Paul et Virginie. English Read online

Pierre should have had theimprudence to sail without his commission. He thus subjected himself toa thousand disagreeables, for the officers would not recognize himas one of themselves. The effects of their neglect on his mind weretremendous; his reason for a time seemed almost disturbed by themortifications he suffered. After receiving an insufficient indemnityfor the expenses of his voyage, St. Pierre returned to France, there toendure fresh misfortunes.

  Not being able to obtain any assistance from the ministry or his family,he resolved on giving lessons in the mathematics. But St. Pierre wasless adapted than most others for succeeding in the apparently easy,but really ingenious and difficult, art of teaching. When educationis better understood, it will be more generally acknowledged, that,to impart instruction with success, a teacher must possess deeperintelligence than is implied by the profoundest skill in any one branchof science or of art. All minds, even to the youngest, require, whilebeing taught, the utmost compliance and consideration; and thesequalities can scarcely be properly exercised without a true knowledge ofthe human heart, united to much practical patience. St. Pierre, at thisperiod of his life, certainly did not possess them. It is probable thatRousseau, when he attempted in his youth to give lessons in music, notknowing any thing whatever of music, was scarcely less fitted forthe task of instruction, than St. Pierre with all his mathematicalknowledge. The pressure of poverty drove him to Holland. He was wellreceived at Amsterdam, by a French refugee named Mustel, who edited apopular journal there, and who procured him employment, with handsomeremuneration. St. Pierre did not, however, remain long satisfied withthis quiet mode of existence. Allured by the encouraging reception givenby Catherine II. to foreigners, he set out for St. Petersburg. Here,until he obtained the protection of the Marechal de Munich, and thefriendship of Duval, he had again to contend with poverty. The lattergenerously opened to him his purse and by the Marechal he was introducedto Villebois, the Grand Master of Artillery, and by him presented to theEmpress. St. Pierre was so handsome, that by some of his friends it wassupposed, perhaps, too, hoped, that he would supersede Orloff in thefavor of Catherine. But more honourable illusions, though they werebut illusions, occupied his own mind. He neither sought nor wished tocaptivate the Empress. His ambition was to establish a republic on theshores of the lake Aral, of which in imitation of Plato or Rousseau,he was to be the legislator. Pre-occupied with the reformation ofdespotism, he did not sufficiently look into his own heart, or seek toavoid a repetition of the same errors that had already changed friendsinto enemies, and been such a terrible barrier to his success inlife. His mind was already morbid, and in fancying that others didnot understand him, he forgot that he did not understand others. TheEmpress, with the rank of captain, bestowed on him a grant of fifteenhundred francs; but when General Dubosquet proposed to take him with himto examine the military position of Finland, his only anxiety seemed tobe to return to France: still he went to Finland; and his own notes ofhis occupations and experiments on that expedition prove, that he gavehimself up in all diligence to considerations of attack and defence. He,who loved Nature so intently, seems only to have seen in the extensiveand majestic forests of the north, a theatre of war. In this instance,he appears to have stifled every emotion of admiration, and to havebeheld, alike, cities and countries in his character of militarysurveyor.

  On his return to St. Petersburg, he found his protector Villebois,disgraced. St. Pierre then resolved on espousing the cause of the Poles.He went into Poland with a high reputation,--that of having refusedthe favours of despotism, to aid the cause of liberty. But it was hisprivate life, rather than his public career, that was affected by hisresidence in Poland. The Princess Mary fell in love with him, and,forgetful of all considerations, quitted her family to reside withhim. Yielding, however, at length, to the entreaties of her mother,she returned to her home. St. Pierre, filled with regret, resorted toVienna; but, unable to support the sadness which oppressed him, andimagining that sadness to be shared by the Princess, he soon went backto Poland. His return was still more sad than his departure; for hefound himself regarded by her who had once loved him, as an intruder.It is to this attachment he alludes so touchingly in one of his letters."Adieu! friends dearer than the treasures of India! Adieu! forests ofthe North, that I shall never see again!--tender friendship, and thestill dearer sentiment which surpassed it!--days of intoxication andof happiness adeiu! adieu! We live but for a day, to die during a wholelife!"

