the center of things. He had "a conviction of my complete uselessness [which] drove me further and further into retirement." Toward the end he reports that he "no longer held any offices, and was living in almost complete retirement." Plush retirement, to be sure, in an
hôtel,
or mansion, in Paris and at the castle on his estate in the country. Yet it was not an altogether voluntary retirement: he was told by Fleury, the tutor to Louis XV and later that youthful King's chief minister, that his presence was no longer wanted at Versailles. Nothing left for
le petit duc
but to write his
Memoirs.
All memoirs are, more or less, gossip. Hard to imagine a man so inquisitive, so critical, so penetrating, and with so many enemies as Saint-Simon not using gossip both as a means of self-justification and as a weapon against enemies. He wrote of his "passion for discovering, unraveling, and generally keeping up to date with intrigues that were always fascinating, and which it was often useful, and sometimes highly advantageous, to know." That he felt himself so embattled, with people against him on every side, left him always on the qui vive for an enemy's weakness, and gave him cause, as he himself put it, to "examine everyone with
my eyes and ears.
" The great nineteenth-century critic Sainte-Beuve called
le petit duc
"the spy of his century," and what is spying but a species of gossiping? Spies don't necessarily have to be in the pay of government; every first-class gossip is, when one comes right down to it, a spy in business for himself.
Saint-Simon claimed to write "the history of my own times, which, from the beginning, has been my sole purpose." He also reports that "you will find no scandals in these memoirs except where they are needed to explain the general situation," which is not true. He reports, to cite but one example of hundreds, of one Bentivoglio, a papal nuncio, that "he thought nothing of keeping an opera-singer, and of having two daughters by her, who were known to be such, and went by the nicknames of 'La Constitution' and 'La Legende.'"
In the end, it is the personal details, much more than the broad sweep of Saint-Simon's political or religious views or his general narrative, that make the
Memoirs
so enticing. Much of our pleasure in reading him derives from such items as learning that, when Peter the Great visited Paris and Versailles, "it did not suit the Czar or his staff to restrain himself in any way." Or in his telling us about a fellow named Arouet who "was sent to the Bastille for writing scurrilous verses," who was "the son of my father's notary," and that "nothing could be done with this dissolute son, whose rake's progress ended by his making a fortune under the name of Voltaire, which he took in order to conceal his true name." Or of the miser Pecoil, who dies locked in his own vault, contemplating his money. Or of the thoroughly unpleasant Marquis de Thury, felled by a leg of mutton wielded by the Duc d'Elbeuf at table, "leaving a permanent scar on his most unpleasing countenance, though at the time he did not retaliate."
Saint-Simon claimed his
Memoirs
were "authoritative and first-hand," which is so. He did not claim impartiality, for, as he puts it, "one is attracted by honorable and truthful persons; provoked by the rogues who swarm at Court, and made still more angry by those who do one harm." He was correct, too, in writing of his
Memoirs
that "none heretofore has contained so wide a range of subjects, treated more thoroughly, in greater detail, or combined to form so instructive and curious a whole." Gossip was never practiced with a surer hand or at a higher power than it was by
le petit duc,
who turned it into literature.
5. The Truth Defense
Men are children. They must be pardoned for everything, except malice.
â JOSEPH JOUBERT
Â
I N TURGENEV'S NOVEL
Virgin Soil,
a character named Valentina Mihalovna Sipyagina reports in a letter to her brother "an 'amusing' piece of
hôtel,
or mansion, in Paris and at the castle on his estate in the country. Yet it was not an altogether voluntary retirement: he was told by Fleury, the tutor to Louis XV and later that youthful King's chief minister, that his presence was no longer wanted at Versailles. Nothing left for
le petit duc
but to write his
Memoirs.
All memoirs are, more or less, gossip. Hard to imagine a man so inquisitive, so critical, so penetrating, and with so many enemies as Saint-Simon not using gossip both as a means of self-justification and as a weapon against enemies. He wrote of his "passion for discovering, unraveling, and generally keeping up to date with intrigues that were always fascinating, and which it was often useful, and sometimes highly advantageous, to know." That he felt himself so embattled, with people against him on every side, left him always on the qui vive for an enemy's weakness, and gave him cause, as he himself put it, to "examine everyone with
my eyes and ears.
" The great nineteenth-century critic Sainte-Beuve called
le petit duc
"the spy of his century," and what is spying but a species of gossiping? Spies don't necessarily have to be in the pay of government; every first-class gossip is, when one comes right down to it, a spy in business for himself.
Saint-Simon claimed to write "the history of my own times, which, from the beginning, has been my sole purpose." He also reports that "you will find no scandals in these memoirs except where they are needed to explain the general situation," which is not true. He reports, to cite but one example of hundreds, of one Bentivoglio, a papal nuncio, that "he thought nothing of keeping an opera-singer, and of having two daughters by her, who were known to be such, and went by the nicknames of 'La Constitution' and 'La Legende.'"
In the end, it is the personal details, much more than the broad sweep of Saint-Simon's political or religious views or his general narrative, that make the
Memoirs
so enticing. Much of our pleasure in reading him derives from such items as learning that, when Peter the Great visited Paris and Versailles, "it did not suit the Czar or his staff to restrain himself in any way." Or in his telling us about a fellow named Arouet who "was sent to the Bastille for writing scurrilous verses," who was "the son of my father's notary," and that "nothing could be done with this dissolute son, whose rake's progress ended by his making a fortune under the name of Voltaire, which he took in order to conceal his true name." Or of the miser Pecoil, who dies locked in his own vault, contemplating his money. Or of the thoroughly unpleasant Marquis de Thury, felled by a leg of mutton wielded by the Duc d'Elbeuf at table, "leaving a permanent scar on his most unpleasing countenance, though at the time he did not retaliate."
Saint-Simon claimed his
Memoirs
were "authoritative and first-hand," which is so. He did not claim impartiality, for, as he puts it, "one is attracted by honorable and truthful persons; provoked by the rogues who swarm at Court, and made still more angry by those who do one harm." He was correct, too, in writing of his
Memoirs
that "none heretofore has contained so wide a range of subjects, treated more thoroughly, in greater detail, or combined to form so instructive and curious a whole." Gossip was never practiced with a surer hand or at a higher power than it was by
le petit duc,
who turned it into literature.
5. The Truth Defense
Men are children. They must be pardoned for everything, except malice.
â JOSEPH JOUBERT
Â
I N TURGENEV'S NOVEL
Virgin Soil,
a character named Valentina Mihalovna Sipyagina reports in a letter to her brother "an 'amusing' piece of
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