It was only by perseverance and disregarding many rough and discouraging receptions that he succeeded in making acquaintance with Rousseau, whom he so much resembled. St. Pierre devoted himself to his society with enthusiasm, visiting him frequently and constantly, till Rousseau departed for Ermenonville. It is not unworthy of remark that both these men, such enthusiastic admirers of Nature and the natural in all things, should have possessed factitious rather than practical virtue, and a wisdom wholly unfitted for the world. St. Pierre asked Rousseau, in one of their frequent rambles, if in delineating St. Preux he had not intended to represent himself. "No," replied Rousseau, "St. Preux is not what I have been, but what I wished to be." St. Pierre would most likely have given the same answer had a similar question been put to him with regard to the colonel in Paul and Virginia. This, at least, appears the sort of old age he loved to contemplate and wished to realize.
For six years he worked at his Études, and with some difficulty found a publisher for them. M. Didot, a celebrated typographer, whose daughter St. Pierre afterward married, consented to print a manuscript which had been declined by many others. He was well rewarded
