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Memoirs of Duc de Saint-Simon: A Shortened Version #1
Memoirs of Duc de Saint-Simon, 1691-1709: Presented to the King
Wit, humor, vitriol and pageantry -- the necessary hallmarks for a peer at the French court also deliver a great reading experience. Saint-Simon regales us with an irreverent insider's view of his more than 30 years at court, from the later days of Louis XIV to the ascension of Louis XV. All the plays for power, sex, position and money by friends, enemies, nobles and others are here, with Saint-Simon's fascinating, and brutally honest, assessment of any situation.
536 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1755
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About the author
Louis de Rouvroy de Saint-Simon
1,040 books31 followersFrench diplomat Louis de Rouvroy with title of duc de Saint-Simon wrote memoirs, a valuable historical source, of the court of Louis XIV.
This grandee served as a soldier. A mother bore him at the Hôtel Selvois, 6 Rue Taranne, demolished in 1876 to make way for the Boulevard Saint-Germain.
His enormous classic of literature give the fullest and most lively account at Versailles of the Régence at the start of reign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_d...
This grandee served as a soldier. A mother bore him at the Hôtel Selvois, 6 Rue Taranne, demolished in 1876 to make way for the Boulevard Saint-Germain.
His enormous classic of literature give the fullest and most lively account at Versailles of the Régence at the start of reign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_d...
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 2, 2024
I am abandoning this book for now because it has been on my currently rerading list for several years. I may try reading it again later.
May 20, 2018
I read this on the off-chance, having found it mentioned as a reference for another book I was reading. I'm glad I did. It contains some of the memoirs of the Duc De Saint-Simon, a courtier in the court of Louis XIV - the Sun King.
The book takes a while to get into, and there are millions of names of different courtiers - some of whom have multiple names. It can be very long winded, and focused on details that seem bizarre to modern society. At first this feels like hard work, but after some time I found myself getting into it. It covers both major events of French history of that period and the trivial. The major is interesting for my knowledge of French history is embarrassingly small. The trivial is also fascinating as it shows how much the court was run by gossip and minor issues. Things quite ridiculous to modern ears - providing the wrong chairs, wearing a jacket of the wrong length, or entering the wrong door - could cause major scandal and disgrace.
Saint-Simon was intelligent, wrote well - influencing Proust, at times made the most extravagantly bitchy comments about other courtiers, was a terrible snob and probably would not have come within a hundred yards of a commoner like me. But for all this he is a sympathetic character and the memoirs are quite addictive, even if at times you feel you are reading the 1700's version of Hello magazine. Ah, but it was all so much more stylish, elegant - and ridiculous. I shall be on the look out for a copy of Volume Two soon.
The translation and abridgement is excellent - you never feel you are reading a translated book and you never feel you are reading a shortened book. When you realise these massive tomes, three of them together, are a significant abridgement of Saint-Simon's memoirs, you realise quite how much he wrote. The translator, Lucy Norton, did a wonderful job.
The book takes a while to get into, and there are millions of names of different courtiers - some of whom have multiple names. It can be very long winded, and focused on details that seem bizarre to modern society. At first this feels like hard work, but after some time I found myself getting into it. It covers both major events of French history of that period and the trivial. The major is interesting for my knowledge of French history is embarrassingly small. The trivial is also fascinating as it shows how much the court was run by gossip and minor issues. Things quite ridiculous to modern ears - providing the wrong chairs, wearing a jacket of the wrong length, or entering the wrong door - could cause major scandal and disgrace.
Saint-Simon was intelligent, wrote well - influencing Proust, at times made the most extravagantly bitchy comments about other courtiers, was a terrible snob and probably would not have come within a hundred yards of a commoner like me. But for all this he is a sympathetic character and the memoirs are quite addictive, even if at times you feel you are reading the 1700's version of Hello magazine. Ah, but it was all so much more stylish, elegant - and ridiculous. I shall be on the look out for a copy of Volume Two soon.
The translation and abridgement is excellent - you never feel you are reading a translated book and you never feel you are reading a shortened book. When you realise these massive tomes, three of them together, are a significant abridgement of Saint-Simon's memoirs, you realise quite how much he wrote. The translator, Lucy Norton, did a wonderful job.
August 20, 2014
Recognizing that I am reading in translation and abridgment here, I cannot see what has so strongly struck previous generations of readers in these memoirs. There is much of interest, but unless one begins with the sense that celebrities are inherently more significant, the trivialities of famous lives remain trivial.
Saint-Simon is, when all is said and done, very small, and reduces the nation to a village. That the village is Versailles is by the by: it is still a question of whether the choir director and the pastor are having an affair, who made a fool of himself when his wife left him, whose clothing provides evidence of more money than taste, and so on, all with the chorus of opinion, which either vindicates our hero/narrator, or provides him with the barrier he must surmount by hewing to the virtuous path in spite of its unjust criticism. His friends and allies act from the best motives; vice and venom, hidden or overt, motivate his opponents and enemies.
Criticizing him for his fixation, when his country is being threatened by the results of military hubris, on who has a chair with arms, a folding chair, or a tabouret is too easy. But in contrast to the subtlety and depth of a Proust in his dissection of the motives and tactics of social climbers, Saint-Simon seems unselfconsiously convinced, shallowly and to the depth of his soul, that the social prestige of dukes and peers is a question of the utmost importance for the survival of France and Christendom.
I find myself reading him as an exhibit, like the extracts from primary texts presented in a history class, rather than as a mind with which I can directly connect across the ages.
