writers in no respect professional, but trained to expression only by
literary amusements and the conversation of the salons; the keen insight
into motive and character; the intense interest and power of reflection
with which contemporary events are taken in and represented.

Louis de Rouvroy, Duke de Saint Simon[259], was born at La Ferte
Vidame, the family seat, in 1675. The family was of very great antiquity
and unblemished _noblesse_, claiming descent from Charlemagne; the
dukedom and the peerage--it is to be remembered that peerage in France
has, or rather had under the old regime, an entirely different sense
from the modern English sense, referring not in the least to the
ennobling of the persons enjoying it, but to their admission into a kind
of great council of the kingdom which had indeed long lost its active
functions, but retained its dignity--were conferred only on Saint
Simon's father, a favourite and a faithful servant of Louis XIII. His
mother was Charlotte de l'Aubespine, of a family which had much
distinguished itself for several generations since the days of Francis
the First. Saint Simon was brought up by the Jesuits, went to the wars
in Flanders at the age of seventeen, and a year later succeeded to the
title and estates by the death of his father. Thus at the age of
eighteen he found himself in a position theoretically superior to every
man in France except the princes of the blood, and his few brother
peers--theoretically, for the rule of Louis did not admit of any real
exercise of the privileges of the peerage. Saint Simon, however, began
at once to show his devotion to the idol of his whole life--the status
of his order--by going to law with Luxembourg, the famous Marshal, on a
question of precedence and title of the most intricate kind. At the
Peace of Ryswick he left the army, to the displeasure of the king; but
he was none the less constant at court, though he could hardly be called
a courtier, and though his inveterate stickling for precedence
frequently brought down the king's wrath on his head. In 1705 he was
made ambassador to Rome, but the appointment was almost immediately
cancelled. Many years later, however, a similar, but greater, honour
fell to his lot. The death of Louis put power into the hands of Philippe
d'Orleans, who was a friend of Saint Simon's, and the latter enjoyed the
greatest triumph of his life by bringing about the degradation of the
'Bastards' (the illegitimate sons o