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Three vols. in 8vo., edited by Aim? Martin, Paris, 1826, Ladvocat.

The papers of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre are in the possession of the family Aim? Martin. M. Aim? Martin had beside him, when he was writing Bernardin's biography, the numerous notes taken by the latter from nature.

PERIOD OF UNCERTAINTY--VOYAGE TO THE ISLE OF FRANCE--ACQUAINTANCE WITH J. J. ROUSSEAU--THE CRISIS.

He felt about for some time longer before finally taking up the pen. In vain his friend Hennin urged him: "Above all, do not keep saying as you have done hitherto, 'I will write, I will publish;' write, publish, and leave it to your friends to make your work a success." Bernardin de Saint-Pierre hesitated: "I am occupying myself," he replied, "in putting in order the journal of my travels; not that I wish to become an author, that is too distasteful a career and leads to nothing, but I imitate those who learn to draw in order to adorn their rooms." . He speaks to him in the same letter of getting the Government to give him a mission to the Indies, so that he may be able to regale the ministers with a few more memorials on politics or strategy.

"Yesterday, tortured by my regrets, I seated myself under the shade of a thick wood, eating my heart in solitude; for in trouble this silent communing with one's soul is a consolation that I love. From the tree-tops where the breeze murmured, and the birds were singing, gladdened by the sunlight, there fell a soft influence of sleep. The grasshoppers hidden in the grass echoed through the wood, a clear stream softly gliding through its cool glades bathed my feet; as for me, I remained pre-occupied with my grief, and had no care for these things; for when the soul is overwhelmed with sorrow it cannot yield itself up to pleasure. In the tumult of my troubled heart, I spoke aloud the thoughts which were contending within me: 'What have I been? What am I? What shall I become? I know not. One wiser than I knows no better. Lost in clouds I wander to and fro; having nothing, not even the dream of what I desire.'"

One might urge that Bernardin de Saint-Pierre had not read the poets of the sixteenth century any more than the Fathers of the Church. It was not the fashion of his day, and he was not the sort of man to go and explore the libraries; he was too much occupied in making discoveries in the fields. Like almost all his contemporaries, he jumped from antiquity to the seventeenth century with only Montaigne in the interval. After Homer, Virgil, the Gospel, and Plutarch, his intellectual sustenance had been Racine, La Fontaine, F?n?lon, and at last coming to his contemporaries, Jean Jacques Rousseau. In vain he questioned them upon the idea which pursued him; not one of them gave him a satisfactory answer. Racine, who they say was enchanted with the valley of Port Royal, had had no room in his tragedies for word pictures. La Fontaine had more the feeling for the country than for nature. F?n?lon saw the woods and the fields from the point of view of the ancients. We have purposely not mentioned Buffon; Bernardin did not understand or appreciate him.

"Here immense rocks hung in ruins above my head; there high and thundering cascades drenched me with their thick mist; again, an eternal torrent would open beside me an abyss, of which my eyes did not dare to sound the depths. Sometimes I lost myself in the obscurity of a thick wood. Sometimes on emerging from a ravine my eyes would suddenly be rejoiced by a pleasant plain. An astonishing admixture of wilderness and cultivation showed everywhere the hand of men, where one would have thought that they had never penetrated: beside a cavern you found houses, dried vine branches where one only sought brambles, vines growing upon landslips, excellent fruit upon rocks, and fields in the midst of precipices."

The second object of his work was in his eyes still more important than the first. The awakening of a love of nature amongst men was not to be a simple artistic pleasure. Saint-Pierre designed to make use of it to teach these same multitudes to seek evidences of the Divinity elsewhere than in books. He wished to restore to the France of the philosophers the sense of the presence of God in the universe, and the best way to do it seemed to him to be to draw attention towards the marvels of creation. No argument in his eyes was worth a day passed in the fields in looking at what was about him and at his feet. "Nature," he wrote, "presents such ingenious harmonies, such benevolent designs; mute scenes so expressive and little noticed, that if one could present even a feeble picture of them to the most thoughtless man, he would be forced to exclaim, 'There is some moving spirit in all this.'" In another place he apologises himself for having written about plants and animals without being a naturalist, and he adds: "Natural history not being confined to the libraries it seemed to me that it was a book wherein all the world might read. I have thought I could perceive the tangible evidence of the existence of a Providence, and I have spoken of it, not as a system which amuses my mind but as a feeling of which my heart is full."

We notice in the two last lines the avowal, as yet timid and obscure, of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's favourite maxim, the key to all his schemes philosophical, scientific, political, or educational. He always strove, and more and more openly as he gained reputation and authority, to persuade the world that feeling is ever a better guide than reason in all questions, and that it gives us greater certainty. He himself gave an example in applying it to everything, and in particular to the truths of religion. We should say truthfully, that he was sufficiently of his day, sufficiently imbued with the spirit of the encyclopaedists to believe himself already conquered if he appealed to reason in favour of God. He thought it safest to address himself to the feelings of the reader rather than to his intelligence, in order to reconcile him with a personage so little in favour.

There are, in fact, accounts of travels of the eighteenth century in which one might confound a landscape in the East, with one in Touraine. Not only they did not see so much difference as we do: they wanted words to give to each its own idiosyncrasy. To Bernardin de Saint-Pierre is due the honour of having begun the work of enriching the language, which was one of the glories of the Romantic School.

Having to some extent overcome this first difficulty, Bernardin encountered a second before which he succumbed. That was his inexperience, and the timidity of a novice who dares not let himself go. His narrative is dry and often tiresome. There are here and there fine descriptions, written with a certain breadth and musical expression, but the whole only creates an interest because it is an attempt to achieve something new. The picture of the port at Lorient is one of the best things in it. It is at the beginning and it makes one hope for better things.

"A strong wind was blowing. We had crossed through the town without meeting any one. From the walls of the citadel I could see the inky horizon, the island of Grois covered with mist, the open sea tossing restlessly; in the distance great ships close-reefed, and poor sailing luggers in the trough of the sea; upon the shore troops of women benumbed with cold and fear; a sentinel on the top of a bastion surprised at the hardihood of those poor men who fish with the gulls in the midst of the tempest."

There is grandeur and emphasis in this passage. It has character, to use Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's expression; the sea which he paints for us is the real ocean, and the ocean as seen from the coast of France on a stormy day. He is no less happy in describing familiar things; witness his description of the fish market. "We returned well buttoned up, very wet, and holding on our hats with our hands. In passing through Lorient we saw the whole market-place covered with fish; skates white and dark-coloured, others bristling with spines; dog-fish, monstrous conger-eels writhing upon the ground; large baskets full of crabs and lobsters; heaps of oysters, mussels, and scallops; cod, soles, turbot, in fine a miraculous draught like that of the apostles."

... stridens aquilone procella. Velum adversa ferit.

Saepe? dat ingentem fluctu latus icta fragorem.

Hi summo in fluctu pendent; his unda dehiscens Terram inter fluctus aperit.

Now compare with this literary tempest the realistic description of Saint-Pierre, taken from hour to hour, minute to minute, and put down in a note-book as the rolling of the vessel permitted.

"On the 23rd , at half-past twelve, a tremendously heavy sea stove in four windows out of five in the large saloon, although their shutters were fastened with crossbars. The vessel made a backward movement as if she were going down by the stern. Hearing the noise, I opened the door of my cabin, which in a moment was full of water and floating furniture. The water escaped by the door of the grand saloon as though through the sluices of a mill; upwards of twenty hogsheads had come in. The carpenters were called, a light was brought, and they hastened to nail up other port-holes. We were then flying along under the foresail; the wind and the sea were terrible....

"As the rolling of the ship prevented me from sleeping, I had thrown myself into my berth in my boots and dressing-gown; my dog seemed to be seized with extraordinary fear. While I was amusing myself trying to calm him, I saw a flash of lightning through the dim light of my port-hole, and heard the noise of thunder. It might have been about half-past three. An instant later a second peal of thunder burst overhead, and my dog began to tremble and howl. Then came a third flash of lightning, followed almost immediately by a third peal of thunder, and I heard some one in the forecastle cry that the ship was in danger; in fact, the noise was like the roar of a cannon discharged close to us; there was no reverberation. As I smelt a strong odour of sulphur, I went up on deck, where at first I felt it intensely cold. A great silence reigned there, and the night was so dark that I could see nothing. However, I made out dimly some one near me. I asked him what had happened; he replied, 'They have just carried the officer of the watch to his cabin; he has fainted, as has also the pilot. The lightning struck our vessel, and our mainmast is split.' I could in fact distinguish the yard of the topsail, which had fallen upon the cross-trees of the main-top. Above it there was neither mast nor rigging, and the whole of the crew had retired into the chart-room. They made a round of the decks, and found that the lightning had descended the whole length of the mast. A woman who had just been confined had seen a globe of fire at the foot of her berth; nevertheless, they found no trace of fire. Everybody awaited with impatience the end of the night.

