Bernardin de St. Pierre

by Arvède Barine

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.