The Age of Magnificence : The Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon

by Louis de Rouvroy de Saint-Simon, Ted Morgan (Translator)

English (translation)Original French

Genres: History, France, Nonfiction

315 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

French 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...

Reviews

[Jane Bigelow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating--and sometimes depressing. You know the mean kids in high school, or maybe middle school? Their spiritual ancestors were living at Versailles, chronologically adult and often possessed of considerable power. The editor and translator De Gramont calls the court of Louis XIV "an elaborate playpen" with some reason. For example: A group of courtiers and ladies gang up on a noblewoman they dislike and (after waking the guards to help make snowballs!) pelt her unmercifully. Even the King joins in the mockery of another nobleman, who doesn't realize how bad his dancing is until everyone is laughing at him.

Yet this is where power was, and all the sophisticated pleasures of music, dance and theater. You could leave, if you didn't mind living in obscurity.

The Duc de Saint-Simon wrote his memoirs after the fact, so the level of detail is amazing. It also makes me a bit glad that he's safely dead and so will never describe me--not that he'd ever have noticed a person of my station in life. Saint-Simon seems never to have forgotten a slight. Modern spin masters could take lessons on how to present an incident in the best, or worst, possible way.

My French is definitely not up to reading this in the original, so I'm deeply grateful to the translator and editor for the consistent tone and the organization of this selection. (The whole thing runs to 4 volumes in some editions.) The background notes are also extremely helpful.

[Colin Small]

Versailles seems like hell. This book was often revolting in more ways than one. I was curious about Saint-Simon as a Proust lover, and this book does offer a nice taste of his writing and it displays in an obvious way how he was a great memiorist as well as the lengthy and detailed descriptive style that Proust continued to develope. But it was difficult to sample 3000 pages of memoir with little background knowledge about the court of Louis XIV. Both fascinating and boring for this reason.

[Manny Villa]

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[M]

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[Ola · Rating 3 out of 5]

mmm, those petty french. loved the scandalous shenanigans of various members of the court. did not love saint-simon's autobiographical half. no syphilis, no enemas, no fun.

[Gilbert Wesley Purdy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would rate it 5-stars if it were not an abridgment.