"At daybreak I went up on deck again. In the sky were some clouds, white and copper-coloured. The wind blew from the west, where the horizon appeared of a ruddy silver, as though the sun were going to rise there; the east was entirely black. The sea rose in huge waves, resembling jagged mountain ranges, formed of tier upon tier of hills. On their summit were great jets of spray tinted with the colours of the rainbow. They rose to such a height that from the quarter-deck they seemed to us higher than the topmast. The wind made so much noise in the rigging it was impossible for us to hear one another. We were scudding before the wind under the foresail. A stump of the topmast hung from the end of the mainmast, which was split in eight places down to the level of the deck. Five of the iron bands with which it was bound had been melted away...."

Here are now some extracts from one of Pierre Loti's storms. We shall thus be able to estimate the progress which descriptive literature has made in the last two centuries.

"The waves, still small, began to chase one another and melt together; they were at first marbled with white foam, which on their crests broke into spray. Then with a kind of hiss there rose a smoke: you would have said the water was boiling or burning, and the strident clamour of it all increased from moment to moment.... The great bank of clouds which had gathered on the western horizon in the shape of an island, was beginning to break up from the top and the fragments were scudding over the sky. It seemed to be inexhaustible; the wind drew it out, elongated it, and stretched it, bringing out of it dark curtains, which it spread over the clear yellow sky, now become livid, cold, and dark.

"And all the while it grew stronger and stronger, this mighty breath which made all things to tremble.

"Overhead it had become quite dark, a dead vault that seemed as if it would crush you--with a few spots of a yet blacker blackness, which were spread over it in formless patches. It seemed almost like a motionless dome, and you had to look closely to see that it was in the full whirl of movement. Great sheets of grey cloud hurrying by and unceasingly replaced by others, rose from the bottom of the horizon, like gloomy curtains unrolling from an endless coil.

"From everything arose a Titanic clamour, like the prelude of an apocalypse foreboding the horror of a world's catastrophe. Amidst it you could distinguish thousands of voices; those above were shrill or deep, and seemed far off because they were so mighty; that was the wind, the great soul of this confusion, the invisible power that dominated it all. It filled one with fear, but there were other sound nearer, more material, more ominous of destruction, which came from the writhen water, that hissed as it were upon embers."

After the pages which we have just read there is nothing more in the way of progress possible. The only thing to be done would be to return to the great simplicity of Homer, Lucretius, and Virgil, to obtain the same emotions in two or three lines.

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's style is bald beside that of Pierre Loti; it requires an effort to return to it. The arrival at Port Louis of the ship, disabled, and filled with scurvy-smitten people, is, however, striking in its simplicity. "Just imagine this riven mainmast, this ship with her flag of distress, firing guns every minute; a few sailors, looking like spectres, seated on the deck; the open hatches, whence rose a poisonous vapour; the 'tween-decks full of dying people, the deck covered with invalids exposed to the heat of the sun, and who died whilst speaking to one. I shall never forget a young man of eighteen, to whom the evening before I had promised a little lemonade. I sought him on the deck amongst the others; they pointed him out to me lying on a plank; he had died during the night."

"One evening the clouds gathered towards the west in the form of a vast net, resembling in texture white silk. As the sun passed behind it each strand appeared in relief surrounded with a circle of gold. The gold gradually dissolved into flame-colour and crimson tints, and low on the horizon appeared pale tones of purple, green, and azure.

"Often in the sky there are formed landscapes of singular variety, where you can find the most fantastic shapes, promontories, steep declivities, towers, and hamlets, over which the light throws in succession all sorts of prismatic colours."

This is but a summary account of the scene, a sort of table of contents of the state of the sky on a certain evening. The second description is almost too excessive, and contains too much imagery and too many colours.

Rousseau was sixty in 1772; his infirmities, his morbid ideas on the subject of persecution, and his disputes with Hume, had put the finishing touch to his reputation as a dangerous lunatic. His visitor was struck with the sad expression underlying his "smiling air." But he was irresistible when he was not roused. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre joyfully yielded to this all-powerful fascination. He felt that he had found the master in literature who had been wanting to him, he who was to give him the right impulse and direction, and that by oral teaching, so much more fruitful than written instruction.

