“People who are old enough to write memoirs have usually lost their
memory.” This epigrammatic remark with which a recent writer, not
old enough to have lost his memory, opens his reminiscences, has
considerable truth in it. Historians now recognise that “memoirs do
not supply the certainty of history,” for if the writers have dim
memories, they have also lively imaginations. Saint-Simon, the prince
of memoir-writers, did not, it is true, begin to transcribe his
memoirs till he was well past sixty, but from the age of twenty he
had collected materials and made systematic notes. His memoirs were
not merely the pastime of his old age but the serious business of his
whole life. The result is that he has left us a picture of the Court of
Versailles at the close of the seventeenth century and the beginning of
the eighteenth which is unsurpassed in interest. This interest is above
all things human. The men and women who fill his canvas are vividly
alive. With a few powerful and incisive strokes he first sketches
their lineaments and then with merciless penetration proceeds to lay
bare their souls. But his memoirs are also coloured by his own alert
and energetic personality. They not only portray his age, but they
reveal himself; to judge of the fidelity of the picture, we must know
something of the man.
Saint-Simon came of an ancient stock, being descended in the direct
male line from Matthieu de Rouvroy, surnamed Le Borgne, who fought
at Crécy and Poitiers, and Marguerite de Saint-Simon. His immediate
ancestors, a branch of the family which dropped the name of Rouvroy
for that of Saint-Simon, if not exactly illustrious, followed their
monarchs loyally in war and administered their estates successfully
in peace. His father, Claude de Saint-Simon, who was born in 1607,
chiefly owing to his address in the hunting field rose into high favour
with Louis XIII, who created him a _duc et pair_ in 1636. But he fell
into disgrace soon afterwards and was ordered by Richelieu to retire
from the Court to the fortress of Blaye on the Gironde, of which he
was governor. His vacillating attitude on the outbreak of the Fronde
made him acceptable neither to Mazarin nor to the rebellious princes,
and he did not return to Paris till after the troubles were over. In
1672 he married as his second wife Charlotte de l’Aubespine, by whom
he had an only son, born on January 16, 1675, and christened Louis
after his royal godfather. At the age of seven, the young Vidame de
Chartres, according to the custom of many noble families, was put
under the charge of a governor, but his character and opinions were
largely moulded by his father and mother. The latter, a highly virtuous
woman of method and good sense, applied herself assiduously to the
development of his mind and body. From his father he imbibed a profound
antipathy for Mazarin, the families of Lorraine, Bouillon, and Rohan,
and all Secretaries of State.
In December, 1691, when he was nearly seventeen, he was formally
presented to the King, and enrolled as a cadet in the regiment of the
Grey Musketeers. In this capacity he took part in the siege of Namur,
which is the first event recorded in his memoirs. In 1693, having been
given the command of a company of cavalry, he fought at Neerwinden, and
at the end of the campaign bought the colonelcy of a regiment. Shortly
before this he had succeeded his father as governor of Blaye and
Senlis. He was only nineteen, when he gave a signal proof of his energy
and of the importance which he attached to matters of precedence,
by helping to organise a resistance to the claim of the Maréchal de
Luxembourg to take precedence of all _ducs et pairs_ except the Duc
d’Uzès. The Dukes lost their case, largely, Saint-Simon alleges, owing
to the partiality of the First President of the _Parlement_, Achille de
Harlay.
In the following year (1695) he married Gabrielle de Durfort, the
eldest daughter of the Maréchal-Duc de Lorges, a nephew of Turenne.
She was a blonde with a fine complexion and figure, and being a modest
and excellent woman made him an admirable wife. He on his side was a
devoted husband, and he always speaks of her in his _Memoirs_ with the
greatest affection and esteem.
After the Peace of Ryswick (1697) his regiment was disbanded, and,
on the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession, five years
later, failing to receive a nomination as Brigadier, he retired from
the service on the plea of ill-health. “Voilà encore un homme qui
nous quitte,” said the King, and he looked coldly on Saint-Simon in
consequence. It was characteristic of the little Duke’s overweening
sense of his own importance that before taking this step he held a
solemn consultation with six distinguished friends, the Chancellor
Pontchartrain, and five Dukes, Lorges, Durfort-Duras, Choiseul,
Beauvillier, and La Rochefoucauld, of whom the first three were
Marshals of France.
The loss to the army was not irremediable, and the gain to literature
was immense. Henceforth Saint-Simon could devote himself with
singleness of purpose to the real business of his life. It was in July,
1694, in the camp of Germersheim on the Old Rhine, that “he began to
write his memoirs,” by which expression we must understand, not that
he began to write a continuous narrative, but that from this time he
systematised his observations and inquiries and made careful notes of
the results. We learn from a letter to his friend, M. de Rancé, the
famous reformer of La Trappe, that his original intention was to relate
in detail all personal matters and merely to touch superficially on
general events. But he soon abandoned this idea and in his account of
the years immediately succeeding his retirement from the army there is
little mention of himself.
His chief friends and allies at this period were all men considerably
older than himself--the two inseparables, the Duc de Beauvillier and
the Duc de Chevreuse, who had both married daughters of Colbert, the
Maréchal de Boufflers, the Chancellor Pontchartrain, and Chamillart,
the Secretary of State for War. It was through the good offices
of Chamillart and Maréchal, the King’s surgeon, that “he became
reconciled,” as he characteristically expresses it, with Louis XIV. But
he had his enemies as well as his friends, and chief among them were
the members of the _coterie_ which, as so often happens towards the end
of a long reign, the common hope of favours to come had attracted round
the heir to the throne. An important member of this “Cabale de Meudon,”
as Saint-Simon calls it, was the Duc de Vendôme, and when in 1708 Louis
XIV made the mistake of associating his grandson, the Duc de Bourgogne,
with him in the command of the army of Flanders, and dissensions arose
between the two commanders, the Cabal warmly espoused Vendôme’s cause.
