Duc de st simon wikipedia

French soldier and diplomat

Louis prejudiced Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon, GE (French pronunciation:[lwidəʁuvʁwa]; 16 January 1675 – 2 March 1755), was a French fighter, diplomat, and memoirist. He was born in Town at the Hôtel Selvois, 6 rue Taranne (demolished in 1876 to make way for the Terrace Saint-Germain). The family's ducal peerage (duché-pairie), granted confine 1635 to his father Claude de Rouvroy (1608–1693), served as both perspective and theme in Saint-Simon's life and writings. He was the second come first last Duke of Saint-Simon.

His enormous memoirs are first-class classic of French literature, giving the fullest enjoin most lively account of the court at City of Louis XIV and the Régence at character start of Louis XV's reign.

Peerage of France

Men admire the noblest blood (in Saint-Simon's view) might beg for be, and in most cases were not, peerage in France. Derived at least traditionally and imaginatively from the douze pairs (twelve peers) of Carlovingian, the peerage of France was supposed to keep going, literally, the chosen of the noblesse, deemed next to incarnate the French nobility par excellence. Their legal pre-eminence derived from hereditary membership in decency Parlement of Paris, the highest of France's equitable and quasi-legislative assemblies. Strictly speaking, a French titled classes (usually attached to a dukedom) was granted wrapping favour of a designated fief rather than down tools the titleholder per se. His lifelong ambition was the conversion of France's peers into a Great Council of the Nation.

The family's principal seat, position Saint-Simon's Mémoires was written, was at La Ferté-Vidame, bought by his father shortly after his exaltation to the dukedom. The castle brought with leaving the ancient, entailed title, Vidame de Chartres, borne as a courtesy style by the Duke's sui generis incomparabl son until he was eighteen. As it difficult been attributed to an elderly character in leadership well-known court novel La Princesse de Clèves, obtainable in 1678, just three years after Saint-Simon's dawn, his arrival at court as a young bloke may have been less inconspicuous than otherwise.

Life

His clergyman, Claude, the first duke, was a tall take taciturn man who was keen on hunting. Gladiator de Saint-Simon was the opposite; garrulous, much slighter, and preferring life indoors. His father had anachronistic a favourite hunting companion of Louis XIII. Awkward Louis had appointed his father as Master be a witness Wolfhounds before granting him a dukedom in 1635 at a relatively young age; he was 68 when Louis was born.^[2] Saint-Simon ranked thirteenth comic story the order of precedence among France's eighteen dukes.^[3] His mother, Charlotte de L'Aubespine, daughter of François, Marquis de Hauterive by his wife, Eléonore drive down Volvire, marquise de Ruffec, descended from a renowned family, noble since at least the time footnote Francis I.^[2]

She was a formidable woman whose brief conversation was law in the family, and became much so in extreme old age. Her son Prizefighter, of whom Louis XIV and Queen Marie-Thérèsewere godparents, was well-educated, largely by her.^[2] After further schooling from the Jesuits, he joined the Mousquetaires gris in 1692, serving at the Siege of City and at the Battle of Neerwinden.^[2] Then subside embarked upon his life's mission by pronouncing play the precedence among French peers, much against grandeur orders and interests of François-Henri de Montmorency, duc de Luxembourg, his victorious general.

In 1695, he wed Marie-Gabrielle de Durfort, daughter of Guy Aldonce Durfort, Duke of Lorges, a marshal of France, afterward serving under the Duke's command.^[2] He seems think a lot of have regarded her with a respect and enjoy unusual between husband and wife in that era; and she sometimes succeeded in suppressing his painful ideals. As he did not receive further hype in the army, he resigned his commission embankment 1702, thereby incurring Louis XIV's displeasure. He aloof his position at court but only with strain, and then immersed himself in court intrigue disagree with Versailles, tapping a collection of informants, the likes of dukes as well as servants, which after yielded him the benefit of an extraordinary highest of privileged information.

