245 



SAINT- SIMON, DUG DE. 



SAINT-SIMON, COMTE DE. 



Ml 



as administered in the House of Lords,' published early in 1849, in 

 which he examines and criticises the decisions given in tho House 

 of Lords, when acting as a court of appeal; and in 1851 'An Essay 

 on the New Heal Property Statutes.' lu February 1352, on the 

 accession of the Earl of Derby to the ministry, Sir Edward Sugdeii 

 was appointed Lord Chancellor of England, and created a peer, as 

 Lord St. Leonards. While acting in this capacity he issued a set 

 of rules and orders for proceedings in Chancery, of which the 

 advantages were considered very doubtful, but his judgments were 

 generally prompt, and tho reasons assigned for them clear and satis- 

 factory. In December of the same year, he had again to resign his 

 post, but has continued to take an active part in politics as an adherent 

 of the party that looks up to the Earl of Derby as its head. 



SAINT-SIMON, LOUIS DE ROUVROY, DUC DE, the writer of 

 the celebrated ' Memoirs of the Court of France under Louis XIV. 

 and his Successors,' was born of a family who claimed descent from 

 the old counts of Vermandois, on the 16th of January 1675. He was 

 presented at the font by Louis XIV. and Maria Therese of Austria, 

 and received a careful education at home. When quite a youth he 

 was entered in the corps of Mousquetaires, made his first campaign 

 under Marsbal Luxembourg in 1692, and distinguished himself by his 

 valour at the siege of Namur and at the battles of Fleurus and Neer- 

 winden. He rose rapidly to the rank of major-general, obtained the 

 government of St. Blaye, and on the death of his father succeeded to his 

 title. He then abandoned the military career, and resolved to devote 

 himself to the court and diplomacy, for which his tastes and his 

 talents more peculiarly fitted him. He had married, in 1695, the 

 daughter of the Marshal de Lorges, his connections were high, and no 

 one seemed more likely to succeed in his new course than himself ; 

 but Louis XIV. overlooked him, chiefly it is said on account of his 

 independent character, so that, having abandoned arms and receiving 

 no other employment, he occupied himself in studying and recording 

 the characters of the court, the courtiers, and the ministers. A staunch 

 aristocrat and a supporter of Jansenism in the latter days of Louis XIV., 

 he became an opponent of Madame de Maintenon and the legitimate 

 princes, a friend of Fdnelon, and an active adherent of the Duke of 

 Orleans, whose claims to the regency he powerfully advocated among 

 the nobility of France even before tho death of Louis. On the 

 accession of Orleans to the regency he was made one of the council, 

 and possessed considerable influence over the regent ; but he declined 

 being appointed governor to the young king. St. Simon however, 

 though esteemed by the regent, and supporting his measures generally, 

 was too independent to follow him servilely. He opposed the preten- 

 sions of the Jesuits; he strongly advised Orleans to preserve the 

 parliament from its threatened destruction by Cardinal Dubois; he 

 remonstrated against the financial projects of Law ; but he was a peer 

 and an aristocrat, though an honest one, and he equally opposed all 

 measures of reform. In 1721 he was sent to Spain to uegociate a 

 marriage of Louis XV. with the infanta, and another of the Prince of 

 Asturias with a daughter of Orleans ; and though the first failed, and 

 the second was unhappy, he received testimonies from both courts of 

 their satisfaction with him, and was created a grandee of Spain and 

 kuight of the Golden Fleece. On Louis XV. coming of age, in 

 February 1723, the regency of Orleans terminated, and he died in the 

 same year. With the death of Orleans the political life of St. Simon 

 ended ; he retired to privacy at his estate of La Forte", occupied him- 

 self in writing his ' Memoirs,' and died at Paris on the 2nd of March 

 1755. His ' Memoirs ' terminate with the death of the regent, though 

 the writer lived so long after. The work, written with his own hand, 

 was deemed by his family unfit for immediate publication (and indeed 

 Saint-Simon had forbidden it), as many of the characters described 

 were yet alive. They accordingly applied for and obtained a lettre de 

 cachet for the deposition of the original manuscript among the national 

 archives. Various applications were subsequently made at intervals 

 by the family for the restoration of the manuscript, but ineffectually. 

 After one of thesa applications, on the .accession of Louis XVI., the 

 Abbd Voiaenon was appointed to examine it. The work was retained, 

 but he made copious extracts and copies of it ; these were surrep- 

 titiously obtained by means of a faithless servant, and printed in 

 7 vols. in 1788 and 1789. When the liberty of the press was pro- 

 claimed, Soulavie issued an edition in 1791, increased by some useless 

 notes, in better order, but still incomplete, in 13 vols. 8vo. It was 

 not till 1829-30 that, by the liberality of Louis XVIII., a complete 

 edition was given under the title of ' Me"moires complete et authen- 

 tiques du Due de Saint-Simon sur le Siecle de Louis XIV. et la 

 Re"gence ; public's pour le premiere fois eur le manuscrit original, 

 entierement e*crit de la main de 1'auteur, par M. le Marquis de Saint- 

 Simon, Pair de France, &c., &c.,' in 21 vols. 8vo. In 1856-57 a new 

 edition, printed in the first style of typography, collated with the 

 original manuscript by M. de Che~ruel, with an introductory notice by 

 M. Saiute-Beuve of the French Academy, was issued at Paris in 

 20 vols., and no less than five other editions were published in Paris at 

 the same time. The ground- work of the 'Memoirs' is. the life of 

 the author, but it is neither a history, journal, or a series of biographi- 

 cal characters, but a most interesting compound of all three. The 

 style is somewhat rough, but the sincerity and honesty of the author, 

 joined to his clear-sightedness in all that did not come into conflict 

 with his immediate prejudices, and even these do not mislead his love 



of truth, hie vivid perception and lively delineation of character, and 

 his store of illustrative anecdotes, constitute the work an invaluable 

 picture of the historical events and of the life and manners of the age 

 of Louis XIV. and of the regency. A translation by Itayle St. John 

 of select portions of the ' Memoirs,' is now (May 1857) in the press. 



