de and Mazarin, held public employments which enriched him,
became the friend of Fouquet, and escaped the general ruin which fell on
the superintendent's friends at his fall, married, it is said, secretly
a daughter of the house where he had served in a menial capacity, was
recalled honourably to his country, discharged important political and
diplomatic offices, lived on equal terms with the greatest nobles of the
court, and died full of years, riches, and honours, in 1703. His
Memoirs, which were written but a short time before his death, were
dictated to a secretary. They are of a somewhat gossiping character, but
full of curious information. The so-called memoirs of Omer Talon are
really accounts, written in a stilted and professional style, of the
proceedings of the Parliament of Paris. Henri de Guise, the last, the
least fortunate, but not the least remarkable of his famous family, has
left an account of the wild expedition which he made to Naples at the
time of the revolt of Masaniello, which is somewhat too long for the
subject. The Memoirs of the Marechal de Grammont were composed from his
papers by his second son, Louvigny, afterwards Duke de Grammont. The
eldest son, Count de Guiche, the most accomplished cavalier of the
earlier court of Louis XIV., died before his father. Guiche left a
brilliant relation (written some say on the spot and at once) of the
passage of the Rhine, an exploit much exaggerated by the king's
flatterers, but which was really a brilliant feat of arms, and was
mainly due to Guiche himself. Like those of Grammont, the Memoirs of the
Marechal du Plessis are not the work of the hero, but in this case a
professional man of letters--it is thought Segrais--seems to have been
called in. Their somewhat stilted regularity contrasts with the
irregular vigour of most of the work mentioned in this chapter. Some
anonymous _Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire du XVII'eme Siecle_,
though evidently a compilation, are not destitute of literary merit.
They seem to be extracted for the most part from works already
mentioned. The Memoirs of La Porte, the valet de chambre of Anne of
Austria and the youthful Louis XIV., are rather important to history
than to literature. Madame de la Fayette wrote Memoirs of Henrietta, the
daughter of Charles I., and the first wife of the Duke of Orleans, but
they are not equal to her novels in merit. The poet-Marquis La Fare
began memoirs on an extensive plan, but only complete