not a few of their ideas in his own work. His Projet de paix perpétuelle, which was destined to exercise considerable influence on the development of the various schemes for securing universal peace which culminated in the Holy Alliance, was published in 1713 at Utrecht, where he was acting as secretary to the French plenipotentiary, the Abbé de Polignac, and his Polysynodie contained severe strictures on the government of Louis XIV., with projects for the administration of France by a system of councils for each department of government. His works include a number of memorials and projects for stopping duelling, equalizing taxation, treating mendicancy, reforming education and spelling, &c. It was not, however, for his suggestions for the reform of the constitution that he was disgraced, but because in the Polysynodie he had refused to Louis XIV. the title of le Grand. Unlike the later reforming abbés of the philosophe period, Saint-Pierre was a man of very unworldly character and quite destitute of the Frondeur spirit.
His works were published at Amsterdam in 1738–1740 and his Annales politiques in London in 1757. A discussion of his principles, with a view to securing a just estimation of the high value of his political and economic ideas, is given by S. Siégler Pascal in Un Contemporain égaré au XVIIIᵉ siècle. Les Projets de l’abbé de Saint-Pierre, 1658–1743 (Paris, 1900).
SAINT-PIERRE, JACQUES HENRI BERNARDIN DE (1737–1814),
French man of letters, was born at Havre on the 19th of
January 1737. He was educated at Caen and at Rouen, and
became an engineer. According to his own account he served
in the army, taking part in the Hesse campaign of 1760, but
was dismissed for insubordination, and, after quarrelling with
his family, was in some difficulty. He appears at Malta, St
Petersburg, Warsaw, Dresden, Berlin, holding brief commissions
as an engineer and rejoicing in romantic adventures. But he
came back to Paris in 1765 poorer than he set out. He came
into possession of a small sum at his father’s death, and in 1768
he set out for the Isle of France (Mauritius) with a government
commission, and remained there three years, returning home
in 1771. These wanderings supplied Bernardin with the whole
of his stock-in-trade, for he never again quitted France. On
his return from Mauritius he was introduced to D’Alembert
and his friends, but he took no great pleasure in the company
of any literary man except J. J. Rousseau, of whom in his last
years he saw much, and on whom he formed both his character
and his style. His Voyage à l’Île de France (2 vols., 1773) gained
him a reputation as a champion of innocence and religion, and
in consequence, through the exertions of the bishop of Aix,
a pension of 1000 livres a year. It is soberest and therefore
the least characteristic of his books. The Études de la nature
(3 vols., 1784) was an attempt to prove the existence of God from
the wonders of nature; he set up a philosophy of sentiment to
oppose the materializing tendencies of the Encyclopaedists.
His masterpiece, Paul et Virginie, appeared in 1789 in a supplementary
volume of the Etudes, and his second great success,
much less sentimental and showing not a little humour, the
Chaudière indienne, not till 1790. In 1792 he married a very
young girl, Félicité Didot, who brought him a considerable
dowry. For a short time in 1792 he was superintendent
of the Jardin des Plantes, and on the suppression of the office
received a pension of 3000 livres. In 1795 he became a member
of the Institute. After his first wife’s death he married in 1800,
when he was sixty-three, another young girl, Desiree Pelleport,
and is said to have been very happy with her. On the 21st of
January 1814 he died at his house at Eragny, near Pontoise.
Paul et Virginie has been pronounced gaudy in style and unhealthy in tone. Perhaps Bernardin is not fairly to be judged by this famous story, in which the exuberant sensibility of the time finds equally exuberant expression. His merit lies in his breaking away from the arid vocabula which more than a century of classical writing has brought upon France, in his genuine preference for the beauties of nature, and in his attempt to describe them faithfully. After Rousseau, and even more than Rousseau, Bernardin was in French literature the apostle of the return to nature, though both in him and his immediate follower Chateaubriand there is still much mannerism and unreality.
Aimé Martin, disciple of Bernardin and the second husband of his second wife, published a complete edition of his works in 18 volumes (Paris, 1818–1820), afterwards increased by seven volumes of correspondence and memoirs (1826). Paul et Virginie, the Chaumière indienne, &c. have often been separately reprinted. See also Arvède Barin’s Bernardin de Saint Pierre (1891).
