Saint-Simon and the court of Louis XIV

"The Duke of Saint-Simon (1675-1755) was by all accounts, including his own, a sensitive, self-obsessed, ill-tempered man. A courtier and phenomenal chronicler of court life under Louis XIV, he produced the monumental work Memoirs, running to thousands of pages, in which the intrigues, personalities, activities, and gossip of life at Versailles are recorded in acerbic detail. Drawing heavily on these Memoirs, historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, with the collaboration of Jean-Francois Fitou, offers a portrait of life under Louis XIV, focusing on the fundamental issues of hierarchy and rank in this tightly controlled universe."--BOOK JACKET.