The Project Gutenberg EBook of Paul and Virginia, by Bernadin de Saint-Pierre

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Title: Paul and Virginia

Author: Bernadin de Saint-Pierre

Release Date: January 28, 2004 [EBook #10859]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: _Paul and Virginia. p.29._]

PAUL AND VIRGINIA,

FROM THE FRENCH

OF

J.B.H. DE SAINT PIERRE.

1851

PREFACE.

The following translation of "Paul and Virginia," was written at Paris,
amidst the horrors of Robespierre's tyranny. During that gloomy epocha it
was difficult to find occupations which might cheat the days of calamity of
their weary length. Society had vanished; and amidst the minute vexations
of Jacobinical despotism, which, while it murdered in _mass_, persecuted in
detail, the resources of writing, and even reading, were encompassed with
danger. The researches of domiciliary visits had already compelled me to
commit to the flames a manuscript volume, where I had traced the political
scenes of which I had been a witness, with the colouring of their first
impressions on my mind, with those fresh tints that fade from recollection;
and since my pen, accustomed to follow the impulse of my feelings, could
only have drawn, at that fatal period, those images of desolation and
despair which haunted my imagination, and dwelt upon my heart, writing was
forbidden employment. Even reading had its perils; for books had sometimes
aristocratical insignia, and sometimes counter revolutionary allusions; and
when the administrators of police happened to think the writer a
conspirator, they punished the reader as his accomplice.

In this situation I gave myself the task of employing a few hours every day
in translating the charming little novel of Bernardin St. Pierre, entitled
"Paul and Virginia;" and I found the most soothing relief in wandering from
my own gloomy reflections to those enchanting scenes of the Mauritius,
which he has so admirably described. I also composed a few Sonnets adapted
to the pecu