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"My little philosophical monitor," said the Chevalier de Grammont, "you talk here as if you were the Cato of Normandy." "Do I say anything untrue?" replied Saint Evremond: "Is it not a fact, that as soon as a woman pleases you, your first care is to find out whether she has any other lover, and your second how to plague her; for the gaining her affection is the last thing in your thoughts.
The company, at these little entertainments, was not numerous, but select: the first people of the court were commonly of the party; but the man, who of all others suited him best on these occasions, never failed to attend: that was the celebrated Saint Evremond, who with great exactness, but too great freedom, had written the history of the treaty of the Pyrenees: an exile like himself, though for very different reasons.
His biographer Monsieur Des Maizeaux, describes him thus: "M. de St. Evremond had blue, lively, and sparkling eyes, a large forehead, thick eyebrows, a handsome mouth, and a sneering physiognomy. Twenty years before his death, a wen grew between his eye-brows, which in time increased to a considerable bigness.
Evremond, though long since almost forgotten in France: but this did not prevent her having a taste for literature, or expressing her thoughts with elegance. She had been brought up with polite company, and coming young to Savoy, by associating with people of the best fashion, had lost the affected manners of her own country, where the ladies mistake wit for sense, and only speak in epigram.
His biographer Monsieur Des Maizeaux, describes him thus: "M. de St. Evremond had blue, lively, and sparkling eyes, a large forehead, thick eyebrows, a handsome mouth, and a sneering physiognomy. Twenty years before his death, a wen grew between his eye-brows, which in time increased to a considerable bigness.
Evremond, to whom Digby repeated this, says that this opinion of Descartes was well known both to his friends in Holland and in France." By the stress Southey lays on this hearsay evidence, it is clear that he was not acquainted with the works and biography of Descartes, or he would have gone to the fountain-head for authority on Descartes's opinions, namely, Descartes himself.
The English court had been too long accustomed to the solid wit of Saint Evremond, and the natural and singular charms of his hero, to be seduced by appearances; however, as the English have, in general, a sort of predilection in favour of anything that has the appearance of bravery, Flamarens was better received on account of a duel, which, obliging him to leave his own country, was a recommendation to him in England.
Happily for them both, fortune had, some time before the arrival of the Chevalier de Grammont, brought Saint Evremond to England, after he had had leisure to repent in Holland of the beauties of that famous satire. Denis, Seigneur de Saint Evremond, was born at St. Denis le Guast, in Lower Normandy, on the 1st of April, 1613.
As for an establishment, I shall make my peace with the king, and will solicit him to make her one of the ladies of the bed-chamber to the queen: this he will grant me. Toulongeon will die, without my assistance. Evremond, on that event, one of the richest noblemen at court. See St. Now, have you any thing to advance against this project?
Go, says Alexander the Great to his soldiers, when they refused to follow him to the Indies, go tell your countrymen, that you left Alexander corn pleating the conquest of the world. This passage was always particularly admired by the prince of Conde, as we learn from St Evremond.
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