Their unscrupulous intrigues against the Duc de Bourgogne roused the
wrath of Saint-Simon, who as the ally of M. de Beauvillier, the young
Prince’s former governor, was well disposed in his favour. Throughout
the years 1708 and 1709 he threw himself into the contest with his
accustomed vigour, and in the following year he helped to achieve a
notable victory over the hated Cabal in another field, that of the
marriage of the Duc de Berry, Monseigneur’s youngest son. The candidate
of Monseigneur’s party was Mlle de Bourbon, while the Duchesse de
Bourgogne, well served by Saint-Simon and his friends, favoured the
daughter of the Duc d’Orléans. Saint-Simon’s organisation of the
“Cabale de Mademoiselle” was a masterpiece of skilful intrigue, and he
conducted the campaign with a passionate energy which is faithfully
reflected in his narrative. When, however, the coarse and depraved
character of the new Duchess revealed itself he bitterly regretted his
success.
But the marriage had one beneficial, if unlooked for, result. The
Duchesse de Saint-Simon, greatly against her inclination and that of
her husband, was appointed lady-in-waiting to the new Duchess, and had
assigned to her a set of apartments at Versailles, consisting of an
antechamber and five rooms, each with a dark little cabinet opening out
of it. In one of these Saint-Simon established himself with his books
and his _bureau de travail_. It was an unrivalled post of observation,
which his friends christened appropriately “his workshop.” Meanwhile
his intimacy with Beauvillier and Chevreuse brought him into relations
with the Duc de Bourgogne, and the only thorn in his felicity was the
Cabale de Meudon, which he believed to be bent on his destruction. But
from this he was delivered by the Dauphin’s death from small-pox in
April, 1711. The next ten months were the happiest of his whole life
at Court. His relations with the new Dauphin became more intimate,
and in numerous private conversations he discussed with him projects
of political reform. Then in 1712 the French Marcellus, the star of
noble hopes and aspirations, followed his father to the grave. The blow
hit Saint-Simon almost as hard as it did Fénelon. “The sense of my
personal loss, the immeasurably greater loss of France, and above all
the vanished figure of that incomparable Dauphin pierced my heart and
paralysed my faculties.”
Two years later he refers in melancholy accents to his changed
position. Chevreuse, Beauvillier, and Boufflers were dead,
Pontchartrain had retired from office, Chamillart was in disgrace. The
one link left to him with the Court was the Duc d’Orléans, who by the
death of the Duc de Berry in May, 1714, was marked out as the future
regent of the kingdom. In spite of his unpopularity Saint-Simon, who
had for some years now been on friendly terms with him, drew to him
more closely. He reprobated his licentious and scandalous life, but
he defended him against the false accusations of his enemies, and
effectively countermined the intrigues of the party that was plotting
against him in favour of the Duc du Maine.
On Louis XIV’s death it was partly owing to Saint-Simon’s vehement and
energetic insistence that Orléans roused himself from his habitual
indolence and persuaded the _Parlement_ to set aside the testament of
the late King, which, while it conferred on him the Regency, had put
the real power in the hands of the Duc du Maine. Saint-Simon was made a
member of the Council of Regency, and the introduction of departmental
Councils, in place of the Secretaries of State, was more or less in
accord with his own proposals.
The new form of administration, however, was not a success and after
a trial of two years was abandoned. Nor did Saint-Simon himself shew
any political capacity. He was wanting in tact and adaptability, and
worse than this he frittered away on futile questions of precedence
and etiquette the time and energy that might have been given to really
important matters. Such influence as he had with the Regent came to an
end with the rise to power of Dubois, who gladly furthered his request
to be sent on a special mission to Spain (1721).
On the death of the Regent (1722) he left the Court and lived for
some time with his family in a house which he rented in the Rue
Saint-Dominique. But after the marriage of his two sons he resided for
at least half the year at his _château_ of La Ferté-Vidame, about 30
miles north-west of Chartres. The _château_ itself, which, as we know
from engravings, had the air of a feudal fortress, and in every room of
which hung a portrait of Louis XIII, no longer exists. But the park,
enclosed by a wall of nearly nine miles, and the forest beyond have
preserved their original character.
Here Saint-Simon began and completed the definitive version of his
_Memoirs_, and here in 1743, to his overwhelming grief, he lost his
wife, his faithful companion of nearly fifty years. Other misfortunes
followed; his two sons preceded him to the grave, and he was driven by
his debts to make over the whole of his property to his creditors. He
died at Paris in 1755 at the age of eighty. The lives of his father and
himself cover between them nearly a century and a half.
Saint-Simon, as we see him in Rigaud’s portrait, was small and
delicate--a typical old man’s child--with an extremely alert and eager
face. It has been observed that he is seldom mentioned in contemporary
memoirs, but these are not numerous for the latter part of the reign of
Louis XIV, while three of the chief memoir-writers of the Regency, when
Saint-Simon was most prominent, Barbier, Buvat, and Marais, did not
belong to Court circles. When he is mentioned it is in no complimentary
terms. D’Argenson attacks him for advocating severe measures against
the Duc du Maine after the conspiracy of Cellamare. “Mark,” he says,
“the odious and bloodthirsty character (_anthropophage_) of this little
saint without genius.” But then Saint-Simon in his on the whole highly
favourable portrait of D’Argenson’s father, the celebrated head of the
Paris police, had said that his character was supple, and that his
terrifying appearance resembled that of the three judges of Hades.
It was inevitable that Saint-Simon’s irascibility, intractability,
and aristocratic pretensions should arouse considerable enmity, and
in the songs and satires of the day he is attacked under the name of
_boudrillon_ (_bout d’homme_) and _petit furibond_. Mme de Maintenon
declared that he was “glorieux, frondeur et plein de vues,” and we
have an interesting commentary on this remark in his report of a
conversation which took place between the Duchesse de Bourgogne and
his wife. The Duchess told her that he had many powerful enemies
and that the King had conceived a strong prejudice against him. His
intelligence, she said, and his knowledge and capacity for ideas were
recognised as far above the ordinary, but everybody was afraid of him,
and they could not endure his arrogance and his outspoken criticisms on
persons and institutions.
These criticisms would have been more valuable if they had been less
concerned with futilities, and less biased by aristocratic prejudices.
