vices of his temper and character. None ever brought out in more appalling or more ludicrous colors the vices and dangers of the bigoted and idiot piety which could repeal the edict of Nantes, and erect hypocrisy into a standing law of French society. It is he who tells us, that the king's education had been so neglected as to leave him in ignorance of the most vulgar facts connected with law or history, exposing him even in public to the grossest and most palpable absurdities. It is he who informs us that flexibility, meanness, a cringing, slavish air of admiration, or rather of helpless imbecility, seen save by and through the king himself, was the only means of winning his favor; and that this spirit of self-adulation and complacency was carried such lengths by a prince neither deficient in sense nor experience, that, though without either voice or ear for music, he would, in private, keep incessantly humming such opera prologue passages as were most outrageous in his praise. He admits, too, with a candor which communicates a deeper tinge to the darker parts of the portrait, that Louis XIV., though his intellect was below par, was possessed of many good qualities: had a remarkable power of appropriation, an air of natural grandeur; talked well, easily, and in good terms; and that even his ordinary conversation was not devoid of a certain stamp of majesty: adding, however, that his ears were poisoned by the most crying and hideous flattery; that he was deified within the very pale of Christianity, made drunk with his authority, his grandeur, and glory; and that, but for that fear of the devil which it pleased God to leave him a prey to as his greatest disorder, he would assuredly have had himself worshipped, and as certainly have met with adorers. On the score of the royal religion, we have one brief, pertinent, and conclusive anecdote. When the Duke of Orleans was about to leave for Spain, where, says Saint-Simon, he intended to join Berwick, (the bastard son of our James II.,) Louis asked him what persons he meant to take with him. The duke mentioned, among others, Fontpertuis. "What, nephew!" replied the king, with emotion, "the son of that madwoman who ran after the Jansenist Arnauld?" "Upon my faith, sire," rejoined D'Orleans, "I know not what the mother did, but the son I uphold to be no Jansenist; he doesn't even believe in God." "Is it possible?" "and are was the king's exclamation; you sure of it? Well, if that is the case, you may take him with you." "Saint-Simon," says Sainte-Beuve, in his introduction to the present edition of that nobleman's memoirs, "is the greatest painter of his age, the age of Louis XIV., in the full blaze of its development. Till the publication of his memoirs, there existed not even a suspicion of the life, interest, and ever-recurring dramatic movement supplied by the court, court scenes, marriages, deaths, and sudden changes, nay, even the ordinary tenor of daily life, with the reflex hues of its hopes and disappointments thrown over the features of countless faces, not one of which is alike, the ebb and flow of conflicting ambitions imparting more or less visible animation to all the characters and groups seen in the great gallery of Versailles, once a mighty maze, but not now without a plan, inasmuch as, thanks to his labors, they give up the secret of their combinations and contrasts. Till the publication of Saint-Simon, we had but snatches, mere sketches of all this: he was the first to give, with an infinity of detail, a vast impression of the varied whole. If ever man has rendered it possible to re-people Versailles in imagination, and re-people it without a feeling of weariness, he is the man. His page, as Buffon says of spring, is warm with life. But they produce, at the same time, a singular effect with regard to the times and reigns which they do not include. On leaving off the perusal of his pages, to open those of any other history, or even memoirs, you are apt to find everything flat, stale, and unprofitable. Every period which has not had its Saint-Simon, at once appears something uninhabited and forlorn, something voiceless and colorless. Very few periods of French history, were the trial made, would stand such a test, resist such a countershock; for painters of his description are rare; indeed, for animation and fullness, there has been, down to the present time, but one Saint-Simon. Not but there have been memoirs varied and beautiful in form before his time. He would have been the first to protest against an act of injustice calculated to lessen his predecessors, who were, he makes the declaration himself, his prompters and pattern, the sources from which he derived a taste for living and animated history. Painters, too, were the Villehardouins and Joinvilles, in the -qualities of authenticity which, had they been duly taken into account, ought to have challenged for his order and method, his style and phraseology, though certainly careless and redundant, the most religious respect." The introduction states as well as solves the question, why one so young should have evinced so early and decided an historical calling. It traces his instinctively historical qualities to his father, whose portrait, even after every allowance is made for its being drawn by the son, represents a man possessed of moral stamina rather uncommon at court. It discovers in the father a shortness of temper apt to degenerate into sournessprecisely one of the characteristics of the son, and which sufficiently accounts for the father's being laid on the shelf at the early age of thirty. He was a favorite with Louis XIII., but no courtier; and if he withdrew in partial disgrace to the government of Blaye, where he remained till the death of the Cardinal Richelieu, it was merely because he kept his honor, without being able to keep his tongue. midst of their somewhat cramped but de- | out in his own hand, with every