The Duc de Saint-Simon was at the very center of Louis XIV's court at Versailles, a hotbed of intrigue, passion, jealousy, and political skullduggery. He was a genuinely pious and honest man whose unblinking record of the court -- his eye-witness testimony of wars, intrigues, and royal visits -- make this a supreme work of art. These memoirs were the literary inspiration for Marcel Proust's own masterpiece, Remembrance of Things Past.
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This volume of memoirs (the first of three translated and abridged by Lucy Norton) penned by the Duc de Saint-Simon (16751755), an influential courtier during the time of Louis XIV, covers the period of France's intense military campaigns and endless court intrigues between 1691 and 1709. A born aristocrat educated by Jesuits, Saint-Simon began his memoirs in 1694 to record the important events that shaped European history at the turn of the 18th century. His brilliant army career was interrupted in 1702 after he failed to obtain a promotion and subsequently resigned from the King's service. Although he found himself out of favor with Louis XIV, Saint-Simon remained a powerful player on the political scene, surrounded by influential patrons and enemies. The most enticing pages in these memoirs deal with the mores of the French court and the personal foibles of the Sun King. We learn how, aggravated by a footmans behavior, the king once rushed at him with a cane. Constantly involved in expensive military campaigns, Louis devised inventive ways to replenish his treasury, from cutting down on annual allowances to his favorites to instituting a preposterous baptism and marriage tax. Saint-Simon's own search for a suitable bride, which started with identifying his prospective father-in-law's social status, reflects the insignificant role the heart played in marriage among the aristocrats of the period. His portraits of well-known contemporaries, like Racinewhose careless derogatory remark about Scarron's plays in front of his widow (and in the King's presence) almost cost him his well-beingare among the most amusing passages here. Once the combination of intrigue and chance made him a witness to sophisticated policy-making, Saint-Simon dwelled primarily on affairs of state in his memoirs. But his detailed recollections and sharp character sketches, if they do not present a well-rounded picture of the time, will be welcomed by students of French history. -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mesmerizing,
By Paolo Kosmido (Hungary) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Memoirs: Duc de Saint-Simon Volume One: 1691-1709 (Paperback)
Written some 20 years after he stopped playing any role in the political affairs of his time, that is after the death of the Regent, the duke of Orleans, Saint-Simon's Memoirs are of interest to 21st century readers not only because of what we learn about life in Versailles, at the court of Louis the fourteenth (countless memoirs from the time have long been rightly forgotten) but because of what they reveal about human nature. Obsessed by his rank and deeply hurt by what he perceives to be the debasement of French high nobility by the king, Saint-Simon is first and foremost a very keen observer of the brutal struggle for power that goes on day in day out at the court. His title of duke and peer of the realm meant that he could move in all the spheres of power and knew not only the Sun king but all the planets and satellites that orbited around him. He breathes life into all of the courtiers and makes them unforgettable. Known best for the unflinching hatred he bore some of them, in particular the king's bastards, he can also bring the reader close to tears when he tells about the ones he loved. The duke of Burgundy's (Louis' grandson and heir to the throne) last days make for some of the most impressive pages I have ever read. Saint-Simon, though not an easy read at first, will give you intense pleasure and there's 9000 thousand pages to enjoy. This edition is an abridged edition of the complete memoirs. It's a good start but I highly recommend learning French just to read all of it. This is a diamond of a book, so join the club of those who can claim to have read Saint-Simon like among many others Stendhal, Proust, on whom he exerted a profound influence, or Julien Green, you won't regret it.
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