Even if the memoirs of Louis de Rouvroy, Duc de Saint-Simon did not contain a brilliant and penetrating analysis of life and personages of the court of Louis the XIV, they would be read for their literary excellence, their candor and their charm. A man of devastating insight, Saint-Simon saw fit to keep secret his diaries during the time in which he lived, for the light they shed on his contemporaries, and particularly on the King, would certainly have cast their author in a dangerous shadow. Lucy Norton's translation of the difficult French prose of Saint-Simon is rendered freely, and it is acknowledged in the preface by Nancy Mitford, that literalism has been compromised in order to preserve the true flavor of the writings, a flavor which is urbane, humorous and often bitingly objective. In his painstaking miniatures of various courtiers-- of Madame de Maintenon, the Comte de Toulouse, the Duke of Orleans, the Duchess of Bourgogne, the Duke of Vendome--Saint-Simon artfully constructs an entity, the entity of a court dedicated to self indulgence and of a powerful and corrupt monarch whose lack of brilliance and doubtful education did not entirely obscure his truly royal nature. A classic which is as enjoyable as it is admirable in translation which displays a gift for prose and a refreshing sensitivity to history.