +costumes! copy nature. Make real shoe-blacks with their blacking-boxes; +real nuns with their mob-caps; real kitchens with the real milk-jug +and saucepan. Make your great men look like other people, instead +of representing them "like angel trumpeters at the day of judgment, +hair flying, eyes wild, the muscles of the face convulsed, and their +draperies floating about in the wind." "Those are," say the painters +and sculptors, "expressions of genius. But men of genius and great men +are not fools.... The coins of Virgil, Plato, Scipio, Epaminondas, and +even of Alexander, represent them with a calm, tranquil air." Show us a +real Cleopatra, not "an academical face without expression, a Sabine in +stature, looking robust and full of health, her large eyes cast up to +heaven, wearing around her big and massive arms a serpent coiled about +them like a bracelet. No, make her as Plutarch shows her to us: 'Small, +vivacious, sprightly, running about the streets of Alexandria at night +disguised as a market-woman, and, concealed amongst some goods, being +carried on Apollodore's shoulders to go and see Julius Cæsar.'" + +In ethics Bernardin de Saint-Pierre warmly combats the theory of the +influence of climate, race, soil, temperament and food upon the vicious +or virtuous tendencies of men. It seemed to him absurd to say, like +Montesquieu, that the mountain is republican, and the plain monarchic; +that cold makes us conquerors, and heat slaves. That is only "a +philosophical opinion ... refuted by all historical evidence." + +He attacked with the same ardour the theory of heredity which has +become so widespread in our day. "I myself ask where one has ever seen +inclination to vice or virtue communicated through the blood?" History +proves that that too is only "a philosophical opinion," and it is a +good thing that it is so, for man would no longer be at liberty to +choose between good and evil if these different doctrines were true. + +It is curious to see the partisans of free-will preoccupying +themselves, more than a hundred years ago, with the theory of heredity. +It is a proof that ideas float about a long time in the air in the +germ-stage before they come to maturity and are adopted into the +general advance of thought. It would be as absurd to pretend that +Bernardin de Saint-Pierre had actually conceived the physiological +law, whose consequences make him so indignant as to attribute the +discoveries of Darwin to his grandfather Erasmus. It is none the less +true that his generation had glimmering ideas of a number of questions +which have become common-places in the second half of the nineteenth +century. + +With a little good will we find even in the _Études de la Nature_ a +kind of embryo of Hegel's theory of Contradictions. Contraries produce +agreement, said Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. "I look upon this great +truth as the key to the whole of philosophy. It has been as fruitful in +discoveries as this other maxim: 'Nothing has been made in vain.'" He +adds: "Every truth, except the truths of fact, is the result of two +contrary ideas.... If men paid attention to this law, it would put an +end to most of their mistakes and their disputes; for one may say that +everything being compensated by contraries, every man who affirms a +simple proposition is only half right, because the contrary proposition +exists equally in nature." + +We have already said that he had not been happy in the field of +science. It would be doing him a service to pass over in silence this +part of his work, but his shade would not forgive us. He attached +an enormous importance to it, and only attributed to the spirit of +routine and professional jealousy the obstinacy of the learned men in +taking no notice of his two chief discoveries--the origin of tides, +and the elongation of the poles. We will explain them briefly. It is +picturesque science if ever anything was. + +The poles, says Saint-Pierre, are covered with an immense cupola of +ice, "according to the experience of sailors, and also of common sense. +The cupola of the north pole is about two thousand leagues in diameter, +and twenty-five in height. It is covered with icicles, which are +about ten leagues high. The cupola of the south pole is larger still. +Each one melts alternately during half the year, according as each +hemisphere is in summer or winter. The two poles are thus 'the sources +of the sea, as the snow mountains are the sources of the principal +rivers.' From the sides of the poles escape currents which produce the +great movements of the ocean. This granted, the flow of these currents +takes its course to the middle channel of the Atlantic ocean, drawn +towards the line by the diminution of waters which the sun evaporates +there continually. Two contrary currents or collateral eddies are thus +produced, which are in fact the tides." + +Now imagine the terrestrial globe capped at the two poles with these +formidable glaciers, beside which Mont Blanc is only a mole-hill. +The globe is necessarily oval in form. "In truth some celebrated +academicians have laid down as a principle that the earth is flattened +at the poles."[22] According to them "the curve of the earth is more +sudden towards the equator in the sense north and south, because the +degrees are there smaller; and the earth, on the contrary, is flatter +towards the poles because the degrees are larger there." + +Note that it is not only "celebrated academicians," but all the +astronomers, all the geographers, every one having some notions of +geometry, who conclude, from the increase in length of the degrees of +the equator, that the earth is flat at the poles. But from these same +measurements, of which he does not dispute the accuracy, Bernardin +de Saint-Pierre draws an absolutely contrary conclusion. Here is +an abridgment of his demonstration. "If one placed a degree of the +meridian of the polar circle upon a degree of the same meridian at +the equator, the first degree would exceed the second according to +the experiments of the academicians. Consequently if one placed the +whole arc of the meridian which crowns the polar circle, and which +is forty-seven degrees, upon an arc forty-seven degrees of the same +meridian near the equator, it would produce a considerable enlargement +there, because its degrees are larger.... As the degrees of the polar +curve are, on the contrary, larger than those of an arc of the circle, +the entire curve must be as extensive as an arc of the circle; now +it cannot be more extensive than by supposing it more enlarged and +circumscribed at this arc; consequently the polar curve forms an +elongated ellipsis." + +If there happens to be amongst my readers a graduate of science, +the defects of this reasoning must be obvious to him. Saint-Pierre +implicitly believes that the two verticals whose angle forms a degree +meet in the centre of the earth, which would be true if the earth was +a perfect sphere, but which is not so at all if it is flat at the +poles, as all the world admits it to be, or if it is elongated, as he +maintains. He was apparently unaware that the curve of a contour at +a certain point is defined according to the radius of the circle of +curvature at that point, and that the curve is greater than the radius, +and consequently the degree of the circle of curvature is smaller. The +smallness of the degrees at the equator is, then, a proof that the +curve is larger there, or, what comes to the same thing, that the earth +is flat at the poles. His strange mistake proves that his scientific +equipment was limited to the most elementary knowledge of geometry, +which makes his audacity in continually going to war against "the +celebrated academicians," against Newton, and every scholar whose works +thwarted his poetical ideas about the universe, very characteristic. It +is the indication of a strong dash of infatuation, to which is joined +an equally large dash of obstinacy. He never admits that he might have +been mistaken. He fought all his life for his theory about the tides +and his elongation of the poles. He judged of men by their manner of +speaking of it, or being silent; it was for him the touchstone of +character no less than of the intelligence. Whosoever expressed an +objection to it was an ignoramus or a fool, if he was not malicious. +Whosoever said nothing was a vulgar pedant, an abject flatterer, one +of those servile creatures who "only flatter accredited systems by +which one gains pensions." (Letter to Duval, December 23, 1785.) All +the French scholars had the misfortune to place themselves in one of +these positions, and many sharp words were the consequence. + +Bernardin is not the first nor the last writer who has mistaken his +real vocation. His was neither science, nor philosophy, nor teaching. +It was the love of the fields, the profound feeling and passion for +this living and changing spectacle which we call a landscape. The +design of his work impelled him to abandon himself to his adoration. +He lost himself in it, and the result was a book which, when it +appeared, was unique. From end to end it is nothing but descriptions; +of the tropics, of Russia, of the Island of Malta, of Normandy, and +of the environs of Paris. His travels had taught him to observe. The +hurricane in the Indian Ocean, and the aurora borealis of Finland had +made him more sensitive than ever to the sweetness of French scenery, +to the charm of a bit of meadow, or a hedge in flower. He is, besides, +much more sure of himself than in the beginning, much more capable of +depicting whatever struck his fancy. His powers did not betray him any +more as they had done in the _Voyage to the Isle of France_. There is +an end of general descriptions and abstract epithets; at the first +glance we are made to distinguish the characteristic of each tree, +each tuft of grass, the colour of every stone, and of merging those +particular and manifold impressions in a general impression. Here, for +example, is a scene in Normandy, taken from the first _étude_, into +which enter only "localities, animals, and vegetables of the commonest +kind in our climate." It has all the air of having been destined by +the author to instruct those persons who do not admire anything less +than the Bay of Naples. In any case it was a revelation in the way of a +landscape, taken no matter whence, and of the colours which the French +language even then offered to its painters in prose and verse. + +Bernardin de Saint-Pierre supposes himself to be upon "the most barren +spot, a rock at the mouth of a river," and to be at liberty to ornament +it with plants suitable to such a soil. These plants spring to life +under his pen, and one sees them overrun this miserable corner of earth +until its bareness disappears under a glorious mantle of vegetation +in all sorts of brilliant and soft tints. "That on the side towards +the sea the waves shall cover with foam, its rocks clad with wrack, +fucus, and seaweed of all colours and all forms--green, brown, purple, +in tufts and garlands, as I have seen it in Normandy, on crags of +marl, detached from its cliffs by the sea; then on the side towards the +river one shall see on the yellow sand, fine turf mixed with clover, +and here and there some tufts of marine wormwood. Let us plant there +some willows, not like those of our meadows, but with their natural +growth--let us not forget the harmony of the different ages--that we +may have some of these willows smooth and succulent, shooting their +young branches into the air, and others very old, whose drooping +branches form cavernous bowers; let us add to these their auxiliary +plants, such as green mosses and golden-tinted lichens, which variegate +their grey bark, and a few of those convolvuli called lady's smocks, +which like to climb round the trunk and adorn the branches that have +no apparent flowers with their heart-shaped leaves and bell-shaped +flowers, white as snow. Let us also place there the animal life natural +to the willow and its plants--the flies, beetles, and other insects, +with the winged creatures who do battle with them, such as the aquatic +dragon-flies, gleaming like burnished steel, who catch them in the air, +the water-wagtails who, with their tails cocked, pursue them to earth, +and the kingfishers who lie in wait for them at the water's edge." + +Here we have the rock quite covered with a thousand different tints, +and yet remark that Saint-Pierre has only given us one kind of tree. +Let