the milightfully and artlessly awkward narra- nutest attention to clearness and accuracy tions. The Froissarts, the Commynses, also, had already attained to skill and art without forfeiting the graces of simplicity. Then what a galaxy, what a generation of writers, at once soldiers and civilians, was produced by the wars of the sixteenth century-a Montluc, a Javannes, a D'Aubigné, and a Brantöme. What originality of language, and all from the fountainhead, and what diversity in the accent and evidence! Sully, in the midst of his operoseness, evinces many really beautiful, solid, and attaching qualities, lit up by the smile of Henri IV. And the Fronde -what a crop of recitals of all sorts, what a sudden covey of unexpected historians hatched from among its own actors, at the head of which stands his eminently brilliant and conspicuous Retz, the greatest painter before the advent of Saint-Simon. But the generation of memoir writers, proceeding from the Fronde, pause, as it were, on the threshold of the real reign of Louis XIV. From that period we have nothing but rapid, unfinished sketches, traced by elegant, acute, but somewhat listless pens: Madame de La Fayette, La Fare, Madame de Caylus. They beget a relish, but do not satisfy it: they begin, but leave you half-way. Now, no pen is less liable to fail or leave you, less indolent, less apt to be dispirited, than that of SaintSimon. He addicts himself to history, from his youth up, as to a task and a mission. He does not allow his pen to run on in old age like Retz, calling up dim and distant recollections; a method always perilous, and unavoidably the source of confusion and error. He stores up facts day by day, and writes them down night after night. He begins at the early age of nineteen, in his military tent, and plies his task incessantly at Versailles, and everywhere else. He is, like Herodotus, ever and ever inquiring. On pedigree he is second to none: on the past he argues with the learning of an antiquary. To the present he is all eye and ear, scenting whatever is on foot, and setting it down incontinently. He turns every spare hour to account. In old age, and when living in retirement on his estate, he arranges the whole mass of materials in one unique and continuous stream of narrative, merely dividing it into distinct paragraphs, with marginal titles; and the whole of this immensely lengthy text he once more copies To his son, Saint-Simon, born in 1675, when the father was sixtyeight, some say seventy-two, the latter transmitted certain hereditary qualitiespride, honesty, a lofty spirit, and all the instincts of high descent, with a degree of inveteracy they had not perhaps attained in the original. He was bred at home, under the eye of his mother, a person of merit, and his father, who was fond of recalling the manners and relating the anecdotes of the olden court, thereby instilling into the mind of his son a reverence for the past, and an early bias in favor of the beautiful in reminiscence. In fact, the youth's dearest wish and ambition was to be a man of consequence in the world, the better to know and chronicle the affairs of his time. And yet his calling as a writer, which now appears so clearly blazoned, was originally kept secret, masked and muffled, as it were, by all sorts of grandee and courtier-like pretensions, as well as other accessory ambitions appertaining at that time to a personage of his rank. His first attempt was a bulletin of the hotly-contested field of Neerwinden, (1693,) won by Luxembourg over our English William-a bulletin for the use of his mother and friends. In 1694, in the leisure of a camp life in Germany, he decidedly began those memoirs, in the writing and finishing of which he was destined to employ sixty years of his life. And this he did in consequence of the pleasure he felt in the perusal of those of Marshal Bassompierre, which, though they spoke in disparaging terms of his father, he nevertheless declared to be extremely curious, albeit disgusting from their extreme personal vanity. Saint-Simon was a man of undoubted principle, with a strong and impulsive liking for people of honesty. Of this we have a whimsical illustration in the singular step he took in the direction of the Duke de Beauvillier, the most upright man of the court; one of whose daughters he was anxious to marry-the elder or the younger, no matter which, as he had personally seen neither. In fact, his real passion was for the duke and duchess; and if he failed in his immediate purpose, he succeeded at least in establishing an intimacy with the duke, and the virtuous as well as serious part of the court, thereby opening a vista into the future, connected with the early promise of excellence given by Fenelon's impetuous pupil, the enthusiastic and pious Duke de Bourgogne. Another connection, and one of a very opposite nature, was that he formed with the future regent, the Duke of Orleans, to whom he faithfully adhered through good and through bad report, being the only courtier who durst for a time be seen standing by the side of a prince who had incurred the deep displeasure of King Louis, and who lay besides under the popular and alarming suspicion of having poisoned, in the space of two years, no fewer than five members of the royal family, including the heir to the crown. In his perpetual contact with this most generous and witty of debauchées, Saint-Simon remained uncontaminated; and if any other testimony than his own were wanting to confirm the assertion, we have that of the duke himself, who said (thus profanely) of his steady and unrelaxing counsellor, that he was immuable comme Dieu et d'une suite enragée, (as immutable as God, and enragingly consistent.) While this prince's friend and advisor, he studiously declined every offer of personal aggrandizement; refusing to be appointed governor to the young king, captain of the royal guards, nay, even keeper of the seals, and obstinately repelling every attempt to make him par ticipate either in the speculative infatuation or more substantial profits of Law's famous system of finance. Saint-Simon's pictures, though frequently drawn under the secret impulse of disdain or aversion, are startling likenesses. Impassioned as he naturally is, it is by no means a commendable feature in the moral character of any one to have exercised his avenging pencil. His indignation is never roused except in cases where there is a deplorable deficiency in certain fibres, a superabundance of servility, or an exclusive leaning to duplicity. With regard to characters of a different stamp, he may be carried away by error or prejudice, but the nature of his talent is ever more impartial than his will, and if there is any one good feature or quality in the object of his hatred, he feels as if impelled to give it. He stands aloof and alone, not merely for his thrilling por traits, but for the largeness of his dramatic conceptions, his powers of exhibition, his groups, and the endless involutions of his dramatis persona. The two most conspicuous of these are his death of that dullest of Dauphins, Monseigneur, (King Louis's son, and father to the Duke of Bourgogne,) with the attendant and almost operatic changes brought about in one night among the mob of princes and courtiers; and that most wonderful court or leet of justice, in which he has the supreme satisfaction to behold his enemies of the parliament compelled to run counter to the late king's will, and degrade from their rank of princes of the blood the legitimized bastards of the haughtiest and most licentious of monarchs. In this last scene, the spirit of patriotism is but too evidently alloyed by the spirit of heraldic pride. The duke and peer Saint-Simon is no longer bound by the law of ceremonial to humble his crest before the spurious seed of royalty; hence a whirl and rush of gratified malignity, which sweeps him beyond the limits of art, prompting a virulence of language bordering on absolute ferocity. In general, however, he is never more happily inspired than when he conceives he has to deal with a scoundrel or hypocrite. Of this we have an alarming instance in a portrait which appears in the very first chapter of his memoirs-that of the first parliament president, Du Harlay, the descendant of the great Du Harlay, of the tempestous times of the Guises. Of this obnoxious personage he gives a two- a large aquiline nose, vulture eyes, that fold, or moral and physical sketch. We seemed to devour objects and look through shall lay the moral man before our read- stone walls; wearing a band and a black ers first: "He was learned," says Saint- wig sprinkled with white, both considerSimon, "in the public law, thoroughly ably longer than they are worn by ecclemaster of the various forms of jurispru- siastics; a calotte and flat wristbands, like dence, well acquainted with history, and the priests and the chancellor; always in knew how to manage his corporation with his gown, though a scanty one; with a irresistible authority. A pharisaic aus- stoop in his gait, a slow, deliberate, terity rendered him formidable, by the marked utterance, an old-fashioned Gaullicense he assumed in his public censures ish pronunciation, and often words of the of parties, barristers, or magistrates, so same stamp; his whole outward man that every one trembled to have to do cramped, constrained, affected; an odor with him. Supported, besides, in every- of hypocrisy, a hollow, cynical deportment; thing by the court, of which he was the making slow, deep bows; brushing the slave, as well as the most humble servant wall as he went along, with an air ever of all really in power, he was an acute deferential, but through which would courtier, singularly crafty and politic- peer out a look of insolent audacity; talents which he applied solely to the using demure, set forms of speech, through furtherance of his ambition of rule and which oozed all sorts of pride, and as preferment, and to securing himself a much sneering contempt as he durst vencharacter as a great man. In other re- ture to show." The following short anecspects, of no effective honor, of no prin- dote is so happy an illustration of this ciple in privacy, of no honesty other than remarkable duplicate, that we give it exterior, even of no humanity-in a word, without hesitation: "The Duchess de a perfect hypocrite, without either faith la Ferté," says Saint-Simon, "called to or law, without either God or soul, a request an audience of the President du harsh husband, a barbarous father, a ty- Harlay, and was obliged, like every one rannical brother, a friend of none but else, to put up with his ill-humor. On himself, naturally perverse, fond of in- her way out she complained to her man sulting and browbeating, and improving of business, calling the president an old every opportunity of the kind through baboon. The president was close on her life." To complete the moral picture, we heels, but without uttering a word. Of have Harlay in his own house, with his this she became aware at last, and only son, both demurely sitting opposite each hoped he had not overheard her; but he, other, and making diplomatic inquiries as if nothing had happened, followed her after one another's health; or we have to her carriage. Shortly after, her ladythem intrenched each within his apart- ship's case was called and immediately ments, separated by a mere landing-place, won. She made all haste to visit the and exchanging together dry, ceremonious president, returning him all sorts of notes, which would have done no dis- thanks. He, humble and modest, ducked honor to a chancellor's office. Or we and bowed, then looking her straight in have the reverend fathers of the oratoire, the face, replied aloud, in presence of and the equally reverend father Jesuits, everybody, I am very glad, madam, that tilting together in