St Pierre

St.-Pierre, JACQUES BERNARDIN DE (1737-1814), romantic writer, was born at Havre, and was apprenticed to an engineer, after which he served for a time in an engineering corps in the army, and was sent to Russia for some time. His literary tastes, however, led to his abandonment of his profession, and he settled down to authorship, producing various admirable works, such as La Chaumiere Indienne, Etudes de la Nature (1784), Harmonies de la Nature, and especially the beautiful story of Paul et Virginie (1788), which went through fifty editions in a year, and is known and appreciated throughout the civilised world. So touching and graceful an idyll came as an oasis the materialistic desert of French literature of the period. St. Pierre was an enthusiastic disciple of Rousseau, and his intense love of nature was largely due to his study of Jean Jacques' writings. Napoleon conferred upon him the Legion of Honour, and he was given a pension of 6,000 francs by Joseph Bonaparte.