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The Monk Simon the Myrrh-Streaming The origin, place of birth, as well as the beginning of the monastic exploits of the Monk Simon are unknown. He arrived on Athos already as a monk. The Monk Simon went to monasteries, wanting to find a mentor. Finally, he found the one he was looking for - his elder

This is how Marx and Engels dubbed the views of early socialist thinkers. However, were all early socialists such utopians? Or maybe there is something in their theories that is still relevant today? I adhere to the latter point of view and believe that even today in the teachings of representatives of early socialism one can find something that could be adopted by the modern left movement; something that is not, for example, in Marxism; something that would help in creating a system in which there would be freedom, social justice and economic efficiency, harmonious relations between people and between man and nature.

"At all times there have been people who dreamed of better life for humanity and those who believed in its possibility on earth. These people were usually critical of the reality of their time. Often they had to fight this reality, and they became heroes and martyrs. Speaking against their contemporary society, they analyzed and criticized the socio-economic system of this society. Proposing a reconstruction of society, these people tried to outline and justify a more just and humane system. Their ideas go beyond political economy, but they play an important role in this science.

Socialist and communist ideas developed in many works of the 16th-18th centuries, different in their scientific and literary merits and in their fate. But this was only the prehistory of utopian socialism. It experiences its classical period in the first half of the 19th century.

From count to beggar

“I am descended from Charlemagne, my Father was called Count of Rouvroy de Saint-Simon, I am the closest relative of the Duke de Saint-Simon.” In these lines one could see only noble arrogance if we did not know what kind of person Saint-Simon was. With them he begins an autobiographical passage written in 1808, when the former count, now a citizen, Saint-Simon, lived at the expense of his servant. The life of this remarkable man is as full of complexity and contradictions as his teaching. It contains great wealth and poverty, military exploits and prison, the delight of a benefactor of humanity and an attempt at suicide, the betrayal of friends and the firm faith of students.

Claude Henri Saint-Simon de Rouvroy was born in Paris in 1760 and grew up in an ancestral castle in northern France (now the Somme department). He received a good education at home. Love of freedom and strength of character showed up early in the young aristocrat. At the age of 13, he refused his first communion, declaring that he did not believe in the sacraments of religion and was not going to be a hypocrite. Soon another trait was revealed in him, which greatly surprised his relatives: the conviction of his high social calling. There is a story that 15-year-old Saint-Simon ordered his servant to wake him up every day with the words: “Get up, Count, great things await you.”

But great things are still far away, and for now Saint-Simon, as is customary in their family, enters military service and leads a boring garrison life for about three years. Deliverance from it for the young officer comes when he goes to America as a volunteer as part of the French expeditionary force, sent to help the rebel American colonies against England. Saint-Simon later wrote with pride that he served under Washington. He proved himself a brave man and was awarded the Order of the newly formed United States.

During a sea voyage, Saint-Simon was captured by the British and sent to Jamaica, where he remained until peace was concluded in 1783. He returned to France as a hero and soon received command of a regiment. A brilliant career opened up for the young Count Saint-Simon. But this idle life soon bored him. A trip to Holland and then to Spain reveals a new face of Saint-Simon - the face of an adventurer and a projector. It seems that his irrepressible energy and inventive mind, having not yet found a true purpose, are looking for a way out in this project. In Holland, he is preparing a naval expedition to recapture India from the British. In Spain, he draws up a project for a large canal to connect Madrid with the sea and organizes, not without success, a campaign for postal and passenger transportation.

Brought up on the ideas of the encyclopedists and the experience of the American Revolution, Saint-Simon enthusiastically accepted the events of 1789. For about two years, Saint-Simon took an active part in the revolution, but only “at the local level”: he lives in a small town near the former family estate . He does not regret the loss of the estate, but the count's title and ancient name officially refuses and takes the name of citizen Bonhomme (bonhomme - simpleton, man).

In 1791, a sharp and, at first glance, again strange turn took place in the life of citizen Bonhomme. He leaves for Paris and enters the field of land speculation, which during this period assumed enormous proportions in connection with the sale of property confiscated by the state from the nobles and the church. As his partner, he chooses a German diplomat, Baron Redern, whom he knows from Spain. Success exceeds all expectations. By 1794, Saint-Simon was already very rich, but here the punishing hand of the Jacobin revolution descended on his head. The counter-revolutionary Thermidorian coup saves a prisoner from the guillotine. After spending about a year in prison, he is released and again embarks on speculation, now safe. In 1796, the joint wealth of Saint-Simon and Redern was estimated at 4 million francs.

But this is where the career of a successful speculator ends. Baron Raedern, who wisely fled abroad during the Terror, returns to Paris and lays claim to their entire joint fortune, since the operations were carried out on his behalf. This strange combination of devilish dexterity and childish innocence in Saint-Simon is incomprehensible! After much debate, he is forced to be satisfied with the compensation of 150 thousand francs, which Redern gives him.

Saint-Simon, who managed to be a warrior and an adventurer, a patriot and a speculator, turns into a zealous student. Passionate great successes natural sciences, he, with his usual ardor and energy, takes up their study. He uses the rest of his wealth to maintain a hospitable house, where he receives the greatest scientists of Paris. For several years, Saint-Simon traveled around Europe. Around 1805, it finally becomes clear that there is nothing left of his money, and he finds himself on the verge of poverty.

Later, in reviewing his life, Saint-Simon was inclined to portray his ups and downs as a series of conscious experiments which he undertook in preparation for his true work as a social reformer. This is, of course, an illusion. His life was a natural manifestation of Saint-Simon's personality, conditioned by the era and its events, remarkably original and talented, but also extremely contradictory. Already at that time, his reputation as a strange and extravagant person was established. Often mediocrity is accepted by society as the norm, and talent seems extravagant and sometimes suspicious.

The stamp of great originality also lies on the first printed work of Saint-Simon - “Letters from a Genevan inhabitant to his contemporaries” (1803). This is already a utopian plan for the reorganization of society, although set out in a rudimentary, vague form. Two things are remarkable about this short essay. First, Saint-Simon portrayed the French Revolution as a class struggle between three main classes—the nobility, the bourgeoisie, and the have-nots (the proletariat). Engels called this “an extremely brilliant discovery.” Second, he presciently outlined the role of science in transforming society. About scientists, Saint-Simon wrote: “Look at the history of progress human mind, and you will see that we owe almost all of his exemplary works to people who stood apart and were often subjected to persecution. When they were made academicians, they almost always fell asleep in their chairs, and if they wrote, it was only with trepidation and only in order to express some unimportant truth.” On the other hand, he spoke about the obstacles on the path of genuine science: “Almost always, the activities to which they (scientists - A.A.) are forced to devote themselves in order to earn food for themselves, already at the very beginning of their activity distract them from the most important ideas. How often they lacked the experience or travel necessary to develop their views! How many times have they been deprived of the necessary personnel to give their work the full scope of which they were capable! Calling on scientists to oppose the forces of inertia and take the place of leaders in a restructured society, the author exclaims: “Mathematicians! After all, you are in charge, start!”

These quotes are enough to imagine Saint-Simon's literary style - energetic, pathetic, and sometimes exalted. From the pages of his writings emerges a restless, rebellious man, worried about the fate of humanity.

