Saint-Évremond, CHARLES MARGUETEL DE SAINT-DENIS, SEIGNEUR DE, a famous French writer and wit, was born at St Denis near Coutances in Normandy, 1st April 1613. He was educated by the Jesuits at Clermont, at Caen, and at the Collège d'Harcourt in Paris, next entered the service, and fought with distinction at Rocroi, Freiburg, and Nördlingen. He gave steady support to the throne throughout the Fronde, but in 1661 had to flee first to Holland, finally to England, on the discovery of his witty and sarcastic Letter to Créqui on the Peace of the Pyrenees. He was warmly received by Charles II., and here he spent the rest of his days, delighting the world with his wit, a fast friend of the beautiful Hortense, Duchesse de Mazarin, whose strange death sorely troubled his old age. Here he died, 29th September 1703, and was buried in Westminster. His writings were famous long before they were made public, and in his own day he enjoyed an equal reputation on either side of the Channel for polished satire, Attic irony, and brilliant style. Distinctively a man of fashion, a complete Epicurean in philosophy and life, a brilliant conversationalist in an age when conversation ranked among the fine arts, he has written his name high amongst the masters of French prose, although he lacked enthusiasm, ambition, motive, illusions, to produce anything adequate to his gifts. Still, it is a sovereign distinction to have created a style so delicate, yet so effective and so individual. His one mannerism is anti-thesis, yet the art is so exquisite as never to offend. His influence was great—it is praise enough to say that he helped to form the Chevalier de Grammont. His satire, La Comédie des Académistes (1644), is a masterpiece in its kind, and his dissertation on Racine's Alexandre reveals the true critic's insight. But so little was his curiosity that though he lived nearly forty years in England he never learned English and never knew Shakespeare. The letters betwixt him and his dear friend Ninon de Lenclos are charming beyond most. His writings, including essays, comedies, &c., were first collected by Des Maizeaux with a Life (Lond. 1705). There are good volumes of selections by C. Giraud (1865) and Lescure (1881).
See the studies by Gilbert and Gidel (1866), Merlet (1870), Pastorello (Trieste, 1875); also Sainte-Beuve's Nouveaux Lundis, vol. xiii., and Causeries du Lundi, vol. iv.