Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency by Louis de Rouvroy, Duc de Saint-Simon

Description

Saint-Simon was a duke of the ancient nobility, furious at the world that rewarded officialdom over blood, and he used his anger as a lens. His memoirs run across decades of the reign of Louis XIV and the Regency that followed, and no page is neutral: ministers are measured for their pettiness, kings for their grandeur and their blind spots, and the daily ceremonial of Versailles for the invention it was.

The book’s value as history is enormous and contested; its value as literature is beyond dispute. Saint-Simon painted portraits that read like novels, and his sentences still surprise after two hundred years. This is the Versailles of the world’s imagination — written by a man who was in the room and furious about it.

Why readers still come back to it

• The unsurpassed eyewitness panorama of Versailles at its height.
• Character sketches with more life than most fictional characters.
• The authentic voice of the French old nobility, grievance and all.

About this DodaBooks edition

This long work is arranged for easy navigation: clear type, a structured table of contents, and sensible chapter break-up that lets you move between reigns and years. The court assembles in the file the moment your order is confirmed.