SAINT-SIMON, CLAUDE-HENRI, COMTE DE, a man whose 

 influence on the social philosophy of modern France, and to some 

 extent also on the general thought of Europe, haa been very great, 

 was born at Paris on the 17th of October 1760. His grandfather was 

 the Due de Saint-Simon of the preceding article; but his father having 

 lost the ducal title and property, St.-Simon began life from a lower 

 rank among the old French noblesse. After having received a general 

 training under D'Aleinbert and other teachers, he adopted the course 

 of life usual with young French nobles, and in 1777 went to America 

 as an officer in the French army sent by Louis XVI. to assist the 

 American colonists in their revolt against Great Britain. Even at this 

 early age he was remarkable for restlessness, eccentricity, and a con- 

 viction that he was bom to play a great part. His servant had 

 instructions to awaken him every morning with these words : " Levez- 

 vous, M. le Comte, vous avez de grandes choses a faire." After serving 

 under Bquilld and Washington, and travelling in Mexico and other 

 parts of the American continent, he returned to France. Here he 

 held the honorary rank of colonel, but sought no farther opportunity 

 of active service ; being already convinced, he eays, that his proper 

 business was to " study the march of the human spirit in order 

 eventually to labour for the advancement of human civilisation." His 

 father's death in 1783 left him more his own master ; and in 1785 and 

 subsequent years he travelled in Holland and Spain. While in Spain 

 he availed himself of his connections with the court there to press 

 some projects for the material improvement of the country, and 

 among them, one for making a canal to unite Madrid with the sea. 

 The passion for social rectification was already strongly developed hi 

 him; but as yet there was little appearance of its assuming any 

 definite or systematic form. Though he had returned to France in 

 1789, just before the outbreak of the revolution, and though not- 

 withstanding his aristocratic birth his sympathies seem to have been 

 wholly on tho side of the movement, he did not, like Mirabeau and 

 others of his order, take any direct part in it, but looked on as a 

 mere spectator. In partnership indeed with a Prussian, Count de 

 Redeni, he bought a large quantity of the confiscated national lands, 

 with some notion of founding a great scientific and industrial school; 

 but the scheme came to nothing, and in 1797 Saint-Simon separated 

 from Redem, and backed out of the speculation with a sum of 

 145,000 livres (6800?.) as the amount of his remaining fortune. 



It was about this time, when he was already in his thirty-eighth 

 year, that he began in earnest his career as a social theorist and 

 reformer, or rather his studies preparatory to that career. His life, 

 hitherto, had been vague and erratic ; he had a conviction that human 

 society required radical changes, and that men ought to be directed 

 into new paths of activity ; but, as to the precise nature of the social 

 changes to be effected, or of the principles that ought to regulate men 

 for the future, he was still ignorant. A " physico-political " reformation 

 was necessary that was all he could say ; except this besides, that he 

 felt himself called upon to be the reformer. For this purpose, he must 

 educate himself systematically, furnishing himself with all the know- 

 ledge of the world up to his own day, so that he might start from the 

 exact point at which humanity had arrived. lu this extraordinary 

 course of education he spent about ten years. It divided itself into 

 two parts first, that which was sheerly theoretical and intellectual; 

 and, secondly, that which was experimental and emotional. 1 . ' Theo- 

 retical Education.' This must consist, he said, in thoroughly acquiring 

 all those contemporary scientific generalities in which the entire 

 knowledge of the race was condensed and formulised. In this, not- 

 withstanding his early education under D'Alembert and others, he 

 considered himself deficient, and he set about remedying the deficiency. 

 " Taking up his residence near the Ecole Polytechnique, he devoted 

 his whole attention for three years, according to his own methods, and 

 with all the appliances that money could purchase, to the study of the 

 physical sciences mathematics, astronomy, general physics, and 

 chemistry. Satisfied with his progress in these, he removed in 1801 

 to the neighbourhood of the Ecole de Mdddciue, in order, in a similar 

 manner to add to his stock of ideas regarding inorganic nature all the 

 general science attainable regarding organised beings. Here, accord- 

 ingly, in the company of eminent savans, he traversed the whole 

 field of physiological science. Having thus imbibed all the contem- 

 porary scientific thought ef France, it was necessary, according to his 

 plan, that he should visit England and Germany, lest, in either country, 

 any ideas should be lurking of decided European value, though 

 France had not recognised them." Out of these countries however he 

 derived nothing which he thought important out of the circle of 

 principles already accessible iu France ; and he accordingly " concluded 

 that, iu having made these principles fully his own, he had taken in 

 the entire essence of all the contemporary thought of the world." 

 2. ' Experimental Education.' This, as distinct from the first, was to 

 consist in " the actual realisation in his own person of the whole range 

 of human situations and emotions," so as to break down the limits 

 which begirt him as a nobleman and a Frenchman, and enable him to 

 fraternise with humanity in every phase. One of his first experiments 