But Saint-Simon was at heart a true patriot, and was keenly alive to
the evils which were sapping the forces of his country. He agreed with
reformers like Fénelon and Chevreuse and the Abbé de Saint-Pierre in
regarding the absolutism of the King as the chief source of danger,
and he shared their dislike of the Controller-General and the four
Secretaries of State as the agents of this absolutism. He strongly
reprobated the King’s love of war and glory, and the boundless
extravagance, which he not only practised himself but encouraged
in others. Like La Bruyère and Fénelon, Saint-Simon saw with a
compassionate eye the wide-spread misery by which all this glory and
magnificence was purchased. He has drawn a moving picture of the
terrible winter of 1708-1709, when famine stalked through the land and
crushing taxation on the top of high prices “completed the devastation
of France.”
Mme de Maintenon further complained that he was “plein de vues,” by
which she doubtless meant much the same thing as Louis XIV, when he
called Fénelon chimerical. For in Saint-Simon’s schemes for reform,
as in Fénelon’s, there was a strong Utopian element, which did not
sufficiently take into account the hard facts of political life and
the shortcomings of human nature. They both looked back too fondly
on the past, they both exaggerated the value of the nobles and the
Estates General--Saint-Simon laying more stress on the former, Fénelon
on the latter--as checks to absolutism. That there should be a certain
similarity between their ideas is only to be expected, for though they
were not personally acquainted, they had a common link in the Duc de
Bourgogne, and it was just at the time that Saint-Simon was having
frequent conferences with the latter that his two great friends, the
Duc de Beauvillier and the Duc de Chevreuse, held long conversations on
affairs of state with Fénelon at Chaulnes (November, 1711). From the
conferences of Saint-Simon and the Duc de Bourgogne sprang the _Projets
de gouvernement_, the manuscript of which was found among Saint-Simon’s
papers, and which is undoubtedly from his pen. The conversations at
Chaulnes were summarised in the series of short maxims, known as the
_Tables de Chaulnes_, which represent Fénelon’s nearest approach to
practical politics.
However deserving of consideration Saint-Simon’s views may have been,
his insistence on them in season and out of season cannot have helped
to commend them or to make him popular at Court. In his old age he is
said to have been a delightful talker, but at Versailles he must have
sometimes proved an intolerable bore. “Il faut tenir votre langue,”
said Louis XIV to him when he accepted the appointment for his wife.
One wonders at the patience with which the Duke of Orleans endured
his moral lectures and political disquisitions. But the Duke was too
indolent to escape them, and while he must have derived considerable
amusement from the peculiarities of his friend’s character he evidently
appreciated his transparent honesty. For with all his faults and
prejudices, his vanity, his hate, and his vindictiveness, Saint-Simon
was essentially honest. It is true that in his intercourse with some
men, as for instance Père Tellier, the Duc de Noailles, and Cardinal
Dubois, he did not act up to the character which he claims for himself
of “droit, franc, libre, naturel, et beaucoup trop simple,” but if
his curiosity and thirst for information led him sometimes to assume
a friendliness which he did not feel, or if in the slippery days of
the Regency he had to meet duplicity with duplicity, he was honest at
heart, and he had no lack of moral courage.
He carried this sincerity into his religion. D’Argenson may sneer
at him as a _petit dévot_, but his piety was at any rate perfectly
genuine. It was the fruit, partly of a careful religious education,
and partly of the influence of the Abbé de Rancé. For the monastery
of La Trappe was only fifteen miles from La Ferté-Vidame and
Saint-Simon often visited it as a child in company with his father.
When he came to man’s estate he regarded his father’s friend with
that deep and whole-hearted admiration which was one of the finer
traits of his character. Every year during the Abbé’s life-time--he
died in 1700--Saint-Simon went into retreat at the monastery during
Passion-week, and he often consulted the Abbé on matters of conscience.
From the Abbé he learnt to look with disfavour on Jansenism, but,
as he came to judge more for himself, he was impressed by the noble
lives of “Les Messieurs de Port-Royal,” and he declared that recent
centuries had produced nothing more saintly, more pure, more learned,
more practical, and more elevated, than that famous society. With the
Jesuits he was on good terms all his life, and his portrait of Père La
Chaise is kindly and appreciative. But in his later volumes he often
speaks of them in a hostile spirit, and though he was outwardly on good
terms with Père Tellier he cordially disliked him, and his portrait
of him is one of the most unflattering in his gallery. In questions
of ecclesiastical policy he was, as might be expected from one who
was a patriot before he was a Churchman and who did not pretend to
theological learning, a convinced Gallican. It was as such, and not
as an upholder of Jansenism, that he was strongly opposed to the bull
_Unigenitus_.
We have seen that Saint-Simon began to make notes for his _Memoirs_ in
July, 1694. Probably these took more or less the form of a diary and
consisted of personal impressions, information that he had picked up
from various sources, and so forth. Then in 1729 his friend the Duc
de Luynes procured for him the journal which the Duke’s grandfather,
the Marquis de Dangeau, had kept with extraordinary regularity and
accuracy from 1684 down to his death in 1720. Philippe de Courcillon,
Marquis de Dangeau, had come to the Court of Louis XIV with no
particular advantages of birth, or wealth, or interest. But by his
readiness to oblige, his adaptability, and his honesty he made himself
indispensable. Among his accomplishments was that of writing _vers
de société_ with great facility, which procured his election to the
_Académie française_ at the age of thirty. But his chief passport to
favour and fortune was his skill and success, coupled with perfect
probity, in all kinds of card-games. This is Mme de Sévigné’s account
of a game of _reversi_ at Versailles in 1676, in which the King, the
Queen, Mme de Montespan, Mme de Soubise, Dangeau, and others took part:
Je voyais jouer Dangeau; et j’admirais combien nous sommes sots
auprès de lui. Il ne songe qu’à son affaire, et gagne où les
autres perdent; il ne néglige rien, il profite de tout, il n’est
point distrait: en un mot, sa bonne conduite défie la fortune;
aussi les deux cent mille francs en dix jours, les cent mille
écus en un mois, tout cela se met sur le livre de sa recette.
Dangeau’s memoirs are little more than a Court journal, in which he
seldom allows himself a comment. But the regularity with which it is
noted up day by day, the accuracy of its information, and the multitude
of small details in which it abounds, make it a useful and valuable
authority, as Sainte-Beuve has shewn in the five _causeries_ which he
devoted to it[1]. A couple of citations from the year 1688, complete
for the day to which they refer, will give an idea of its character:
[1] _Journal_ du Marquis de Dangeau, ed. Soulié, Dussieux, De
Chennevières, Mantz, De Montaiglon, 19 vols. 1854; Sainte-Beuve,
_Causeries du Lundi_, XI.
