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Biography of Saint-Simon, Duc deName: Saint-Simon, Duc deBirth Date: January 16, 1675 Death Date: March 2, 1755 Place of Birth: Paris, France Nationality: French Gender: Male Occupations: writer Saint-Simon, Duc de The French writer Louis de Rouvroy, Duc de Saint-Simon (1675-1755), provides in his classic "Memoirs" a major source of information on the court of the "Sun King," Louis XIV.The Duc de Saint-Simon was born on Jan. 16, 1675, in Paris. As a young aristocrat, he studied horsemanship and fencing as much as letters and entered the elite King's Musketeers at the age of 16. Three years later, apparently inspired by the memoirs of Marshal Bassompierre and others, which he read in the field, he began making notes for memoirs of his own.Passed over for promotion in 1702, Saint-Simon abandoned his military career and went to live at the court of Versailles. He apparently continued to make notes and read extensively in the works of other memorialists and historians, to the point that his fellow courtiers often consulted him on questions of history, genealogy, and court etiquette. However, both his resignation from the army …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…some errors of fact and interpretation, his knowledge of history made him aware of the breakdown of traditional checks and balances that underlay Louis XIV's royal absolutism and which was to lead, in the next century, to the French Revolution. Saint-Simon's intensely written accounts of court intrigues and such events as the deaths of the Grand Dauphin, the Duke of Burgundy, and Louis XIV himself--as well as his incisive word portraits of his fellow courtiers--make him perhaps the world's greatest writer on the prestige, the ambitions, the uncertainties, and the ironies of public life. He completed his Memoirs in 1752. Saint-Simon died on March 2, 1755, in Paris. Further Reading Saint-Simon's Memoirs have never been completely translated into English. The most recent partial translation is by Lucy Norton, Historical Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon (2 vols., 1967-1968). The best study of Saint-Simon in English is Edwin Cannan, The Duke of Saint Simon (1885). |