Saint-Réal

Saint-Réal, CÉSAR VICHARD, ABBÉ DE, who has been, and not undeservedly, styled the French Sallust, was born in 1631 at Chambéry, and died there also in 1692. He went early to Paris, visited London and there lived awhile under the shelter of St Evremont and the Duchesse de Mazarin, but in 1679 settled at Chambéry as historiographer to the Duke of Savoy. He had been long a student of history when in 1674 he covered himself with distinction by his brilliant Histoire de la Conjuration que les Espagnols formèrent en 1618 contre la République de Venise, which to this day is counted among French classics. His style is vivid and vigorous, simple and pure, yet picturesque; and the story is unfolded with a skilful mastery of dramatic sense. It has been objected that the facts are not always reliable, the conclusions frequently unsound, but it should be remembered that Saint-Réal wrote history before the modern conception of history awoke, and that his aim was to produce a good literary narrative, not a chronicle. A work of art should be estimated according as it corresponds to the ideal of the writer, rather than to the prepossessions of the individual reader, and, this test applied, the Conjuration contre Venise remains an exquisite masterpiece of historical painting in miniature.