Paul and Virginia

Bernardin de St. Pierre (1737-1814) was a French novelist and botanist. Born in Le Havre, he traveled with his uncle to the West Indies as a young man. Upon returning, he studied engineering at the École des Ponts before joining the French Army to serve in the Seven Years' War. Saint-Pierre went to Mauritius in 1768 to practice botany and in 1771 befriended Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who shared his love of plants and the natural world. While he was more widely known for his botanical work, for which he was named manager of the Jardin des plantes in 1797, Saint-Pierre was also the author of popular children's novel Paul and Virginia (1788).