_Lundi, 26 [janvier] à Versailles._ Le roi alla tirer;
Monseigneur courut le loup; le soir, il y eut appartement.--Le
roi dit qu’il vouloit recommencer à Marly de courre le cerf à
cheval. Depuis sa maladie il ne l’avoit couru qu’en calèche.
On dit que M. de Noirmoustier, qui est aveugle, va épouser la
veuve de feu M. de Brémont qui est fort riche.
_Lundi, 1er mars, à Versailles._ Le roi dîna à son petit
couvert, et alla tirer. Monseigneur courut le loup, qui le mena
fort loin d’ici; il n’arriva qu’à onze heures du soir.--Il y
eut comédie.--Après souper M. le Duc donna bal en masque chez
lui, où Monseigneur demeura jusqu’à la fin, malgré la fatigue
de la journée; les officiers de la garde prétendent qu’il a
fait plus de quarante lieues aujourd’hui.
It is but fair to add that the average entry for the day is rather
longer than this, and not so wholly devoid of interest. Saint-Simon is
superb in his contempt:
La bassesse d’un humble courtisan, le culte du maître et de
tout ce qui est ou sent la faveur, la prodigalité des plus
fades et des plus misérables louanges, l’encens éternel et
suffoquant jusque des actions du Roi les plus indifférentes,
la terreur et la fadeur suprême qui ne l’abandonnent nulle
part pour ne blesser personne, excuser fort, principalement
dans les généraux et les autres personnes du goût du Roi, de
Mme de Maintenon, des ministres, toutes ces choses éclatent
dans toutes les pages, dont il est rare que chaque journée en
remplisse plus d’une, et dégoûtent merveilleusement.
But Saint-Simon recognised that this commonplace and uncritical
Journal, with its accurate chronology and its orderly arrangement,
could be of great service to anyone who wished to write true
memoirs[2]. Accordingly he had a copy made of the work and during the
years 1729-1738 busied himself with adding notes. Some of these were
of considerable length, such as the original draft of the _tableau_ or
long digression on the character of Louis XIV and his reign, and an
elaborate portrait of Louvois, which was not inserted in the _Memoirs_.
About the year 1739 he began to arrange his materials which consisted
of the Journal with the notes, other notes which he had accumulated
during the last forty-five years, portraits, detailed descriptions,
and various essays on the history and genealogy of certain families.
He was now able to begin writing out his _Memoirs_ in full. In 1740 he
was dealing with the events of 1701. In 1741 or 1742 he had reached the
year 1709. By September, 1745, he had come to the end of the reign of
Louis XIV, and the _tableau_ in its final form was written between that
date and March, 1746. The whole work, which ends with the death of the
Regent, was completed in 1751.
[2] XVII. 142. The account of Dangeau and his memoirs which
Saint-Simon here gives on the occasion of his death (pp. 134-144)
is fuller than the earlier portrait in vol. I. 343-346. La
Bruyère’s Pamphile (_Des Grands_) is evidently meant for Dangeau,
and Saint-Simon so accepts it.
On Saint-Simon’s death his _Memoirs_ with his other papers were claimed
by his creditors, but the Government took possession of them, and they
were read in manuscript by various persons, including Mme du Deffand,
who recognised their remarkable merit. Extracts were printed by the
Abbé de Voisnenon, and incomplete editions appeared in 1788, 1791,
and 1818. But it was not till 1829-1830 that the first authentic and
complete edition was published in 21 volumes by General de Saint-Simon.
It was, however, badly edited and in 1856-1858, the manuscript having
been sold by the General to MM. Hachette for 100,000 francs, Chéruel
published a new edition in 20 volumes. This was followed by another
edition under the same editorship, with the assistance of Ad. Régnier
_fils_ (23 vols. 1873-1886). Neither of these editions was furnished
with notes, and before the later one was completed M. de Boislisle had
begun to edit for the same firm a noble annotated edition, which is now
in progress. The first volume appeared in 1879 and it has now reached
the thirtieth. The twenty-eighth contains the famous _tableau_ of the
reign of Louis XIV, and the twenty-ninth (1918) consists of an index to
all the previous volumes.
The materials which Saint-Simon had accumulated for his great design
were derived from many sources, written and oral. His written sources
included, besides the Journal of Dangeau, numerous memoirs and
histories which were his favourite reading, the great genealogical work
of Père Anselme, published in 1674, the _Grand Dictionnaire Historique_
of Moreri, which appeared in the same year, and the work of the German
genealogist Imhof, _Excellentium in Gallia Familiarum Genealogiae_
(1687), all of which no doubt had a place in his own library of 6000
volumes.
His oral sources are fairly well known to us, for he generally
indicates the quarter from which he derives his information. First
in importance were the three ministers, Pontchartrain, Chamillart,
and Beauvillier, with all of whom he was very intimate. But both
Beauvillier and Chevreuse knew how to be reticent with their young
friend when occasion required, and he says that they gave him much less
information than either Pontchartrain or the Maréchal de Boufflers.
Another useful _liaison_--to use his favourite term--was that with the
Duc and Duchesse de Villeroy, both of whom were great friends of Mme de
Caylus, Mme de Maintenon’s cousin. The Duc was a son of the Maréchal
de Villeroy and the Duchesse was a daughter of Louvois. Mme de Levis,
a daughter of the Duc de Chevreuse, was also of some service, for
she was intimate with Mme de Maintenon. The young Duchesse de Lorges,
Mme de Saint-Simon’s sister-in-law, was a daughter of Chamillart,
and her sister was married to that ardent courtier, the Duc de La
Feuillade. Saint-Simon tells us that he generally ended his day with
a visit to these ladies, from whom he often learnt something. More
suspicious sources of information were the Maréchale de Rochefort,
bedchamber-woman to the Dauphine, and friend in succession to all
the royal favourites-in-chief; her daughter, Mme de Blansac; and the
celebrated Lauzun who married another sister-in-law of Saint-Simon.
A Gascon by birth and a _farceur_ by temperament, he evidently
enjoyed pulling his brother-in-law’s leg, and the long chapter which
Saint-Simon devotes to him just before the close of the _Memoirs_,
though full of amusing and interesting matter, must not be accepted as
gospel truth.