Teacher

The last 20 years of Saint-Simon's life were filled with hardship, struggle and intense creativity. Finding himself without funds, he began to look for any income and at one time worked as a copyist of papers in a pawnshop. In 1805, he accidentally met Diard, his former servant, who at one time, while serving with Saint-Simon, managed to acquire some fortune. For two years Saint-Simon lived with Diard and until the latter’s death in 1810 he used his help. The story of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza was repeated in this peculiar pair! With Diar's money, Saint-Simon published his second work in 1808, “Introduction to Scientific Works of the 19th Century.” He printed this and several other works in small editions and sent them to prominent scientists and political figures, asking for criticism and help in further work. But it was the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

In 1810-1812 Saint-Simon reached the point of need. He wrote that he sold all his property, even his clothes, that he lived on bread and water and had no fuel or candles. However, the harder it was for him, the harder he worked. It was during these years that his views on society were finally formed, which he outlined in a number of mature works published since 1814. He lives on random handouts from benefactors, proudly declaring that, without blushing, he can ask for help from anyone, because this help is needed him for labors whose sole purpose is the public good.

The public's attention was drawn to Saint-Simon by his brochure on the post-war structure of Europe. In this brochure, Saint-Simon for the first time says his favorite and famous phrase: “The golden age of humanity is not behind us, but ahead.” The substantiation of this thesis, the development of paths to the “golden age” - this is the content of Saint-Simon’s further activities.

By the age of 60, Saint-Simon's life is somewhat improving. He has students and successors. On the other hand, preaching the peaceful transformation of society, addressed to its natural enlightened “leaders” - bankers, industrialists, merchants - attracts the attention of some people among this class. Saint-Simon gets the opportunity to publish his works, and they become quite widely known. Rich followers provide him with the opportunity to live in abundance and work hard. His personal life is organized: with him is the faithful Madame Julian - his closest friend, secretary, housekeeper. He now dictates his works to her or one of his students.

But both in life and in his writings, Saint-Simon remains a rebel, an enthusiast, a man of impulse and imagination. A group of bankers and rich people who gave money for the publication of one of Saint-Simon's works publicly dissociate themselves from his ideas and say that he misled them and betrayed their trust. Soon after this, Saint-Simon is put on trial on charges of insulting the royal family: he published a “Parable” in which he declared that France would lose nothing if members of the royal family suddenly magically disappeared without a trace, and at the same time all aristocrats, high officials, priests, etc., but will lose a lot if the best scientists, artists, craftsmen, and artisans disappear. The jury acquitted him, finding here only an amusing paradox.

If this is rather a tragicomic episode in the life of Saint-Simon, then the suicide attempt in March 1823 is truly tragic. Saint-Simon shot himself in the head with a pistol, survived, but lost one eye. It is impossible to fully explain any suicide, and it is hardly worth speculating about the reasons for Saint-Simon’s act. In a farewell letter to a close friend (where he also asks to take care of Madame Julian), Saint-Simon speaks of his disappointment in life, caused by people's lack of interest in his ideas. However, having barely recovered from his injury, he again eagerly took up work and in 1823-1824. publishes his most complete and finished work - “Catechism of Industrialists”. During 1824, Saint-Simon worked feverishly on his last book, “The New Christianity,” striving to give the future “industrial society” a new religion, taking from Christianity only its original humanism. In May 1825, a few weeks after the publication of New Christianity, Claude Henri Saint-Simon died.

Saint-Simonism

The author of an article about Saint-Simon in a French biographical dictionary wrote in 1863: “Saint-Simon was neither a madman nor a prophet; it was simply a poorly formed mind, which in its audacity did not rise above mediocrity. Despite the great fuss that was made around his memory, he already belongs to oblivion, and he is not one of those who rises from oblivion.”

History laughed evilly at this self-righteous philistine. More than 100 years have passed since his “sentence,” but the name and ideas of Saint-Simon continue to attract attention and interest.

We can say that Saint-Simonism went through four stages in its development. The first is represented by the works of Saint-Simon until 1814-1815. During this period, its main features were the cult of science and scientists, and a rather abstract humanism. The socio-economic ideas of Saint-Simonism exist only in embryo.

The works, propaganda and practical activities of students in the period from the death of Saint-Simon to 1831 represent the third stage of Saint-Simonism and, in essence, its heyday. Saint-Simonism becomes a truly socialist doctrine, since it actually requires the elimination of private ownership of the means of production, the distribution of goods according to work and abilities, social organization and production planning. These ideas were most fully and systematically expressed in public lectures, which in 1828-1829. Saint-Simon's closest students S. A. Bazar, B. P. Enfantin, B. O. Rodrigue read in Paris. These lectures were subsequently published under the title “Exposition of the Doctrine of Saint-Simon.” The leading role in the socialist development of Saint-Simon's ideas was played by the Bazaar (1791-1832).

The students gave Saint-Simon's views on classes and property a more obviously socialist direction. They no longer regard the industrialists as a single and homogeneous social class, but say that the exploitation to which they are subjected by the owners falls with all its weight on the worker. The worker, they write, “is exploited materially, intellectually and morally, just as the slave was once exploited.” Capitalist entrepreneurs here already “participate in the privileges of exploitation.”

Saint-Simonists associate exploitation with the very institution of private property. They also see the vices of a social system based on private property as the main cause of the crises and anarchy of production inherent in capitalism. True, this deep thought is not confirmed by any analysis of the mechanism of crises, but it is another justification for their most important demand - a sharp limitation of private property through the abolition of the right of inheritance. The only heir should be the state, which will then transfer production assets to entrepreneurs as if for rent, by proxy. The heads of enterprises will thereby turn into trusted representatives of society. Thus, private property is gradually transformed into public property.

The new word of the Saint-Simonists also consisted in the fact that they sought to find the material foundations of the future system in the bowels of the old society. Socialism, according to their ideas, should have arisen as a natural result of the development of productive forces. They saw such an embryo of the future systematic organization of production in the interests of society in the capitalist credit and banking system. True, later these deep ideas of the Saint-Simonists turned into “credit fantasies” of a petty-bourgeois and openly bourgeois nature. But the very idea that a socialist society can use the mechanism of large banks created by capitalism for public accounting, control and management of the economy was considered a brilliant guess by the classics of Marxism-Leninism.

Like Saint-Simon, his students paid much attention to the role of science in the development and transformation of society. Scientists and the most talented entrepreneurs were to take on the political and economic leadership of society in the future. Political leadership will gradually fade away, since under the future system the need for “managing people” will disappear, and only “managing things,” i.e., production, will remain. At the same time, the Saint-Simonists sharply criticized the position of science and scientists in the reality of that time: “... in exchange for mercy, power alien to science demands from the scientist, reduced to the role of a supplicant, complete political and moral slavery... Between the scientific corporation and the teaching corporation there is complete discrepancy; without fear of sinning against the truth, we can say that they speak different languages. No general measures are being taken to ensure that scientific progress, as it is achieved, passes directly into the field of education...”

In the works of Saint-Simon and his students we do not find a special interpretation of the main categories of political economy. They did not analyze the creation and distribution of value, patterns wages, profit, land rent. In part, they were content with the accepted ideas of bourgeois political economy of that era. But the main thing was that their thought developed in a fundamentally different direction and posed different tasks. Their merit is economic science is that they opposed the fundamental dogma of the bourgeois classics and the “Say school” about the naturalness and eternity of the capitalist system. Thus, the question of the laws of the economy of this system was transferred to a completely different plane. Political economy was given a new task: to show how the capitalist mode of production historically arose and developed, what its contradictions are, why and how it should give way to socialism. The Saint-Simonists could not solve this problem, but posing it was a great achievement.

