It is not every lover of French literature who has the leisure or the courage to read the whole of Saint-Simon’s MÉmoires, the text of which fills eighteen and a half volumes of the edition of MM. ChÉruel and Ad. RÉgnier fils. Nor is it all of equal interest. I thought, therefore, that a selection might prove acceptable to the busy or faint-hearted reader, and perhaps even whet his appetite for the work itself. In making the selection I have practically confined myself to the first two-thirds of the MÉmoires, that is to say, to the reign of LouisXIV, and I have chosen the passages with a view to illustrating that reign during the period of its declining splendour. In the first four chapters we have the Roi-Soleil and Mme de Maintenon presented to us in their daily life. There follows the account of the review at CompiÈgne, which gives us some measure of Louis’s boundless extravagance, and the greater part of the famous chapters on the death of Monseigneur, surely one of the greatest things in literature. Lastly there are thirteen portraits, including such masterpieces as Conti, Cardinal d’EstrÉes, FÉnelon, the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy, and the Duke of OrlÉans. In my notes I have confined myself to the modest task of illustrating Saint-Simon from himself, and of supplying such other biographical details as seemed necessary. No one can annotate Saint-Simon without being indebted to M. de Boislisle’s masterly edition now in progress, but for my purpose the full and careful index of MM. ChÉruel and RÉgnier has been of even greater service. The index to vols. I.-XXVIII. of M. de Boislisle’s edition appeared after my work was practically finished.