ity, 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 an abject slave. When he had gone to its farthest limit,
when it failed to express his ideas or feelings, he forced it--the result
was a new term, or a change in the ordinary meaning of words sprang forth
from has pen. With this was joined a vigour and breadth of style, very
pronounced, which makes up the originality of the works of Saint-Simon
and contributes toward placing their author in the foremost rank of
French writers."

Louis de Rouvroy, who later became the Duc de Saint-Simon, was born in
Paris, January 16, 1675. He claimed descent from Charlemagne, but the
story goes that his father, as a young page of Louis XIII., gained favour
with his royal master by his skill in holding the stirrup, and was
finally made a duke and peer of France. The boy Louis had no lesser
persons than the King and Queen Marie Therese as godparents, and made his
first formal appearance at Court when seventeen. He tells us that he was
not a studious boy, but was fond of reading history; and that if he had
been given rein to read all he desired of it, he might have made "some
figure in the world." At nineteen, like D'Artagnan, he entered the
King's Musketeers. At twenty he was made a captain in the cavalry; and
the same year he married the beautiful daughter of the Marechal de
Larges. This marriage, which was purely political in its inception,
finally turned into a genuine love match--a pleasant exception to the
majority of such affairs. He became devoted to his wife, saying: "she
exceeded all that was promised of her, and all that I myself had hoped."
Partly because of this marriage, and also because he felt himself
slighted in certain army appointments, he resigned his commissim after
five years' service, and retired for a ti