s variety. A volume merely of maxims would have been
too rigid, too oracular for such a versatile spirit as that of La
Bruyere. "Different things," he says, "are thought out by different
methods, and explained by diverse expressions, it may be by a sentence,
an argument, a metaphor or some other figure, a parallel, a simple
comparison, a complete fact, a single feature, by description, or
by portraiture." His book contains all these, and his style
corresponds with the variety of matter and method--a style, as
Voltaire justly characterises it, rapid, concise, nervous,
picturesque. "Among all the different modes in which a single thought
may be expressed," wrote La Bruyere, "only one is correct." To find
this exact expression he sometimes over-labours his style, and
searches the vocabulary too curiously for the most striking word.
In his desire for animation the periodic structure of sentence yields
to one of interruptions, suspensions, and surprises. He is at once
a moralist and a virtuoso in the literary art.

The greater part of Saint-Simon's life and the composition of his
_Memoires_ belong to the eighteenth century; but his mind was moulded
during his early years, and retained its form and lineaments. He may
be regarded as a belated representative of the great age of Louis
XIV. If he belongs in some degree to the newer age by virtue of his
sense that political reform was needed, his designs of political
reform were derived from the past rather than pointed towards the
future. LOUIS DE ROUVRAY, DUC DE SAINT-SIMON, was born at Versailles
in 1675. He cherished the belief that his ancestry could be traced
to Charlemagne. His father, a page of Louis XIII., had been named
a duke and peer of France in 1635; from his father descended to the
son a devotion to the memory of Louis XIII., and a passionate
attachment to the dignity of his own order.

Saint-Simon's education was narrow, but he acquired some Latin, and
was a diligent reader of French history. In 1691 he was presented
to the King and was enrolled as a soldier in the musketeers. He
purchased by-and-by what we should now call the colonelcy of a cavalry
regiment, but was ill-pleased with the system which had transformed
a feudal army into one where birth and rank were subjected to official
control; and in 1702, when others received promotion and he was passed
over, he sent in his resignation. Having made a fortunate and happy
marriage, Saint-Simon was almost constant