Paul and Virginia

Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737-1814) was a French writer and botanist, best known for his 1787 novel Paul et Virginie. In 1803 he was elected to L'Académie Française. Paul and Virginia are very good friends since birth who fall in love. Written on the eve of the French Revolution, the novel records the fate of a child of nature corrupted by the false, artificial sentimentality prevalent among the upper classes of France.