One of the most curious figures at the Court was Mme de La Chausseraye,
at one time lady-in-waiting to Madame. Thanks to her _esprit_
and her talent for intrigue, she acquired great influence with
various ministers and became very rich, losing large sums at cards,
but recouping herself by the good things which the King and the
Controller-General put in her way. The King was much diverted by her
amusing conversation, and she declared that she had won and kept his
favour by the sole method of hiding her intelligence and leaving him
with a sense of his intellectual superiority. When it is added that
she had also great credit with the royal valets, it may be imagined
how useful she was to Saint-Simon, and how eagerly he cultivated her
society. “J’étois sur elle sur un pied d’amitié et de recherche[3].”
One can also imagine his feelings when many years after her death he
learnt from her confessor that she had written “very curious” memoirs,
but that by his advice she had committed them to the flames.
[3] See _Mémoires_, IV. 222-224; XIII. 90-97.
Saint-Simon’s curiosity was unbounded and he left no channel of
information untapped. “Je me suis toujours instruit journellement de
toutes choses par des canaux purs, directs et certains, et de toutes
choses grandes et petites[4].” And among his more lowly channels were
the royal valets. For, as he says, “le hasard apprend souvent par les
valets les choses qu’on croit bien cachées.” He was on excellent terms
with Bontemps, the King’s chief valet, who died in 1701 at the age of
eighty, a man of high character, thoroughly honest and disinterested,
and with Bloin, who was in the King’s service at the time of his
death. Another serviceable informant, in a somewhat higher position,
was Georges Maréchal, who was appointed first royal surgeon in 1703,
“l’honneur et la probité même.”
[4] _Mémoires_, VII. 19. The page and a half which precedes this
throws considerable light on Saint-Simon’s sources of information.
Whenever any chance occasion offered of obtaining special information
Saint-Simon pounced upon it with eager avidity. He describes, for
instance, how he travelled from Fontainebleau to Paris with the Marquis
de Louville, head of the French household of the King of Spain, and how
he put so many questions to him that the poor man arrived _sans voix
et ne pouvant plus parler_. Later he records a conversation with the
Princesse des Ursins, who had also just returned from Spain. It lasted
eight hours, “which seemed to him eight minutes.”
In the concluding chapter of his _Memoirs_ he claims for them accuracy
and veracity. He says that the greater part is based on his own
personal experience, and that the rest comes to him at first hand from
the actors in the events that he narrates. “I give their names, which,
as well as my intimacy with them, are beyond all suspicion. When my
information comes from a less sure source I call attention to it, and
when I am ignorant, I am not ashamed to avow it.”
This claim is made in all good faith, and as far as the sources of
information go it is not far from the truth. But when one goes on
to inquire how Saint-Simon has dealt with his sources, the result is
not quite so satisfactory. For he suffers from the three failings
which are the chief sources of error in a historian. Firstly, he is
careless--chiefly, indeed, about figures and dates, but he sometimes
copies Dangeau incorrectly. Secondly, he is uncritical. Though he
does not retail mere gossip, he readily believes current stories. The
ministers, the court-ladies, the valets from whom he obtained his
information may have told him what they believed to be the truth,
but Saint-Simon did not cross-examine them or otherwise control
their statements. Moreover, some of his witnesses are evidently
untrustworthy, whether from self-interest, or whether, like Lauzun,
they were given to drawing upon their own invention. Thus Saint-Simon’s
account of some of the events narrated in his _Memoirs_ has been
disproved by modern criticism. The death, for instance, of Monsieur’s
first wife, Henrietta of England, was certainly due to natural causes,
and not, as Saint-Simon says, to poison.
The third and chief disturbing element which must be taken into
account in judging of Saint-Simon’s veracity is prejudice--and that
no mere ordinary prejudice, but rather a bundle of prejudices, all
intensified to the height of passion. As we have seen, his father
had instilled into him the dislike of certain families and of all
Secretaries of State. It was probably too his father who implanted
in him that excessive estimate of his importance as a _duc et pair_
from which sprang his contempt for the whole _bourgeoisie_, including
the _noblesse de robe_, and his prejudice against the monarch who
chose his ministers almost exclusively from that class. It was the
same aristocratic prejudice which inspired his hatred of “the widow
Scarron,” and his dislike of Villars, whom as the great-grandson of a
_greffier_ he could not forgive for being made a Duke. Some, however,
of his prejudices were due to nobler motives. It was Vendôme’s sloth
and debauchery that blinded him to that commander’s high qualities in
the field. It was his righteous indignation at the “double adultery”
of Louis XIV and Mme de Montespan that filled him with hatred against
their bastards. It was the scandal of the official recognition of the
royal harem that still further prejudiced him against the King.
But there were also less worthy prejudices, inspired by more personal
feelings. The malignant portrait of Achille de Harlay is partly a
reprisal for that magistrate’s supposed partiality in the matter of
Luxembourg’s dispute with his fellow dukes and peers. The estimate
of the _grand_ Dauphin might have been less contemptuous but for
Saint-Simon’s enmity with that _cabale de Meudon_ of which the Dauphin
was the centre. Other portraits coloured by the passion of a strong
antipathy are those of Père Tellier, the Cardinal de Bouillon, the
Duc de Noailles, and the Maréchal de Villars. Blackest of all is the
famous portrait of Cardinal Dubois. But though it shews evident signs
of personal resentment and class prejudice, and though it has been
alleged on the Cardinal’s behalf that an honest woman like Madame and
a saint like Fénelon gave him their friendly esteem[5], Saint-Simon’s
reading of his character may be mainly due to a deeper insight and a
more searching analysis.
[5] Madame changed her opinion later. See below, p. 198, n. 253.
But Saint-Simon was a good lover as well as a good hater, and many
of his portraits are coloured by the promptings of warm affection.
