Talk:Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon

While Saint Simon's comments may sometimes be less than expansive, yet the multitudinous nature of his ouevre defies any generalization that would lead the reader to conclude that he is base or even inconsiderate in any consistent way. Indeed, several critics - most notably that German philological juggernaut Erich Auerbach - have even gone so far as to assert the opposite; that Saint Simon is in fact generally humanistic and empathetic. Auerbach claims that his sometimes unsympathetic trappings are in fact a kind of artifice, which he uses to highlight the ironic and often deeply pathetic inner nature of the people he describes:

"C'etait une grande creature, tres bien faite, d'un visage agreable, avec de l'esprit, et un naturel si simple, si vrai, si surnageant a tout, qu'il en etait ravissant..."

Note how the introductory phrases and verbs, which seem to be impugning or denigrating the lady, are suddenly reversed and made into a tribute to her deeply pathetic nature by the final string of adjectives.

Assessment comment
Substituted at 22:30, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

On "missing" memoirs
In case confusion arises from something said in the 1967 translation, the original manuscript of his memoirs didn't go missing. You can refer to this article about what was lost from his papers, which based on the inventory was thought to have little to do with the author himself, and in any case didn't concern the memoirs. Emelkaji (talk) 15:13, 21 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Late precision: in the complete text there are however over forty references to Pièces justificatives, not indexed separately in the archives nor delivered with the manuscript. Usually these are references to copies of correspondence between others, or excerpts from the memoirs of Torcy, or even two of Saint-Simon's political works, but also at least a couple digressions he wouldn't incorporate into the memoirs, instead adding them to these documents. The letters supposedly made their way into private collections that still get published every so often.Emelkaji (talk) 18:21, 13 November 2019 (UTC)