Saint-Simon himself praised Say for delineating the subject of political economy as a special science and separating it from politics. The disciples, without touching on this issue, subjected Say and his followers to sharp criticism and directly pointed out the apologetic nature of their teaching. Noting that these economists are not trying to show how modern relationships property, the Saint-Simonists say: “It is true that they claim to have shown how the formation, distribution and consumption of wealth occurs, but they are little concerned with the question of whether the wealth created by labor will always be distributed according to its origin and a significant part of it will be consumed idle people."

The period beginning in 1831 represents the fourth stage and disintegration of Saint-Simonism. Not having any strong positions among the working class, the Saint-Simonists were completely at a loss in the face of the first revolutionary actions of the French proletariat. The religious sectarian overtones that Saint-Simonism took on during these years further alienated them from the working class and even from democratic student youth. Enfantin became the “supreme father” of the Saint-Simonist church, a kind of religious commune was founded, and a special uniform was introduced (vests fastened at the back). Sharp divisions arose within the movement between the various groups of Saint-Simon's followers. The debate centered around the issue of gender relations and the position of women in the commune. In November 1831, Bazar and a group of his supporters left the church. Soon, the Orléanist government, which came to power after the July Revolution of 1830, organized a trial against Enfantin and his group, accusing them of insulting morality and preaching dangerous ideas. Enfantin was sentenced to one year in prison. The movement disintegrated organizationally, some of its members continued to preach Saint-Simonism fragmentarily and unsuccessfully, some joined other socialist movements, and others turned into respectable bourgeois.

Nevertheless, the influence of Saint-Simonism on the further development of socialist ideas in France, and partly in other countries, was very great. The strength of the Saint-Simonists lay in the fact that, despite all the absurdities of their religion, they had a bold and consistent program of struggle against bourgeois society.

A. I. Herzen said beautifully about them: “Superficial and non-superficial people laughed contentedly at Father Enfantin (Enfanten - A. A.) and at his apostles; The time for a different recognition is coming for these forerunners of socialism.

Solemnly and poetically, these enthusiastic young men with their uncut vests and growing beards appeared in the middle of the bourgeois world. They announced new faith“, they had something to say and in the name of something to call before their court the old order of things, which wanted to judge them according to the Napoleonic code and according to the Orleans religion.”

(A.V. Anikin. The youth of science: Life and ideas of economic thinkers before Marx)

Continued and.

In this essay we will not talk about the famous utopian socialist Count Claude Henri de Rouvroy Saint-Simon (1760-1825), well known to our reader, but about his distant relative, the great classic of French literature, Duke Louis de Rouvroy de Saint-Simon (1675 -1755). The main creative result of Duke Saint-Simon's entire life was his Memoirs.

Already in his youth, he felt the vocation of a historian, he aspired to become a writer of everyday life of his time and early began to draw up outlines for his future work, initially meaning the creation of “Memoirs” in their traditional form, concentrated on the personality and actions of the author himself. Almost nothing has survived from these rough notes, but they were certainly used when the duke, who retired from the court (he took this step at the age of 48), began writing his work, greatly expanding the original plan. The opportunity for this expansion appeared after he became the owner in 1729 of the handwritten diary of his contemporary Marquis Dangeau for the years 1684 -1720. It was a chronicle of French court life compiled day by day. She gave Saint-Simon a reliable chronological outline and a guide to check the accuracy of his memories. At the same time, the dry factuality of the loyal courtier’s notes irritated the opposition-minded duke. He began to color Danjo's presentation with his often caustic comments, devoting as much as 10 years to compiling these additions. Their text is reproduced in full in the appendices to some editions of the Memoirs. Only after this, in 1739, did Saint-Simon feel ready to create a real history of his time: from 1691 (the year of his appearance at court) to 1723 (the year of his retirement into private life). Another 10 years of hard work, and in 1750 the author put the finishing touches, personally writing a general alphabetical index for the final manuscript, which took up 11 voluminous “portfolios” and 2,754 pages of neat text. This is how French literature received one of its universally recognized masterpieces. Five years later, Saint-Simon died.

Saint-Simon did not strive for fame during his lifetime. A passionate author of unfulfilled plans for state reorganization, capable of harsh judgments, in his old age he settled scores with the past in “Memoirs,” being sure that he was writing only the truth, and at the same time did not want this dangerous truth to become known to his contemporaries and led to upheaval. He thought about his imminent death, was tormented by doubts: is it worthy for a Christian to write badly about people who are no longer in the world - and yet he completed his work, fulfilled the task that he had set for himself in his distant youth. Louis de Saint-Simon, Duke and Peer of France, could not even imagine that many years after his death he would be proclaimed one of the great classics of French literature, that interest in his personality and in everything he wrote would not wane even after a quarter of a millennium. His sins against facts and his retrograde political position were often noted, but the uniqueness of his personality and the brilliance of Saint-Simon’s portraiture captivated and captivated the reader. We have come very far from the time of Saint-Simon, his concerns may seem cartoonishly petty, and yet we will try to understand the man who is now compared to Balzac and Proust.

There was something in common at the beginning of the lives of Saint-Simon and his sovereign Louis XIV. Both of them became the long-awaited heirs of their fathers, and they were born when there seemed to be no hope for this. The writer's father was the Duke and Peer of France Claude de Saint-Simon (1607-1693), the former favorite of Louis XIII, who thanks to this acquired his ducal dignity. He did not have a son for a long time; from his first marriage he had only a daughter. Having been widowed at 63, Duke Claude at the age of 65 decided to remarry, and his son Louis was born on January 16, 1675 (his father was 68 years old, his mother 35). However, the old Duke lived long enough to exert a decisive influence on the upbringing of his heir. The born king Louis XIV and the born duke-peer Louis de Saint-Simon - both of them placed above all else a sense of duty to their rank; they saw the meaning and honor of life in living up to their high birth.

Duke Claude told his son a lot about his ancestors. Although he was the first duke-peer in his family, the Saint-Simon family itself was ancient, highly branched, dating back with certainty to the 14th century, when the Picardy knight Mathieu de Rouvroy received the lordship of Saint-Simon as a dowry for his wife, who came from the family rulers of Vermandois, known since Carolingian times. There was an even more flattering genealogical legend, cultivated by Claude. After all, if we assume that the Rouvrois themselves belonged to one of the branches of the count family of Vermandois, and he claimed descent from the grandson of Charlemagne, King Bernhard of Italy, then it turned out that the Saint-Simons were direct descendants of the famous emperor.

Louis received a good home education befitting a duke and a classical liberal arts education. Since childhood, he indulged in reading historical works and memoirs, deciding that he himself would certainly become a historian-memoirist. The future memoirist tried, first of all, to master the genealogy of the most important noble families - a necessary science in a society built on a hierarchical principle. The boy was short and frail, but dexterous and resilient. Young Saint-Simon was known as an excellent dancer and a good horseman. He had a quick-tempered, impulsive character and at the same time was distinguished by great seriousness. Alien to the usual court entertainments, Saint-Simon did not play cards, was not fond of hunting, and did not take mistresses. He loved only his wife and was very attached to her, although he did not marry out of love, but out of a desire to gain influential connections in court circles. He was characterized by deep religiosity. The highest moral authority and spiritual mentor for him was his father’s friend Abbot Rance, the creator of the Trappist order, which was distinguished by a particularly strict monastic charter. Saint-Simon treated him with touching devotion and, protecting him from critical judgments, was capable of emotional outbursts even in front of his close friends.

