Henri de Saint-Simon

“ So many people had already gained enormously by their own exertions that it was not doubtful Law could gain for me even more rapidly. But I never would lend myself to it. Law addressed himself to Madame de Saint-Simon, whom he found as inflexible. He would have much preferred to enrich me than many others; so as to attach me to him by interest, intimate as he saw me with the Regent. He spoke to M. le Duc d'Orleans, even, so as to vanquish me by his authority. ”

“ To show that his annoyance did not extend to my wife, but that it was solely and wholly directed against me, he bestowed, about eight months after, several marks of favour upon Madame de Saint-Simon. She was continually invited to the suppers at Trianon—an honour which had never before been granted her. I only laughed at this. Madame de Saint-Simon was not invited to Marly; because the husbands always, by right, accompanied their wives there, apartments being given for both. At Trianon it was different. Nobody was allowed to sleep there except those absolutely in attendance. ”

“ Partly because of this marriage, and also because he felt himself slighted in certain army appointments, he resigned his commissim after five years' service, and retired for a time to private life.
Upon his return to Court, taking up apartments which the royal favour had reserved for him at Versailles, Saint-Simon secretly entered upon the self-appointed task for which he is now known to fame—a task which the proud King of a vainglorious Court would have lost no time in terminating had it been discovered—the task of judge, spy, critic, portraitist, and historian, rolled into one. ”

“ When at last he had got rid of her, he went to his own apartments, said not, a word to the persons he found there, scarcely one to Madame his wife, but taking Madame de Saint-Simon with him, went into his library, and shut himself up alone there with her. ”

“ It might seem that no book produced in such circumstances and by such a man could possibly be valuable or interesting. But, fortunately for the world, the merit of books does not depend upon the enlightenment of authors. Saint-Simon was a man of small intellect, with medieval ideas as to the structure of society, with an absurd belief in the fundamental importance of the minutest class distinctions, and with an obsession for dukedoms almost amounting to mania: but he had in addition an incredibly passionate temperament combined with an unparalleled power of observation ”

“ Lorenz von Stein uses these words, in comparing Saint-Simon and Fourier: “While Saint-Simon was sacrificing his life in Paris in his efforts to attain an unknown and only vaguely conjectured goal, and while his school was struggling against foes from within and without, there lived in another part of France a man who, without knowing Saint-Simon, was taking an essentially different route towards the same goal. This man was Charles Fourier.... Never has any land at the same time produced two men of such importance in the history of society.” ”

“ To have been angry would only have been to spread it wider: I took the matter as the scratch of an ill- natured cat, and did not allow Lauzun to perceive that I knew it.
Two or three years before his death he had an illness which reduced him to extremity. We were all very assiduous, but he would see none of us, except Madame de Saint-Simon, and her but once. Languet, cure of Saint- Sulpice, often went to him, and discoursed most admirably to him. One day, when he was there, the Duc de la Force glided into the chamber: M. de Lauzun did not like him at all, and often laughed at him. ”

“ After quitting him, he had hastened to us to make us go and see Pontchartrain. The most serious things are sometimes accompanied with the most ridiculous. M. de Lorges upon arriving knocked at the door of a little room which preceded the chamber of Madame de Saint-Simon. My daughter was rather unwell. Madame de Saint-Simon thought she was worse, and supposing it was I who had knocked, ran and opened the door. ”

“ As he entered Monseigneur said with an air not natural to him, and very inflamed—as if by way of interrogation—that she “sat very quietly there.” This frightened her so, that she asked if there was any news from Flanders, and what had happened. Monseigneur answered, in a tone of great annoyance, that there was no news except that the Duc de Saint-Simon had said, that now that the marriage of the Duc de Berry was brought about, it would be proper to drive away Madame la Duchesse and the Princesse de Conti, after which it would be easy to govern “the great imbecile,” meaning himself. ”

“ Saint-Simon thought it necessary to add an experimental training to his theoretical one in order to prepare himself for his mission, and accomplished this by living every kind of life, from that of the wealthy entertainer of savants to one of poverty and dissipation. ”

“ M. le Duc de Berry had vomited a good deal—a black vomit. Fagon said, confidently, that it was from the blood; the other doctors fastened upon some chocolate he had taken on the Sunday. From this day forward I knew what was the matter. Boulduc, apothecary of the King, and extremely attached to Madame de Saint-Simon and to me, whispered in my ear that M. le Duc de Berry would not recover, and that, with some little difference, his malady was the same as that of which the Dauphin and Dauphine died. ”

“ An idler is a parasite; he devours what others produce and makes no return. Wealthy idlers are thieves; another class of idlers consists of beggars, and this last class of do-nothings, we are told by Saint-Simon, is scarcely less contemptible and dangerous than the first. [45] This makes it sufficiently evident that the Saint-Simonians were acting in the spirit of their master in proposing the abolition of inheritance.
Again, this new society would not be ascetic, like the old Christianity—Saint-Simon’s kingdom was of this world. ”

“ It is this version which is now presented in full, giving us not only many vivid pictures of the author's time, but of the author himself. "I do not pride myself upon my freedom from prejudice—impartiality," he confesses—"it would be useless to attempt it. But I have tried at all times to tell the truth."
VOLUME 1. CHAPTER I I was born on the night of the 15th of January, 1675, of Claude Duc de Saint-Simon, Peer of France, and of his second wife Charlotte de l'Aubepine. I was the only child of that marriage. By his first wife, Diana de Budos, my father had had only a daughter. ”

