Bernardin de St. Pierre

by Arvède Barine

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."