SAINT-PIERRE 





SAINT-SAENS 



cost of the building is estimated at about $50,- 

 000,000, and over $30,000 are spent each year 

 in caring for it and keeping it in repair. There 

 was considerable difficulty in raising the vast 

 sum needed to complete the building. 



Consult Barnes' Saint Peter in Rome and His 

 Tomb on the Vatican Hill. 



SAINT-PIERRE, sa\pyair',& French island 

 colony, forty-seven miles off the south coast of 

 Newfoundland, with a total area of ninety-three 

 square miles. Saint-Pierre, Miquelon and Ile- 

 aux-Chiens comprise the whole colony, which 

 is administered by a governor and represented 

 in the French chamber by a deputy; it repre- 

 sents all that remains to France of its once 

 enormous possessions in North America. 



The islands are chiefly important as the cen- 

 ter of the French cod fisheries, which employ 

 about one-half of the inhabitants. Saint-Pierre, 

 the capital, has steamboat communication with 

 Halifax and Boston, and cable connection with 

 America and Europe. After changing owner- 

 ship several times, the islands were finally re- 

 turned to France in 1816. 



SAINT-PIERRE, JACQUES HENRI BERNARDIN 

 DE (1737-1814), a French critic and novelist, 

 famous as the author of the novel, Paul and 

 Virginia, was born at Havre. He was edu- 

 cated for the profession of civil engineer, and 

 between 1761 and 1765 traveled through Ger- 

 many and Russia and did sufficient work in his 

 profession to keep him from starvation. He 

 next served as a government officer on the Isle 

 of France, or Mauritius, but his whole interest 

 in life was the study of nature, and he resigned 

 the position after three years. 



His first book, A Voyage to the Isle of France, 

 appeared in 1773, in Paris, and was simply and 

 charmingly written and full of reverence and 

 sympathy. Rousseau, who believed but little 

 in religion, admired the work for its natural- 

 ness, and the powerful Bishop of Aix, who was 

 certainly the opposite of Rousseau, admired it 

 for its reverence. The Bishop procured Saint- 

 Pierre a yearly pension of two hundred dollars 

 from the French Government, and with this in- 

 come, the author set about the pleasant task 

 of writing his Studies oj Nature. In 1779 he 

 wrote as a supplement to this work his famous 

 Paul and Virginia, recognized as one of the 

 great masterpieces of descriptive fiction. The 

 plot, dealing with the childhood of a boy and a 

 girl in an ideal park or woodland, is very light, 

 but the sentiment, the vivid descriptions and 

 the tone of innocence and purity make the story 

 one of the most touching in all literature. The 



book had much influence in shaping French 

 fiction in simple and natural style. ami has 

 been translated into the language of every civi- 

 lized nation. 



SAINT-QUENTIN, saN kahN taN ' , a manu- 

 facturing town in Northern France, in the de- 

 partment of Aisne, situated about eighty-seven 

 miles northeast of Paris, on the Somme River. 

 It was the scene of two famous battles: tin- 

 first was fought in 1557 between allied Spanish 

 and English troops and the French, the lat- 

 ter being defeated; the other occurred on Janu- 

 ary 19, 1871, when the town was captured by 

 the Germans. The town is in the battle zone 

 of the War of the Nations, which set Europe 

 aflame in 1914. One of the finest Gothic ca- 

 thedrals of France, built in the twelfth century, 

 is located at Saint-Quentin. Population, 1911. 

 55,570. 



The Saint-Quentin Canal, one of the main 

 arteries of trade in Northeastern France, in terri- 

 tory held by the Germans in the War of tin 

 Nations, was partly wrecked by the invaders 

 in August, 1917. It is seventy-five miles long, 

 and unites the Seine and Somme rivers. 



SAINT-SAENS, saN sahN', [CHARLES] CA- 

 MILLE (1835- ), a French composer, was 

 born in Paris. He began the study of music 

 almost as early as his first lessons in reading 

 and writing, and at the age of seven was tak- 

 ing advanced piano instruction. Five years 

 later he was allowed to enter the Conservatory 

 of Paris and before he was sixteen years old 

 had won both the first and the second prize in 

 organ playing. He was scarcely eighteen when 

 he received the important position of organist 

 in the Church of Saint-Merri, Paris, and in 

 1861 was granted one of the most responsible 

 musical offices in all Europe, that of organist 

 in the Madeleine Church of Paris. 



In 1863 the Society of Saint Cecilia of Bor- 

 deaux gave his overture, Spartacus, first hon- 

 ors, and in 1867 the authorities of the Interna- 

 tional Exhibition at Paris awarded him the 

 prize for his cantata, Noces. These honors, to- 

 gether with deserved fame as a pianist, came to 

 him before his thirty-second birthday, but it 

 was not until 1872 that Saint-Saens was able 

 to have an opera accepted. Even then this 

 first effort, The Princess, was not successful, 

 and others that followed it met with little fa- 

 vor. In 1877, his Biblical opera, Samson and 

 Delilah, was produced at Weimar, and its popu- 

 larity has steadily increased from that first ap- 

 pearance. But Saint-Saens will always be bet- 

 ter known for his beautiful symphonic poems, 



