Memoirs of the Duke De Saint-Simon
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Please do not assume that a book's appearance in 'The Builder' library means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe. The Webmaster Hi Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924082195383 A'e ,^i!ie^ '•^Xauy?7yC' -'^y-f-U/^?^c^rL. GOSSIP AND GLORY OF VERSAILLES 1692-1701 AN ABRIDGED TRANSLATION WITH NOTES FROM THE MEMOIRS OF THE DUKE DE "SAINT-SIMON VOLUME I BT FRANCIS ARKWRIGHT With Four Illustrations in Photogravure NEW YORK BRENTANO'S "3^ C \ 30 iiZ A 1 V. 1 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN PKEFACE I FEEL that some apology is needed for offering to the public a translation of a well-known book, written in a language familiar to most educated English people ; I can only plead, by way of excuse, that the case is exceptional. The Memoirs of Saint-Simon are certainly well known, in a sense ; that is, everybody has heard of them ; everybody knows that they are the very best of aU French memoirs, rich as the French language is in literature of that kind. But not everybody reads them, even in France ; and I am convinced that they are not nearly so familiar to English readers as they deserve to be. I believe, indeed, that they are studied mainly by authors, who dig into them as into some vast rubbish-heap, in search of jewels wherewith to adorn their OAvn writings. The fact is that the Memoirs are very lengthy, and very unequal ; the best parts are extremely vivid and interesting, but others are dull, and when Saint-Simon is dull his dullness passes aU belief. " Macaulay remarks in his Journal for 1852 : I finished Saint-Simon's Memoirs, and am more struck with the goodness of the good parts than ever. To be sure, the road from fountain to fountain lies through a very dry desert." With aU deference for that great critic, I should put the case somewhat differently ; the Memoirs are not^ a wUdemess with here and there a green oasis ; the reader's journey takes him, for the most part, through a pleasant and picturesque country ; but now and then he has to cross a patch of desert which seems as though it would never end. The explanation is that Saint-Simon attached immense importance to matters which we are disposed to regard as trivial and childish ; even in his own day satirical verse- writers poked fun at his exaggerated interest in questions of precedence, etiquette, and privilege. Such things were no trifles in his eyes. He did not look upon them, it is ; vi PREFACE . true, from the standpoint of a Court usher ; the dream of his life was to see the Peers of France restored to that position of influence in the Government which he fancied they had held formerly ; and if he kept a jealous watch over their privileges it was because he thought each in- fringement, however petty in itself, tended to diminish the chances of that happy restoration. But the result is the same, so far as the student of his Memoirs is concerned. Fresh from the perusal of some vivid description of persons or scenes which seems to transport him bodily into the midst of Louis XIV's Court, and to repeople for him the deserted galleries of Versailles, the unfortunate reader finds himself plunged, without warning, into an arid and apparently interminable disquisition on the privileges of a Duke and Peer, and the insidious encroachments of the Parliament, the Cardinals, the "foreign Princes," and the hated bastards. Of course, he can skip ; but he does it at his peril, and very often to his loss ; for some of Saint-Simon's most characteristic passages are to be found imbedded in a mass of very unpromising material his best course is to plod steadily on till he emerges once more into daylight. For this reason there are few books which gain more by a second or third perusal than these Memoirs ; when the reader has once learnt his way about in them, and knows what parts he may safely pass over, give himself up to the enjoyment of he can the good parts ; and if he is a man of taste, he will, I think, agree with Maoaulay that they are very good indeed. But readers in these degenerate days are apt to fight shy of a book in twenty volumes, especially if they are warned beforehand that considerable portions of it are intolerably dull ; and it has occurred to me that, even in the humble office of a translator, one might render some slight service to Uterature by presenting these Memoirs in a shape less hkely to alarm such timid souls. My object has been to separate the dross from the ore ; to smooth the reader's passage over the barren tracts ; in short, to do the neces- sary skipping for him. I am av/are that I am not the first to attempt this task. Two books at least have been pub- Ushed which profess to be translations of Saint-Simon but, though I have no wish to disparage the labours of my predecessors in the same field, I am bound to say that these works do not convey a correct impression of the PREFACE vii Memoirs as a whole. The authors have picked out the most striking passages, but they have carried the work of abridgement too far ; the comiecting thread which runs through the original Memoirs is lost, and with it much of their value to the student of history. My readers may perhaps complain that I have erred in the opposite direc- tion ; but when in doubt I have acted on the principle that it is better to retain too much than too little ; and have been careful to omit nothing which throws any hght on the history and manners of the time, or on the character of St. Simon himself. This leads me to mention a difficulty which confronts the translator of these Memoirs : Saint-Simon is occasion- ally very coarse ; as a French critic has remarked, he sometimes indulges in des propos de corps-de-garde ; he teUs stories and uses expressions better suited to the atmos- phere of a barrack than to that of a drawing-room. What is an editor to do with passages of this sort ? The easiest course for himself is simply to leave them out ; for the disgusting .details of Vendome's personal habits, for in- stance, and the description of his first interview with Alberoni, are no pleasanter to transcribe than they are to read ; but, on the whole, I think it is a mistake to be too squeamish. We must recognise the fact that these Memoirs are not fit reading for young girls, and cannot be made so without subjecting them to a process of expurgation which would destroy much of their historical value. In dealing with these passages, therefore, I have gone on the same principle as in the rest of my work of abridgement ; I have omitted some as pointless and superfluous, while retaining aU which seemed characteristic of the manners of the period. In a few cases the language has been toned down to make it a little more fit for modern ears. Lest fastidious persons should be alarmed by these remarks, I hasten to reassure them ; the objectionable passages are rare, and, after aU, the worst of them is not nearly so bad as many which may be found in the last edition of Pepys's Diary.