Thèse--Lettres--Paris, 1892. / Notes bibliogr.

Th.--Lett.--Paris, 1970.

Th. compl.--Lett.--Paris, 1970.

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre survived the French revolution and was subsequently lionised, becoming a member of the École Normale and the Institut. Maurice Souriau, and most recently Malcolm Cook have looked at his contributions during the French revolution. Both concluded that these were far more substantial than what some critics have hitherto claimed but neither of them conducted a systematic research in the newspapers of the time to see how his work was received. Nor did they consider the correspondence in this respect. This is what this thesis proposes to do. We originally intended to cover the years 1789 to 1799 but we discovered such a wealth of information concerning the first four years of the revolution that we decided to concentrate our research on that period. This ties in with Bernardin’s own publications since hardly anything new was published by him after 1792. This study has revealed that Bernardin had very strong political ideas which he expressed in 1789 with Vœux d’un solitaire and then again in 1792 with Suite des vœux d’un solitaire and in July of the same year he produced a poster entitled: L’Invitation à la Concorde pour la fête de la confédération au 14 juillet 1792. The first three chapters of this thesis analyse the reaction of the press and his correspondents to these publications. We then turn our attention to La Chaumière indienne, first published in 1791 and then again in 1792 where Bernardin included more notes concerning his views on the shape of the earth. If, by and large, the reception of this story was positive, his scientific views triggered enough commentary to justify a section of a chapter dedicated to them. As we progressed in our research, Bernardin’s importance at the time became increasingly evident and we realised that parallel to his own publications, ran an undercurrent of writings paying homage to the man and which we felt helped to build up a portrait of the period. We finish with his nomination as ‘Intendant du Jardin des Plantes’ in July 1792 which led him to write an appeal to create a zoo in the Jardin des Plantes. Throughout 1792 Bernardin’s name was rarely out of the newspapers. This study has shed new light on the persona of Bernardin and helped to underline his importance before, during and after the French revolution.

This thesis offers a new perspective on the cultural contribution of Louis Aimé-Martin, best known as the principal editor of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. The thesis begins in chapter 1 with a critical analysis of the posthumous edition of Bernardin’s Essai sur J.-J. Rousseau. This text, singled out by the scholar, Maurice Souriau, as an exemplar of Aimé-Martin’s editorial negligence, introduces a theme sustained throughout chapter 2. This study of part of the Correspondance de J.-H. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, in revealing Aimé-Martin’s emotive handling of the manuscripts he works from, leads to a necessary consideration of other, more objective editorial ventures in chapter 3. Attention turns from Bernardin’s legacy to an investigation of Aimé-Martin as a reputed authority on the lives and works of a host of French personalities from across the centuries. In light of those undertakings independent of Bernardin, the following chapters go on to broaden our understanding of Aimé-Martin, revealing some of his own literary endeavours. Reflections on the Lettres à Sophie sur la physique, la chimie et l’histoire naturelle (1810) in chapter 4, and Raymond (1811) in chapter 5, testify to Aimé-Martin’s interest in contemporary issues from feminine pedagogy to the moralisation of the peasant class. Such concerns eventually culminate in the philosophy of the Education des mères (1834), considered in chapter 6. It is this œuvre, with its promotion of a new, more accessible spirituality and its proposed revisions of the educative system, which truly sees Aimé-Martin engage with the socio-political agenda of his day. Chapter 7 looks further, then, at Aimé-Martin’s immersion in the cultural community of his time, drawing in particular on the revelations of his correspondence with Alphonse de Lamartine. The renowned editor is thus shown to be a transitional figure, holding a torch for the memory of an eighteenth-century icon while also shining a light of hope and inspiration for the people of the early decades of the nineteenth.

This thesis presents Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s novel Paul et Virginie (1788) as a synthesis of the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the theology of François de la Mothe-Fénelon. While the novel’s prominent themes of the goodness of nature and the corruption of society are clearly associated with Rousseau, Bernardin rejects Rousseau’s ideals of independence and self-sufficiency as the basis for his moral theory and preference of nature. Instead, his novel appears to Christianize Rousseau’s philosophy by stressing dependence on a personal, beneficient God who is revealed through nature, thereby associating the natural life with a God-centered life where happiness can be found through dependence on God and selfless service to others. In seeking to pinpoint Bernardin’s Christian influence, this paper goes on to acknowledge Bernardin’s hyperbolic praise for François Fénelon, which leads to an investigation concerning, first, which of Fénelon’s teachings can be found in Paul et Virginie, and second, how Bernardin manages to preserve such enthusiastic admiration for a Christian thinker while also denying several important tenets of Christian orthodoxy. This investigation reveals that Fénelon appealed to Bernardin de Saint-Pierre not only on the basis of what he emphasized, but also what he failed to emphasize. On the one hand, a number of Fénelonian ideas find expression in Paul et Virginie, ideas such as a conception of worship that privileges inner realities over external performances; a glorification of pure, disinterested love toward God; an ideal lifestyle of simplicity and harmony with nature; and an acknowledgement of the role of sentiment in gaining knowledge of the divine. On the other hand, this paper also proposes that Bernardin’s unhindered admiration for Fénelon was made possible by his ability to misinterpret two of Fénelon’s most well-known works, Télémaque (1699) and the Traité de l’existence de Dieu (p. 1718), whose silence on particular doctrines like original sin and the authority of the Scriptures allowed Bernardin to preserve his beliefs about natural goodness and the sufficiency of natural revelation. / text