with his companions in virtue, it is also
said, was saved by the intercession of Queen Philippa. In one of his
smaller works, Bernardin asserts this descent, and it was certainly one
of which he might be proud. Many anecdotes are related of his childhood,
indicative of the youthful author,--of his strong love of Nature, and
his humanity to animals.

That "the child is the father of the man," has been seldom more strongly
illustrated. There is a story of a cat, which, when related by him many
years afterwards to Rousseau, caused that philosopher to shed tears. At
eight years of age, he took the greatest pleasure in the regular culture
of his garden; and possibly then stored up some of the ideas which
afterwards appeared in the "Fraisier." His sympathy with all living
things was extreme.

In "Paul and Virginia," he praises, with evident satisfaction, their
meal of milk and eggs, which had not cost any animal its life. It has
been remarked, and possibly with truth, that every tenderly disposed
heart, deeply imbued with a love of Nature, is at times somewhat
Braminical. St. Pierre's certainly was.

When quite young, he advanced with a clenched fist towards a carter
who was ill-treating a horse. And when taken for the first time, by his
father, to Rouen, having the towers of the cathedral pointed out to him,
he exclaimed, "My God! how high they fly." Every one present naturally
laughed. Bernardin had only noticed the flight of some swallows who had
built their nests there. He thus early revealed those instincts which
afterwards became the guidance of his life: the strength of which
possibly occasioned his too great indifference to all monuments of
art. The love of study and of solitude were also characteristics of
his childhood. His temper is said to have been moody, impetuous, and
intractable. Whether this faulty temper may not have been produced
or rendered worse by mismanagement, cannot not be ascertained. It,
undoubtedly became afterwards, to St. Pierre a fruitful source of
misfortune and of woe.

The reading of voyages was with him, even in childhood, almost a
passion. At twelve years of age, his whole soul was occupied by Robinson
Crusoe and his island. His romantic love of adventure seeming to his
parents to announce a predilection in favour of the sea, he was sent
by them with one of his uncles to Martinique. But St. Pierre had
not sufficiently practised the virtue of obedience to submit, as was
necessary, to th