us finish the picture. "Contrast with the willow the alder, which +like it grows on the banks of rivers, and which by its form, resembling +a turret, its broad leaves, its dusky green colour, its fleshy roots, +like cords running along the banks and binding up the soil, differs +in every way from the thick mass, the light-green foliage, grey +underneath, and the taproots of the willow; add to this the plants of +different ages which cling to the alder, like so many odalisques of +greenery, with their parasites, such as the maidenhair fern, shining +out like a star on its humid trunk, the long hart's-tongue fern hanging +down from its branches, and the other accessories of insects, birds, +and even quadrupeds, which probably contrast in form, in colour, in +manner and instincts with those of the willow." + +The picture is now complete as regards form and colour, but how much +is wanting to it still! First of all the _flash of light_. We light up +our rock with the "first flush of dawn," and we see at the same time +strong shadows and transparent ones thrown upon the grass, and dark and +silvery green shades flung upon the blue of the heavens, and reflected +in the water. Now we will put life into it. "Let us imagine here +what neither painting nor poetry can render--the odour of the herbs, +even that of the sea, the trembling of the leaves, the humming of the +insects, the morning song of the birds, the rumbling, hollow murmurs, +alternated with the silence of the billows which break on the shore, +and the repetitions that the echoes make of all these sounds in the +distance, as they lose themselves in the sea and seem like the voices +of the nereids." Now it is finished, and if you do not breathe the salt +air, do not feel yourself surrounded by the universal life, before +this medley of changing colours and variable forms, this rustling, +murmuring, roaring, it must be that the feeling for nature is not +awakened in you--you are before Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's day, and +the nineteenth century has passed in vain for you. + +Perhaps we see better still the indefatigable activity of nature in +the _Jardin abandonné_. It is a French garden, with straight, trimmed +walks, symmetrical flower-beds, regular fountains, and mythological +statues. A country house stands in the midst of it. The hand of man has +been withdrawn from this place, once so well cared for, and it becomes +what the general life of earth chooses to make of it. It is soon done. +"The ponds become swamps; the hedges of yoke-elm look ragged; all the +arbours are choked up, and all the avenues overgrown. The vegetation +natural to the soil declares war against the foreign vegetation; the +starry thistles, and the vigorous mullein choke the English turf with +their large leaves; thick masses of coarse grass and clover crowd round +the judas trees; dog rose-briers climb upon them with their thorny +brambles, as though they were going to take them by assault; tufts +of nettles take possession of the naiad's urn, and forests of reeds +the Vulcan's forges; greenish patches of moss cover the faces of the +Venuses, without respect for their beauty. Even the trees besiege the +house; wild cherry trees, elms, and maples rise to the roof, thrusting +their long taproots into its raised parapet, finally taking command of +its proud cupolas." In the eyes of a passer-by this is merely a ruin; +in Bernardin's it is the re-establishment of order and beauty. Man +appears to him nowhere so mischievous as when he alters the landscape. + +His descriptions of foreign countries had a very great success +and a great influence. As his first book was not much read, it is +through the second that he has been the father of exoticism in French +literature. Chateaubriand found his path prepared when he wrote +_Atala_. Another had already revealed the virgin forest, dazzled the +eyes with tropical colouring, and amused the mind with strange types +and costumes. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre carried the taste for exoticism +to childishness, as we do in our day, and he it was who invented +exhibitions of savages and semi-savages. He dreamed of drawing to Paris +Indians with their canoes, caravans of Arabs mounted on camels and +bullocks, Laplanders in their reindeer sledges, Africans and Asiatics. +"What a delight for us," he said, "to take part in their joy, to see +their dances in our public squares, and to hear the drums of the +Tartars, and the ivory horns of the negroes, resounding around the +statues of our kings." + +To sum up, the _Études de la Nature_ is a beautiful prose poem upon +a bad philosophical thesis. In Bernardin de Saint-Pierre Providence +had a compromising advocate, which happens, however, pretty often. +Not content with dragging the final causes into everything, he gave +them such a royal following of false ideas and scientific errors, +that the reading of his book becomes in places irksome. In order to +find pleasure in it to-day we must follow his advice, throw away +reason and give ourselves up entirely to feeling. In such a case it +is impossible not to be touched with this effort to recall man to the +thought of the Infinite, or not to let oneself be seduced by the +charm of the advocate. As soon as we have given up disputing with the +author on fundamental grounds, we are filled with pleasure at his +sincere enthusiasm, the wealth of his sensations and their quite modern +subtilty. He is himself as though intoxicated by the vividness of his +impressions. By the strength of his love for nature he confounds it +with the Divinity, and adores the works instead of the Author of them. +He speaks of nature with a tenderness which communicates itself to his +writing and wins over his reader. He wished to re-open the door to +Providence, he re-opened it to the great god Pan; a result which was +not worth the other, no doubt, but which has had immense consequences +in our century. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[18] Introduction to _l'Arcadie_. + +[19] That is Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's account of the conversation. +In reality, Rousseau had not visited le Forez. He had been tempted +to go there, but was dissuaded from his project by "a landlady" whom +he consulted as to the route he should follow, and whose description +prevented him from going to seek Dianas and Sylvanders amongst a +population of blacksmiths. (_The Confessions_, year 1732.) + +[20] Literary Correspondence, April, 1785. + +[21] Bernardin de Saint-Pierre had developed his ideas upon the +education of women, long before the publication of the _Études de +la Nature_, in a speech delivered in 1777, without success, at an +academical meeting in the country. Some of the details given here are +borrowed from this _Discours sur l'Education des femmes_. + +[22] The celebrated academician to whom allusion is made in this +passage is Pierre Bouguer, who took part in the scientific expedition +sent to the equator in 1736 to determine the shape of the earth. The +quotation which follows is taken from his _Traité de la Navigation_, +Book II., Chap. xiv. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +"PAUL AND VIRGINIA." + + +Before the appearance of the _Études de la Nature_, Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre was a poor devil, in want, and little known outside one or +two salons, where he was not liked, and with reason. He quite counted +upon his work not passing unnoticed. "I dare say that I shall astonish +you," he wrote to Hennin, before going to print, when announcing his +intention of reading a fragment of his MS. to him; but it is doubtful +whether he expected to make a noise in the world. He had said what +he wished to say, but not in the manner which he had dreamed of. His +language appeared to him poor, in spite of his efforts to vary his +vocabulary. "The new career which I have adopted," he said, "has not +furnished me with new expressions; I have often to repeat the same. +But notwithstanding its defects, which spring from the incapacity of +the workman, I dare to affirm that the basis of my work is calculated +to throw a great light on every part of nature, and to overthrow the +methods which are employed to study it. What a fertile subject it +would be in happier hands." (Letter to Hennin, December 25, 1783.) For +himself the _Études de la Nature_ was valuable because of the ideas in +it; the form they took was of less importance--a judgment which appears +very singular to us in our day. + +There is as much astonishment as pleasure in the first letters where +he tells his old friend of the enthusiastic reception given to his +book by the public. "I receive letters in which I am exalted far +above my merits; I really must have done something quite out of the +common. I have, however, but touched upon the shadows of the reality. +It is but a trifle, the work of a man" (March 1, 1785). Three days +later: "I receive ... private letters from persons with whom I have +no connection, but which praise me too much to allow of my showing +them to any one." The applause grew, reached the provinces, and became +formidable. As is usual, the author quickly got accustomed to it, +and soon learnt to speak with complaisance of the shower of visits, +letters, and invitations to dinner which descended upon his garret. "An +old friend of Jean-Jacques and D'Alembert came to express all sorts +of affection and interest in me, and wished actually to carry me off +to his country house. He appeared to have been particularly struck +with what I have said about plants. Painters are enraptured with what +I have said about the arts; others upon education; and yet more on the +causes of the tides" (March 20, 1785). "It seems that my book makes a +great sensation amongst the clergy; a grand vicar of Soissons, named +M. l'Abbé de Montmignon, came to see me four or five times, and begged +me to accept a lodging with him in his country house, so that I might +satisfy my taste for the fields. I told him that in truth I did wish +for a country house, but not other people's. Another grand vicar of +Agde, called M. l'Abbé de Bysants, came to see me, ... and is going to +take me next Wednesday to visit the Archbishop of Aix, who wishes to +see me in order to speak of me at the convocation of the clergy.... +There are five or six great dinners that I have refused during the last +eight days" (April 25). "Sentimental people send me letters full of +enthusiasm; from women I get receipts for my ailments; rich men offer +me dinners; gentlemen of property country houses; authors their works; +men of the world their influence, their patronage, and even money. I +find in all that but the simple testimony of their good will" (June 3). + +He is discreet; he keeps to himself the declarations of love by +which a man knows at once that he is become celebrated. None of them +escapes it, let him be writer, statesman, or tenor, and Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre received his share like the rest. One of the first came +from a young Swiss lady of Lausanne, whose letter is a jewel of artless +simplicity. She writes to him that she is young, beautiful, and rich; +that she offers him her hand, with her mother's sanction, but that +being a protestant, she does not wish to marry a Roman Catholic; she +continues, "I wish to have a husband who will love only me, and who +will always love me. He must believe in God, and must serve Him in the +same way that I do; ... I would not be your wife unless we are to work +out our salvation together." He replied evasively: "I think as you do, +and to love, Eternity does not seem to me too long. But before all +people must know one another, and see one another in the world." His +young correspondent found the reply too vague, and sent a friend of +hers to M. de Saint-Pierre to ask him whether or not he would become a +convert. The ambassadress was pressing: "You have said that the birds +sing their hymns, each one in his own language, and that all these +hymns are acceptable in the sight of God; therefore you will become +protestant and marry my friend." M. de Saint-Pierre contended: "I have +never said that a nightingale ought to sing like a blackbird, I shall +therefore change neither my religion nor my song." The negotiation +ended there. + +Another suit was pressed upon him by an abbé. The letter began with +reproaches upon the pride of which M. de Saint-Pierre had given proof +on several occasions, and