Selections from Saint-Simon

Оглавление

Saint-Simon. Selections from Saint-Simon

Selections from Saint-Simon

Table des matières

INTRODUCTION

WORKS OF SAINT-SIMON

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL STUDIES

I. LOUIS XIV[14]

II. MADAME DE MAINTENON[73]

III. THE DAILY LIFE OF LOUISXIV[106]

IV. MADAME AND MME DE MAINTENON[128]

V. THE REVIEW AT COMPIÈGNE[133]

VI. THE DEATH OF MONSEIGNEUR[153]

VII. PORTRAITS

1. ACHILLE DE HARLAY

2. MME DE CASTRIES

3. LE NOSTRE

4. VENDÔME

5. VAUBAN

6. D’ANTIN

7. LE PRINCE DE CONTI

8. LE DUC ET LA DUCHESSE DE BOURGOGNE

9. CARDINAL D’ESTRÉES

10. BEAUVILLIER

11. FÉNELON

12. VILLEROY

13. LE DUC D’ORLÉANS

VIII. THE ABBÉ DUBOIS AND THE SEEOFCAMBRAI[260]

APPENDIX A

1. The Councils

2. The Secretaries of State

APPENDIX B. From Vauban’s Projet d’une dîme royale

Отрывок из книги

Saint-Simon

Publié par Good Press, 2021

.....

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].

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 LouisXIV’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.

.....