The old father managed to introduce his son to the monarch and soon died. Louis became a Duke Peer at 18. “Take care of your honor from a young age” - one might say, this was the main concern of the young duke who entered court life. And honor began with etiquette, and it was necessary to know it thoroughly. The opponents were those who encroached on the etiquette honor of the duke-peers, on their place in the class hierarchy. For Saint-Simon, a violation of the hierarchy was always tantamount to the degradation of morality and the entire political system.

This life position cannot be considered too archaic. The two dozen duke-peers who adorned the court of Louis XIV had nothing in common, except their rank, with the former six secular peers of France, powerful feudal rulers of large and rich lands: the dukes of Burgundy, Normandy, Guienne, the counts of Toulouse, Champagne and Flanders. Some of these proud titles no longer existed, others were appropriated by the royal family: the eldest grandson of Louis XIV was called the Duke of Burgundy, and even the illegitimate son of the king was called the Count of Toulouse. All new hereditary peers were created by the absolute monarchy (the oldest peerage surviving by the end of the 17th century dates back to 1572), which sought to find reliable support for itself among the aristocratic families. And the new peers really became servants of the king; they did not claim any political autonomy; they did not consider the monarch “first among equals” in relation to themselves and stood respectfully in his presence. Their ceremonial privileges are not a relic of hoary feudal antiquity: they are distinctions given by the crown itself in the process of organizing the royal court. All the new peers (a far from united group) wanted from an absolute monarchy was that it should not violate the rules it had established.

The duke-peers were separated from the sovereign by three hierarchical ranks, whose primacy did not cause any objections to them. This is 1) "sons (daughters) of France"(those whose legal father or father-in-law was the king or heir to the throne); 2) "grandsons (granddaughters) of France"(one of the kings was their grandfather or their husband's grandfather); 3) "princes (princesses) of the blood"(all other members of the reigning House of Bourbon, representatives of its side lines Condé and Conti). Peers had to defend their next step in the hierarchy in a hidden struggle with powerful rivals, and it was this struggle that attracted Special attention young Saint-Simon, its active and passionate participant. Here all his extraordinary powers of observation and great vigilance were required of him - for the struggle was carried out with ingenious methods, calculated to create precedents of ceremonial primacy, which could be referred to in the future. It was in these chronically occurring minor skirmishes that the young Duke found his enemies.

These were primarily holders of the status of the so-called "foreign princes" especially from the House of Lorraine (from its Elbeuf and Harcourt-Armagnac branches that once belonged to the mighty Guise family), as well as from those who received this status in the 17th century. houses of Buyons and Roganov. The claims of "foreign princes" to primacy were based on their relationship with sovereign foreign dynasties or on their own possession (even in the past) of lands independent of the crown. And since the overwhelming majority of duke-peers (with the exception of several “foreign princes” who had the same rank) were natural French and original subjects of their king, rivalry could acquire a fundamental “patriotic” character for them, which was facilitated by the memory of the ultra-Catholic, dangerous for the national monarchy Guise policy in the religious wars of the 16th century. It was not without reason that the “Mind of Guise” for Saint-Simon was synonymous with deceit and intrigue. The outcome of the rivalry was unclear, and the royal authority deliberately did not resolve this uncertainty in order to maintain disagreement between the two aristocratic factions. If, according to the charter of the Order of the Holy Spirit, established in 1578 (during greatest influence Guizov), “foreign princes”, even those who did not have ducal titles, had to go before the French dukes, then in the 17th century. a different trend has emerged, due to which the first French “court calendar” for 1648-1649. determined that all "foreign princes" have their rank in France only insofar as they are duke-peers or crown dignitaries.

Other peers' rivals were royal bastards. True, there was nothing to object to the fact that Louis XIV, in obedience to paternal affection, made his sons from Montespan peers of France - it was the sovereign right of the monarch. But from the point of view of the duke-peers, the new associates were to take their place last in their ranks, in accordance with the dates of their letters of grant (this was precisely the principle that determined the order of precedence between peers). However, a special intermediate rank was created for bastard peers between princes of the blood and duke-peers; Accordingly, the place of the latter on the hierarchical ladder decreased by one more step. Under strict moral principles For Saint-Simon, this rise of the illegitimate offspring of the monarch, born as a result of adultery, was perceived very painfully by him. To the especially hated elder bastard, the Duke of Maine, he, betraying his desire for objectivity, gives a poster-negative description, using only black paints. In general, illegitimacy, as he was inclined to think, leaves an indelible dirty stain not only on the bastard himself, but also on his descendants. Hence his sharply hostile attitude towards the Vendome brothers, the grandchildren of the bastard Henry IV.

For Saint-Simon, the defense of class honor and the concept of personal honor were inseparably linked. Let's not blame the Duke for his increased attention to the details of etiquette. For him, these were not trifles, and he, too, would not have understood our disregard for them, reaching the point of being ready to consider ordinary bossy rudeness almost a manifestation of commendable straightforwardness. He put all his passion into the struggle, a 19-year-old youth, he showed unprecedented activity in the process, which pitted most peers against one of them, Marshal Luxembourg. This famous commander, relying on his fame and strong patronage, wanted, through obvious legal stretches, to extend the length of service of his peerage, bypassing 16 comrades at once, including Saint-Simon, for whom he was the chief of the army. A prudent person could have behaved more passively, but hiding behind the backs of his elders was not in the character of the young Duke - he was not afraid to arouse the ill will of such an influential person against himself.

For Saint-Simon, the demands of honor were not limited to the defense of ceremonial privileges. Summing up his life, he will write in the “Conclusion” to the “Memoirs” that he was always on the side of nobility and fought against meanness, that truth was the law for him. Without pretending to be impartial, he still tried to forget about personal accounts in his judgments (although he did not always succeed). "Order and Truth"- this could be, in his own words, the motto of Saint-Simon; order is important because it corresponds to the highest truth. The Duke was inclined to correct the morals of his friends by speaking frankly to them of their vices; however, he knew how to make friends and had many good acquaintances (and therefore informants).

Entering the world, Louis especially needed influential connections. My father's friends were already old; I couldn't expect much from my mother's relatives. An old childhood friendship with the monarch's nephew, the Duke of Chartres (the future regent of France under the young King Louis XV, Duke Philippe of Orleans) could only give access to the small court of the king's brother. Marriage could help, or rather, finding a father-in-law, whose patronage would allow the young peer to occupy a fairly honorable position at court, corresponding to his rank, and would make it possible, on occasion, to have a favorable audience with the king, the supreme arbiter in matters of honor. At first, Saint-Simon hoped to marry the daughter of the Duke of Beauvilliers, minister of state and educator of the king's grandchildren, highly respected by the monarch. However, the girl firmly intended to become a nun. Nevertheless, the young man conducted the matchmaking with such intelligence and tact that he forever won the affection of his would-be father-in-law: two closest friends and brothers-in-law, the Dukes of Beauvilliers and Chevreuse became Saint-Simon's senior friends and patrons. The second time he wooed the daughter of Marshal de Lorges, commander of the Army of the Rhine, in which Saint-Simon was then serving. The marshal was also the commander of one of the companies of the Life Guards and in this capacity had free access to the monarch. His son-in-law could eventually hope to inherit such an honorable court position (this hope, however, did not come true). This time no obstacles were encountered, and the marriage to Marie-Gabrielle de Lorge was concluded in April 1695.