continued in these terms: "My niece is a very +amiable young lady, as artless as innocence itself, pure as a beautiful +spring day, of noble stature, happy countenance ... (we abridge), and +above all, of the best disposition." This niece being only seventeen, +her husband would receive her "straight from the hand of nature, before +society had moulded her to its methods," which is certainly the duty +of the author of the _Études de la Nature_. The lady has not a penny, +but that would evidently not deter the author of the _Études_. "We +believe," wrote her uncle, "you, she, and I, in Providence." We have +not Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's reply, but he did not marry this time +either. + +He refused with the same prudence invitations to go and stay with +people in the country. "Benevolence," he said wittily, "is the flower +of friendship, and its perfume lasts as long as one leaves it on its +stem, without plucking it." + +He tried to reply to his letters, but had to give up the attempt; +they came now from the whole of Europe. Very soon he was compelled to +refuse them at the post office, for they did not frank them at that +time. He paid upwards of £80 for postage of letters in one year, saw +that glory costs too much, and from that time made a selection of his +correspondence. + +At last, joy of joys! The Queen Marie Antoinette mentioned the _Études +de la Nature_ at a dinner at Mme. de Polignac's, and Mme. de Genlis +took the princes, her pupils, to visit the author, the lion of the day, +in his hermitage. + +The reasons of this triumph are easily explained. The influence of +Rousseau, which was always growing, had a good deal to do with it. +People only asked to be sentimental, to believe in natural laws, to +make the social organisation responsible for all their ills. Many of +them, too, only asked to rest from the aggressive and dry irreligion +in which they had lived for so long. All the tender souls for whom +scepticism is never anything but a passing mood, hailed with joy the +religious reaction of which the _Études de la Nature_ gave the signal. +This was one of the two principal reasons of its enormous success. +The other great reason was that people were beginning to read the +_Confessions_ and the _Reveries_, just published at Geneva, and that +men's minds were open to poetry, of which they had been for many +generations deprived. Poetry was the thing most wanting in France +at the end of the eighteenth century, and was most in need of being +revived. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was a poet, and he brought them a +new poetry that became popular in a few weeks. As to his false science, +it only irritated the scientists. The great public was at that time +very ignorant on all scientific subjects, and quite ready to judge +by sentiment of the origin of volcanoes and the form of the poles. +Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's theories found zealous partisans, and +seven months had not passed when a candidate at the Sorbonne presented +a thesis in which he compared the _Études de la Nature_ to Buffon's +_Époques de la Nature_, which was a great enemy to final causes, as we +know, and held the natural man to be a mere brute. + +Meantime the object of so much praise remained poor. Imitations of his +book appeared on all sides, and took from him the best of his profits. +"Hardly have I gathered a few sheaves," he wrote on the 6th of July, +1785, "than the rats enter my granary." Besides that he worked hard to +pay his debts, which were many. That is why he begged just as before, +pensions from the king and gratuities from the ministers. The habit was +formed, as often happens to men who have had a needy youth. + +His first savings (he made them in spite of everything, and that is +what makes it difficult to excuse him this time) were devoted to buying +a cottage and garden in an obscure part of the town, amongst low, +miserable surroundings. His street was not paved, and he said gaily +about it: "Perhaps if my work continues to bring me so many visitors, +the carriage-folk will employ their influence at least to have it +cleaned for me." The ragged neighbours did not frighten him. "When I +came to live amongst the poor in this part of the town," he replied to +remarks, "I took my place amongst the class to which I have belonged +for some time. Everything gave way to the happiness of having a corner +of land to dig and mess about in." Hardly established in it, the naïve +pride of the householder bursts forth in his letters. He had paid for +house and garden £200, and one would think, in reading what he writes +of it, that he possessed an extensive park. He has "an orchard, some +vines," and a large space for flowers. He writes to ask his friends +to give him seeds, bulbs, and plants; one would imagine that all the +species of both hemispheres would not suffice to fill his garden. +As soon as his innocent mania is known, they send him from all sides +enough to fill the parterres of Versailles, but he still finds so much +room that he sows a patch of vegetables. + +With all that he is sad and ill. The reaction has been too great. He +writes to Duval: "I have experienced a succession of such vexatious +events ... that I may say the depths of my soul have been shaken by +them." (January 7, 1787). To someone who congratulates him on his +success, he replies: "You only see the flower, the thorn has remained +in my nerves." Little by little he calmed down, recovered himself, and +gained enough courage to dispute the genuineness of the judgment of the +noble tribunal, which had once condemned one part of his work. A fourth +volume of the _Études de la Nature_ appeared in 1788. It contained +_Paul and Virginia_. + +The introduction to _Paul and Virginia_ clearly explains the intention +of the author. "I had great designs in this little work. I tried to +depict in it a different soil and vegetation to those of Europe. Our +poets have too long allowed their lovers to repose upon the banks of +streams, in the meadows, and under the foliage of the beech-trees. I +wished to place mine on the seashore, at the foot of the rocks, in +the shadow of the cocoa-nut palms, bananas, and flowering lemon-trees. +It only needs, at the other side of the world, a Theocritus, or a +Virgil, to give us pictures, at least as interesting as those of our +country." The ambition to be the Theocritus and the Virgil of the +tropics, comes out in all that he had hitherto written, but he wished +for something more in his romance, and what follows makes one bless the +insubordination of genius, which goes on its way laughing at the best +made plans. "I also proposed to myself to bring forward in it several +great truths; amongst others this one, that our happiness consists +in living according to nature and virtue." A later edition is still +more explicit: "This little work is but a relaxation from my _Études +de la Nature_, and the application which I have made of its laws to +the happiness of two unhappy families." In other words, Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre meant _Paul and Virginia_ to be an instructive and useful +romance, a sort of lesson in things intended to prove the justice of +the theories developed in his _Études de la Nature_, and the wisdom of +the reforms which he there set forth. His young hero and heroine were +to be the living and striking demonstration of the natural goodness +of man, of the uselessness of our vain sciences, and of an infinite +number of other "great truths" propounded in the course of his work. +Happily the poet was often able to make the philosopher forget his +programme. + +It is the poet, the Theocritus of the tropics, who begins. He sings of +a voluptuous nature that squanders her caresses upon two nurslings. +She lulls them to the murmur of the springs, and smiles upon them in +a thousand brilliant colours. Around their cradle is only warmth and +perfume. They develop harmoniously in this solitude, whose gentle +influences are in accord with the gentleness of the sentiments placed +by Providence in the hearts of the newly-born. Nothing could be more +charming than these two beautiful children, "quite naked, according +to the custom of the country, hardly able to walk, holding each other +by the hand and under the arms, as we represent the twins in the +zodiac. Night even could not separate them; they were often found in +the same cradle, cheek to cheek, breast to breast, the hands of each +round the other's neck, asleep in each other's arms." These last lines +are exquisite; it would be impossible better to express the ineffable +graces of the sleep of childhood. + +Paul and Virginia grew up, and their games and little adventures are +recounted with the same charm. It is not high art, it is too pretty, +could be too easily turned into a ballad, or used to decorate a +chocolate box, but it is delightful all the same. Besides, the beauty +of some of the pictures is considerably heightened by their frames; for +instance, the two children performing pantomines "like the negroes." +"The place generally chosen for the scenes was the cross-roads of a +forest, whose glades formed around us several arcades of foliage. In +their midst we were sheltered from the heat during the whole day; but +when the sun had sunk to the horizon, his rays, broken by the trunks +of the trees, were divided _among the shadows of the forest into long +luminous beams_, which produced the most majestic effect. Sometimes +his whole disc would appear at the end of one of the avenues, making +it sparkle with light. The foliage of the trees, lighted from below +with the sun's saffron-tinted rays, shone with the glow of the topaz +and the emerald. Their trunks, mossy and brown, seemed to be changed +into columns of antique bronze; and the birds already gone to rest in +silence under the dark leaves, there to pass the night, surprised by +the vision of a second dawn, would salute altogether the star of the +day with a thousand songs." How beautiful and true all this is. This +sudden illumination of a great forest from below by the setting sun, +is as real as it is dazzling. One understands how scenes like that +astonished a generation brought up upon the _Fastes_ of Lemierre and +the _Jardins_ of Delille. + +The infancy of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's young hero and heroine is +passed entirely in a a desert, far from all society; and in them can be +verified the statement made in the _Études de la Nature_, that "man is +born good." They only possess virtuous instincts, good feelings, and +not a germ of vice, for these germs are only communicated to us from +without, nature did not place them in us. + +Before going further we would remark once again how anti-Christian +these ideas are. The necessity for the Redemption disappears with +original sin, and Christianity altogether is only a superfluity, if +not perhaps even charlatanism. Faith must certainly have been very +weak, when the author of these heresies received from religious +people a rapturous welcome, and from the Church of Rome so benignant +a reception, that the philosophers accused him of being in the pay of +the clergy. Godless ages very soon reach a point where they lose their +sense of religion. Then there comes a general atmosphere of ignorance +and want of intelligence of sacred things, from which Christians who +have retained their belief also suffer; they accustom themselves to be +too inexacting, and not to look too closely into things. + +The moment arrives to educate the two children, and to demonstrate +what is also said in the _Études de la Nature_ that, "it is society +which makes evil doers, and it is our education which prepares them." +The philosopher here interrupts the poet, and explains his system. +Paul and Virginia are not "prepared" to become wicked, because they +are brought up far from schools and libraries, without any other +teacher than nature. "All their study was to take delight in and help +one another. For the rest they were as ignorant as creoles, and did +not know how to read or write. They did not disturb themselves about +what had happened in remote times, far from them; their curiosity did +not extend beyond their mountain. They believed that the world ended +where their island did, and they never imagined anything pleasant where +they were not. Their affection for each other and for their mothers, +occupied all the activity of their souls. Useless sciences had never +made