SAINT SIMON, Louis DE Rouvnot, Due de, whose family claimed to be descended from Charlemagne, was born in Jan., 1675. After receiving a careful education under the superintendence of his mother, he entered the army in 1693, but considering his pro motion not equal to his deserts, he resigned his commission in 1702, and devoted the remainder of his life to a sort of court statesmanship. Saint Simon's position was as singular and as anomalous as his character. Profoundly ambitious, his pride was yet greater than his ambition. His ideas of aristocratic rights and privileges were perhaps more outrageously fanatical than any ever entertained in modern ages; and the whole aim of his life was to nullify the influence of the parliament, and to place the government of France in the hands of the grands great territorial lords. The middle class lie abhorred; and the rise to distinction of any one belonging to that order—any nocui /wino, tortured his patrician soul almost beyond endurance. We have not space (nor would it be worth our while, if we had) to recount his career of haughty and inso lent conspiracy against the political rights of commoners, which marks him out as the most thorougleroing oligarch in principle of whom we have any record. During the lat
ter part of Louis XI V.'s reign, and the regency of the duke of Orleans, lie enjoyed much consideration, and his aristocratic policy more than once enjoyed a temporary triumph; but with the accession to the regency of the duke of Bourbon he fell into disgrace, and withdrew from public life. He died at Paris, Mar. 2, 1753. Saint Simon's last years were occupied chiefly in the composition of his famous Memoires, a work of incalculable histo rical value. Though the style is far from faultless, it so admirably expresses the meaning of the author, that one would not wish it other than it is. The CEuv•es Completes de Louts de Saint Simon appeared'at Strasburg in 1791, in 13 vols., but the best edition is that of MM. Cheruel and Reguier (20 vols. Paris, 1836, et seq.). See A. Lelevre Pontalis, Dis cours stir la Vie et les CEuvres de &tint Simon (Paris, 1835).