Charles de Saint-Denis, sieur de Saint-Évremond
born 1614?, Saint-Denis-le-Gast,
France
died Sept. 20, 1703, London, Eng.
French gentleman of letters and
amateur moralist who stands as a
transitional figure between Michel de
Montaigne (d. 1592) and the 18th-century
philosophes of the Enlightenment.
Pursuing a military career in his
early life, he won promotion for loyalty
to King Louis XIV’s minister Cardinal
Mazarin during the civil wars of the
Fronde (1648–53). In 1661, however, a
facetious letter of Saint-Évremond’s
deriding the late Mazarin’s Treaty of
the Pyrenees (1659) was accidentally
brought to light, and he fled from
France to escape arrest. Welcomed to
London by King Charles II, he spent the
rest of his life there except for an
interval in Holland (1665–70).
Saint-Évremond wrote for his friends,
not for publication; but a few of his
pieces were leaked to the press in his
lifetime. The 1705 edition of his works
is largely superseded by a modern
collection of his prose works and
letters, published in 1962. His poems,
mainly occasional pieces, are
negligible; but Les Académiciens (1643),
a comedy in verse, is still amusing, as
is his prose comedy “in the English
style,” Sir Politick Would-Be (c. 1664).
Saint-Évremond’s prose consists of
letters and discourses ranging from
hilarious satire (Retraite de M. le duc
de Longueville, 1649; Conversation du
Maréchal d’Hoquincourt avec le Père
Canaye, c. 1663) to literary criticism,
distinguished by antidogmatic common
sense, on the various genres. It also
includes a series of ethical writings,
which plead for a prudently moderated
hedonism and for religious toleration.
