Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency — Volume 05

Saint-Simon wrote from inside the machine of power, and he hated almost everyone in it. This volume opens with two figures who embody the court's lethal charm: Chief President Lamoignon, whose judicial robes mask a thirst for private vengeance, and Ninon de l'Enclos, the legendary courtesan whose lovers spanned generations of French nobility. When Lamoignon orchestrates the execution of an innocent man named Fargues, we see exactly how justice worked at Versailles, not for truth, but for the ambitions of the powerful. Saint-Simon's genius lies in his portraits: razor-sharp character studies that strip away the glitter and reveal the petty cruelties, the trading of sexual favors for political protection, the endless scheming beneath the powdered wigs. This is gossip raised to literature, written by a man who had access to everything and trusted no one. Three centuries later, it remains the most vivid, most venomous, most compulsively readable account of absolute power ever penned by someone who actually lived inside it.