[Illustration: _Paul and Virginia. p.29._]


PAUL AND VIRGINIA,

FROM THE FRENCH

OF

J.B.H. DE SAINT PIERRE.




1851




PREFACE.

The following translation of "Paul and Virginia," was written at Paris,
amidst the horrors of Robespierre's tyranny. During that gloomy epocha it
was difficult to find occupations which might cheat the days of calamity of
their weary length. Society had vanished; and amidst the minute vexations
of Jacobinical despotism, which, while it murdered in _mass_, persecuted in
detail, the resources of writing, and even reading, were encompassed with
danger. The researches of domiciliary visits had already compelled me to
commit to the flames a manuscript volume, where I had traced the political
scenes of which I had been a witness, with the colouring of their first