ST PIERRE and MIQUELON, two islands 10 m. off the south
coast of Newfoundland, united area about 91 sq. m. Both are
rugged masses of granite, with a few small streams and lakes, a
thin covering of soil and scanty vegetation. Miquelon, the larger
of the two, consists of Great Miquelon and Little Miquelon, or
Langlade; previous to 1783 these were separated by a navigable
channel, but they have since become connected by a dangerous
mudbank. St Pierre has a sheltered harbour with about 14 ft. of
water, and a good road stead for large vessels. Their importance
is due to their proximity to the great Banks, which makes
them the centre of the French Atlantic fisheries. These are kept
up by an elaborate system of bounties by the French government,
which considers them of great importance as training sailors
for the navy. Fishing lasts from May till October, and is carried
on by nearly five hundred vessels, of which about two-thirds
are fitted out from St Pierre, the remainder coming from St
Malo, Cancale and other French coast towns. The resident
population, which centres in the town of St Pierre, is about 6500,
swelled to over 10,000 for a time each year by extra fishing hands
from France, but is steadily declining owing to emigration into
Canada. Owing to the low rates of duty, vast quantities of goods,
especially French wines and liquors, are imported, and smuggled
to Newfoundland, the United States and Canada, though of
late years this has been checked by a gradual rise in the
scale of duties, and by the presence since 1904 of a British
consul. St Pierre is connected with Halifax (N.S.) and St Johns
(Newfoundland) by a regular packet service, and is a station
of the Anglo American Cable Co. and the Compagnie française
des câbles télégraphiques. Excellent facilities for primary and
secondary education are given, but the attraction of the fisheries
prevents their being fully used.
The islands were occupied by the French in 1660, and fortified in 1700. In 1702 they were captured by the British, and held till 1763, when they were given back to France as a fishing station. They are thus the sole remnant of the French colonies in North America. Destroyed by the English in 1778, restored to France in 1783, again captured and depopulated by the English in 1793, recovered by France in 1802 and lost in 1803, the islands have remained in undisputed French possession since 1814 (Treaty of Paris).
See Henrique, Les Colonies françaises, t. ii. (Paris, 1889); Levasseur, La France, t. ii. (Paris, 1893; L’Année coloniale, yearly since 1899, contains statistics and a complete bibliography; P. T. McGrath in The New England Magazine (May 1903) describes the daily life of the people. (W. L. G.)
ST POL, COUNTS OF. The countship of St Pol-sur-Ternoise in
France (department of Pas-de-Calais), belonged in the 11th
and 12th centuries to a family surnamed Candavène. Elizabeth,
heiress of this house, carried the count ship to her husband,
Gaucher de Châtillon, in 1205. By the marriage of Mahaut de
Chatillon with Guy VI. of Luxemburg, St Pol passed to the house
of Luxemburg. It was in possession of Louis of Luxemburg,
constable of France, who was beheaded in 1475. The constable’s
property was confiscated by Louis XI., but was subsequently
restored in 1488 to his granddaughters, Marie and Françoise of
Luxemburg. Marie (d. 1542) was countess of St Pol, and married
François de Bourbon, count of Vendôme. Their son, François de
Bourbon, count of St Pol (1491–1545), was one of the most devoted
and courageous generals of Francis I. Marie, daughter of the
last-mentioned count, brought the count ship of St Pol to the
house of Orleans-Longueville. In 1705 Marie of Orleans sold it to
Elizabeth of Lorraine-Lillebonne, widow of, Louis de Melun,
prince of Épinoy, and their daughter married the prince of
Rohan-Soubise, who thus became count of St Pol. (M. P.*)
ST POL-DE-LÉON, a town of north-western France, in the department of Finistére, about 1 m. from the shore of the English Channel, and 1312 m. N. of Morlaix by the railway to Roscoff. Pop. (1906), town, 3353; commune, 8140. St Pol-de-Léon is a quaint town with several old houses. The cathedral is
