Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Paul et Virginie : "Premier essai autographe de la conversation de Paul et du Vieillard"

Abstract

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Paul et Virginie: "Premier essai autographe de la conversation de Paul et du Vieillard"Malcolm Cook A manuscript recently purchased by the Bibliothèque Municipale du Havre1 bears the inscription "premier essai autographe de la conversation de Paul et du Vieillard, plusieurs passages de cet essai n'ont pas été employés," which is signed "L. aimémartin." Aimé Martin was Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's secretary. He later married Bernardin's widow and was responsible for editing his complete works in the 1 820s and beyond. Aimé Martin has been much maligned, not least by Maurice Souriau, who attacks him by saying, for example: "Sa méthode critique, pour la partie narrative, ou plutôt son absence de méthode critique, son manque de sincérité scientifique, dépassent toute idée."2 The editorial principles that prevailed in the early nineteenth century are quite different from those practised today. Even so, I suspect that Souriau's constant criticism stems as much from the desire to stress the importance of his own scholarly activity as it does from defects he perceived in the work of Aimé Martin. Indeed, from the evidence I have found while working on Bernardin's correspondence, and in particular on the exchanges with 1 Vente Laurin - Guilloux - Buffetaud - Tailleur, Drouot Richelieu, 10 et 11 décembre, 1991. no 244. The manuscript bears die temporary shelf mark Inventaire 943. 2 Maurice Souriau, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre d'après ses manuscrits (Paris: Société Française d'Imprimerie et de Librairie, 1905), p. xv. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Volume 9, Number 2, January 1997 150 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION Figure 1 BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE 151 Figure 2 152 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION Hennin (published by Aimé Martin in 1826), I consider that Aimé Martin 's reading of the letters is generally reliable—although he does on occasion cut paragraphs, and he also omits letters which must have been known to him. The manuscript which I examine and edit here is certainly a curiosity. There can be little doubt that Aimé Martin's identification of it as an early draft of Paul et Virginie is accurate. As we shall see, however, it is hard to establish how the final version derived from it. The excellent edition of Paul et Virginie by Marie-Thérèse Veyrenc3 makes it apparent that Bernardin did not find composition easy. One passage in the edition by Edouard Guitton4 is reproduced four times in the manuscript, with minimal variation, and is accompanied by a small drawing which would be reproduced, in later editions, as an engraving in the text. Other passages, too, were worked and reworked, as the Veyrenc edition shows. For reasons which are not clear, however, Veyrenc concentrates almost exclusively on the manuscript in the library ofthe Sorbonne5 and fails to reproduce other manuscripts of the novel of which she was aware (she refers to them in note 4 on page 27). Now that the Bibliothèque du Havre has purchased the important draft of a short section of the novel authenticated by the signature of Aimé Martin, it is essential that this new evidence be examined. What is surprising , as we shall see, is that the first draft differs greatly from the final text, so much so, indeed, that it is hard to locate it precisely in the eventual finished version (pp. 175-92 of the Guitton edition). Throughout the transcription the following conventions are adopted: a 3 Bernardin de Saint Pierre, Paul et Virginie, ed. Marie-Thérèse Veyrenc (Paris: Nizet, 1975). 4 Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Paul et Virginie, éd. Edouard Guitton (Paris: Classiques Garnier /Bordas, 1989), p. 90. References are to this edition. 5 Veyrenc writes: "Dans le dossier 103 du fond Bernardin de Saint-Pierre à la bibliothèque municipale du Havre, les feuillets 10 et 1 1 offrent trois petits passages l'un Sur Virginieaprèsson départ, les deux autres devant être placés dans le dialogue de Mr Mustel avec Paul, qui sont des exemples de ces essais de rédaction auxquels s'est livré l'auteur avant d'entreprendre la rédaction suivie du roman" (p. 27nl4). These manuscripts...