their tears flow; lessons of sad morality had never filled them +with weariness. They did not know that they must not steal, for they +had all things in common; nor that they must not be intemperate, for +they had as much as they liked of simple food; nor that they must not +lie, having nothing to hide. No one had ever frightened them by telling +them that God reserves terrible punishments for ungrateful children; +with them filial love was born of maternal love." Daphnis and Chloe had +less innocent souls, less pure from all human teaching; they knew how +to read, and, having flocks to mind, they had, at least, been taught +that thieves exist. + +An education so adapted to scandalise the Academies naturally produced +the happiest results. At twelve Paul was "more robust and more +intelligent than Europeans of fifteen." He had more "enlightenment." +Virginia was no less superior to the girls of our countries. For all +that they had no clocks, almanacs, or books of chronology, history, and +philosophy, they were not ignorant, except to our pedantic ideas, as +they possessed the knowledge which the country teaches us. "They knew +the hours of the day by the shadows of the trees, the seasons by the +time which gave them their flowers and their fruits, and the year by +the number of their harvests." They knew the names and characteristics +of all the plants and birds, and of everything which had life in their +valley and its environs. They knew how to make everything necessary to +the life of a man in the country, and they accomplished all these works +with the good temper which comes from health, open air, and the absence +of care. Seeing them so skilful, ingenious, and happy, their mothers +congratulated themselves on having been "compelled by misfortune to +return to nature." + +Bernardin de Saint-Pierre foresaw that people might make some +objections, and he hastened to be beforehand with them. "You Europeans, +whose souls are filled from infancy with so many prejudices contrary to +happiness, cannot understand that nature could give so much sagacity, +judgment, and pleasure. Your souls, circumscribed by a small sphere of +human knowledge, soon reach the limit of their artificial pleasures, +but nature and the heart are inexhaustible." "... After all, what need +had these young people to be rich and learned in our manner? their +wants and their ignorance added still more to their happiness. There +was not a day in which they did not impart to each other some help or +some information, ay, real information; and if some errors were mixed +up in it a pure man has no dangerous ones to fear." + +There is a touch of declamation about this apostrophe. It threatens to +become a little dull, when the poet awakes, and carries us with a flap +of his wings above all theories and systems. The poet only knows one +thing: his hero and heroine are beautiful, loving, tender, at an age to +love; let them love therefore. All else is forgotten, and Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre in his turn writes, like so many others, the everlasting +romance of sweet fifteen. He writes it with chastity and fire, with a +pure pen, but with deep and stirring passion. Genius just touched him +with its breath for the first and last time, and he writes some pages +of lofty conception such as mere talent however great cannot reach. + +"Nevertheless for some time Virginia was agitated by an unknown +trouble. Her beautiful blue eyes had black circles under them; her +complexion became yellow, and a great languor took possession of her. +Serenity was no longer on her brow, nor a smile upon her lips. They saw +her all at once gay without joy, and sad without sorrow. She shunned +her innocent sports, her pleasant labours, and the society of her +beloved family. She wandered hither and thither in the most lonely +parts of the homestead, everywhere seeking repose and finding none.... +Sometimes at sight of Paul she would go towards him gaily, then all at +once on getting near to him, a sudden embarrassment would seize her, a +vivid blush would dye her pale cheeks, and her eyes would not dare to +meet his. Paul would say to her, 'These rocks are covered with verdure; +our birds sing when they see thee; everything around thee is gay, thou +only art sad,' and he would try to cheer her by embracing her, but she +would turn away her head and fly trembling towards her mother. The +unhappy girl felt herself troubled by the caresses of her brother. Paul +could not understand such new and strange caprices." + +Bernardin de Saint-Pierre had so absolutely lost sight of his systems, +that he gives to Virginia the refined modesty which is only generated +in creatures complicated by civilisation. "Children of Nature" are +ignorant of these shy reserves which do not occur at all without a +certain amount of knowledge. Longus is much more to the point when +he depicts the amorous Chloe kissing her Daphnis with all her heart, +and without thinking of any harm, as a "simple girl brought up in the +country, and never having in her life heard even the name of love." + +A terrible summer came to increase the mysterious trouble from which +Virginia suffered. "It was towards the end of December when the sun in +Capricorn, for weeks burns the Isle of France with its vertical rays. +The south wind which prevails there nearly the whole year, blew no +longer. Great clouds of dust rose upon the roads and remained suspended +in the air. The earth cracked in all directions; the grass was burnt; +warm exhalations issued from the sides of the mountains, and most +of the brooks were dried up. Not a cloud came from the side of the +sea, only during the day a ruddy vapour would rise from its plains, +appearing at sunset like the blaze of a conflagration. Night even +brought no coolness to the heated atmosphere. The moon, quite red, rose +in the misty horizon with extraordinary grandeur. The flocks, prostrate +upon the hill-sides, inhaling the air, made the valleys echo with their +sad bleatings. Even the Kafir tending them lay upon the earth to find +some coolness there; but everywhere the ground was burning, and the +stifling air resounded with the hum of insects, trying to quench their +thirst in the blood of men and animals." + +The drama now develops itself in strict accordance with these exterior +sensations. "On one of those sultry nights Virginia felt all the +symptoms of her malady redoubled. She rose, sat up, lay down again, +not finding in any attitude sleep or repose. By the light of the moon +she directed her steps towards the spring. She could see its source +which, in spite of the drought, still flowed like a silver thread along +the brown surface of the rock. She plunged into its trough, and at +first the coolness revived her, and a thousand agreeable recollections +presented themselves to her mind. She remembered that in her infancy +her mother and Marguerite amused themselves by bathing her with Paul +in this same place; that Paul afterwards, reserving this bath for her, +had hollowed it out, covered the bottom with sand, and sown on its +margin aromatic herbs. She caught a glimpse in the water on her bare +arms and bosom of the reflections of two palm-trees, planted at her +own and her brother's birth, which interlaced their green branches and +young cocoa-nuts above her head. She thought of Paul's friendship, +sweeter than perfume, purer than the waters of the springs, stronger +than the united palm-trees, and she sighed. She thought of the night, +of solitude; and a devouring fire took possession of her. She rose +at once, afraid of these dangerous shadows, and these waters more +burning than the suns of the Torrid Zone. She ran to her mother to +seek protection from herself. Several times, wishing to tell her her +sufferings, she took her hands between her own, several times she was +near breathing Paul's name, but her oppressed heart left her tongue +without speech, and laying her head on her mother's breast she could +only burst into floods of tears." + +A tempest ravages their valley and destroys their garden, leaving +however after it a feeling of peace and repose. Virginia restored, +becomes once more familiar and affectionate with Paul, but it is only a +flash of light in the darkness, which disappears with the expansion of +nerves produced by the cool damp air. + +Already while his hero and heroine were but infants, Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre showed us how nature, even at that early age, mingled in +their pleasures and needs, so that "their life seemed one with that of +the trees, like the fauns and hamadryads." Now it is in their passions +that nature takes part, and with what intensity the scene of the bath, +and the return of intimacy after the storm show us vividly. The author +profits by the characters he has in hand to realise a conception +already old, and establish a bond, henceforth indissoluble, between +the human soul and its surroundings. The bond existed before his time; +it is as old as the world and it acts, without their knowledge, upon +the most uncultured beings. But in the age and surroundings where men +have learnt to recognise it, to be conscious of it, it requires so much +strength and importance that we may be allowed to welcome it as a new +force. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre pointed it out, showed it at work, +and the lesson was not lost. Chateaubriand was twenty at the time of +the appearance of _Paul and Virginia_. When his René cries out amidst +the whistling of the wind, "Be swift to gather ye tempests that I have +longed for," he does not know whether he is speaking of real storms or +of those in his soul. He confounds them, and no one is unaware how +much poetical inspiration has been given to our age by this confusion +between our feelings and external impressions. + +Let us remark in passing that it was not worth while being so indignant +in the _Études de la Nature_ against those who dared to say that morals +vary with the climate. The fragments which we have just read bring us +to exactly the same conclusion. + +It is also a landscape which prepares us, if I may so express it, for +the scene of the love-confession, when after the episode of the letter +which calls Virginia away to France, the two young people go out after +supper to spend their last evening together. They seat themselves upon +a hillock and at first remain absolutely silent. + +It was one of those delicious nights so common in the tropics, whose +beauty no brush however skilful can paint. The moon appeared in the +midst of the firmament, surrounded with a curtain of clouds which were +gradually dispersed by her rays. Her light spread by degrees over the +mountains of the island, and over their highest peaks which shone with +silvery green. The winds held their breath. One heard in the woods, in +the depths of the valleys, and on the rocky heights, little cries, +soft murmurs of birds billing and cooing in their nests, happy in the +moonlight and the tranquility of the air. On the ground everything +seemed to be stirring, even the insects. + +The night seemed to breathe of love: an intoxicating languor stole over +the two lovers, and they spoke at last and confessed their secret. +Paul's speech is a little too set, the phrases too smooth, too careful. +Virginia's reply is full of passion and impulse, even when we abridge +it, and only retain the cry at the end: "Oh, Paul, Paul! thou art much +dearer to me than a brother! How much has it not cost me to hold thee +at a distance!... Now whether I remain or go, live or die, do with me +as thou wilt...." At these words Paul clasped her in his arms. + +Virginia departs, and with her goes the inspiration. Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre seems to be filled with remorse for having lingered over +trifles which have taught us nothing, unless it is that love belongs +to the number of "natural laws" which govern our earth (we ourselves +rather question it). He tries to make up for lost time, and succeeds +only too well, for until the final catastrophe, we never cease to +be taught, and to verify the truth of the ideas propounded in the +_Études de la Nature_. Paul learns to read and write so as to be able +to correspond with Virginia, and he loses at once his tranquility +of mind. What he learns from romances makes him uneasy and jealous: +"His knowledge already makes him unhappy." He talks sometimes with the +other inhabitants, but their slander, their vain gossip are so many +more causes of sorrow; why was he so imprudent as to leave his desert? +"Solitude restores man in part to natural happiness, by keeping from +him social unhappiness." + +He becomes ambitious, dreams of gaining "some high position" so as to +be more worthy of Virginia. The old man reveals to him that all the +roads are closed to those who have neither birth nor fortune. Here +follows a digression upon hereditary nobility, the traffic in public +offices, the indifference of the great to virtue. + +Paul declares that he will attach himself to some "society." "I +shall entirely adopt its spirit and its opinions," he says; "I shall +make myself liked." The old man reprimands him severely for his weak +desire to cling to something. Another digression upon the sacrifice of +conscience demanded by societies which "besides interest themselves +very little in the discovery of truth." + +In despair of his cause Paul decides to be a writer. One can imagine +how this is received. The old man draws so black a picture of the +persecutions which attend men of letters, that the poor boy is +terrified at the thought of the sufferings which each book represents, +and exclaims, embracing a tree planted by Virginia, "Ah! she who +planted this papaw-tree has given the inhabitants of these forests a +more useful and charming present than if she had given them a library." +Further digression upon the Gospel and the Greek philosophers. + +This is the part that Mme. Necker, at the time of the famous reading in +her salon, compared to "a glass of iced water." The criticism was just. +The author himself was chilled by the dialogues between Paul and the +old man, and cannot regain the passion which carried him so high just +before. The shipwreck of the _Saint-Géran_, and the death of Virginia, +which made us all shed floods of tears when we were children, are, it +must be allowed, somewhat melodramatic, and from a literary point of +view very inferior to the passionate scenes. + +Let us forget the didactic portions of the work, and the old preacher +who is no other than Bernardin himself. There remains a love-story, +one of the most passionate ever written in any language. The more one +re-reads it, the less one understands how it could have been taken for +an innocent and somewhat insipid pastoral. Sainte-Beuve was surprised +at it even forty years ago. "This charming little book," he writes, +"which Fontanes placed a little too conventionally, perhaps, between +_Telémaque_ and _La Mort d'Abel_ (de Gesner), I should myself place +between _Daphnis and Chloe_, and that immortal fourth book in honour of +Dido." Theophile Gautier declared that _Paul and Virginia_ appeared to +him to be the most dangerous book in the world for young imaginations. +He recalls the fervid emotion which he himself felt in reading it, +and which was never equalled later by any other book.[23] These two +criticisms have nothing exaggerated in them. The place of Virginia +with her beautiful eyes and their black circles, is in the front rank +of illustrious lovers, between Chloe, passionate and simple, and the +despairing Dido. Nevertheless, such is the empire of the commonplace, +that by dint of being enraptured over the grace and sentiment of +Bernardin's narrative, one has become accustomed more and more to see +in it but a superior Berquin, and to relegate it insensibly to the +literature of childhood. More than one reader was scandalized just now +that we dared to speak freely of a sacred masterpiece, though he has +not read _Paul and Virginia_ since the days when he bowled his hoop, +and would have been much surprised if it had been proposed to him. + +At the time when the book was most in favour, curiosity was rife to +know how far it was a true story. The problem does not interest us +to-day, except for what it teaches us about the author's manner of +composition. Our realistic novelists would find little to change in it. + +The framework is true. The landscapes are copied from nature and +perfected by a divination as to what would be the tropical vegetation +in a country more fertile than the Isle of France. "_Paul and +Virginia_," Humboldt wrote, "has accompanied me to the countries which +inspired Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. I have re-read it during many +years with my companion.... When the noonday sky shone with its pure +brightness, or in rainy weather, on the shores of the Orinico, while +the rolling thunderstorm illuminated the forest; and we were struck, +both of us, with the admirable truth with which, in so few pages, +the powerful nature of the tropics in all their original features is +represented." + +The principal characters of _Paul and Virginia_, those whom he took +pains to make alive, are formed of traits borrowed from flesh and blood +models, and arranged according as they were needed. We have already +said that the author put himself into the book in the character of the +old man. In his heroine he has recalled two charming girls whom he had +met at one time in Russia and at Berlin, Mlle. de la Tour, and Mlle. +Virginie Taubenheim. + +Longus furnished the primitive idea of the narrative; the +transformation of friendship into love at a fatal moment between two +young people brought up together. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre also +borrowed from him several points of detail; there are in the first half +of _Paul and Virginia_ some passages which very closely follow _Daphnis +and Chloe_. + +The description of the manners of the Isle of France was exact when +it was written. Reminiscences of several periods suggested the +episodes. The pretty scene of the children sheltering themselves from +the rain under Virginia's petticoat had been observed by Bernardin +de Saint-Pierre in the Faubourg Saint Marceau. The tragedy of the +dénoument had been related to him; he did not see it himself, whence it +doubtless comes that it looks rather as though it had been arranged. +"He only knew how to write about what he had seen," said Aimé Martin; +but what he had seen he always illustrated, and one might even give as +an epigraph to _Paul and Virginia_ the title which Goethe chose for his +memoirs: _Poetry and Truth_. + +The book was praised up to the skies the moment it appeared. It was +translated into English, Italian, German, Dutch, Russian, Polish, and +Spanish. Upwards of three hundred imitations were written in French. +It was put into novels, plays, pictures, and popular engravings. +Mothers called their newly-born children Paul or Virginia. Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre was decidedly a great man, and in 1791 when the National +Assembly drew up a list from among which to choose a governor for the +Dauphin, his name figures in it, in company with that of Berquin, of +Saint-Martin, called the _unknown philosopher_, of de Sieyes and of +Condorcet; a strange medley that says a good deal for the disorder +which at that time reigned in men's minds. + +This brilliant success was not a mere flare up. Some years later we +find the Bonaparte family showing a marked enthusiasm. First there is +a letter signed Louis Bonaparte, in which the author relates that he +had wept so much in reading _Paul and Virginia_ that he would like to +know what is true in the story, "so that another time in re-reading +it I can say to myself to comfort my afflicted feelings--'this is +true, this is false.'" Then comes a note from General Bonaparte, +commanding the army in Italy, who finds time between two battles to +write to M. de Saint-Pierre: "Your pen is a paint brush; all that +you paint one can see; your works charm and comfort us; you will be +one of the men whom I shall see oftenest and with most pleasure in +Paris." After the letters came visits from Louis, from Joseph, from +Napoleon, who flatter and praise the writer of the day. His book never +leaves them; during the campaign in Italy, "it reposed under the +pillow of the General-in-Chief, as Homer did under that of Alexander." +Joseph endeavoured to imitate it in a pastoral called _Moïna_, which +he respectfully submitted to Saint-Pierre. Napoleon envies from the +bottom of his soul the peaceful existence of his host "in the bosom +of nature." He expresses himself in accents of such sincerity that +Bernardin hastens to offer him a small country house of which he had +become the proprietor. The "Conqueror of Italy smiled in rather an +embarrassed manner and murmured in a low voice some words about his +retinue, equipment, and repose from labour," but he redoubled his +politeness, and invited the celebrated man to dinner. Matters became +somewhat strained when the celebrated man refused to enrol himself +amongst the paid journalists. However, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre never +had to complain of the Empire, and on his side Napoleon remained +faithful to his admiration for _Paul and Virginia_; we are assured that +he re-read it several times at Saint Helena. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[23] Theophile Gautier, _Souvenirs intimes_, by Mme. Judith Gautier. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +WORKS OF HIS OLD AGE--THE TWO MARRIAGES--DEATH OF BERNARDIN DE +SAINT-PIERRE--HIS LITERARY INFLUENCE. + + +We have not yet got through half the _Complete Works_, and our task is +nearly done. With the exception of certain pages, pleasant or valuable +for the information which they contain, the rest might as well not have +been published; the reputation of the author would have lost nothing +by it. In the month of September, 1789, appeared the _Voeux d'un +solitaire_. The opening promises something rural: + +"On the first of May, of this year 1789, I went down into my garden +at sunrise to see what condition it was in after the terrible winter, +in which the thermometer on the 31st of December had gone down to 19° +below freezing.... + +"On entering it I could see neither cabbages nor artichokes, white +jasmin nor narcissus; almost all my carnations and hyacinths had +perished; my fig-trees were dead, as were also my laurel-thyme which +generally flowered in January. As for my young ivy, its branches were +dried and its leaves the colour of rust. + +"However, the rest of my plants were doing well although their growth +was retarded three weeks. My borders of strawberry-plants, violets, +thyme, and primroses were variegated green, white, blue, and red; and +my hedges of honeysuckle, raspberry, and gooseberry bushes, roses and +lilacs were all covered with leaves and buds. My avenues of vines, +apple-trees, pear-trees, peach-trees, plum-trees, cherry-trees, and +apricots were all in blossom. In truth, the vines were only beginning +to open their buds, but the apricots had already their fruit set. + +"At this sight I said to myself," ... what he said to himself were +certain reflections upon the "interests of the human race," and upon +"the revolutions of nature," which remind him of "those of the state," +... "and I said to myself kingdoms have their seasons like the country, +they have their winter and their summer, their frosts and their dews: +the winter of France is passed, her spring is coming. Then full of hope +I seated myself at the end of my garden on a little bank of turf and +clover, in the shadow of an apple-tree in blossom, opposite a hive, the +bees of which hovered about humming on all sides.... And I began to +have aspirations for my country." We know already from the _Études de +la Nature_ what his aspirations were; they were nothing very original +or bold considering it was the year 1789, after the taking of the +Bastille. Saint-Pierre demands that every employment shall be open to +all, that individual liberty shall be assured, that there shall be an +end put to clerical abuses, &c. The book had no success and possesses +no interest for us; we may proceed. + +Two years after the _Voeux? d'un solitaire_, in 1791, appeared the +tale entitled _La Chaumière Indienne_. A party of learned Englishmen +(the Academies again!) undertake to start an encyclopædia. Each member +receives a list of 3,500 questions, and sets out for a different +country in order "to seek for ... information upon all the sciences." +The most learned of the band travels overland to the Indies, and on +his way makes a collection of MSS. and rare books forming "ninety +bales weighing altogether 9,550lbs. troy." He converses "with Jewish +rabbis, protestant ministers, superintendents of Lutheran churches, +catholic doctors, academicians from Paris, la