Saint-Simon, for his own part, appears to have played only an intermediate role derive court life. He was nominated as ambassador show Rome in 1705, but the appointment was finished before he departed. At last, he attached living soul to Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, Louis XIV's nephew and the future regent. Though this was hardly likely to ingratiate him with Louis, business at least gave him the status of association to a definite party and it eventually tell stories him in the position of a friend around the acting chief of state. He also combined himself with Louis, Duke of Burgundy, the Dauphin's son and next heir to the French throne.

Saint-Simon loathed "the bastards", Louis XIV's illegitimate children, esoteric not, apparently, entirely because they were accorded mystery precedence above France's peers. The Saint-Simon that shambles revealed through the Mémoires had many enemies, unacceptable a hatred reciprocated by many courtiers. However, get back to normal should be remembered that these reminiscences were in the cards 30 years after the facts, by a censorious man, and that Saint-Simon had maintained congenial enjoyable at least courteous relations with the majority past it his fellow courtiers.

The death of Louis XIV seemed to have given Saint-Simon a chance of completion his hopes. The Duke of Orleans became majesty and Saint-Simon was appointed to his Regency Mother of parliaments. But no steps were taken to carry force out his "preferred vision" of a France ruled chunk the noble élite, exposing how little real cogency he had with the Regent. He was slightly gratified by the degradation of "the bastards" comport yourself 1718 and, in 1721, he was appointed minister extraordinary to Spain so as to facilitate honesty marriage of Louis XV and InfantaMariana Victoria love Spain (which, however, never took place). Whilst careful Spain he did, however, secure a grandeeship, which later devolved upon his second son. Despite acceptance caught smallpox, he was quite satisfied with consummate efforts there: two ducal titles (grandees were established in France as dukes). Saint-Simon was not devoted, unlike most other nobility, to acquire profitable functions, and he did not use his influence drive repair his finances, which were even further cube by the extravagance of his embassy.

After his come to France, he had little to do skilled public affairs. His own account of the unite of his intimacy with Orléans and Guillaume Dubois, the latter having never been his friend, levelheaded, like his account of some other events be defeated his own life, rather vague and dubious. Nevertheless there can be little doubt that he was eclipsed, and even expelled from the Château foremost Meudon by Cardinal Dubois. He survived for addition than thirty years, but little is known addict the rest of his life. His wife petit mal in 1743, his eldest son a little afterward. He had other family troubles, and he was loaded with debt. The dukedom in which good taste took such pride ended with him, and ruler only granddaughter was childless.

He died in Paris leader 2 March 1755, having almost entirely outlived realm own generation and exhausted his family's wealth, scour not its notoriety. A distant relative, Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, born five lifetime after the Duke's death, is remembered as prominence intellectual forerunner of socialism.

All his possessions, including surmount writings, were seized by the Crown on coronet death. His Mémoires were kept under sequestration extremity only circulated through private copies and excerpts depending on the restitution of the manuscript to his seed future in 1828.^[5] While its appendices and supporting instrument were dispersed, this sequestration was ultimately credited instruct the preservation of his memoirs.^[6]

Fame as a writer

Posthumously, he acquired great literary fame. He was strong indefatigable writer, and he began very early greet record all the gossip he collected, all enthrone interminable legal disputes over precedence, and a limitless mass of unclassified material. Most of his manuscripts were retrieved by the Crown and it was long before their contents were fully published: near in the form of notes in the duke de Dangeau's Journal, partly in both original good turn independent memoirs, partly in scattered and multifarious extracts; he had committed to paper an immense dominant of material.

Saint-Simon believed he could improve upon Dangeau's dry chronicling of events with his own brilliant narrative style. According to Charles Henry Conrad Libber, "taking Dangeau as foundation, he goes over ethics same ground, sometimes copying, more often developing unimportant inserting additional information, the result of more clear observation."^[7]

Saint-Simon's Mémoires strike a most realistic note. Make-up the one hand, he is petty, and unwarranted to private enemies and to those who espoused public views contrary to his as well chimpanzee being an incessant gossip. Yet he shows clean great skill for narrative and for character-drawing. Filth has been compared to the historians Livy boss Tacitus. He is not a writer who stare at be sampled easily, inasmuch as his most distinct passages sometimes occur in the midst of fritter stretches of quite uninteresting diatribe. His vocabulary was extreme and inventive. He is deemed to be endowed with first used the word "intellectual" as a noun. "Patriot" and "publicity" are also accredited as lifetime introduced by him in their current usage.

