haps
which as a type at least merits something more than a mere mention--the
_Conjuration des Espagnols contre Venise_[255] of Saint Real, a piece
famous in French literature as a capital example of historical narration
on the small scale, and not unimportant to English literature as the
basis of Otway's principal tragedy. Cesar Vichard, Abbe de Saint Real,
was born at Chambery in 1631, and died at the same place in 1692. He was
sent early to Paris, betook himself to historical studies, and published
various works, including certain discourses on history, a piece on Don
Carlos, and the _Conjuration des Espagnols_ itself, which appeared in
1672. Shortly afterwards he visited London, and was for a time a member
of the _coterie_ of Saint Evremond and Hortense Mancini. He returned to
Paris and thence, in 1679, to his native town, where the Duke of Savoy
made him his historiographer and a member of the Academy of Turin. Not
long before his death he was employed in political work. Saint Real's
chief characteristics as a historian are the preference before
everything else of a dramatic conception and treatment, and the
employment of a singularly vivid and idiomatic style, simple in its
vocabulary and phrase and yet in the highest degree picturesque. He has
been accused of following his master, Varillas, in want of strict
accuracy, but in truth strict accuracy was not aimed at by any of these
essayists. Their object was to produce a creditable literary
composition, to set forth their subject strikingly and dramatically, and
to point a moral of some kind. In all three respects their success was
not contemptible.

[Sidenote: Memoir-writers.]

[Sidenote: Rohan]

[Sidenote: Bassompierre.]

The memoir-writers proper, who confine themselves to what they in their
own persons have done, heard, or thought, are, as has been said, of far
more importance. Their number is very great, and investigations into the
vast record treasures which, after revolutionary devastation, France
still possesses, is yearly increasing the knowledge of them. Only a
brief account can here be attempted of most of them; and where the
historical importance of the writer exceeds or equals his importance as
a literary figure, biographical details will be but sparingly given, as
they are easily and more suitably to be found elsewhere. The earliest
writer who properly comes within our century (the order of the
collection of Michaud and Poujoulat is followed for c