"Near him," he continues, "was a spinet, on which from time to time he tried over some airs. Two little beds, covered with coarse print, striped blue and white like the hangings of his room, a chest of drawers, a table, and a few chairs completed his furniture. On the walls hung a map of the forest and park of Montmorency, where he had lived, and a print of his old benefactor the king of England. His wife was seated sewing; a canary sang in its cage suspended from the ceiling; some sparrows came to pick up bread-crumbs from the window-sills on the side of the street, and on those of the ante-room one saw boxes and pots full of plants such as Nature chose to sow there. The whole effect of this little household was one of cleanliness, peace, and simplicity, which gave one pleasure."

It suggests one of those interiors of Chardin, where the neat little mistress of the house in white cap and apron is busy about the children's dinner. It is the most charming picture we possess of Rousseau at home.

The conversation turned upon travels, the news of the day, and the works of the master of the house. Rousseau was most gracious all the time, and reconducted his visitors to the head of the stairs; but who could tell with so capricious a being whether this first visit would lead to anything? It did, in fact, to Bernardin's intense satisfaction. "Some days after that he came to return my visit. He had on a round wig, well powdered and curled, a nankeen suit, and carried his hat under his arm. In his hand he held a small cane. His whole appearance was modest but very neat, as was that of Socrates, we are told."

This second interview also passed off most agreeably, in looking at tropical plants and seeds, but it was followed by the first tiff. Deceived by the good-natured air of his new friend, Saint-Pierre included him in a distribution he was making of coffee, which he had received from the Colonies. Rousseau wrote to him: "Sir, we have only met once, and you already begin to make me presents; that is being a little too hasty it seems to me. As I am not in a position to make presents myself, it is my custom, in order to avoid the annoyance of unequal friendships, not to receive the persons who make me presents; you can do as you like about leaving this coffee with me, or sending to fetch it; but in the first case please accept my thanks, and there will be an end of our acquaintanceship."

They made it up on condition that Saint-Pierre received "a root of ginseng and a work on Ichthyology," in exchange for his coffee. Rousseau, appeased, invited him to dinner for the next day. After the repast he read his MSS. to him. They talked, the hours flew by, and there resulted from these difficult beginnings an intimacy, stormy, as it was bound to be with Jean Jacques, but wonderfully fruitful for the disciple, who drank in deep draughts of the nectar of poetry, if not of wisdom, which fell from the master's lips. All this took place during their long walks together in the environs of Paris. They would start on foot, early in the morning, each choosing in turn the direction of their walk. Rousseau loved the banks of the Seine and the heights above them, as deserted then as they are peopled to-day. They would go through the bois de Boulogne, botanizing as they went along, and they sometimes saw in "these solitudes" young girls occupied in making their toilet in the open air. A ferry boat would land the two friends at the foot of Mount Val?rien, and they would climb up to visit the hermit at the top, who would give them food; or perhaps Rousseau would lead his companion towards the height of S?vres, promising him "beautiful pine-woods and purple moors." The "deserted commons" of Saint Cloud had also their attractions; nevertheless all that side of Paris rather erred in the way of extreme wildness. Such a powerful effect did Nature have upon these her first lovers, intoxicated with their discoveries, and whose sensations had not been discounted by descriptions taken from books.

When Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was the guide they chose by preference the direction of Pr?s-Saint-Gervais and Romainville. The familiar and peaceful nooks and corners around these attracted him more than the extreme wildness of S?vres and Ville-d'Avray. "You have shown me the places which please you," he said; "I am now going to show you one which is to my taste." They passed by the park of Saint-Fargean, absorbed to-day into Belleville, and, by almost imperceptible degrees, gained the gentle heights of those charming solitudes--for they were also solitudes, but less severe than those chosen by Rousseau; green grass there took the place of the brambles of Saint Cloud, and cherry-trees and gooseberry-bushes the dark pines of S?vres. One had not to seek hospitality from hermits; there were inns, where Rousseau liked himself to make an omelet of bacon, while Saint-Pierre made the coffee, a luxury brought in a box from Paris. They would return by another road, gathering plants and digging up roots as they went; and nothing can express the charm with which the cantankerous and suspicious Jean Jacques knew how to surround these excursions. He showed himself a simple-minded, good fellow, an easy-going and cheery comrade, interesting himself in everything, talking of everything, and lavishing his ideas with the magnificent prodigality of the rich.

The enchantment of the walks lasted until their return to Paris. Then Rousseau's brow would grow dark at the sight of the first houses of the suburb. His mania resumed possession of him. He frowned, hastened his steps, became taciturn and morose. One day, when his friend tried to distract him, he stopped short, to say to him all at once, in the middle of the street: "I would rather be exposed to the arrows of the Parthians than to the gaze of men." This mood would sometimes be prolonged as long as they were in the town, and no one was then safe from the strokes of his sarcasm.

"One day, when I went to return a book ... he received me without saying a word, and with an austere and gloomy air. I spoke to him; he only replied in monosyllables, continuing all the time to copy music; he struck out or erased his work every minute. To distract myself, I opened a book which was on the table. 'You like reading, sir?' he said, in a discontented tone. I got up to go; he rose at the same time, and reconducted me to the head of the stairs, saying, when I begged him not to trouble himself: 'One must be ceremonious with persons with whom one is not on a familiar footing.'" Saint-Pierre, hurt, swore that he would never return; but they met, arranged another walk, and Rousseau once more became amiable at sight of the first bushes. "At last," he said, "here we are beyond the carriages, pavements, and men."

He fought duels in order to put a stop to the whispered raillery which he thought he heard around him. Two fortunate affairs were powerless to soothe his nerves, and strange disorders began to make him fear for his reason. He consulted physicians, who recommended diverse remedies; but he required money for them, and his bookseller had not paid him. Meanwhile the evil grew from bad to worse, and at last came the crisis. "Flashes of light, resembling lightning, disturbed my sight; every object appeared to me to be double, and as though in motion.... My heart was not less troubled than my head. On the finest summer day I could not cross the Seine in a boat without feeling intolerable qualms.... If in a public garden I but passed near the basin of a fountain full of water, I felt a sensation of spasm and horror. There were times when I believed that I must have been bitten by a mad dog without knowing it."

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was mad, not incurably so, or enough to be shut up; but, for all that, mad. He knows it, acknowledges it, and adds to his heartrending confession a note, which explains how he was able to hide his condition from the world around him. "God granted me this signal favour, that however much my reason was disturbed, I never lost the consciousness of my condition myself, or forgot myself before others. Directly I felt the approach of the paroxysms of my malady, I would retire into solitude." Here follows a slight metaphysical discussion upon "this extraordinary reason," which warned him "that his ordinary reason was disturbed."

Just about the same time his brother Dutailly began the series of extravagances which obliged them to shut him up.

He retired from the world, living an unsociable life in a miserable lodging-house, not willingly seeing any one but Rousseau, so well able to understand a misanthrope, and a few faithful friends who put up with all his moods, at the head of whom was Hennin, whose patience was admirable. The position which the latter held in the Foreign Office led to his being charged with the presentation of the petitions that his gloomy and needy friend addressed to the ministers; and the task was not an easy or pleasant one, as their correspondence testifies. Saint-Pierre begged shamelessly. "I have neither linen nor clothes; my excursions on foot have worn them out. If you wish to see me again, induce them to give me the means of appearing. You know that your department decidedly owes me something.... Do remember to think of me in the distribution of the king's favours; I need them greatly.... I am reduced to borrowing, and I have nothing to expect till February of next year." And so on from month to month, if not from week to week. If there was delay in sending the money, M. Hennin would receive a bitter letter, in which M. de Saint-Pierre would excuse himself for not having visited him on account of the bad weather, adding: "If I had received the favour which you led me to hope for, I should have taken a carriage." If the money was forthcoming, it was still worse for Hennin, because of the ceremonies with which it had to be conveyed to its recipient. There is amongst their correspondence a series of letters which are quite comic, about a sum of ?300 that Saint-Pierre had begged hard for, and which he wished M. de Vergennes personally to press him to accept. He demands a "letter of satisfaction and kindness" from the minister, written with his own hand, without which he refuses the ?300. Silence on the part of Hennin, who is evidently overcome by this extraordinary pretentiousness; uneasiness on the part of Bernardin, who trembles lest he should be taken at his word. The ?300 are sent to him; he pockets them, spends them, and continues to claim his letter. A year later he is still claiming it, without having ceased to beg in the meantime.