The groom did not have any hesitations due to the fact that the bride’s mother was the daughter of the financier Frémont; his aristocracy did not reach such scrupulousness. By the way, Beauvillier’s daughter on her mother’s side was also the granddaughter of an obvious plebeian - the famous minister Colbert. (But after all, the ancestors of Saint-Simon himself on his mother’s side did not belong to the old nobility, but to a respected "nobles' robes" the Lobepin family.) Society did not strictly treat marriage, where the husband’s social status exceeded the wife’s status, unless the wife behaved modestly and did not try to control the actions of her husband. And the rights of children born in such a marriage were not influenced in any way by the origin of the mother, and there could be no doubt about Mademoiselle de Lorge’s birthplace. Saint-Simon was married for almost half a century and was very attached to his wife. Having the misfortune to outlive her by 12 years, he bequeathed not only to be buried next to her in the crypt of the church of his seigneury in Laferte-Vidame, but even to forever connect both coffins with chains.

From the first minute of his appearance at court, Saint-Simon sought to attract the attention of the king. And this is understandable: the whole atmosphere of the Versailles court was such that even the duke-peer could not consider his position quite honorable if he was not warmed by the attention of the “Sun King”. Our hero hastened to enlist in military service at the age of 17, although he did not feel any particular attraction to it. But since France is waging a difficult war, where, if not in the army, should the future duke be? In addition, the king himself is leaving for the theater of military operations, and one can hope that he will notice his zeal. Saint-Simon fought on the most important front, the Flanders front, and in 1692 he took part in the siege of Namur. A year later, he, captain of a cavalry company, fought bravely at the Battle of Neerwinden. But alas, the king, feeling the approach of old age, at that time already stopped visiting the troops. And then a conflict followed with the commander of the Army of Flanders, Marshal Luxembourg, and Saint-Simon went to serve in the Army of the Rhine under the command of his future father-in-law, Marshal de Lorge.

A born military man would never have done this: the German front was secondary, there were no sieges or general battles, the opponents tried not to strike, but only not to miss them, and military operations resembled a complex dance with a transition from one to the next. the other bank of the Rhine in search of areas that have not yet been devastated. Thus four campaigns passed, leaving no room for special feats, and the clearer became the dependence of advancement in ranks on patronage in the Ministry of War, whose bureaucratic style of leadership at a distance Saint-Simon hated with all his soul. Despite the marshal rank of his father-in-law (who soon retired due to illness), Saint-Simon did not have such patronage, just as there were no merits that allowed an extraordinary promotion in rank. The rank of peer was not taken into account by the ministry in such cases.

Therefore, in 1702, when a new big war began - the War of the Spanish Succession, Saint-Simon did not receive either the rank of brigadier, or even his own regiment, which had previously been disbanded after the Peace of Ryswick in 1697. He considered this an insult to his dignity and asked for dismissal from military service under the pretext of poor health. This act of protest offended the king, but the resignation was accepted, and since Saint-Simon's petition expressed the hope that from now on he would be able to devote more attention to serving the person of the monarch, Louis XIV sometimes began to entrust him with an important function: holding a candlestick during the ceremony of the royal departure to sleep. So the duke-peer became a simple courtier without a special court position and could devote himself entirely to writing.

The future memoirist began to try the pen very early. At the age of 15, he compiled a description of the funeral of the king’s daughter-in-law that has come down to us, notable for its special attention to the subtleties of the ceremony. He then compiled descriptions of the military actions in which he happened to participate, a detailed note about the process between the peers and Marshal Luxembourg. Saint-Simon understood that his memoirs would be of interest to the reader only if he himself was well aware of all the details and hidden springs of court life, and he showed rare curiosity, tried to be present everywhere and ask about everything.

Finally, in 1699, the author decided to present excerpts from his future work to the judgment of a person whose opinion was indisputable for him: Abbot Rance. Saint-Simon asked his spiritual mentor to resolve his doubts: would he have to be ashamed of what he wrote in the future? Although he writes only the truth, and passion serves only to enliven the style, but still... The most polemical passages dedicated to the conflict with Marshal Luxembourg were sent to the monk who had retired from the world. The abbot’s answer has not been preserved (apparently, it was given orally during Saint-Simon’s next visit to La Trappe Abbey), but there is no doubt about its essence: Rance, who strictly refrained from interfering in worldly disputes, obviously did not unconditionally condemn the activities of his young admirer, but warned him against the danger of deviating into slander.

After this episode, which was supposed to cool the aspiring author, we know almost nothing about his work on his memoirs until 1729, when Danzho’s “Diary” ended up in his hands, although he certainly kept some notes all this time .

Saint-Simon did not immediately come to criticize the system of government of Louis XIV. When he came to court as a 16-year-old boy, France was still at the peak of its power; it alone waged war against an entire coalition of European powers and most often won on land. He had no personal grounds for dissatisfaction with the king. We cannot agree with the opinion of I.M. Grevsa: "Saint-Simon loved power and, deprived of it, considered his position humiliating". He always preferred honor to real power over people. The future historian early realized that his place in life was that of an observer, not a manager; the most he could count on was to become an influential adviser to a sovereign or minister. During the regency of his friend the Duke of Orleans, Saint-Simon became a member of the Regency Council, but resolutely refused to accept the posts offered to him in the administrative apparatus: he did not want to become the head of the Royal Council of Finance, the keeper of state seals, and the educator of the child king Louis XV (the post that opened the way to the power of the first minister, Cardinal Fleury).

Of course, the strict moralist Saint-Simon was offended by the rise of the royal bastards, shocked by the fact of the king’s secret marriage with the Marquise of Maintenon, nevertheless, he could not imagine life without a court, he liked its splendor and pomp (with what taste he describes the festivities in the Compiegne camp!), and he simply did not notice the famine of 1693-1694, which led to food unrest in Paris. He had no fundamental objections on issues of foreign policy: Saint-Simon was not as opposed to conquest as his older contemporary, the consistent Christian pacifist Francois Fenelon. He explained the formation of anti-French coalitions simply as a natural reaction of neighbors to the growing power of France. Even according to the “Memoirs” (although the author did not directly indicate his position), it is felt that Saint-Simon internally approved the king’s acceptance of the Spanish crown for his grandson as the most worthy decision; he obviously shared the jubilation that reigned at court at that time and which he beautifully described. He even criticized Louis XIV for the fact that, wanting to avoid a war with England and Holland, he sent home the interned Dutch garrisons of the Spanish fortresses in Belgium that were in his hands: after all, the war was inevitable anyway, why give such a gift to the future enemy?

The young Saint-Simon cannot yet be considered a “spokesman for the interests” of the old nobility or even the aristocracy as a whole - he did not rise to such generalizations then. He was occupied mainly with the concerns of duke-peers; this was the starting position in the development of his criticism of the system of power. Among Saint-Simon's papers is a handwritten note entitled “Sketch of plans to be worked on little by little and steadily,” which, according to the latest estimate, should be considered written in 1701. It is all devoted to the restoration of the ceremonial rights of duke-peers, infringed by other hierarchical groups. The grievances of the peers are great: the princes of the blood stopped accompanying them to the carriage, demanding that they be addressed as “monsignor” (as from lower to higher); the first president of the Paris Parliament, asking peers for their opinion, does not remove his headdress; “foreign princes” arrogated to themselves the right, absent from peers, to remain in their hats in the presence of foreign ambassadors, etc. and so on. In order to constantly combat all these humiliations, Saint-Simon believed, the peers should unite, create their own elected “syndicate” (of course, strictly secret - it is clear that the king will not like such an initiative), i.e. a standing committee of five members that meets twice a month under the guise of friendly meetings. It is necessary that this “syndicate” in matters of honor have “despotic power” over its comrades, that it impose fines on those who show weakness and create an atmosphere of general condemnation around them. The note does not even talk about increasing the real role of duke-peers in government: it is enough to provide them with appropriate honor, and the entire moral situation at court will improve.