  This letter appears to one of St. Pierre's most partial biographers,as if steeped in tears; and he speaks of his romantic and unfortunateadventure in Poland, as the ideal of a poet's love.

  "To be," says M. Sainte-Beuve, "a great poet, and loved before he hadthought of glory! To exhale the first perfume of a soul of genius,believing himself only a lover! To reveal himself, for the first time,entirely, but in mystery!"

  In his enthusiasm, M. Sainte-Beuve loses sight of the melancholy sequel,which must have left so sad a remembrance in St. Pierre's own mind.His suffering, from this circumstance, may perhaps have conduced to hismaking Virginia so good and true, and so incapable of giving pain.

  In 1766, he returned to Havre; but his relations were by this time deador dispersed, and after six years of exile, he found himself oncemore in his own country, without employment and destitute of pecuniaryresources.

  The Baron de Breteuil at length obtained for him a commission asEngineer to the Isle of France, whence he returned in 1771. In thisinterval, his heart and imagination doubtless received the germs of hisimmortal works. Many of the events, indeed, of the "Voyage a l'Ile deFrance," are to be found modified by imagined circumstances in "Paul andVirginia." He returned to Paris poor in purse, but rich in observationand mental resources, and resolved to devote himself to literature. Bythe Baron de Breteuil he was recommended to D'Alembert, who procureda publisher for his "Voyage," and also introduced him to Mlle. del'Espinasse. But no one, in spite of his great beauty, was so illcalculated to shine or please in society as St. Pierre. His mannerswere timid and embarrassed, and, unless to those with whom he was veryintimate, he scarcely appeared intelligent.

  It is sad to think, that misunderstanding should prevail to such anextent, and heart so seldom really speak to heart, in the intercourse ofthe world, that the most humane may appear cruel, and the sympathizingindifferent. Judging of Mlle. de l'Espinasse from her letters, and thetestimony of her contemporaries, it seems quite impossible that shecould have given pain to any one, more particularly to a man possessingSt. Pierre's extraordinary talent and profound sensibility. Both she andD'Alembert were capable of appreciating him; but the society in whichthey moved laughed at his timidity, and the tone of raillery in whichthey often indulged was not understood by him. It is certain that hewithdrew from their circle with wounded and mortified feelings, and, inspite of an explanatory letter from D'Alembert, did not return to it.The inflictors of all this pain, in the meantime, were possibly asunconscious of the meaning attached to their words, as were the birds ofold of the augury drawn from their flight.

  St. Pierre, in his "Preambule de l'Arcadie," has pathetically andeloquently described the deplorable state of his health and feelings,after frequent humiliating disputes and disappointments had driven himfrom society; or rather, when, like Rousseau, he was "self-banished"from it.

  "I was struck," he says, "with an extraordinary malady. Streams of fire,like lightning, flashed before my eyes; every object appeared to medouble, or in motion: like OEdipus, I saw two suns. . . In thefinest day of summer, I could not cross the Seine in a boat withoutexperiencing intolerable anxiety. If, in a public garden, I merelypassed by a piece of water, I suffered from spasms and a feeling ofhorror. I could not cross a garden in which many people were collected:if they looked at me, I immediately imagined they were speaking ill ofme." It was during this state of suffering, that he devoted himself withardour to collecting and making use of materials for that work which wasto give glory to his name.

  It was only by perseverance, and disregarding many rough anddis
couraging receptions, that he succeeded in making acquaintance withRousseau, whom he so much resembled. St. Pierre devoted himself to hissociety with enthusiasm, visiting him frequently and constantly, tillRousseau departed for Ermenonville. It is not unworthy of remark, thatboth these men, such enthusiastic admirers of Nature and the naturalin all things, should have possessed factitious rather than practicalvirtue, and a wisdom wholly unfitted for the world. St. Pierre askedRousseau, in one of their frequent rambles, if, in delineating St.Preux, he had not intended to represent himself. "No," replied Rousseau,"St. Preux is not what I have been, but what I wished to be." St. Pierrewould most likely have given the same answer, had a similar questionbeen put to him with regard to the Colonel in "Paul and Virginia."This at least, appears the sort of old age he loved to