His estimate of the Duc de Bourgogne is, as Sainte-Beuve has pointed
out, more favourable than Fénelon’s. His finished picture of Cardinal
d’Estrées and his slighter sketch of Cardinal Janson are admirable
examples of kindly portraiture. To the Maréchal de Boufflers and to
the Chancellor Pontchartrain and his wife he pays noble tributes of
admiring friendship. His praise of Catinat, that able commander and
disinterested patriot, reads like a page of Plutarch. Memorable too are
the portraits of the two Dukes, Beauvillier and Chevreuse, for whom he
reserved his deepest affection. He is not blind to their limitations or
their failings, but he praises them with the sympathetic comprehension
of one who, honest and high-minded himself, can appreciate these
qualities to the full when they are displayed in the persons of his
friends. The portrait of the Duc de Montfort, the son of his friend the
Duc de Chevreuse, is a masterpiece of admiring sympathy[6].
[6] IV. 143.
To these two classes of favourable and unfavourable portraits, the
former softened by affection, the latter exaggerated by hate, must
be added a large number of portraits in which good and bad are
intermingled, and which bear throughout the stamp of an impartial
estimate. One of the finest of these is the Prince de Conti; less
elaborate but hardly less skilful is the Cardinal de Rohan. But the
palm for this class of portrait must be awarded to that of the Duke
of Orleans. As one of the protagonists in Saint-Simon’s drama he is
naturally a prominent figure and the general impression that we get
of his character is deepened by numerous touches. But just before the
close of Louis XIV’s reign he is presented in a long and leisurely
digression, which forms one of the great chapters in Saint-Simon’s
narrative. At the other end of the scale to this full-length and
elaborately drawn portrait are the little miniatures of minor
personages with which the work is interspersed. Among the most notable
are Mme de Castries, the Duchesse de Gesvres, M. du Guet, Le Haquais,
Toussaint Rose, one of the King’s secretaries, and Bontemps, his chief
valet.
But whether the portraits are finished works of art or mere sketches,
whether they are inspired by hatred or by admiration, whether they are
partial or impartial, they all alike have this virtue that they are
intensely alive. We know the originals both in their outward semblance
and in their inmost being. While Racine is concerned only with souls,
while La Bruyère’s main interest is in habits and manners as an index
to character, Saint-Simon, who began his survey of humanity just before
his two older contemporaries finished theirs, gives us body and soul
alike. In this he resembles Balzac, but he has this advantage over the
great novelist that dealing with real men and women, and not with the
creatures of his imagination, he is never tempted to make the outward
appearance match the inner character. Nor, as superficial judges are
apt to do in real life, does he hastily infer the character from the
outward appearance. He deals with both on their merits; he first calls
up before us the outward man, and then he gives us his character from
an independent study of his idiosyncrasies and actions. “The features
of the portrait,” to borrow Montaigne’s phrase, “may go astray,” but we
have before us a living man, drawn by a supreme artist. Thus the whole
work, if not like Balzac’s, a complete _comédie humaine_, may be fitly
called the _Comédie de Versailles_.
For Saint-Simon does not merely give us living men and women, he shews
them to us in action, he reproduces their movements, their gestures,
their tricks of speech. There is nothing more wonderful in the whole
of French literature than his account of the _spectacle de Versailles_
after the death of Monseigneur. It is not in the literal sense a drama,
for it lacks a plot to give it unity, but it is a superb dramatic
_tableau_, glowing with life and throbbing with a passionate intensity.
The best commentary on this comedy is La Bruyère’s chapter _On the
Court_, the essence of which is distilled in the following passage:
Il y a un pays où les joies sont visibles, mais fausses; et les
chagrins cachés, mais réels. Qui croirait que l’empressement
pour les spectacles, que les éclats et les applaudissements aux
théâtres de _Molière_ et d’_Arlequin_, les repas, la chasse,
les ballets, les carrousels, couvrissent tant d’inquiétudes, de
soins et de divers intérêts, tant de craintes et d’espérances,
de passions si vives et des affaires si sérieuses?
When La Bruyère printed this _remarque_ in the first edition of _Les
Caractères_ (1688), the Court of Louis XIV, partly under the influence
of Mme de Maintenon and partly as the result of the King’s serious
illness in 1686, had begun to wear that aspect of seriousness and gloom
which overshadowed it during the remaining years of the reign. The
conversion of the King to the regular observance of Catholic practices,
and the general atmosphere of piety which this conversion diffused
shewed itself in various ways, and amongst others in the repression of
pleasures to which with advancing years he was becoming less inclined.
In the very year 1694 in which Saint-Simon began to make notes for his
_Memoirs_ Bossuet attacked the stage in his well-known _Maximes et
Réflexions sur la Comédie_. In 1696 the police made a sudden descent
on the Hôtel de Bourgogne and summarily suppressed the Italian actors.
From this time for many years the only theatre in Paris was the
_Comédie Française_.
Versailles became more and more serious and gloomy. “La vie de la cour
est un jeu sérieux, mélancolique,” says La Bruyère in the _remarque_
which follows that quoted above. A far worse feature was the inevitable
growth of hypocrisy. “Un (faux) dévot est celui qui, sous un roi athée,
serait athée.” A good story in illustration of this hypocrisy is told
by Saint-Simon. On Thursday and Sunday evenings during the winter it
was the King’s habit to attend the service of benediction in the chapel
at Versailles, which in consequence was always filled with the ladies
of the Court. But, if it became known that the King was not going to
attend, the chapel was nearly empty. One evening M. de Brissac, major
of the body-guard, an honest man who hated shams, came into the chapel
just before the service and announced that His Majesty was not coming,
whereupon all the ladies except three or four quietly withdrew, and
when the King arrived he was much surprised to find the chapel empty.
On Brissac’s telling him after the service what had happened, he
laughed heartily, but the ladies, says Saint-Simon, would gladly have
strangled Brissac. This anecdote well illustrates the hypocrisy of the
age. Beneath the outward veneer of piety free thought and immorality
reigned unchecked. Memoirs, letters, and sermons all confirm the truth
of Saint-Simon’s picture. In his funeral oration on the Prince de
Conti, who died in 1707, Massillon speaks of “un siècle, où la religion
est devenue le jouet, ou de la débauche, ou d’une fausse science.”