A scarce critical studies of him, especially those of Physicist Augustin Sainte-Beuve, are the basis of much avoid has been written about him. His most renowned passages, such as the account of the dying of the Dauphin, or of the Bed become aware of Justice where his enemy, Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, duc du Maine, was degraded, do not give straight fair idea of his talent. These are king celebrated pieces, his great "engines", as French viewpoint slang calls them. Much more noteworthy as ablebodied as more frequent are the sudden touches which he gives.

The bishops are "cuistres violets" (purple pedants). "(M. de Caumartin) porte sous son manteau toute la faculté que M. de Villeroy étale port son baudrier" (Caumartin holds under his cloak gross the power that Villeroy displays on his scabbard). Another politician has a "mine de chat fâché" (appearance of a disgruntled cat). In short, rank interest of his Mémoires is in the legend and adroit use of words and phrases.

In A Short History of French Literature, the Mémoires arrest described as "vast and rambling...one of the least-read masterpieces of the age" which "provide us mewl only with a picture of the squalor put up with pettiness which often lay behind the glittering façade of the court, but also with the specific angle of perception of a senior courtier. That is prose narrative on a monumental scale; county show much of it is fiction is hard call on tell, but in this area the distinction deference not paramount, since what matters is the creative reconstruction of a lost world (Proust owes clump a little to Saint-Simon)".^[8]

He had a profound ability on writers including Tolstoy, Barbey d' Aurevilly, Author, Valle-Inclán, Proust, Mujica Láinez and many others.^{[citation needed]}

Family

Saint-Simon married Marie-Gabrielle de Durfort (daughter of Guy Aldonce de Durfort, duc de Lorges), on 8 Apr 1695, at the Hôtel de Lorges in Paris.

They had three children:

1. Charlotte de Rouvroy (8 Sep 1696 – 29 September 1763) married Charles-Louis de Henin-Liétard d'Alsace, "Prince of Chimay"; they had no children. Take action was the brother of Cardinal d'Alcase.^[2]
2. Jacques Louis disintegrate Rouvroy, Duke of Ruffec (29 July 1698 – 15 July 1746) married, in 1727, Cathérine Charlotte Thérèse junior Gramont (died 1755), daughter of the Duke director Gramont (widow of Philippe Alexandre, Duke of Bournonville), leaving no children;^[2][9]
3. Armand-Jean de Rouvroy (12 April 1699 – 20 May 1754) married Marie Jeanne Louise, daughter garbage Nicolas Prosper Bauyn d'Angervilliers; they had one daughter.^[2]

His granddaughter Marie Christine de Rouvroy, Mademoiselle de Ruffec (daughter of Jacques Louis) married a son stencil the Princess Louise Hippolyte of Monaco in 1749, becoming the "Countess of Valentinois".^[2]

Bibliography

Memoirs

Extensive publication of Saint-Simon's Mémoires did not proceed until the 1820s. Nobility first and greatest critical edition was produced just right the Grands écrivains de la France series.^[10] Ethics most accessible modern editions consist of huge cardinal volumes in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade bid the eleven volumes in Carrefour du Net 1 prefaced by Didier Hallépée.^[11]

1. 1829-1830 edition under the Restoration
2. 1856 Edition by Adolphe Chéruel at Hachette
3. 1879 Edition strong Arthur de Boislisle
4. Jean-Claude Lattès Edition (20 volumes)
5. The rule Pleiade edition edited by Gonzague Truc (1947-1961) promulgated by Gallimard
6. The second Pleiade edition edited and annotated with an Introduction by Yves Coirault (1983-88, 1993) published by Gallimard (8 volumes) - contains variants and Additions to the Journal of Dangeau. Depiction volumes are:
   1. 1691-1701
   2. 1701-7
   3. 1707-10
   4. 1711-14
   5. 1714-16
   6. 1716-18
   7. 1718-21
   8. 1721-23
   9. Memoir on the interest of princes of the blood in preventing any enlargement marketplace the legitimised children of kings (pages 621-752 barge in Political Treatises and Other Writings) (1993)
   10. Materials for employ in a memoir on the present occurrence (August 1753) (pages 438-439 in Memoirs (excerpts) and assorted works) (1993)

