vanishes; and forth, radiant in youth, and
strong in power, comes Louis, and the reign of politeness and periwigs
begins.

The Duc de Saint-Simon, perhaps the greatest portrait-painter of any
time, has familiarized us with the greatness, the littleness, the
graces, the defects of that royal actor on the stage of Europe, whom his
own age entitled Louis the Great. A wit, in his writings, of the first
order--if we comprise under the head of wit the deepest discernment, the
most penetrating satire--Saint-Simon was also a soldier, philosopher, a
reformer, a Trappist, and, eventually, a devotee. Like all young men who
wished for court favour, he began by fighting: Louis cared little for
carpet knights. He entered, however, into a scene which he has
chronicled with as much fidelity as our journalists do a police report,
and sat quietly down to gather observations--not for his own fame, not
even for the amusement of his children or grandchildren--but for the
edification of posterity yet a century afar off his own time. The
treasures were buried until 1829.

A word or two about Saint-Simon and his youth. At nineteen he was
destined by his mother to be married. Now every one knows how marriages
are managed in France, not only in the time of Saint-Simon, but even to
the present day. A mother or an aunt, or a grandmother, or an
experienced friend, looks out; be it for son, be it for daughter, it is
the business of her life. She looks and she finds: family, suitable;
fortune, convenient; person, _pas mal_; principles, Catholic, with a due
abhorrence of heretics, especially English ones. After a time, the lady
is to be looked at by the unhappy _pretendu_; a church, a mass, or
vespers, being very often the opportunity agreed. The victim thinks she
will do. The proposal is discussed by the two mammas; relatives are
called in; all goes well; the contract is signed; then, a measured
acquaintance is allowed: but no _tete-a-tetes;_ no idea of love. 'What!
so indelicate a sentiment before marriage! Let me not hear of it,' cries
mamma, in a sanctimonious panic. 'Love! _Quelle betise!_' adds _mon
pere_.

But Saint-Simon, it seems, had the folly to wish to make a marriage of
inclination. Rich, _pair de France_, his father--an old _roue_, who had
been page to Louis XIII.--dead, he felt extremely alone in the world. He
cast about to see whom he could select. The Duc de Beauvilliers had
eight daughters; a misfortune, it may be thought, in Fran