Louis de Rouvroy Saint-Simon
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Mode of Life of the Duchesse de Berry.--Her Illness.--Her Degrading Amours.--Her Danger Increases.--The Sacraments Refused.--The Cure Is Supported by the Cardinal de Noailles.--Curious Scene.--The Duchess Refuses to Give Way.--She Recovers, and Is Delivered.--Ambition of Rion. --He Marries the Duchess.--She Determines to Go to Meudon.--Rion Sent to the Army.--Quarrels of Father and Daughter.--Supper on the Terrace of Meudon.--The Duchess Again Ill.--Moves to La Muette.--Great Danger.-- Receives the Sacrament.--Garus and Chirac.--Rival Doctors.--Increased Illness.--Death of the Duchess.--Sentiments on the Occasion.--Funeral Ceremonies.--Madame de Saint-Simon Fails Ill.--Her Recovery.--We Move to Meudon.--Character of the Duchesse de Berry.
No library of Court documents could pretend to be representative which ignored the famous “Memoirs” of the Duc de Saint-Simon. They stand, by universal consent, at the head of French historical papers, and are the one great source from which all historians derive their insight into the closing years of the reign of the “Grand Monarch,” Louis XIV: whom the author shows to be anything but grand--and of the Regency. The opinion of the French critic, Sainte-Beuve, is fairly typical. “With the Memoirs of De Retz, it seemed that perfection had been attained, in interest, in movement, in moral analysis, in pictorial vivacity, 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.”
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