In a well-known letter written by Mme de Maintenon to the Princesse
des Ursins in the same year she says, “Je vous avoue, Madame, que les
femmes de ce temps-ci me sont insupportables: leur habillement insensé
et immodeste, leur tabac, leur vin, leur gourmandise, leur grossièreté,
leur paresse, tout cela est si opposé à mon goût, et, ce me semble, à
la raison, que je ne puis le souffrir.” There was no worse specimen of
her sex than the Duchesse de Berry, whose marriage Saint-Simon had done
so much to promote, and of whom he says in his portrait of her, drawn
at the close of Louis XIV’s reign, that “except for avarice, she was a
model of all the vices[7].”
[7] _Mémoires_, ed. Chéruel, XI. 198-204.
The men were naturally no better than the women, and at the _hôtel_ in
the Temple of the Grand Prior of Vendôme he and his brother, the Duc
de Vendôme, especially during the years between the Peace of Ryswick
(1697) and the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701),
gave cynical displays of drunkenness and debauchery.
A less vicious characteristic of the society of Versailles, but one
greatly at variance with the refinement which we associate with the
age of Louis XIV, was the love of brutal and even cruel horse-play.
We read in Saint-Simon of a poor old woman named Mme Panache, whose
pockets the princes and princesses used to fill with roast and stewed
meat, till the sauce ran down her petticoats. Or they would fillip her
face and laugh at her fury, at not being able to tell who had struck
her--for she could not see beyond the end of her nose. Another butt was
the Princesse d’Harcourt, ugly, dirty, greedy, malicious, dishonest.
She never missed a religious service, and was a constant communicant,
generally after having played at cards--and openly cheated--till four
in the morning. She certainly did not deserve much consideration, but
her character hardly justified the Duchess of Burgundy and her ladies
in making their way into her bedroom and pelting her with snowballs for
half-an-hour[8].
[8] _Mémoires_, III, 346-351.
Practical joking, even when it was more or less friendly, often took
a brutal or disgusting form. Louis XIV himself, that model of dignity
and high-breeding, used to amuse himself with putting hair into the
butter and tarts destined for Mlle de Montpensier and Mme de Thianges
(the sister of Mme de Montespan), both of whom were very particular
about their food. The Duc de Bourbon, La Bruyère’s pupil, and his
Duchess especially distinguished themselves in this unpleasant fashion.
The Duchess once flung a glass of water in the face of Santeul, the
distinguished Latin poet, who was their habitual guest at Chantilly,
and the Duke nearly killed him by emptying his snuff-box into his
glass of champagne. On a par with these elementary notions of social
merriment was the complete want of privacy and the lack of even
ordinary decency. It is not too much to say that the standard of
comfort at the Court of Versailles in the days of the _grand monarque_
was lower than that of an English labourer at the present day.
The lack of privacy which strikes the modern reader of Saint-Simon
presumably did not trouble his contemporaries, to whom it would have
seemed only natural. Certainly it did not trouble Louis XIV, who
suffered from it more than anybody, but who seems to have delighted
in the perpetual presence of his courtiers, as giving him ample
opportunity of observing their goings in and goings out. It was part
of the _espionnage_ which was one of the worst features of the _ancien
régime_, and which shewed itself in more unpleasant forms, such as the
strict police supervision exercised by that most capable of chiefs,
Marc-René d’Argenson, and the habitual opening of letters, whatever
the rank of the writers. An even more unpleasant sign of despotic
government was the practice of granting _lettres de cachet_ on the
unsupported statement of the applicant.
Another feature of the reign which marks the semi-oriental character
of the rule of Louis XIV was the cult--for it cannot be called less--of
the monarch. “Qui considérera que le visage du prince fait toute la
félicité du courtisan, qu’il s’occupe et se remplit pendant toute sa
vie de le voir et d’en être vu, comprendra un peu comment voir Dieu
peut faire toute la gloire et tout le bonheur des Saints.” So writes La
Bruyère, and his commentator cites apt passages from the letters of Mme
de Sévigné and her cousin Bussy-Rabutin, of the Maréchal de Villeroy
and the Duc de Richelieu, to illustrate his remark. It was, indeed,
literally true of such typical courtiers as Dangeau and D’Antin and La
Rochefoucauld, the son of the author of the _Maxims_, who sometimes,
says Saint-Simon, went for ten years without spending a night away
from the Court, and in over forty years did not sleep twenty times at
Paris. “Jamais valet ne le fut de personne avec tant d’assiduité et de
bassesse, il faut lâcher le mot, avec tant d’esclavage.” As La Bruyère
says without any hesitation, “Qui est plus esclave qu’un courtisan
assidu, si ce n’est un courtisan plus assidu?” Nor must we forget that
prince of flatterers, the Cardinal de Polignac, of whom Saint-Simon
tells us that once, when it was beginning to rain at Marly and the
King made a civil remark about his fine coat, he replied, “It is
nothing, Sire; the rain at Marly does not wet one.” There were plenty
of courtiers at Versailles who were ready to say with the fox in La
Fontaine’s fable,
Eh bien! manger moutons, canaille, sotte espèce,
Est-ce un péché? non, non; vous leur fîtes, Seigneur,
En les croquant, beaucoup d’honneur.
What wonder if the Roi-Soleil, surrounded by so many adoring
satellites, came almost to believe in his own divinity?
In this worship of the King Saint-Simon was very far from taking part,
but on the other hand he entered with zest into all the futilities of
precedence and etiquette which formed the most serious business of
the Court. The right to wear one’s hat, or, in the case of a woman,
to be seated in the royal presence (called _le droit du tabouret_),
the right to be kissed by royalty, the right to a chair with arms, or
merely to a folding-chair--all these were privileges which were claimed
and contested with the utmost keenness, and which figure largely in
the pages of our chronicler. It is with the utmost gravity that he
relates the visit of the Elector of Cologne, Prince Clement of Bavaria,
brother-in-law of Monseigneur, to Versailles in 1706; how the King,
“standing and uncovered, received him with all the grace imaginable”;
how he was presented to the Duchess of Burgundy, who received him
standing, but did not kiss him, “because in the King’s presence she
kisses nobody”; how he was next conducted to the bedroom of Madame,
who kissed him and had a long conversation with him in German; and how
finally he visited in her bed the Duchess of Orleans, who also kissed
him. “Il ne s’assit nulle part.”