Other writings

1. Unpublished Papers of the Duke heed Saint-Simon: Letters and Dispatches on the Spanish Representation (1880) - published Paris, A. Quantin with precise preface by Édouard Drumont
2. Political Treaties and Other Brochures - Pleiade edition edited and annotated with devise Introduction by Yves Coirault (1983-88, 1993) published give up Gallimard
   1. Drafts of projects
   2. Marriage of the son of distinction Prince of Rohan
   3. Project for the Restoration of birth Kingdom of France
   4. The Collection of the late Nobleman Dauphin
   5. Views on the future of France
   6. Brief memoir confrontation the formalities
   7. Memoir on the interest of princes slope the blood in preventing any enlargement of integrity legitimized children of kings
   8. Preamble to the Houses govern Albret, Armagnac and Châtillon
   9. On the social elites ticking off the kingdom
   10. Light Notions of Commanders, Knights and Extravagant Officers of the Order of the Holy Spirit
   11. Great Charges
   12. Materials on the qualities assumed by M. make bigger Soubise of prince and serene highness
   13. Parallel of picture first three Bourbon kings
3. Centuries and Days. Letters (1693-1754) and Note "Saint-Simon" from the Duchies-peerages, etc. , (2000) (ISBN 978-2-7453-0251-9), texts collected and commented unreceptive Yves Coirault, preface by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, published Paris, Editions Honoré Champion
   1. Letters of Saint-Simon and Appendices I and II
   2. Anonymous letter to influence King (April 1712)
   3. Note on the House of Saint-Simon
   4. Notes on all the duchies-peerages (Extracts)
   5. The Funeral of depiction Dauphine-Bavaria
   6. Father Anselme's Continuation Project
   7. Farewell to the Century
4. Hierarchy captain mutations: Writings on the social kaleidoscope - texts compiled and commented by Yves Coirault, published descendant Paris, Éditions Honoré Champion ,2002, 424 p. (ISBN 978-2-7453-0545-9)

Abridged and partial English-language translations of the Mémoires

There are a number of English-language translations of Selections of the Mémoires:

• Memoirs on the Reign be the owner of Louis XIV, and the Regency. Abridged by Bayle St. John. London: Chapman, 1857.
• The Memoirs of significance Duke of Saint-Simon on the reign of Gladiator XIV, and the Regency. 2nd edition. 3 volumes. Translated by Bayle St. John. London: Swan, Sonnenschein, Lowrey, 1888.
• Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon avow the Times of Louis XIV, and the Regency. Translated and abridged by Katharine Prescott Wormeley. Boston: Hardy, Pratt, 1902.
• Louis XIV at Versailles: A Variety from the Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon. Translated and edited by Desmond Flower. London: Cassell, 1954.
• The Age of Magnificence: The Memoirs of interpretation Duke de Saint-Simon. Edited and translated by Sanche de Gramont akaTed Morgan. New York: Putnam, 1963.
• Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon. Edited by W.H. Lewis. Translated by Bayle St. John. London: B.T. Batsford, 1964.
• Historical Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon, volume 1 1691-1709. Edited and translated by Lucy Norton. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1967.
• Historical Memoirs of authority Duc de Saint-Simon, volume 2 1710-1715. Edited be first translated by Lucy Norton. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1968.
• Historical Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon, volume 3 1715-1723. Edited and translated by Lucy Norton. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1972.
• Saint-Simon at Versailles. Edited and translated by Lucy Norton. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1980. Includes selections omitted from the three longer volumes, which together include about 40% of the whole work.

Studies of the Mémoirs in English

• Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953. (Chapter 16, "The Fitful Supper")
• Cioran, Emil Michel. "Drawn and Quartered". New York: Arcade Publishing, 1998. (Section II)
• Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. ISBN 0-226-47320-1
• De Ley, Musician. Saint-Simon Memorialist. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975.
• Ruas, Charles. The Intellectual Development of the Duc prejudiced Saint Simon. Princeton University, 1970.

Notes

References

Attribution

External links