In common justice they owed him also compensation for the great and glorious things they had prevented him from accomplishing. He had ripened his plan of an ideal colony, and sent project after project to Versailles. Sometimes he offered himself to civilise Corsica, sometimes to conquer Jersey, or North America, or to found a small state in France itself, within the king's dominions. Nobody had deigned to take any notice of his plans, unless perhaps "some intriguing, avaricious proteg?" should have stolen his ideas and was preparing to carry them out in his stead; such things did happen sometimes. He laid the blame of the culpable negligence of the Government upon the head clerk of the Foreign Office, and he did not spare his reproaches. The excellent Hennin groaned, grieved over it, but did not get angry. He himself counted upon recompense also, and he did not count in vain. As soon as this mind diseased recovered itself a little, there were most delightful outpourings to the good and true friend who was never harsh or unfeeling. Then there are periods in their correspondence like oases of peace and poetry. In the beginning of 1781 Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, at Hennin's suggestion, quitted his wretched furnished room, and took a lodging in the rue Neuve-Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, which he called his donjon, and where cheerfulness streamed in at every window. The staircase was in the courtyard to the right, and on ascending to the fourth story under the roof, one found four small bright rooms, from which one looked out upon a little bit of country. It was nothing but gardens, orchards, convents, peaceful little cottages, the wide sky overhead, and the low horizon. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre felt that he was saved. He wrote a letter to Hennin which is a song of joy. He says:--

"I shall come to see you with the first violet; I shall have to walk five miles, but shall do it joyfully, and I intend to give you such a description of my abode as will make you long to come and see me and take a meal with me. Horace invited Mecaenas to come to his cottage at Tivoli, to eat a quarter of lamb and drink Falernian wine. As my purse is getting very low, I shall only offer you strawberries and mugs of milk, but you will have the pleasure of hearing the nightingales sing in the groves of the convent of the English nuns, and of seeing the young novices play in their garden."

Another year April perfumes the air, and Hennin has promised to come and dine in the donjon. His friend describes the menu to him: "Simple viands, amongst which will be found a big pie that Mme. Mesnard is going to give me; a pure wine, good of its kind; excellent coffee, and punch, which I make well, let me say without vanity." It is a question of fixing a day. "Nature must undertake the chief cost of this little feast, therefore I expect she will have carpeted the paths with verdure and decorated the groves of trees in my landscape with leaves and flowers. If you were an observer of nature, I should say to you start the very first day that you see the chestnut tree set out its chandeliers; but you are one of those who only have eyes for the evolution of human forces. Let me know the day you choose," &c.

The dinner was as charming as the invitation. It was talked of at Versailles, and some fair dames lamented aloud that they had not been invited.

Before he had become a morose beggar, suffering with weak nerves, he was, we must remember, possessed with the idea that to a man carrying in his head a book which he believes to be good and useful, all means are fair for accomplishing his destiny of creative artist and intellectual guide. He recognises no choice of means, he is the slave, and at need the victim of a superior power, which commands him to sacrifice his repose and his pride on condition that he acquits himself of his debt towards mankind by giving to it a work which will bring a little happiness to our poor world. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was quite certain that he possessed the magic word which lifts up the heart, and rather than throw it to the four winds of heaven, he would have begged alms on the highway. Was he right? was he wrong? We owe it to his great faith to leave our verdict undecided.

Think of him in his garret, and you will understand that he begged not for himself, but for his book, which is a very different matter. He is avaricious because he hopes still to write another chapter before going on the tramp again. He has only one coat for the whole year, winter and summer. He does his own housekeeping, sweeps, cleans, cooks. He allows himself so little firing that in winter the water remains frozen for eight days in his rooms, and his pitchers burst. He goes on foot to Versailles to see Hennin, and returns in the same way at night; all the better if it is moonlight, all the worse if it rains. His health suffers, but his head recovers, and he is happy; he has a "whole trunk" full of rough draughts, which he copies, corrects, and arranges. "You cannot imagine," he writes to Hennin, "the tenderness of an author for his production; that of a mother for her son is not to be compared to it. I am always adding to or cutting out something of mine. A bear does not lick her cub with more care than I; I fear in the end I shall rub away the muzzle of mine with my licking. I do not wish to touch it any more.... There have been moments when I have caught a glimpse of heaven."

When the moment arrives to have his work printed, he redoubles his economy. He is sordid and at the same time a greater borrower, more in debt than ever; for after all it is in order to commit some extravagance for his "child"--to have fine paper, to add a print here, a pretty frontispiece there. The extravagance accomplished, he writes to Hennin, one of his principal lenders, to demonstrate to him that this is an excellent speculation:--

"It is not a superfluous expense, even if the print in 12? itself comes to fourteen or fifteen pounds, because it is possible that many people will buy my work for the print alone, as has happened to others. Moreover, I shall raise the price of my edition with it, so as to reap more than I sowed. So...."

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