was a
Norman by birth (Charles de Marguetel de Saint Denis was his proper
name), and was born in 1610. He was educated by the Jesuits, entered the
army early, served through the later campaigns of the Thirty Years' War
and in the Fronde, was a favourite of Conde's but fell into disgrace
with him, and after the fall of Fouquet, which led to the discovery of
his very able and very uncourtly letter on the Peace of the Pyrenees,
also incurred the king's displeasure. This displeasure is said to have
been aggravated by his notorious membership of the freethinking and
materialist school which Gassendi, if he had not founded it, had helped
to spread. Saint Evremond was practically if not formally banished, and
the time of his misfortune coinciding pretty nearly with the
Restoration in England, he made his way thither, was well received by
the king and his courtiers, many of whom he had known in their exile,
and dwelt in London for almost the whole remainder of his long life. He
died in 1703, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His works are almost
entirely occasional, consisting of 'conversations,' letters,
'portraits,' short literary disquisitions and tractates on subjects of
historical and ethical interest. They display a placid epicurean
philosophy which in its indifference to the assaults of fortune is not
destitute of nobility, an extraordinary catholicity and acuteness of
literary judgment, and remarkable wit and _finesse_. The _Conversation
du Pere Canaye_, which is of the same date as the _Provinciales_, is
worthy of Pascal for its irony, and possesses a certain air of being
written by a 'person of quality,' which Saint Evremond could throw over
his writings better almost than any one else. His Portraits, not always
flattering, are full of nervous vigour. But his literary remarks are
perhaps the most surprising of his works. At a time when English
literature was almost unknown in France, and when Boileau ostentatiously
pretended never to have heard of Dryden, Saint Evremond, perhaps with
some assistance from his friend Waller, drew up some masterly remarks on
the humour-comedy of the Jonson school. His criticisms of French plays,
as compared with classical tragedy and comedy, are also full of pregnant
thought; and some comparative studies of his on Corneille and Racine
show a power of detachment and independence which may be due in some
part to the cosmopolitanism given by residence abroad, but which is
certainly due al