Crusca, the Arcades, and +twenty-four others of the most famous academies of Italy, Greek popes, +Turkish mollahs, Armenian priests, the Seids, and Persian priests, +Arab sheiks, ancient Parsees, and Indian pundits." He prepares to +return to London, enchanted to possess "such a splendid cargo of +information," when he perceives that all he has learnt, all he has +collected, only serve to confuse and render obscure the 3,500 questions +on his list. In despair he goes to consult a celebrated Brahmin, who +only tells him that the Brahmins know everything and tell nothing. A +storm obliges him, just in the nick of time, to ask shelter in the +cottage of a pariah, and this man teaches him more in an hour about the +way to find the truth than all the academies of the world had been able +to teach him in several years. One guesses that the pariah did not know +how to read or write, and that his secret consisted in studying nature +"with his heart and not with his mind." This amusing slight fancy is +told gracefully and pleasantly. + +Meanwhile the terror approached, and in spite of certain alarms, it was +one of the most tranquil periods of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's life. +After some months passed at the Jardin des Plantes, of which he was for +a short time governor, he looked on at the revolutionary storm from the +depths of a charming retreat, chosen by him, arranged by him, and which +he owed to the mania of women to marry celebrated men. + +We have not forgotten that from the moment of his first literary +success several people proposed to him. After _Paul and Virginia_ +romantic and sensitive hearts turned more than ever towards him, and +at last he allowed himself to be touched. The daughter of his printer, +Mlle. Félicité Didot, had loved him for a long time. She "did not fear +to own it to him," and was rewarded for so doing: he consented to marry +her. He was fifty-five, she twenty. + +He consented, making his own conditions however; his letter to Mlle. +Didot is categorical. He wishes for a secret marriage. Further, he +insists that his father-in-law shall buy him an island at Essonnes, and +build him a house there. "It will take three months to build the house +and make it habitable; when it is ready your parents will retire to +Essonnes, taking you with them, and I shall rejoin you there for our +marriage. I shall have a house, an island, and a wife, without any one +in Paris knowing anything about it. I shall establish you on my island +with a cow, some fowls, and Madelon, who understands to perfection how +to raise them. You will have books, flowers, and the neighbourhood of +your parents. I shall certainly come to see you as often as possible." + +According to what follows in the correspondence this arrangement was +not to Mlle. Didot's taste. She dreamed of sharing his glory, and he +offered her the post of his housekeeper. He did not insist upon the +secret marriage, but on the question of the country he would not give +in, declaring that he could only be happy there. "When my business +forces me to be in Paris, I shall write to you frequently. You will +be the reward of my labours; I shall come to forget in your bosom +the troubles of the town. Until I can have you always with me as my +companion, I shall come and pass weeks, whole months with you. This +is my plan of life. I shall rise in the morning with the sun. I shall +go into my library and occupy myself with some interesting study, for +I have a large amount of material to put in order. At ten breakfast, +which you will have prepared yourself (he held to this) will re-unite +us. After breakfast I shall return to my work, and you can accompany +me, if the cares of the household do not call you elsewhere; I presume +that you will occupy yourself with them in the morning. At three +o'clock a dinner of fish, vegetables, poultry, milk-food, eggs, and +fruit produced on our island, will keep us an hour at table. From four +to five rest, and a little music; at five, when the heat will have +passed, fishing, or a walk in our island until six. At six we shall go +to see your parents and walk in the neighbourhood. At nine a frugal +supper." + +Mlle. Didot understood that she might take it or leave it, and resigned +herself to become the head-servant of the Island of Essonnes. If she +had cherished any illusions as to what was before her, she was not long +in losing them. The letters which her husband wrote to her after their +marriage have been published. This is the beginning of the first one, +written during a journey of Mme. de Saint-Pierre to Paris. + +"I send thee, my dear, some wire for my tenant, your mother's +carpet-bag, some potatoes, some beetroots, which thou dost not much +like, but which necessity will perhaps render agreeable to thee. If +thou wilt share them with citizen M---- junior, thou wilt give me +pleasure. In this case thou wilt send Madelon with them, and wilt give +her also the wire intended to clear the conduit to the well of my +house...." + +Then comes a long paragraph on the nails of various kinds of which he +has need for his workmen, and he continues: "Dost thou remember how +many handkerchiefs I had? there were only eleven here," and in a P.S., +"There is no sugar here at all, send me a pound of moist sugar." + +He had not deceived her, nevertheless his happiness was great in this +first union. He did not certainly use much coquetry with this young +wife, who was about thirty years younger than himself. Everlasting +household details: "Send me some apples." ... "Sow some cucumbers." ... +"Do not forget the haricot beans." ... "Why have a pig when we have +need of potatoes?" It was not worth while having married a poet! As for +him, the country enchanted him, and he left his island as seldom as +possible. He endeavoured to ignore events in Paris, so as to be able +to prepare in peace his _Harmonies de la Nature_. "Putting aside all +newspapers and books which might have told him of the mad excitement +of his country, he made a solitude of his enclosure; and when the +mists and hoar frost on the trees bare of leaves and singing birds, +made the country look sad, _Virgil's eclogues_, _Telemachus_, and the +_Vicar of Wakefield_, gave him in an ideal world, the happiness which +no longer existed on the earth."[24] Let us remember this passage. The +circumstances under which the _Harmonies_ were composed explain the +work. + +The death of his father-in-law brought him back willingly or +unwillingly to the world of reality. There was a burdensome +liquidation, family dissensions, and worries of all kinds. Then Mme. de +Saint-Pierre died in her turn, leaving a daughter Virginia, and a son +Paul. It was a general breaking up of things. + +There are some people magnificently obstinate in being happy. Bernardin +had the courage to begin life again. At sixty-three he married a pretty +little schoolgirl, Mlle. Désirée de Pelleporc, whose exercises it +amused him to correct, and who was dazzled with the idea of marrying +the author of _Paul and Virginia_. He found that he had done quite +the right thing. There is no more any question of cabbages in his +letters to his second wife. Bernardin is in love, he wishes to please, +and this old grey-beard finds again his imagination of twenty to +write to his Désirée, his "joy," his "dear delight," his "everlasting +love." She is ailing. "Do not distress thyself; I shall work beside +thee; I shall comfort thee with my affection; I shall kiss thy feet +and warm them with my love." She writes to him and he is overcome +with admiration: "Ah! how full of charm is thy last letter! it is an +enchanting combination of youthful imagery, tenderness, philosophy, and +loving religion. I admired that last thought of thine, it is new, it is +sublime--ah! my second providence! &c. I have sent to invite Ducis to +come and see us. If thou hadst not made me full of love for thee, thou +wouldst have filled me with pride." + +Poor Félicité never had so much attention in her life as Désirée in +this one day, and that is not all; the letter ends thus: "I believe +that the new moon of yesterday will make a change in the weather. +Meantime she has announced herself by heavy showers; but this abundance +of water accelerates the growth of the vegetables; it is necessary to +their progress and their needs: the month of May is an infant who would +always be at the breast. I embrace thee, my love, my delight, my month +of May. (_Signed_) Thy friend, thy lover, thy husband." + +Sainte-Beuve thought this ending charming. "This month of May" he says, +"which is _an infant that would always be at the breast_, is it not the +most graceful and most speaking picture, above all addressed to a young +wife, a young mother?" + +It is Bernardin who now does the commissions, and he does not bring +Désirée any nails or moist sugar. Not a bit of it! He brings her +crayons and colours, perfumery, a fine tent for her garden. His +impatience to return is extreme; he no longer lives away from her, is +capable of nothing without her. "The absence of the clear-sighted wife +leaves the husband only one eye to see with, deprives him of the best +part of his senses. Thy absence, my angel, throws me more and more +into a state of indolence which I cannot overcome. It is absolutely +imperative that I come to see thee, and that thou return, my love." In +another letter: "I must return to kindle my flame in the sunlight of +thy presence.... Good-bye, my delight; I wish to live and die beside +thee." + +He does not doubt that the whole universe shares in this admiration for +Désirée, who was moreover really charming, and the joy of his old age. +One day when she is alone at Eragny, their country house on the Oise, +which had taken the place of the island of Essonnes, her husband sends +her some details about the battle of Eylau. He tells her that two days +before the battle Napoleon had written in an album found in a country +house: "Happy retreat of peace, why art thou so near to the scene +of the horrors of war?" "Does it not seem," continues Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre, "that he was thinking of our Eragny? If he had seen thee +there with our dear family, dost thou think he would ever have fought +that battle? I warn thee that if it falls to my turn to address him, I +shall charge thee with the correction of my speech." Mlle. de Pelleporc +had certainly not been taken in like Mlle. Didot. + +It was in his capacity of Academician that Bernardin de Saint-Pierre +was liable to be called upon to address the Emperor. He had belonged +to the Academy[25] ever since Napoleon had re-established it (1803). He +had belonged to the Institute in the division of moral and political +science from its foundation in 1795. In the same year he had charge +of the course of ethics at the Normal School, and the Normal School +had been suppressed almost directly, which was very lucky, for he did +not know how to speak. The elevation of the Bonaparte family sufficed +to crown his old age. He was pensioned, decorated, and well treated +by the Emperor. The Parisian world petted and flattered him. On one +of his journeys to Paris he writes to his second wife: "What is to +become of our former dreams of rural solitude? How is it possible, in +the midst of so much writing to be answered, and of visits active and +passive, to make a fair copy of any pages of my old or new _Études_? +I am like the corn-beetle, living happily in the midst of his family, +in the shadow of the harvest-field; should a ray of the rising sun +light up the emerald and gold of his sheath, then the children seeing +him, take possession of him and shut him up in a little cage, choking +him with cake and flowers, believing that they make him happier with +their caresses than he was in the bosom of his family." Of course not a +word of this great boredom is to be believed in. The little beetle is +enchanted, like all literary beetles, to be covered with flowers and +shut up in those beautiful cages which are called aristocratic salons. +He would be perfectly happy if he had a good temper. + +But his temper is worse than ever. He had never had so many quarrels, +and there is a concert of recrimination among his colleagues. The +Academy is his favourite field of battle, and two of its sittings +above all have, thanks to him, remained memorable. At the first one he +was in the right; it was in 1798. Religion was still suppressed, and +many people would not allow the name of God to be spoken. Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre had been entrusted with the report upon some meeting, and +into this report he had bravely insinuated a profession of religious +faith. Cries of fury arose in the hall, and through the noise one heard +Cabanis crying out: "I swear that there is no God! and I demand that +his name shall not be mentioned within these walls!" Another wished to +do battle with the blasphemer, and prove to him, sword in hand, that +God did not exist. They all abused him threatened him, and laughed at +him, but he held his own against the storm, and refused to efface the +scandalous passage. The Academy refused to read his report in open +meeting. + +His other great battle was in favour of a less glorious cause. He +found means to raise a tempest apropos of the Dictionary, in which he +wished to insert some sentiment. "Just imagine," he wrote to Désirée, +"that they have put in their Dictionary under the word _appertain_, +'It appertains to a father _to chastise his children_.' I told them +that it was strange that among a hundred duties which bind a father +to his children, they should have chosen the one which would make him +odious to them. Thereupon Morellet the harsh, Suard the pale, Parny +the amorous, Naigeon the atheist, and others all quoted the Scripture, +and all talking at once, assailed me with passages from it, and +united themselves against me as they always do. Then, becoming warm +in my turn, I told them their quotations were those of pedants and +collegians, and that if I were alone in my opinion, I should hold it +against them all. They put it to the vote, all raising their hands to +heaven, and as they congratulated themselves on having a very large +majority, I told them that I challenged their statement because they +were all celibates. These are the kind of scenes to which I expose +myself when I wish to uphold some natural truth; but it suits me from +time to time to defend the laws of nature against people who only know +those of fortune and credit." (Letter of September 23, 1806.) + +It was hard on him! He had persuaded himself that he was persecuted +by the Institute. In his mind the chief occupation of the Institute +was to invent some bad turn against M. de Saint-Pierre. In 1803 Maret +asked him for his vote. Bernardin replies: "Of what use can the vote +of a solitary man be to you, one who has long been persecuted by the +body to which you aspire? It can only do you harm. The atheists who +govern the Institute, and against whom I have never ceased to contend, +have not only deprived me of all influence, be it in preventing me +from reading from the tribune at our public meetings the papers which +my class have prepared for that purpose; be it in hindering me from +obtaining the smallest post to help me to bring up my family, but they +have even taken pleasure in publishing abroad that the First Consul +said on one occasion: 'I shall never give any employment to a writer +who disseminates error.' Thus they have even deprived me of hope. + +"That is not all, they have lately been trying to take from me my +actual means of subsistence." Here follows a long list of grievances. +He has only received £24 indemnity on an occasion when other members +of the Academy have had £48; one of his pensions has been reduced £2 +per month; his works have been mutilated by the Censor; he hardly dares +to present to the public his theory of the tides for fear of sharing +the fate of Galileo; he expects to be exiled, compelled to find at a +distance a spot "wherein to place the cradles of his three children +and his own grave." The admiration of the world would be powerless to +protect him against the stubborn animosity of his colleagues in the +Institute. "I resemble those saints who attract from afar the homage +and the prayers of men, but who near at hand are bitten by insects." +This is all nonsense; he had discussed persecutions too much with J. J. +Rousseau. + +It is not surprising that he was detested by most of his colleagues. +Andrieux remembers M. de Saint-Pierre as "a hard, ill-natured man." It +is just to add that those who liked him--Ducis, for instance--liked +him very much, and that he knew how to take pains to keep his friends. +There was no middle course with him: he was hateful or delightful. + +He continued to write to the end of his life. "He made a point," says +his biographer, "of never letting a single day pass without writing +down some observations on nature, if it were only a single line. +The result was, in the long run, a multitude of rough notes, hardly +decipherable, written upon scraps of paper, which he compared to the +Sibylline leaves blown about by the wind, and of which, according +to the intention of the author, we have collected the best in his +_Harmonies_." + +He also continued to publish without succeeding in shaking his +reputation, though it was not his fault if it remained intact, for from +the date of the _Chaumière Indienne_ one can count on one's fingers the +pages which are not worthless. + +The _Harmonies de la Nature_ (three vols., 1796) is only a tame +repetition of the _Études de la Nature_. We must recall under what +conditions the _Harmonies_ was written. It required a miracle of faith +or fixed resolution to persevere under the Terror, in teaching that +there is no evil in the heart of man any more than in the rest of +creation. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre accomplished this miracle, but it +was useless for him to shut himself up in his study with _Telemachus_ +and the _Vicar of Wakefield_; inspiration did not come, and he had to +content himself with sifting the same ideas with nothing new but a +degree more of exaggeration. + +The arguments in favour of final causes surpass in naïveté, if +possible, those of the _Études_. The foresight of creation has no +limit: "Not only has nature given us vegetation suitable to our +physical needs, but she has produced some in connection with our moral +enjoyment which have become the symbols of it by the duration of their +verdure; such as the laurel for victory, the olive for peace, the palm +for glory. They have been made to grow on all those sites which by +their melancholy and religious aspect seem destined for burial places." +These last, which nature has created expressly "to decorate our tombs," +and which for this reason are named "funereal trees," are divided into +two groups having "opposite characteristics. Those in the first group +let their long and slender branches trail to the earth, and one sees +them waving about at the pleasure of the wind, looking dishevelled and +as though deploring some misfortune. The second group of funereal trees +includes those which grow in the form of obelisks or pyramids. If the +dishevelled trees seem to carry our regrets towards the earth, these +with their upright branches seem to direct our hopes heavenwards." + +This example will suffice. + +The goodness of man appears to him to be more apparent than ever. "I +repeat, for the consolation of the human race, moral evil is as foreign +to man as physical evil, both only spring from a deviation from the +natural law. Nature made man good." This goodness would be plain to +all at once if they would put into practice M. de Saint-Pierre's plan +of education, and it could hardly be put off much longer. "A day will +come, and I already see its dawn, when Europeans will substitute in the +hearts of their children the wish to serve their fellow-creatures for +the fatal ambition to be the first amongst them, and when they will +recognise that the interest of each of them is the interest of the +human race." + +A few new scientific ideas come in to prove that the author is +incorrigible on this point. "If the forces of the vegetable kingdom +reflect and augment the heat of the sun, if they effect the atmosphere +and the water, they have no less influence upon the solid globe of +the earth, of which they extend the circumference from year to year. +It is quite certain that each plant leaves upon the globe a solid +and permanent deposit, and that it is out of the sum total of these +vegetable remains that the circumference of the globe is annually +augmented." We could have pardoned him this theory before the works of +Lavoisier, but coming after, they betray a greater amount of ignorance +than can be allowed even to a poet in speaking of science. + +He has also an extraordinary theory upon the chemical composition of +the sun. "If it were allowed to a being as limited as I am to dare +to speculate about a star which I have not even had the happiness to +see through a telescope, I should say that the _material of which +it is composed is gold_, because gold is the heaviest of all known +metals; which would apply to the sun placed in the centre of our +universe.... Its light ... gilds every object that it strikes, and +seems to be volatilised gold.... We are assured that it forms the gold +in the depths of the earth." Mystical reasons confirm Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre in his opinion. "Gold is the prime mover in societies of +human beings as the sun is in the universe. Gold sets in motion all +social harmonies amongst civilised as well as uncivilised peoples." + +It is always through sentiment that he makes his scientific +discoveries. "Evidence is but the harmony of the soul with God ... thus +the mind has no science if the heart has no conscience. Certainty is +then after all a sentiment, and this sentiment is only the result of +the laws of nature.... I should then define science as the sentiment of +the laws of nature in relation to man.... This definition of science in +general applies to all sciences in particular.... Astronomy ... is only +the feeling of the laws which exist between the stars and men." + +In virtue of "the laws which exist between the stars and men," he +knows that the other planets are inhabited, and he could describe their +Fauna and Flora, their landscapes, and the manners of the inhabitants. +The men on the planet Mercury are philosophers; those on Venus "must +give up all their time to love," to the dance, to festivals and songs. +The character of those of Jupiter no doubt resembles that of the +maritime peoples of Europe; "they must be industrious, patient, wise, +and thoughtful, like the Danes, the Dutch, and the English." On all the +planets, the souls of the just fly away after death into the sun, where +they are better placed than anywhere else for enjoying a view of the +whole universe. "It is there without doubt that you are, unfortunate +Jean-Jacques, who, having reached the end of this life, behold a new +one in the sun!" It is there that Bernardin hopes to go to find again +his master, and from whence in spirit he sees himself throwing "a +triumphant glance to earth where men weep, and where he is no longer." +So ends the _Harmonies de la Nature_ in a sort of ecstasy. + +It is deadly dull reading. You are soon surfeited, as after a feast +of nothing but sweet dishes. There is too much feeling, too much +happiness; the world is too well-arranged and engineered, too highly +coloured and varnished. One agrees in the judgment which the book +inspired in Joubert: "Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's style is like a prism +which tires the eyes. After one has read him for long one is charmed +to see that the grass and trees have less colour in nature than they +have in his writings. His harmonies make us love the discords which +he banishes from the world, and which one comes across at every step. +Nature certainly has her music, but happily it is rare. If reality +afforded the melodies which these gentlemen find everywhere, one would +live in an ecstatic languor, and die of inanition." + +The works which succeeded to the _Harmonies de la Nature_ are not +worth spending time over any more than his posthumous ones.[26] When +we have excepted the _Café de Surate_, a charming satirical tale of +a few pages, and the fragments on J. J. Rousseau, upon which we have +drawn largely in retracing the history of their acquaintance, we may +dispense with reading the rest. On the whole Bernardin de Saint-Pierre +is complete in a single book, the _Études de la Nature_, on condition +that we take one of the copies perfected by the addition of _Paul and +Virginia_. + +His last years were the happiest of his long career. They were passed +innocently in observing his flowers, adoring his young wife, and in +realising at last on paper his project of an ideal colony, without +fatigue or expense. It was the best way. He occupied himself every day +for an hour or two in organising it according to the laws of nature, +bringing up the children there to the sound of horns and flutes, and +obtaining results without a precedent, which he recorded in the annals +of the young state.