“ But the impulse had been given; there was now no time to remedy it, and I believe the King at heart was glad; for it pleased him during the fetes to look at all the dresses. He loved passionately all kinds of sumptuosity at his Court; and he who should have held only to what had been said, as to the folly of expense, would have grown little in favour. There was no means, therefore, of being wise among so many fools. Several dresses were necessary. Those for Madame Saint-Simon and myself cost us twenty thousand francs. Workmen were wanting to make up so many rich habits. ”

“ Law was a handsome man of polished and agreeable manners, and of much conversational talent. Saint-Simon, who knew him intimately, pronounced him 'innocent of greed and knavery,' and described him as 'a mild, good, respectful man whom fortune had not spoilt.' Some of the chief French historians of his times speak of him approvingly as a precursor of modern state-socialism, and most of them agree that 'The System,' however ruinous to individuals, gave a great impetus to the industry and enterprise of France, exhausted as it had been by Louis XIV's wars. ”

“ He made an expedition to Poland in the suite of the marquis de Béthune, hoping to make a career for himself in the court of John Sobieski; he saw one of the Polish king’s campaigns in Ukraine, but returned to Paris without securing any advancement. Saint-Simon says that the abbé helped his patron the grand prior to rob the duke of Vendôme, and that the king sent orders that the princes should take the management of their affairs from him. This account has been questioned by Sainte-Beuve, who regards Saint-Simon as a prejudiced witness. ”

“ And it is not simply in detached portraits that Saint-Simon's descriptive powers show themselves; they are no less remarkable in the evocation of crowded and elaborate scenes. He is a master of movement; he can make great groups of persons flow and dispose themselves and disperse again; he can produce the effect of a multitude under the dominion of some common agitation, the waves of excitement spreading in widening circles, amid the conflicting currents of curiosity and suspicion, fear and hope. ”

“ From his direst enemy to his dearest friend there is hardly a man in his crowded canvas whose character he does not directly or indirectly asperse. Indeed, in the case of his enemies, when he can find nothing to say against them, he not unfrequently hints that, in his opinion, their good actions were inspired by unworthy motives. For the rest, the story of this twelfth-century Saint-Simon is replete with the most interesting details, rich in local colour, and almost as thrilling to read as one of Wilkie Collins’s novels. ”

“ To make an inevitable excursion which here presents itself, the Rue Monsigny, deriving its name from one of the most famous composers connected with the Opéra Comique, will always be remembered as the head-quarters of the Saint-Simonians during the first meeting of that {119} strange association, founded by Saint-Simon, lineal descendant of the duke who wrote the famous Memoirs. The aims of the Saint-Simonians, visionary as they may have been, were at least noble; and the society numbered among its members some of the most able and high-minded young men of the day. ”

“ In the third picture, Simon has painted the saint returned after seven years absence from beyond the seas. He has passed thrice forty days in the Holy Land, and is now standing in the choir attending Divine service; a number of singing boys are near; the saint is here tempted by the devil, but the fiend is driven away by the firm determination not to offend the laws of God, which is manifested in Ranieri. who is aided by a figure which Simon meant to represent Constancy. ”

“ With Madame de Maintenon and a small suite, he had just taken up his abode in Meudon, when Madame de Saint-Simon sent me the letter of which I have just made mention.
I will continue to speak of myself with the same truthfulness I speak of others, and with as much exactness as possible. According to the terms on which I was with Monseigneur and his intimates, may be imagined the impression made upon me by this news. I felt that one way or other, well or ill, the malady of Monseigneur would soon terminate. ”

“ I was taught only to play and to hunt, and they have succeeded in making me a fool and an ass, incapable of anything, the laughing-stock and disdain of everybody.” Madame de Saint-Simon was overpowered with compassion, and did everything to calm M. de Berry. Their strange tete-a-tete lasted nearly two hours, and resumed the next day but with less violence. By degrees M. le Duc de Berry became consoled, but never afterwards did any one dare to speak to him of his misadventure at the peace ceremony. ”

“ About three years later his seignior of Saint-Simon in Vermandois was erected into a duchy, and he was created a peer of France. He was at first on good terms with Richelieu and was of service on the Day of Dupes (11th of November 1630) . Having suffered disgrace for taking the part of his uncle, the baron of Saint-Léger, after the capture of Catelet (15th of August 1636) , he retired to Blaye. He fought in the campaigns of 1638 and 1639, and after the death of Richelieu returned to court, where he was coldly received by the king (18th of February 1643) . ”

“ A long time after his death beyond the seas, the Abbe de Saint-Simon passed from Noyan to Metz, where he found his widow in great misery.
The Queen of England sent for Madame L’Hospital to Saint-Germain, thanked her, caressed her, as she deserved, and gave her her portrait. This was all; the Regent gave her nothing; a long while after King James wrote to her, and sent her also his portrait. Conclusion: she remained post- mistress of Nonancourt as before, twenty or twenty-five years after, to her death; and her son and her daughter-in-law keep the post now. She was a true woman ”

“ He rode out as often as he could; but no longer having the strength to hold himself on horseback, received a fall, which hastened his end by the shock it gave him. He occupied himself with religion as little as he had all his life. He ordered everything, and spoke to his ministers and his familiars with a surprising tranquillity, which did not abandon him until the last moment. Although crushed with pain, he had the satisfaction of thinking that he had consummated a great alliance, which would last after his death, and that it would strike the great blow against France, which he had projected. ”

“ He did not understand the social import of religion, and he represented the Middle Ages as a useless interruption of the forward movement. Here Saint-Simon learned from the religious reaction. He saw that religion has a natural and legitimate social role and cannot be eliminated as a mere perversity. He expounded the doctrine that all social phenomena cohere. A religious system, he said, always corresponds to the stage of science which the society wherein it appears has reached; in fact, religion is merely science clothed in a form suitable to the emotional needs which it satisfies. ”