Saint-Simon became an oppositionist under the influence of the heavy defeats of France in the second stage of the War of the Spanish Succession. Terrible blows fell one after another, and the bright halo of glory of the “Sun King” immediately went out. After the defeats of Blenheim (1704), Ramilly and Turin (1706), France lost its conquests in Germany, Belgium, and Italy. She had to defend her own borders in a tense struggle. With great difficulty, with French help, the grandson of Louis, Philip V of Spain, retained his crown, and the allies, feeling their strength, set a humiliating condition for the old king: in order to get peace, he himself must drive his grandson out of Spain. The proud monarch could not accept such a shame, and the war continued. The war was devastating, with chaos in finances, with a peasant uprising of the Huguenot “Camizards” in the rear and food riots in the capital - a consequence of famine after the brutal winter of 1708-1709. Saint-Simon noticed these national disasters and described them with sympathy in his Memoirs.

What is the reason for all these failures? What flaws in government made them possible? What measures need to be taken to improve matters - if not now, then in the future (in the near future: after all, the king is very old, and everyone will expect some innovations from his successor)? All these questions concern Saint-Simon. His horizons are expanding, he strives to think big, taking into account the interests of the entire country, all its classes. “From now on it is allowed to think only about the fatherland”; "I write as a simple Frenchman, an equal compatriot of all other Frenchmen"- such phrases appear in one of his notes. Despite this laudable desire, the Duke’s entire structure of thought remains hierarchical, for he sees strict adherence to the hierarchy of ranks as one of the conditions for the revival of France.

On April 14, 1711, an event occurred that changed the entire balance of power at court. The heir to the throne, the son of Louis XIV, died unexpectedly. The 29-year-old grandson of the king, the Duke of Burgundy, became the new Dauphin, and this aroused high hopes among supporters of reform. It was known about the young prince that he was under the influence of his former mentor, the disgraced Archbishop Fenelon, who continued to help him with advice from exile. Fenelon's admirers were Saint-Simon's older friends, the Dukes of Beauvilliers and Chevreuse (the first of them had previously been the prince's tutor). In November 1711, at a meeting between Fenelon and Chevreuse in Sean, a “Plan of Administration” (“Sean Articles”) was developed, which was to be implemented by the Duke of Burgundy when he became king of France. Thanks to Beauvillier, Saint-Simon was also included in the circle of advisers to the Dauphin, who enthusiastically drew up projects for future reforms for him.

Hopes for the imminent reign of the young reformer did not last even a year. The royal family was struck by a smallpox epidemic: first the Dauphin's wife died, and a week later, on February 19, 1712, the Duke of Burgundy himself died. Having lost his son just a year ago, the grandfather-king has now outlived his grandson. And two weeks later, a great-grandson: the new Dauphin, the young eldest son of the late couple, followed his parents. He became the heir to the throne younger brother, the two-year-old great-grandson of the 74-year-old monarch, the future Louis XV.

Of course, reform plans continued to remain relevant. Moreover, in 1714 the war ended, and on easier terms than could have been expected. Marshal Villars, unloved by Saint-Simon, defeated Eugene of Savoy in 1712, repelling the threat of an enemy invasion deep into France. Europe recognized Philip V as the king of Spain, but for this he had to renounce his rights to the French throne in order to avoid a Franco-Spanish union. (According to the norms of French dynastic law, Philip would have to succeed his grandfather in the event of the death of his young nephew.) In peaceful conditions, it was possible to engage in internal transformations; all that remained was to wait for the death of the old king.

However, the conditions for reform have become more difficult. France was awaiting a long period of regency, and the power of the regent did not have the highest sacred authority and he had a moral duty to transfer it to the grown-up king in its unreduced form. But who will be the regent for the orphaned boy king? At first, he was supposed to be the youngest of the three grandsons of Louis XIV, the Duke of Berry (bypassing his older brother, the King of Spain, with which he disagreed). But in May 1714, unexpectedly, he also died as a result of an accident, and this meant that Saint-Simon’s longtime friend, Duke Philippe of Orleans, would become regent (and in the event of the death of the young Louis XV, king). Never before has our hero been so close to becoming the first adviser to the ruler: even if the Duke of Burgundy had ascended the throne, this place would clearly have been occupied by Fenelon. However, just at this time - in the three years remaining before the death of the old king - Chevreuse, Beauvillier, and Fenelon passed away. And on September 1, 1715, Louis XIV died and the regency began.

About the political views of Saint-Simon in 1711-1715. can be judged from several surviving texts. Written in different conditions, they seem to reflect the expansion of their author’s horizons, which apparently took place in reality.

First of all, there are two draft handwritten notes - “Projects for the restoration of the French kingdom” stored in the archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They were compiled in January 1712 for the Duke of Burgundy and apparently remained unfinished due to his death. Here Saint-Simon continued to consider the problems of restoring and strengthening the ceremonial hierarchy that were especially close to him. He would like to consolidate a group of duke-peers, fix their number and limit the monarch's right to grant new peers when vacancies open, so that only a person from the highest titled nobility could become a peer: a marquess, an earl or a direct descendant of a duke-peer. These "pillars of the state" will surpass in rank even the crown dignitaries, if they are not themselves peers: even the constable will have the rank of the last duke-peer, and the eldest sons of peers should be equated with the crown dignitaries and in their procession give way only to the chancellor. Royal bastards and their descendants are deprived not only of their magnificent titles, but even of legitimation, which is prohibited in the future both for monarchs and for private individuals by a special law; kings will swear this at their coronation. For nobles with a rank below the duke, new court positions are established to serve the monarch in his daily routine, in order to remove valets from this business: the king must be surrounded by nobles, because commoners "It's hard to think loftily." Concern has also been shown to reduce government spending: individual courts of members of the royal family are being greatly reduced,

Of course, the matter could not be limited to all this. In conversations with the young Dauphin, they also discussed broader plans. Saint-Simon lifted the veil over them (of course, not completely) in an anonymous letter to Louis XIV, written in 1712, shortly after the death of the heir to the throne.

Historians have no doubt that Saint-Simon was the author of this document, although neither his draft autograph nor the original have survived. However, significant indirect arguments support its authorship: the letter is presented as a copy made in unknown handwriting (judging by the nature of the errors, it was taken from dictation); it is kept in the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs among the works of Saint-Simon and is written on paper identical in filigree to that on which the Duke himself usually wrote. The question may rather be whether the letter was sent to its destination. A positive answer is evidenced precisely by the fact that Saint-Simon chose not to preserve his own draft in his archive. The Memoirs say nothing about the letter. There is, however, a vague hint: it was at this time that Saint-Simon, for some reason, feared disgrace and deportation to the provinces. He prevented this deportation by voluntarily leaving for several weeks on his estate, and after his return to the court, the danger had already passed. Perhaps the elderly king, shocked by a series of deaths in his family, was not in the mood to search for and punish the freethinker.