A good instance of the passionate tenacity with which Saint-Simon took
part in controversies on the most trivial questions of etiquette is
what he calls _l’affaire de la quête_, to which he devotes no less
than ten pages. On certain great festivals of the Church, when the
King attended mass or vespers, it was the practice for the Queen, or,
after her death, the Dauphine, to appoint one of the court-ladies to
take round the bag. But the Lorraine princesses, who, according to
Saint-Simon, the life-long enemy of their house, were always trying
to usurp the privileges of princesses of the blood, quietly avoided
this duty. Hence a long and bitter altercation, largely fomented by
Saint-Simon, which resulted in the little Duke, on the advice of his
friend Chamillart, obtaining an audience with the King, at which,
according to his own account, he put the matter before him with great
boldness and complete success. Saint-Simon apologises for the length
of his narrative, but says with perfect truth that it is from the
circumstantial account of such affairs that we get a knowledge of
the Court and especially of the King, “so difficult to reach, so
formidable to his intimates, so full of his despotism,... and yet
capable of understanding reason when it was put forcibly before him,
provided only the speaker flattered his love of despotism and seasoned
his remarks with the most profound respect[9].”
[9] _Mémoires_, IV. 42-52.
Other questions of privilege loom even larger in Saint-Simon’s
narrative. The “_monstrueuse usurpation du bonnet_ or the claim of
_Messieurs du Parlement_” to address the _ducs et pairs_ without
uncovering fills two whole chapters[10], while the famous account of
the _lit de justice_ of August 26, 1718, which records the triumph of
the dukes and peers over two of the chief objects of Saint-Simon’s
detestation, the _Parlement_ and the Duc du Maine, occupies from
first to last more than half a volume[11]. The narrative has not the
same interest as that of the death of Monseigneur, but the passage in
which Saint-Simon literally gloats over his triumph is one of the most
remarkable in his whole memoirs.
[10] _Mémoires_, XI. 1-54.
[11] XV. 336-473; XVI. 1-96.
Ce fut là où je savourai avec tous les délices qu’on ne peut
exprimer le spectacle de ces fiers légistes, qui osent nous
refuser le salut, prosternés à genoux, et rendre à nos pieds un
hommage au trône, tandis qu’assis et couverts, sur les hauts
sièges du côté du même trône, ces situations et ces postures,
si grandement disproportionnées, plaident seules avec tout le
perçant de l’évidence la cause de ceux qui, véritablement et
d’effet, sont _laterales Regis_ contre ce _vas electum_ du
tiers état. Mes yeux fichés, collés sur ces bourgeois superbes,
parcouroient tout ce grand banc à genoux ou debout, et les
amples replis de ces fourrures ondoyantes à chaque génuflexion
longue et redoublée, qui ne finissoit que par le commandement
du Roi par la bouche du garde des sceaux, vil petit gris qui
voudroit contrefaire l’hermine en peinture, et ces têtes
découvertes et humiliés à la hauteur de nos pieds....
Moi cependant je me mourois de joie. J’en étois à craindre
la défaillance; mon cœur dilaté à l’excès, ne trouvoit plus
d’espace à s’étendre. La violence que je me faisois pour ne
rien laisser échapper étoit infinie, et néanmoins ce tourment
étoit délicieux.
At the point of laying down his pen Saint-Simon asks indulgence for
his style in favour of the truth and exactitude which are “the law
and the soul” of his memoirs. We have seen that in the matter of
truth and exactitude the _Memoirs_ leave something to be desired, but
the style needs no apology. The negligences, the repetitions, the
occasional obscurity arising from the length of the sentences, to
which Saint-Simon pleads guilty, are nothing compared with the general
impression of individuality and life. _Je ne fus jamais un sujet
académique._ There is certainly nothing academic about Saint-Simon’s
style. It is the style of a man who does not stop to consult a
dictionary as to the propriety of his words or the correctness of his
constructions, but who is content to use the current language of his
day. It is the style of a man who writes under the stress of strong
emotion and vivid imagination. We seem to see the pen quivering in the
writer’s fingers as he urges it across the paper in a vain endeavour
to keep pace with the rapidity of his thought. There are passages,
as for instance, the one just cited, which literally vibrate with
passion, and the wonder is that while the passion of the orator or
the pamphleteer or the satirist is but a transient outburst, that
of Saint-Simon, writing, as he often does, years after the event,
still glows at a white heat. Moreover, the more violent his passion
the better he writes. Nowhere is his style more vivid than when he
is recounting the _affaire du bonnet_. He is equally vigorous and
impressive in his attack on Villars at the time of his appointment
to the command in Flanders in 1710[12], and in that on Père Tellier
in connexion with the bull _Unigenitus_[13]. His favourite words to
express eagerness--_pétiller_, _sécher_, _griller_--are all suggestive
of the extreme nervous tension under which he habitually wrote.
[12] VIII. 32-34.
[13] _ib._ 214-217.
Further, it is the style of one who observes closely, and visualises
clearly. Some of his portraits stand out as if bitten into metal by
the burin of an engraver. A good example of the lively force of his
writing is the account of his conversation with the Duc de Beauvillier
about the Duc de Bourgogne and Vendôme. Though the sentence in which
he contrasts the characters of the two commanders runs to nearly
five hundred and fifty words, it is not in the least involved. It
reads like the outpouring of a brilliant talker to whom intense hate
has given a lucidity and a power of just expression which is little
short of miraculous. The vividness and the colour which help to make
Saint-Simon’s style so arresting are greatly helped by his use of
homely but pregnant similes, as when he speaks of Mme de Maintenon as
seeing the world _par le trou d’une bouteille_, or describes Mme de
Castries as _une espèce de biscuit manqué_. Nor does he shrink from
coining a word, if necessary, though doubtless some of his words, which
appear unusual to the modern reader, were current in the conversation
of his day.
It must not be imagined that the interest of the _Memoirs_ is always
sustained at the same high level. The minor squabbles about etiquette
and precedence, the whisperings of contemporary gossip have not
the same relish for the modern reader as they had for Saint-Simon.
There are certain genealogical chapters, notably the long one on the
Rohan family, which will deter all but the stoutest genealogist. But
when these deductions have been made the residue is of unsurpassing
interest. “With Shakespeare and Saint-Simon,” says Taine, “Balzac is
the greatest storehouse of human documents that we possess,” and the
claim which he makes on behalf of Saint-Simon is not exaggerated.