of the Regent.—Insinuations against Him.

CHAPTER CVI

Projected Marriages of the King and of the Daughter of the Duc d'Orleans_
—How It Was Communicated to Me.—I Ask for the Embassy to Spain.—It Is
Granted to Me.—Jealousy of Dubois.—His Petty Interference.—
Announcement of the Marriages.

CHAPTER CVII

Interview with Dubois.—His Singular Instructions to Ale.—His Insidious Object.—Various Tricks and Manoeuvres.—My Departure for Spain.—Journey by Way of Bordeaux and Bayonne.—Reception in Spain.—Arrival at Madrid.

CHAPTER CVIII

Interview in the Hall of Mirrors.—Preliminaries of the Marriages.—
Grimaldo.—How the Question of Precedence Was Settled.—I Ask for an
Audience.—Splendid Illuminations.—A Ball.—I Am Forced to Dance.

CHAPTER CIX

Mademoiselle de Montpensier Sets out for Spain.—I Carry the News to the
King.—Set out for Lerma.—Stay at the Escurial.—Take the Small—pox.—
Convalescence.

CHAPTER CX

Mode of Life of Their Catholic Majesties.—Their Night.—Morning.—
Toilette.—Character of Philippe V.—And of His Queen.—How She Governed
Him.

CHAPTER CXI

The King's Taste for Hunting.—Preparations for a Battue.—Dull Work.—
My Plans to Obtain the Grandesse.—Treachery of Dubois.—Friendship of
Grimaldo.—My Success.

CHAPTER CXII

Marriage of the Prince of the Asturias.—An Ignorant Cardinal.—I Am Made
Grandee of Spain.—The Vidame de Chartres Named Chevalier of the Golden
Fleece.—His Reception—My Adieux.—A Belching Princess.—
Return to France.

VOLUME 15.

CHAPTER CXIII

Attempted Reconciliation between Dubois and Villeroy.—Violent Scene.—
Trap Laid for the Marechal.—Its Success.—His Arrest.

CHAPTER CXIV

I Am Sent for by Cardinal Dubois.—Flight of Frejus.—He Is Sought and
Found.—Behaviour of Villeroy in His Exile at Lyons.—His Rage and
Reproaches against Frejus.—Rise of the Latter in the King's Confidence.

CHAPTER CXV

I Retire from Public Life.—Illness and Death of Dubois. —Account of His
Riches.—His Wife.—His Character.—Anecdotes.—Madame de Conflans.—
Relief of the Regent and the King.

CHAPTER CXVI

Death of Lauzun.—His Extraordinary Adventures.—His Success at Court.—
Appointment to the Artillery.—Counter—worked by Louvois.—Lauzun and
Madame de Montespan.—Scene with the King.—Mademoiselle and Madame de
Monaco.

CHAPTER CXVII

Lauzun's Magnificence.—Louvois Conspires against Him.—He Is
Imprisoned.—His Adventures at Pignerol.—On What Terms He Is Released.—
His Life Afterwards.—Return to Court.

CHAPTER CXVIII

Lauzun Regrets His Former Favour.—Means Taken to Recover It.—Failure.—
Anecdotes.—Biting Sayings.—My Intimacy with Lauzun.—His Illness,
Death, and Character.

CHAPTER CXIX

Ill-Health of the Regent.—My Fears.—He Desires a Sudden Death.—
Apoplectic Fit.—Death.—His Successor as Prime Minister.—The Duc de
Chartres.—End of the Memoirs.

INTRODUCTION

No library of Court documents could pretend to be representative which ignored the famous "Memoirs" of the Duc de Saint-Simon. They stand, by universal consent, at the head of French historical papers, and are the one great source from which all historians derive their insight into the closing years of the reign of the "Grand Monarch," Louis XIV: whom the author shows to be anything but grand—and of the Regency. The opinion of the French critic, Sainte-Beuve, is fairly typical. "With the Memoirs of De Retz, it seemed that perfection had been attained, in interest, in movement, in moral analysis, in pictorial vivacity, and that there was no reason for expecting they could be surpassed. But the 'Memoirs' of Saint-Simon came; and they offer merits . . . which make them the most precious body of Memoirs that as yet exist."

Villemain declared their author to be "the most original of geniuses in French literature, the foremost of prose satirists; inexhaustible in details of manners and customs, a word-painter like Tacitus; the author of a language of his own, lacking in accuracy, system, and art, yet an admirable writer." Leon Vallee reinforces this by saying: "Saint-Simon can not be compared to any of his contemporaries. He has an individuality, a style, and a language solely his own…. Language he treated like an abject slave. When he had gone to its farthest limit, when it failed to express his ideas or feelings, he forced it—the result was a new term, or a change in the ordinary meaning of words sprang forth from has pen. With this was joined a vigour and breadth of style, very pronounced, which makes up the originality of the works of Saint-Simon and contributes toward placing their author in the foremost rank of French writers."

Louis de Rouvroy, who later became the Duc de Saint-Simon, was born in Paris, January 16, 1675. He claimed descent from Charlemagne, but the story goes that his father, as a young page of Louis XIII., gained favour with his royal master by his skill in holding the stirrup, and was finally made a duke and peer of France. The boy Louis had no lesser persons than the King and Queen Marie Therese as godparents, and made his first formal appearance at Court when seventeen. He tells us that he was not a studious boy, but was fond of reading history; and that if he had been given rein to read all he desired of it, he might have made "some figure in the world." At nineteen, like D'Artagnan, he entered the King's Musketeers. At twenty he was made a captain in the cavalry; and the same year he married the beautiful daughter of the Marechal de Larges. This marriage, which was purely political in its inception, finally turned into a genuine love match—a pleasant exception to the majority of such affairs. He became devoted to his wife, saying: "she exceeded all that was promised of her, and all that I myself had hoped." Partly because of this marriage, and also because he felt himself slighted in certain army appointments, he resigned his commissim after five years' service, and retired for a time to private life.

Upon his return to Court, taking up apartments which the royal favour had reserved for him at Versailles, Saint-Simon secretly entered upon the self-appointed task for which he is now known to fame—a task which the proud King of a vainglorious Court would have lost no time in terminating had it been discovered—the task of judge, spy, critic, portraitist, and historian, rolled into one. Day by day, henceforth for many years, he was to set down upon his private "Memoirs" the results of his personal observations, supplemented by the gossip brought to him by his unsuspecting friends; for neither courtier, statesman, minister, nor friend ever looked upon those notes which this "little Duke with his cruel, piercing, unsatisfied eyes" was so