Beachcomber Magazine 04

L e Saint-Géran , a ship belonging to the Compagnie des Indes set sail from France in March 1744. On boardwere 12 passengers (including two young women, returning from France, where they had been sent to finish their education), and 180 crew members. They were later joined by 30 slaves who embarked from Gorée Island in Senegal. After a nine-month crossing, the ship drew within sight of Mauritius, then known as Isle de France. During the night, the ship hit the reefs just off the village of Pou- dre d’Or. Only eight sailors and one passenger survived. When Bernardin de Saint-Pierre arrived in Isle de France in 1768, the story of this terrible shipwreck was still being talked about. Two years later when the young captain, a King’s engineer, returned to France, he wrote Voyage à l’île de France (Journey to Isle de France) , followed by Études de la nature (Nature Studies) in five volumes, which also featured Paul and Virginie . He had penned a tragic love story inspired by the Saint- Géran shipwreck, which immediately became a world bestseller. A PASTORAL NOVEL WITH AN EXOTIC SETTING The public loved this pastoral novel that recounts the ill-fated relationship between Virginie, daughter of Mme de la Tour, an aristocrat whose husband suffered bankruptcy before dying, and Paul, son of Marguerite, a peasant from Brittany who was seduced and then abandoned by a gentleman. The two women raise their children together, making no distinction between the two, in the heart of the beautiful countryside on Isle de France. Mme de la Tour, however, decides to send Virginie to France to stay with her rich aunt. Virginie returns home to be by Paul’s side but perishes before her beloved’s eyes in the shipwreck of the vessel on which she is travelling home, her death ultimately caused by her refusal, out of modesty, to remove her heavy clothing. The two figures are the old man telling Paul & Virginie’s story, and the author Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. Les deux personnages représentent le vieil homme qui raconte l’histoire de Paul et Virginie, et l’auteur, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. 