The letter could only have been written in a state of feverish excitement: like all supporters of reforms, Saint-Simon was deeply upset by the untimely death of the Duke of Burgundy and the collapse of hopes for a better future. A thought even arose: maybe the king himself would finally decide to implement some of his plans, at least those that he liked? Measures are selected and recommended that should have led to an increase in the real personal power of the monarch, who was actually removed from control by his own ministers - the secretaries of state and the controller general of finance. Saint-Simon proposes to replace their individual ministries with councils-colleges, "as in all well-organized countries": the king will be able to compare different opinions and will decide matters himself. It seems like a good idea - but how it’s presented! It seems that the author, in his irrepressible love of truth (a very Saint-Simonian trait), forgot about any sense of tact. The Royal Council of Finance is declared by him "an empty phantom" due to his complete ignorance, and everyone who sits in it is also phantoms, "starting with Your Majesty himself."

“Your Majesty is the only one in all of Europe who imagines that you are not being governed.”

“It is necessary, sir, for Your Majesty to finally begin to rule on his own.”

What could an author count on who wrote such things, and even called on a king, like King David, to repent before the Lord of his adultery? It could not have been more painful to insult Louis XIV, who was proud of the fact that he had been ruling independently for more than half a century, without resorting to the services of the first minister. And then some subject, who did not identify himself “out of respect,” suggested that the old monarch admit that his entire reign was a complete mistake and that everything should be started from scratch! This desperate call to end the bureaucratization of the central government apparatus could not meet with any positive response.

A truly detailed statement of Saint-Simon’s reform plans is contained in the note “Projects for the management of the Dauphin, Monsignor Duke of Burgundy,” which has neither date nor signature. (However, this is a feature of the genre: the notes were usually not dated or signed.) The document is known only in a late copy, stored not among the papers of Saint-Simon, but in the Paris National Library. Nevertheless, his authorship is accepted, according to I. Cuaro, "with almost absolute certainty". The note contains many of the "trademarks" of Saint-Simon's authorship: concern for the duke-peers; the desire to include in the coronation oath the king's obligation never to legitimize his bastards; hatred of “foreign princes”, going so far as to intend to expel all members of the House of Lorraine abroad; the intention to prevent any Frenchman from accepting the rank of cardinal (an idea that was also developed in the Memoirs). Finally, in terms of content, the document is fully consistent with the description of the plans of the Duke of Burgundy in the Memoirs. In addition, no other candidate authors are seen. Although the note throughout speaks of the plans of the Duke of Burgundy, it is incredible that this obedient student of Fenelon could share a number of its provisions, imbued with a Gallican and even anti-clerical spirit.

And these were truly projects of great state reorganization. Saint-Simon was not opposed to any innovations in general; he understood that France often changes its customs and it is necessary not to contrast the new with the old, but to choose what is more suitable "true laws and norms(maximes) kingdom" .

At the same time, in “Management Projects...” he states the need to take into account the experience of richer states, England and Holland, whose superiority over France lies precisely in the fact that “the masters of these two states are their people” - there is no exaggeration there due to the widespread the spread of the tax system, where representatives of the people vote taxes and monitor expenses. The aim of French reforms should be "imitation of these two states in a way most suitable for us" .

As always after a major war, the main issue was financial policy: the public debt to tax farmers and financiers was enormous. I had to get rid of him, but how? Until now, French politicians have had to choose between two ways to solve the problem. It was possible, following the example of Fouquet in the late 1650s, to set a course for the gradual repayment of debt, using the natural tendency of loan interest to decrease in peace: to enter into new loans at lower and lower interest rates and from this source to pay off old creditors. In this case, the state’s credit would not have been undermined, but repayment of the debt would have been delayed for a long period, during which the people would have had to pay taxes according to wartime standards during the years of peace, and there was a risk of social upheaval. It was possible, as the victorious Fouquet Colbert did in 1661, to take the path of legally justified and disguised state bankruptcy, to create, as had been done more than once before, an all-French Chamber of Justice to try financiers, because during the war they all took from the state for their services exorbitantly high interest rates, exceeding the norm established by law. Then the government, using popular hatred of financiers, would defuse social tensions, but the credit system would be disrupted for several years.

Saint-Simon saw the shortcomings of both political lines, and both of them were rejected by him. He proposed a new, more radical method: open state bankruptcy, carried out by the will of the people, i.e. class representative assembly. He believed that it was necessary to convene the States General - but not according to the traditional, but according to a completely new scheme associated with such a reorganization of the state that would deal a crushing blow to the entire system of finance.

In some provinces of France there were estate-representative assemblies. They voted the tax requested from the center in favor of the state, and collected it themselves, using the method of taxation that was most convenient for them. These were the States of Languedoc, Brittany, Burgundy, and the Assembly of Communities of Provence. The level of taxation here was clearly underestimated, since the government took advantage of the provinces that did not have such meetings. Saint-Simon was inspired by the successful experience of the “states” and proposed to extend it throughout the country. Estate-representative assemblies should have been created everywhere, even where their existence had long been forgotten. Saint-Simon was not afraid of the radical redrawing of the administrative map associated with this. The country was supposed to be divided into 12 parts, as equal as possible" not by area, but by wealth(en produit)". What is not the practice of 1789, when the Constituent Assembly divided France into many as equal departments as possible? And this is not the only example when the rationalist in Saint-Simon turned out to be stronger than the traditionalist.

In each of these 12 parts, States elected annually from the three classes were to sit, deciding all issues of self-government and taxation. There were supposed to be few deputies, only 36 people (12 from each class) - a small number better ensures a businesslike atmosphere at meetings. Once every five years, the king had to convene the equally small States General (36 people), composed of deputies chosen from among themselves by the provincial States (each assembly would send three deputies, one from the estate). The collection of royal taxes, previously carried out either by agents of powerful tax-farming companies (all indirect fees) or by the royal financial administration (taglia), was to come under the jurisdiction of this entire all-French system of representative assemblies. Only a few items of income would remain in the hands of the latter: domain taxes, the “voluntary gift” of the clergy, collected through the efforts of the collectors of the Assembly of the French Church, and even income from postal farming (the special position of which was explained by the need to sometimes illustrate private letters in the highest public interests).

At the same time, Saint-Simon did not at all want to limit the absolute power of the king. The Estates General were not vested with any legislative power. When the king tells them how much money he will need to receive from taxes in the coming five years, they can only turn to him with a request to reduce this request, and the monarch has the right to ignore their request. The amount requested by him will be distributed by the States General between the provinces, and the provincial States will already be engaged in its distribution within their provinces, choosing the method of taxation and actually collecting the fee through their administration.

In addition, the States General will have extensive control functions in the field of finance, checking the correctness of expenditures on major budget items; they will even be able to punish embezzlers and corrupt officials, even sentencing them to death "without any trial and without appeal." The provincial States will also receive a similar right.

During the break between sessions of the States General, they will be represented by an elected standing committee of 12 deputies (4 from each estate) - an important innovation, since the previous General States did not have permanent representation. Here again the experience of provincial class assemblies is used. However, the role of this committee was planned to be purely passive: it exists only to accept the orders of the monarch to collect additional taxes.

The most important mission was entrusted to the first session of the States General, which was to be convened as soon as possible after the beginning of the new reign. It was here that the decision on state bankruptcy had to be made, and Saint-Simon had no doubt that the deputies would willingly take such a step associated with the transition to a new form of financial management that was so flattering for them. After all, then the royal apparatus in the provinces (el, "treasurers of France") will be completely replaced by the provincial States' own apparatus. The all-powerful provincial intendants will also disappear: instead of them, the king will only occasionally send commissioners to places for purely inspection purposes. The old opponents of the absolutist government - parliaments and other supreme chambers - will lose their political significance, since everything related to finance will be removed from their jurisdiction: freed from the right to register royal financial edicts, they will turn into purely judicial tribunals.

