Venom

Robin Briggs

  • Saint-Simon, ou le système de la cour by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and Jean-François Fitou
    Fayard, 636 pp, frs 160.00, November 1997, ISBN 2 213 59994 7

At the end of a work comparing the first three Bourbon kings, the duc de Saint-Simon invites us to make a final judgment between them, and to be persuaded that the precise truth has guided every stroke of his pen. With characteristic dexterity, he couples this nuanced claim to objectivity with the suggestion that it has only been achieved by subordinating his feelings of ‘just gratitude’ towards Louis XIII. It was that king who had raised the memorialist’s father, his personal favourite for some ten years, to the rank of duke and peer, so we should not be wholly surprised to find Saint-Simon challenging conventional opinion by rating him higher as both person and king than either Henri IV or Louis XIV.

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