In the literary jewel that are his “Memoirs”, Saint Simon describes the court of King Louis XIVin Versailles and its “chilling” gallery of characters, for the most part abject, greedy, servile. The author spares no one, executing both simple lackeys and grand duchesses “sauerkraut” and shabby Trissotins, and reserving his most stylish robberies for the most powerful in the kingdom: Monsieur, brother of the king, the Grand Dauphin and Louis XIV himself. Saint Simon must have felt the wind of the ball when the Sun King reprimands him: “But also, sir, it is that you speak and blame; this is what makes people speak against you”.
Always looking for lice in wigs, Saint Simon appears at court as a dangerous man and hateful, but he is protected by his very remote aristocratic heritage, his rank, his talent and his wit. rest of him the wickedness of his “Memoirs”. By car Saint Simon is the throne fair, the upheaval, the game of massacre, everyone takes it for their particle.
For example, this sardonic description of the burning of the wig of the Marquise de Charlus during a dinner:She took a soft-boiled egg which she opened, and, stepping forward afterwards to take some salt, set her hairstyle on fire from a nearby candle without noticing it. The archbishop at her side, who saw her all on fire, threw the headdress on the ground. And the whole company burst out laughing at the gray, dirty, hoary head of Madame de Charlus.”.
September 1715, Versailles is nothing more than a sunset, the sky darkens and the king dies. The nobility was stricken at full speed and Saint Simon, nostalgic for the golden age of the monarchy, was one of the few of the aristocratic caste to understand that it’s soon the end of a world. The worst is yet to come, there are only two generations left before the carmagnole resounds at the gates of the castle followed by a panoply of horrors: confiscation of land and castles, closing of churches, demolition, terror, forks, pikes and guillotines. Saint Simon will not see the unbearable, he joins in heaven in 1755 those, he says, “that he knew so well how to love and hate”.
To read or reread, “Memoirs” by Saint Simon, Editions Folioplus Classiques