We refer to their MEMOIRES POUR SERVIR, such as those of Sully, De Comines, Lauzun, De Retz, De Thou, Rochefoucalt, &c., in which we have recorded an immense mass of minute and circumstantial information relative to many great personages of history.

They are full of anecdotes illustrative of life and character, and of details which might be called frivolous, but that they throw a flood of light on the social habits and general civilisation of the periods to which they relate.

The MEMOIRES of Saint-Simon are something more: they are marvellous dissections of character, and constitute the most extraordinary collection of anatomical biography that has ever been brought together.
Saint-Simon might almost be regarded in the light of a posthumous court-spy of Louis the Fourteenth.

He was possessed by a passion for reading character, and endeavouring to decipher motives and intentions in the faces, expressions, conversation, and byplay of those about him.
"I examine all my personages closely," said he--"watch their mouth, eyes, and ears constantly." And what he heard and saw he noted down with extraordinary vividness and dash.

Acute, keen, and observant, he pierced the masks of the courtiers, and detected their secrets.