INTRODUCTION.

THE Memoirs of the Duke of St. Simon, an abridgment of which is here presented to the public, occupy now by common consent a very high position in French literature. No work of a similar kind has ever probably been so popular; and in many respects it deserves its reputation. It forms a perfect panoramic picture, highly finished in all its details, of the the Court of Louis XIV. during the last twenty years of his reign; and of the period of the Regency. St. Simon was, to a certain extent, an actor in the intrigues he describes-at any rate, always sufficiently near to see their development and be acquainted with their promoters. Keen criticism, stimulated by the family pride of persons of whom he has spoken ill, has detected in him a few errors inevitable in so vast an undertaking; but none that are wilful, or calculated to disturb him from his place as an authority.

St. Simon was the son of a Duke and Peer of France; and early became a duke and peer himself. He says scarcely anything about his childhood, and we never seem to feel the omission. He gives us the There is a gravity

idea of never having been young.

and earnestness even in his most trivial recitals except when he allows his strong natural humour to break forth-that appear to belong to a character ripe and mature from the very first. He does indeed talk of having played with the Duc de Chartres; but if the young prince played, we may be sure the future memoir-writer even then noted his movements and counted his steps.

The army was the first scene of St. Simon's worldly experience. When very young he entered the King's Musketeers; and in time rose to the command of a regiment. He served in more than one campaign, and appears to have discharged his duties conscientiously and well. While still in the camp he began to note down in a journal the events that were occurring around him, incited to do so by the pleasure he had received in reading the Memoirs of the Maréchal de Bassompierre. Even at this early time it is evident that he was endowed with a rare power of observation, and good natural sagacity; and with a certain rigidity of opinion which prevented him from much sharing the vices with which he came in contact.

St. Simon's military career did not last long. He had served no more than five years when the peace of Ryswick was signed; and the field never saw him again. The great war of the Spanish Succession began in 1702, and nearly all Europe was involved in it, until the treaty of Utrecht decided the question at issue; but St. Simon, being deprived of the promotion he thought himself entitled to, resigned his rank. In this, doubtless, he acted wisely. He seems to have

had no special predilection for a military life-never speaks of his interrupted career with soldierly regret

does not even imply that he had talent in that direction. The Court, not the camp, claimed him. He was formed to move, not amidst helmets and plumes, but amidst powdered wigs and gold-headed canes -to wander observant amidst fans and hoops, not tents and trenches. In that sphere, looking on at the intrigues and schemes that thickened or dispersed around him, joining in them himself when a friend was to be served-for St. Simon was evidently capable of friendship-or an enemy to be thwarted,he was equally capable of enmity ;-maintaining himself in intimacy with most of the courtiers whose views were in harmony with his own, and with many whose views were very different; fighting for the rights and dignity of his order with the tenacity of a man who regards them almost as passports to eternal salvation, and who sees that in the confusion of new grades and unusual privileges arising, he and his fellows are counting for less and less every day; criticising the plans of government in operation, and drawing up new plans of his own; noting with a sort of prophetic cunning all political and diplomatic changes threatened, the struggles to gain power and the struggles to preserve it; and all the while keeping his ear open to reports of all domestic occurrences at the Court, the love-affairs, the scandals, the marriages, the tragedies in this direction, the comedies in that;

such being his position and occupation, we need not be surprised at the vast extent and varied nature