the chambers of old an old baboon has been able to pleasure Harlay himself, the president listening an old ape.' Whereupon, in all humialternately to each without betraying the lity, and without uttering a word more, slightest preference; thus showing both he began to follow her out, his usual parties out as far as the door, when he practice when he wanted to get rid of a looks sharp in the face of the Jesuits, visitor. The duchess wished she could known for the laxness of their doctrinal have killed him, or have dropped dead morals, with a "It's a pleasure, fathers, herself. She talked she knew not what, to live with you," rapidly establishing but could not get quit of him-always bethe balance of attention by addressing hind her, in profound and respectful the stricter oratoriary with a "and a happiness, fathers, to die with you." The physical sketch, an apt embodiment of the moral outline, is as follows: "Harlay was a thin, small man, with a lozenged face, silence and downcast looks, till she had fairly got into her carriage." His portraits, whether of the army, church, court, or parliament, have a truth of costume, a delicacy or vigor of touch, which mark them as the work of a master. On Fe- | us face to face with a living, moving society nelon, so interesting a character, he dwells which he had deemed to have vanished. at considerable length; out of gratitude, Now, such a moral history may, in a cerhe says, to his departed friend, the Duke tain sense, lay claim to as much relative de Beauvillier, who, when appointed go- truth as its more staid and buckram comvernor to the Children of France, selected panion. In both, the pen is held by one the graceful abbé as an assistant tutor who is swayed as much by his passion as in his noble task. We shall confine our- he is directed or guided by his reason. selves to the figure and face: "The pre- Change the actor or spectator, it may be late was a tall, thin, extremely handsome, said, and the whole historical fabric. pale man, with a great nose, eyes from changes its hue. This we are ready to which fire and wit streamed like a torrent, admit. But change the examiner of rewith a countenance such as I never saw ports, the collator of documents, and the the like-such as, once seen, could never result as immediately undergoes a similar after be forgotten. It combined all, and metamorphosis. The main point is, that its contraries exhibited nothing conflict- there should be one great painter, one ing. It was grave and courteous, serious great reflecting mirror at every great peand cheerful, savoring of the scholar, the riod. If not, you are reduced to get up bishop, and the grandee; but its preva- your beautiful narrative or historical piclent expression (as, indeed, that of his tures with all sorts of positive documents: whole person) was refinement, wit, grace- in which case your pages, however true fulness, decency, and, above all, noble- as regards political results, will always be ness. It required an effort to cease felt to be artificial, nor can you, with all gazing upon it." your art, give life to the period of which you have written. Saint-Simon himself, however, appears to have maturely considered this grand question of truth, and this, too, at the very outset of his memoirs. We have in the present edition a letter of his, bearing date Versailles, 29th March, 1699, (he was then only twenty-four years of age,) addressed to M. de Rancé, Abbé de la Trappe, (the same whose life has been written by Chateaubriand,) requesting his ghostly counsel and direction in the matter. His object in addressing the holy man is, not to obtain permission to write, (this he had already long determined on,) but to obtain some more or less easy rule whereby he might be enabled to reconcile truth-telling, as regards others, with conscience, as regards himself. Truth-telling was an absolute passion with Saint-Simon, and one he was bent on satisfying, provided it could be done in Christian fashion, and with a Catholic warrant. To show how much he is in earnest, he favors the abbé with a sight of that part of his memoirs which concerns his lawsuit with his former general, De Luxembourg (a question of precedence in parliament)-one of the harshest, he says, and bitterest written of his pages. These, as well as others, the abbé is to read and judge, after which he is to prescribe to his penitent how he is to record the uncompromising truth without hurting his conscience, as he is resolved to show tenderness to none, and yet avoid Saint-Simon has been charged with inaccuracies a charge easily proved, and one just as easily obviated in an edition containing foot-notes, where slips of the memory, as well as hearsay errors or misstatements, are redressed. But a more serious charge has been brought against him, involving the general truth of the whole. To this there can be but one answer: history differs according to the different objects in view. There is a kind of history which may be termed political or administrative, the object of which is supposed to be sufficiently compassed when the narrative is the clear and combined result of a steady and conscientious examination of state documents, diplomatic papers, and reports. There is another of quite a different stamp-moral and contemporary history written by actors, eye or ear witnesses. The actor or witness lives at court, if it is a period of courts, where he looks on, or listens, or makes inquiries. His authorities are the aged, those living in disgrace or retirement, subalterns, too, nay, even valets. This requires caution, and a certain sifting or comparing of evidence. In what the actor or witness does or sees personally, the process is more rapid. If he is gifted with a power of observation, and to this power adds the equally felicitous gift of expression, his history is at once animated and picturesque, conveying the very sensation and illusion of reality, bringing |