[27] + +The colony was situated on the banks of the Amazon, because, as a +child, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre had told himself a story of how he +embarked for the Amazon, and there founded a republic. It was above +all distinguished for a fabulous abundance of everything. On fête days +the citizens took their places at public tables, at which were served +whole whales, without counting an infinity of other dishes. Contempt +of systems had there produced some almost incredible scientific and +industrial successes; people went about in balloons formed like fish, +and capable of being steered; one saw "camels laden with provisions, +led by negroes, and sledges drawn by reindeer." All the inhabitants of +this favoured spot were good, virtuous, and happy. + +It was an inoffensive and harmless mania. In the end I really believe +that Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was no longer surly and bellicose, +except in the Institute. There he certainly was so, but he paid dearly +for it. What did they not impute to him for crime? They reproached him +for sending his son to college, his daughter to Écouen, after having +written against public education in France. It is what the adversaries +of our university system do every day; we blame and we submit, because +we cannot do otherwise. They reproached him with having been servile +in his intercourse with Napoleon, whom he compared in an academical +oration to an eagle "advancing in the very centre of the storm." He +certainly would have done better not to flatter the master, but he was +in such good company! We pass over other absolutely absurd grievances. +His enemies returned his blows with interest, and, being vindictive, he +died without making peace with them. + +In the month of November, 1813, being then in Paris, he felt that his +life was ebbing; several apoplectic attacks had reduced his strength. +He hastened to return to his home at Eragny, to see again his garden, +the forest of Saint-Germain, the banks of the Oise, and there he +slowly passed away, filling his eyes with the splendours of the +world. He awaited death with serenity, as it becomes a sage to await +the accomplishment of a law of nature, talking peacefully with those +around him of the terrors which it generally inspires. He said that +our fear of death arises from the fact that "the thought of it does +not enter familiarly enough into our education." It is always spoken +of as something strange, as a misfortune happened to some one else; we +are even surprised at it, so that there seems to be nothing natural in +an act which is being accomplished ceaselessly. Listen to the history +of a malady he adds: "I do not believe ever to have heard of one in +which death did not come from the fault of the sick person, or from the +doctor; never from the will of God." + +His heart never failed him except in seeing his dear Désirée weep. "I +see her," he said, "incessantly occupied in holding back my soul which +is ready to escape." For the last time he had himself carried into his +garden. A Bengal rose-bush was still covered with flowers, but the +winter had turned its leaves yellow. "To-morrow," said the dying man +to his wife, "the yellow leaves will no longer be there." On the 21st +of January, 1814, the earth was white with snow, the air misty, and a +cold wind shook the bare trees. At mid-day the sun pierced through the +mist, and fell upon the face of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, who died +breathing the name of God. He was seventy-seven years old. His death +passed unobserved in the midst of the great events which were then +agitating France. + +He had intrusted his reputation and his works to his wife; he could +not have left them in better hands. The charming Désirée has been +the faithful and tender guardian of his memory, a guardian sometimes +blind; but who would think of reproaching her with that? She married +again, later, an ardent admirer of her first husband, Aimé Martin, +the author of the great biography of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, and +the indefatigable editor of his works. Together they raised an altar +to his memory. One is obliged to challenge Aimé Martin's romantic and +enthusiastic biography, but one could not read without being touched, +the pages in which the youthful love affairs of the hero are poetised +and magnified out of all proportion, for those details can only have +been supplied by his widow. Désirée idealised for posterity even his +most vulgar adventures. + +The man was soon forgotten, and then was invented the legend of which +we have spoken at the beginning of this book. The public very much +dislikes to admit that there can be any disagreement between a writer +and his works. It made of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre a reflection of +his writings, a very gentle and universally benevolent man without any +fault except being too over-sensitive. The obstinate combatant of the +Academy became transformed in the imagination of the crowd into an +easy-going man, good-natured and tearful, until his outline was effaced +from men's memory. Nothing remains to-day but an undefined shadow, +a vague something, and this something still finds means to have an +insipid expression. It is a good thing to restore to the original his +angry brow and bitter expression. + +An analogous disaster awaited almost all his works. Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre enjoyed the dangerous honour of having disciples much +greater than himself. His unobtrusive halo was lost sight of in the +glitter of Chateaubriand and the radiance of Lamartine. He assisted +at the literary triumphs of the first; but instead of rendering each +other mutual homage, master and disciple treated each other coldly. +Bernardin de Saint-Pierre could not without impatience allow "the +most covetous of honour among his heirs," according to the expression +of Sainte-Beuve, to throw him into the shade. Chateaubriand, at +first eulogistic, was not long before he became irritated at hearing +malevolent critics compare the elegant simplicity of his predecessor +to his own pomp of style. Towards the year 1810, some one having asked +Bernardin if he knew Chateaubriand, the old man replied, "No, I do +not know him; I have in my time read some extracts of the _Génie du +Christianisme_; his imagination is too strong." They certainly became +acquainted after the nomination of Chateaubriand to the Academy in +1811. We do not find that anything resulted from it, but the following +lines from the _Memoires d'outre Tombe_: "A man whose brush I have +admired and always shall admire, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, was wanting +in judgment, and unfortunately his character was on a level with his +judgment. How many pictures are spoilt in the _Études de la Nature_ by +the writer's limited intelligence and want of elevation of soul!" + +Lamartine, on the contrary, was the most grateful of pupils, always +eager to acknowledge his master, and make the best of him. _Paul and +Virginia_ had been the favourite book of his childhood, and the poet +paid his debt royally to the favourite volume by giving it a place of +honour in two of his own works. Jocelyn read and re-read _Paul and +Virginia_. Graziella is lost from having heard it only once. Her soul, +until then dormant, revealed itself to her in the soul of Virginia. +Her beautiful impassive face becomes suddenly overspread with the +stormy tints and lines of passion. One hour has sufficed to transform +an innocent and joyous child into a palpitating woman, ripe for love +and its sufferings, and it is Bernardin de Saint-Pierre who has +accomplished this miracle. + +It was all in vain; such glorious homage could not protect the bulk +of his work against an indifference which became ever more and more +profound. The reputation of the author of the _Études de la Nature_ has +dispersed in our day like smoke, so much so indeed that in establishing +the literary relation of Chateaubriand and Lamartine, their direct +precursor is usually suppressed; they jump over him to J. J. Rousseau. +Every one of us has forgotten what we owe to Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. +Maurice de Guérin said in 1832, after having read the _Études de la +Nature_: "This book sets at liberty and illuminates a sense which we +all possess, but which is generally obscure and without activity; the +sense which gathers up for us physical beauties, and presents them to +the soul." It has not been given to many writers to awaken amongst +the masses a sleeping faculty, and the event should be of sufficient +importance for us not to lose the remembrance of it. But in our day +we are accustomed to observe this sense which "gathers up physical +beauties" active within us, and increasing without intermission the +treasure of our sensations of incomparable enjoyments. This all seems +so natural to us, that we have no more gratitude for him who "set at +liberty and illuminated" this precious faculty in the souls of our +grandfathers and grandmothers. + +There is the same ingratitude amongst modern writers who do not seem +to have remembered what they owe to him. Not content with having +loved nature with a contagious tenderness, Bernardin has bequeathed +to his successors the first grand models of descriptive landscapes, +and restored to the French language a picturesque vocabulary of which +it had been deprived for two hundred years. These are two immense +services by which he has exercised a great influence on the literature +of the nineteenth century. Without the _Études de la Nature_ not +only _René_ and _Atala_, _Jocelyn_ and _Graziella_, but the _Génie +du Christianisme_ and the _Méditations_ would have been different +from what they are. Chateaubriand and Lamartine would have followed a +somewhat different bent, and the whole of the modern school would have +followed their lead. It is a very great honour to have given impulse to +the descriptive literature of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, if +Bernardin de Saint-Pierre had not possessed another title to glory his +name would no longer be known except to literary men. + +But he had another, over which a very faithful public has undertaken +to watch. The people, who never forget what has profoundly touched +them, have guarded the memory of _Paul and Virginia_. They love these +two children, so beautiful, so unhappy; and we still, find in the +homes of the peasants penny engravings of Épinde's picture in glaring +colours, in which are represented their games, their young love and +their tragical end. On a day of inspiration Bernardin de Saint-Pierre +conquered the glory, enviable above all others, and which is given +to few; he created imaginary but living characters, beings who never +existed, and who nevertheless remain more real and more alive than +thousands of creatures of flesh and blood; more alive, if I dare to say +so, than the heroes and heroines of his most illustrious disciples. +Jocelyn is already forgotten by the world, Atala is no more than an +empty shadow, but the popular imagination will for a long time yet keep +in mind the little Virginia sheltering her Paul under her petticoat, +and those two laughing heads flying together in the shower. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[24] The Biography, by Aimé Martin. + +[25] That is to say to the class of French language and literature at +the Institute which the French Academy revived, except for the title, +at the time of the reorganisation of the Institute by Bonaparte. +(Decreed January 22, 1803.) + +[26] We give the titles of them: _De la Nature de la morale_ (1798), +_Voyage en Silésie_ (1807), _La Mort de Socrate_, drama (1808), +_Empsael_ and _la Pierre d'Abraham_, philosophical novels in the form +of dialogues, _le Café de Surate_--fragments on Rousseau, some accounts +of travels, some pamphlets and fragments of the _Amazon_. + +[27] See the fragments of the _Amazon_. + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Bernardin de St. Pierre, by Arvède Barine + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58723 *** |