My point of comparison for Saint-Simon, more than any other, is Samuel Pepys, whose diaries I read some years ago and heartily recommend. In contrast to Saint-Simon, by his unsparing self-portrayal the English writer makes the small larger: there is a sequence where things are going badly between the diarist and his wife, and his eye turns to their maid. He records, over several days, the furtive excitement of flirtation; his interlude of guilt; his relapse and redoubled pursuit—and in the moment of success, his wife asppears and discovers with painful results for all. It is a smaller campaign than Blenheim, to be sure, but the drama and the humanity are much greater, because of the way the tale is told.
Besides nationality, much of the difference between Saint-Simon and Pepys is that the former is born to his station, convinced that consquence is his self-evident right. If one shares that assumption, I could see where these memoirs might be enthralling. For a plebian who is rather unimpressed by celebrity, though, they retain much interest. After years of reading Anglophone, Anglo-centric histories, there's refreshment in hearing a French voice.
Saint-Simon is, when all is said and done, very small, and reduces the nation to a village. That the village is Versailles is by the by: it is still a question of whether the choir director and the pastor are having an affair, who made a fool of himself when his wife left him, whose clothing provides evidence of more money than taste, and so on, all with the chorus of opinion, which either vindicates our hero/narrator, or provides him with the barrier he must surmount by hewing to the virtuous path in spite of its unjust criticism. His friends and allies act from the best motives; vice and venom, hidden or overt, motivate his opponents and enemies.
Criticizing him for his fixation, when his country is being threatened by the results of military hubris, on who has a chair with arms, a folding chair, or a tabouret is too easy. But in contrast to the subtlety and depth of a Proust in his dissection of the motives and tactics of social climbers, Saint-Simon seems unselfconsiously convinced, shallowly and to the depth of his soul, that the social prestige of dukes and peers is a question of the utmost importance for the survival of France and Christendom.
I find myself reading him as an exhibit, like the extracts from primary texts presented in a history class, rather than as a mind with which I can directly connect across the ages.
My point of comparison for Saint-Simon, more than any other, is Samuel Pepys, whose diaries I read some years ago and heartily recommend. In contrast to Saint-Simon, by his unsparing self-portrayal the English writer makes the small larger: there is a sequence where things are going badly between the diarist and his wife, and his eye turns to their maid. He records, over several days, the furtive excitement of flirtation; his interlude of guilt; his relapse and redoubled pursuit—and in the moment of success, his wife asppears and discovers with painful results for all. It is a smaller campaign than Blenheim, to be sure, but the drama and the humanity are much greater, because of the way the tale is told.
Besides nationality, much of the difference between Saint-Simon and Pepys is that the former is born to his station, convinced that consquence is his self-evident right. If one shares that assumption, I could see where these memoirs might be enthralling. For a plebian who is rather unimpressed by celebrity, though, they retain much interest. After years of reading Anglophone, Anglo-centric histories, there's refreshment in hearing a French voice.
February 22, 2024
Some observations witnessed by orbiting the realm of the Sun King.
November 20, 2020
Saint Simon kept a journal during the 30 plus years he was a peer at the French court. He spent his retirement writing his memoirs, a first-hand account of the train-wreck that eventually lead to the French Revolution. When he died, his memoirs were confiscated by order of the King. The French government did not release them until 1830. Many of Saint-Simon's letters are possibly still unpublished.
Wit, humor, vitriol and pageantry -- the necessary hallmarks for a peer at the French court also deliver a great reading experience. Saint-Simon regales us with an irreverent insider's view of his more than 30 years at court, from the later days of Louis XIV to the ascension of Louis XV. All the plays for power, sex, position and money by friends, enemies, nobles and others are here, with Saint-Simon's fascinating, and brutally honest, assessment of any situation.
Wit, humor, vitriol and pageantry -- the necessary hallmarks for a peer at the French court also deliver a great reading experience. Saint-Simon regales us with an irreverent insider's view of his more than 30 years at court, from the later days of Louis XIV to the ascension of Louis XV. All the plays for power, sex, position and money by friends, enemies, nobles and others are here, with Saint-Simon's fascinating, and brutally honest, assessment of any situation.
May 31, 2013
Heather Hartley (Paris Editor): The Duc de Saint-Simon, godson of Louis XIV, diplomat, writer and nobleman, was at the thriving, conniving heart of kingly intrigue, lust, love, war and and all things conspiratorial going down at the most powerful, sumptuous court of Europe, the incomparable Château de Versailles. Unlike most of the courtiers, Saint-Simon was a reverent, honest man who wrote with candor and clarity about the everyday affairs of the court. Intimate observer par excellence, not many of the Sun King’s secrets went unnoticed by his godson and were recorded with careful detail in his Memoirs of Louis De Rouvroy Duc De Saint. Of Louis XIV and his high court, he writes, “Others were not allowed to dream as he had lived,” while on a different note regarding newfangled instruments known as cutlery, Saint-Simon observes, “Seeing him eat olives with a fork!” Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way: Remembrance of Things Past is said to have been inspired by Saint-Simon’s writings, possibly encapsulated in the Duc’s observation, “The shortness of each day was his only sorrow.” A book to be savored over macarons and tea cakes in late afternoon gardens.
January 20, 2017
All writers, especially, should read these memoirs. Spectacular and outrageously under-appreciated in the U.S., at least, St-Simon captures that rough surface of life as it's truly lived that anyone serious about writing is, or should be, aspiring to create. Even the minor characters are fully alive, and the major ones, as they grow, succeed, fail, change, decay, take on an epic coloring that few contemporary writers can match. That the author was at or near the center of power in France for almost 30 years, during and after the reign of Louis XIV, is just added spice. A major inspiration for Proust.
February 17, 2013
fascinating - time travel, with the most elegant guide. one can see why proust was such a fan
April 27, 2017
The first of three volumes of the Duc de Saint-Simon's memoirs, which were his life's work. Very interesting look into the court of Louis XIV at Versailles. A slow read for me.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews