Bernardin de Saint-Pierre: pour une biographie intellectuelle par Jean-Michel Racault (review)

Jean-Michel Racault has played an inestimable role in the re-evaluation and repositioning of the writings of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. His investigations have been informed by a close reading of printed and manuscript sources. This volume combines articles, chapters, and conference papers written from 1986 to 2013, occasionally published in relatively inaccessible places. The collection is in four sections with Paul et Virginie receiving the greatest attention; however, most analyses of this tale belong to the earlier publications, betokening the increasing interest in his other works. Bernardin's outputs are characterized by their interconnectedness: the relationship between literary, philosophical, religious, and scientific ideas. It is this central feature which pervades Racault's studies and which will inform our comments rather than observations on individual items. In Bernardin's world 'tout est lié', there is 'un réseau de connexions sans fin' (p. 16), his works are 'des fragments permutables au sein d'un ensemble mouvant' (p. 72). Travel played an exceptional role for Bernardin with his life-defining experiences in Eastern Europe and the Indian Ocean; indeed they were the source of his first work, the Voyage à l'île de France. Racault astutely remarks that 'la thématique du voyage se prolonge sous des formes diverses dans l'œuvre entière' (p. 21). Despite his travels, unlike Montesquieu, Bernardin believed that government rather than climate 'forme les hommes' (p. 26). He was not against colonialism but against current practice. The reaction of the multi-racial witnesses to Virginie's death could be construed as the dawning of a harmonious sense of community and nationhood in Mauritius. There is a tension in Bernardin between 'l'aspiration à la solitude' and 'le rêve d'une communauté humaine régénérée' (p. 42). The pariah in La Chaumière indienne is '[s]olitaire mais solidaire' (p. 79). The reader experiences a sense of time through Bernardin's use of mythology and antiquity, while a 'philosophie de l'histoire' is present in L'Arcadie. Nowadays Bernardin's scientific ideas are generally discredited but, for his own time, it would be inappropriate to 'séparer l'homme de sciences de l'homme de lettres—ces deux orientations se nourrissent naturellement' (p. 300). More convincingly, Bernardin linked the history of the earth to the history of mankind. Despite ecological resonances, Bernardin's insistence on the special place of humans in nature would exclude him from modern ecological orthodoxy. Primacy is accorded to feeling and not reason as a basis for knowing the world. Racault is the general editor of the first scholarly edition of Bernardin's works, the first volume of which appeared in 2014 (Paris: Classiques Garnier); these will further enhance the author's growing reputation. Bernardin is shown to be an incontournable figure at the tournant des Lumières rather than a vague figure of pre-Romanticism. This volume will prove essential reading for those with little or no familiarity with Bernardin, as well as an opportunity for those already appreciative of Racault's scholarship to revisit stimulating studies. We learn not just about Bernardin but also about the vital issues of his day.