Documents found
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3153.
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3154.
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3155.More information
AbstractTrue to the tradition of aristocratic Memoirs, the Duke of Saint Simon's work is attentive to the debts owed to the monarchy as they are to those owed by it, to the balance of favours rendered and services due which in an ordered world define the relationships of the sovereign and his principle vassals. The Cardinal of Bouillon, who will be the focus of the following pages, is vigorously condemned by Saint Simon for his intrigues and for his treason ; the memorialist finds a source of his disloyalty to lie in a reward formerly accorded by Henri IV to the Cardinal's grandfather, making him the sovereign prince of Sedan. In the eyes of Saint Simon, this transaction is unprecedented. Such a princeship creates monsters : regnicole sovereigns ; and from this ontological impossibility disloyalty ensues, a sovereign prince not being able to remain a mere or loyal subject of the King. The crimes of the Cardinal are thus committed in accordance with a name and a title that royal sanction will consist in eradicating. The strategy of Saint Simon is however quite different : unable to abolish the rank of foreign prince himself and reduce the Bouillons to their rank in the peerage, Saint Simon unceasingly wrote hundreds, even thousands of pages in favour of this abolition, using as his resource the most informed writings in titular matters to accomplish his work of justice and of truth, and to scrupulously give unto each his due.
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3157.