Tabenheim; and in Russia, Mlle. de la Tour, the niece of General
Dubosquet, would have accepted his hand. He was too poor to marry
either. A grateful recollection caused him to bestow the names of the
two on his most beloved creation. Paul was the name of a friar, with
whom he had associated in his childhood, and whose life he wished to
imitate. How little had the owners of these names anticipated that
they were to become the baptismal appellations of half a generation in
France, and to be re-echoed through the world to the end of time!

It was St. Pierre who first discovered the poverty of language
with regard to picturesque descriptions. In his earliest work, the
often-quoted "Voyages," he complains, that the terms for describing
nature are not yet invented. "Endeavour," he says, "to describe a
mountain in such a manner that it may be recognised. When you have
spoken of its base, its sides, its summit, you will have said all!
But what variety there is to be found in those swelling, lengthened,
flattened, or cavernous forms! It is only by periphrasis that all this
can be expressed. The same difficulty exists for plains and valleys.
But if you have a palace to describe, there is no longer any difficulty.
Every moulding has its appropriate name."

It was St. Pierre's glory, in some degree, to triumph over this
dearth of expression. Few authors ever introduced more new terms into
descriptive writing: yet are his innovations ever chastened, and in good
taste. His style, in its elegant simplicity, is, indeed, perfection. It
is at once sonorous and sweet, and always in harmony with the sentiment
he would express, or the subject he would discuss. Chenier might well
arm himself with "Paul and Virginia," and the "Chaumiere Indienne," in
opposition to those writers, who, as he said, made prose unnatural, by
seeking to elevate it into verse.