at Lyons.--His Rage and
Reproaches against Frejus.--Rise of the Latter in the King's Confidence.

CHAPTER CXV

I Retire from Public Life.--Illness and Death of Dubois. --Account of His
Riches.--His Wife.--His Character.--Anecdotes.--Madame de Conflans.--
Relief of the Regent and the King.

CHAPTER CXVI

Death of Lauzun.--His Extraordinary Adventures.--His Success at Court.--
Appointment to the Artillery.--Counter--worked by Louvois.--Lauzun and
Madame de Montespan.--Scene with the King.--Mademoiselle and Madame de
Monaco.

CHAPTER CXVII

Lauzun's Magnificence.--Louvois Conspires against Him.--He Is
Imprisoned.--His Adventures at Pignerol.--On What Terms He Is Released.--
His Life Afterwards.--Return to Court.

CHAPTER CXVIII

Lauzun Regrets His Former Favour.--Means Taken to Recover It.--Failure.--
Anecdotes.--Biting Sayings.--My Intimacy with Lauzun.--His Illness,
Death, and Character.

CHAPTER CXIX

Ill-Health of the Regent.--My Fears.--He Desires a Sudden Death.--
Apoplectic Fit.--Death.--His Successor as Prime Minister.--The Duc de
Chartres.--End of the Memoirs.

INTRODUCTION

No library of Court documents could pretend to be representative which
ignored the famous "Memoirs" of the Duc de Saint-Simon. They stand, by
universal consent, at the head of French historical papers, and are the
one great source from which all historians derive their insight into the
closing years of the reign of the "Grand Monarch," Louis XIV: whom the
author shows to be anything but grand--and of the Regency. The opinion
of the French critic, Sainte-Beuve, is fairly typical. "With the Memoirs
of De Retz, it seemed that perfection had been attained, in interest, in
movement, in moral analysis, in pictorial vivacity, and that there was no
reason for expecting they could be surpassed. But the 'Memoirs' of
Saint-Simon came; and they offer merits . . . which make them the most
precious body of Memoirs that as yet exist."

Villemain declared their author to be "the most original of geniuses in
French literature, the foremost of prose satirists; inexhaustible in
details of manners and customs, a word-painter like Tacitus; the author
of a language of his own, lacking in accuracy, system, and art, yet an
admirable writer." Leon Vallee reinforces this by saying: "Saint-Simon
can not be compared to any of his contemporaries. He has an
individuality, a style, and a language solely his own.... Language he
treated like