BARTHELEMY SAINT-HELAIRE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2201, 7 May 1896, Page 49

BARTHELEMY SAINT- HELAIRE.

When a young man Bardielemy Saint* Hilaire must have been remarkably bandsome. As the French press has not hesitated to say that ho had no family connections (which is nob true), there is no reason for concealing that in the inner social circle to which he belonged he wai believed to be the son of Napoleon I. He was brought up as her nephew by a Bingularly beautif ol woman, Mdlle Saint-Hilaire, to whom he paid filial reverence, and who survived to a considerable age. Thia lady is asserted to have been really his mother ; and on her side he had cousins of whom be sometimes spoke freely. About bis father he preserved ever a deep sllenco, but every note of his own nature argued high intellectual distinction and extraordinary foroo of will. Amid the refined beauty of the home of bis old age in the Boulevard Flandrin, Saint-Hilaire's faoe and form were in curious harmony with bU classic surrounding?, and recalled, even at 90, the famous bust of the young Auguatas, which might almost have passed at one eprcb for that of the First Consul. M. Saint-Hilaire remem r bered vividly all that occurred on the only two occasions when he saw, to bis own knowledge. Napoleon I. It was during the Hundred Days. The Emperor, having escaped from Elba, had resumed his asoendanoy over Paris, and the future Minister for Foreign Affairs, then nine years of age, was taken to see 'something of the great review held by Napoleon on the Piv>ce dv Carrousel a £cv? days after his triumphant return to the Tuileries. One of the officers of the guard good-naturedly lifted the little boy on to his shoulder, and the sight of the Emperor, flushed with emotion, surrounded by a brilliant oompany of his old officers who had rallied in answer to his call from every garrison in Franca, remained clearly defined through M. Saint- Hllaire's remaining 80 years of life. The second and last time he saw Napoleon occurred about a fortnight before Waterloo, The Emperor was pacing up and down the terrace of the Tnileries, his arms crossed, his head bent in thought, and attracting apparently no attention from the pasters- by. Probably no educated Frenchman of his time was so little touched or influenced by all that went to make modem Republican France as was Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire. Long before he was 30 M. Saint-Hilaire had drawn up a rule of conduct for himself, rigidly adhered to through every vicissitude of his long life. His salary, as clerk at the v Ministry of Finances, averaged, according to a statement made by him in later years, lOOOfr— that is, less than £1 a week, and for most of his journalistic labours he reoeived no remuneration. It was during those years, from 1827 to 1830, that he acquired the habits of early rising which he retained to the last morning of his life. Whenever it was possible he went to bed and rose with the sun to save the expense of artificial light, and at this same period be made and kept the resolution of never riding or driving when he could walk, and be reduced the sum spent by him on food to 16 sous, or 8d a day. Small wonder, therefore, that as an old man he had no patience with or understanding of modern fads and fancies. He always utterly refused to reoognise anything either heroic or peculiar in hit / agon de vivre, and to him at least all work and no play resulted in a painless death at 90, preceded by the accomplishment of all the tasks which he bad set himself to do. Louis Philippe may be said to have indirectly caused Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire to undertake the gigantic task — which occupied 59 years— of translating Aristotle into Frenob. Had the citizen king fulfilled his promises, Saint-Hilaire would have remained in active political life.

It may be safely asserted that but for M. Saint- Hilaire's self-abm gatlon and astounding power of sustained work, M. Thiers could never have carried through the task he had set himself of once more creating order out of utter chaos. -When Saint-Hilaire accepted the onerous position of Secretarygeneral, for which be refused to accept any salary, and which involved his acting as Thieis's alter ego and understudy, he occupied one small room on the top floor of the Prefecture at Versailles, preferring his individual liberty to an apartment in the cb&beau. His 65 years of sober industrious life stood him in good stead during the months which included and followed the Commune. Daring the whole of the time he never opened his Aristotle. Each day he rose at 4, and bad answered a considerable portion of the overnight correspondence by 7, at whioti hour he waa ready to receive those who wished to see him on business. The fall of > Thiers (on May 24, 1873) naturally released his Secre-tary-general, and on the very morning after hi* return to Paris be took up once more his interrupted translation of Aristotle and the other literary labours which he had left unaccomplished. Tbiers felt lost without his old friend at his elbow, and no evening passed without M. Saint-Hilaire joining the fast narrowing circle of the ex-President's old friends in the beautiful house situated on the Place Saint Georgea, now the property of Mademoiselle Dosno. M. Saint-Hilaire was already 75 years of sge when he became Minister for Foreign Affairs.

An optimist in the saner sense of the word, M. Saint-Hilaire nevertheless considered tho future of France, and, indeed, of Rurope, with deep apprehension. To him war was a dead certainty which might burst upon his country any day or hour, and he bad a great dislike to so-called frontier incidents. When the deterrent power of modern engines of warfare was disousscd before him he would quote Agesilaus and his catapult, and recall with a smile the awe with which be had himself regarded the Dew models of French artillery in 1831. He was, however, of opinion that the spread of anarchism would have the effect of postponing a European war, but he believed in the permanence of a combative instinct. On one occasion, ia answer to a .query as to how he would regenerate the state of things which he so deplored in modern France, he somewhat unexpectedly expressed himself as being strongly in favour of a return to religious thought and education, declaring it to be unwise, from the most material point of view, for a country to treat en ennemi a. theory of the universe which appealed to the nobler side of human nature, and which eaid to the poor " Thou shalt not steal," to' the violent " Thou abalt not kill," and to tho egoist "Thou ohttlb love tby nefgbbour as thyself." Hlfl strong prejudice in favour o£ everything Baalish remained to the last os»

- of tbe^most marked indications o£ what manjoer of man Barthelemy Saint-HUaire really was. Though a convinced Republican, he considered the-British Constitution the most perfect form of government possible in the past, present, or future; and far from sharing most of his countny men's ?. ovation for Ireland, he deplored Mr Gladstone's conversion to the principles of Home Rale, and would only admit one nation,, the. Scotch,, to be superior to the English, and, that hecause, as he was. fond of observing, "v» Eeossais tstwa Anglais eidemi." — Fortnightly Review.