No less significant metamorphoses will occur in the highest echelons of power. The Council of State under the monarch will be decisively cleared of non-aristocrats, and henceforth there should be no people from judicial or secretarial families in it. Only real people of honor, noble nobles will become the king's closest advisers. At the same time, Saint-Simon wanted to preserve the most important principle of the reign of Louis XIV: the princes of the blood would not be on this council. Thus, the natural leaders of the aristocracy, potentially the most influential opponents of monarchical tyranny, were removed from real power. Instead, the most honorable hierarchical position among ministers is naturally reserved for duke-peers. Their other possible rivals will not be included in the council: as under the “Sun King”, the ministers will not be clergy - after all, a prelate in such a position can easily become a cardinal, and then the first minister.

Below the State Council there will be seven specialized councils working under its leadership: Church, Foreign Affairs. Military, Naval, Finance, Council of Despatches (i.e. internal affairs) and Council of Orders. The omnipotence of the ministerial bureaucracy will come to an end: the secretaries of state will return to their original state as recorders and forwarders, functioning under the control of the appropriate council. Saint-Simon specifically stipulated that only duke-peers could be heads of the Council of Finance. Council of Despatches and Council of Orders; the latter, entirely composed of titled nobles, will include four more duke-peers. The Military Council will necessarily be headed by the Marshal of France, its members will be six lieutenant generals - after the civilian leadership of the secretaries of state, the army will be controlled by the military. Several members of the Paris Parliament will be introduced into the Church Council, chaired by one of the prelates: the prelates need secular supervision, and the parliamentarians have shown themselves to be reliable defenders of the Gallican principles dear to the heart of Saint-Simon, which this council must defend against the encroachments of the Vatican. The presence of the clergy was not provided for in any other councils.

Advisors from the “nobles of the robe” will also be included, in a minority, in the Council of Despatches and, perhaps, in the Council of Foreign Affairs (no more than one!). In these important councils the old nobility should predominate numerically. The specialists (the Comptroller General and the four Intendants of Finance) will be better represented in the Council of Finance, but the powers of this council are greatly limited due to the general reform of financial management. He will control only a small share of the budget, which remains in the hands of the royal administration. Specialist sailors will form the Maritime Council, which is also in charge of managing the overseas colonies.

For Saint-Simon, the idea of ​​​​creating the Council of Orders, which was previously absent in France, is especially dear to him - an idea borrowed from the experience of Spanish absolutism, which was well known to him. It is this council, the head of which will receive the high position of chief marshal, that will become the supreme judge in matters of ceremonial and rank, control the registers of masters of ceremonies of the royal orders and send their commissioners to the provinces to verify the nobility.

This is, in general terms, the plan of transformation developed by Saint-Simon. The originality of his thought should not be exaggerated: the main ideas of reform were “in the air.” In the “Sean Articles” of Fenelon and Chevreuse, there were also thoughts about the universal convening of estate-representative assemblies, and about the States General, and about the destruction of the institution of provincial intendants, and about replacing the individual power of secretaries of state with the collegial power of councils. The difference between Saint-Simon's project is its greater caution, in the desire to avoid any external restrictions on the will of the monarch. If Fenelon wanted to give the Estates General fairly broad powers, with the right to discuss any issues of domestic and foreign policy, then Saint-Simon only allowed them to submit at the feet of the monarch the most obedient requests for a tax reduction - requests that the king is not obliged to satisfy; there is a contrast between the complete freedom of administrative power of the provincial States and the powerlessness of the central estate-representative body. According to Fenelon's plan, the deputies of the States General were to be elected by the population - three people per diocese, which would make a corps of about 350 people - and could consider themselves direct representatives of the country. And Saint-Simon, by the same loud name, meant only a small meeting of representatives of the provincial States delegated to the capital. Therefore, the author of “Management Projects...” cannot in any way be considered in opposition to the absolute monarchy; rather, he was the creator of a kind of absolutist utopia.

The implementation of Saint-Simon's plan would have crushed the central tax-farming companies operating throughout the entire state, and this would have meant a shock to the established credit system. But financiers would continue to operate at the provincial level - naturally, appropriating a certain share of the tax for themselves. It was in principle impossible to put an end to the tax-farm system if the monarch retained the right, regardless of objections, to determine the amount of the tax. The government, not used to limiting its requests, would like to receive this money as soon as possible. Such a desire would have to be taken into account by the obedient provincial States, so turning to tax farmers was inevitable.

The method of implementing the plan was also utopian. It is enough to imagine what the creation of estate-representative assemblies in all French provinces would really mean. It was this measure that was carried out in 1787 by the government of Loménie de Brienne, and it greatly politicized French society and created that atmosphere of unprecedented novelty of what was happening, which prepared the people for the revolution. Of course, in 1715 there was still no widespread dissemination of Enlightenment ideology, but the contrast between the absolute silence under Louis XIV and the environment of free election struggle would have become too striking. It is difficult to imagine that the system of popular representation created in such a situation would be as obedient as Saint-Simon expected. And in the event of a conflict between society and the government, even the two-stage nature of the elections to the States General could become a complicating factor: a close connection with the provincial assemblies that formed them would mean the creation of an influential “vertical of power.”

Saint-Simon understood the risk of his plan. That is why he considered its implementation possible not under any conditions, but only when the government has a very large “credit of trust.” The young Duke of Burgundy, and to a lesser extent the regent Philip of Orleans, could have had it when he became king, if he had announced the convening of the States General at the very beginning of his reign. The regent did not dare to do this, and when after only a year and a half of regency, at the beginning of 1717, he began to think about such a possibility, Saint-Simon himself categorically advised him not to do this - in a special note included in the Memoirs.

By that time, Philip had already taken the path of solving the financial crisis, which his friend considered fundamentally wrong: he created the Chamber of Justice, thereby linking his name with this unpopular step in the eyes of ordinary rentiers and missing the opportunity to carry out state bankruptcy at the will of representatives of society. Under such conditions, the States General could only lead to confusion, for the nation had been governed for too long "having neither time nor freedom to think" and everyone would care only about themselves. Under Louis XIV, there could not be enough people who understood public affairs, "because of the dangers associated with this kind of hobby." Need time, "when it would be possible to learn, think and reason". Another unexpected facet of the many-sided Saint-Simon - a defender of freedom of speech and a sober realist, he understood that for free society we need free people.

But this is not how his contemporaries remembered him, who did not know about his reform plans, which never began to be implemented. The system of collegial councils ("polysynody") that replaced the state secretariats during the regency turned out to be unviable and lasted only three years, after which they returned to the previous order. Saint-Simon could boast only of his success in the struggle against the hierarchical claims of the royal bastards and his stubborn defense of the ceremonial privileges of the duke-peers. There was an unfair opinion about him as a person generally incapable of large-scale thinking, a vain aristocrat, interested only in the trifles of etiquette. This stereotypical judgment was repeated by some historians. "For him, France comes down to the nobility, the nobility to dukes and peers, and the dukes and peers to himself."- their publisher A. Cheruel denounced the author of “Memoirs”. We have seen the one-sidedness of such an opinion.

* * * Saint-Simon's "Memoirs" is a work of a difficult to define and, perhaps, even unique genre, the features of which were associated with the history of the creation of the book. At first, he wanted to write a regular memoir, focusing on his personal observations and actions. However, we would be in vain to look here for attention to our own spiritual life, for some elements of the “confession” genre. Such a keen observer and psychologist in relation to other people, Saint-Simon shows no interest in analyzing his own experiences. His gaze is directed outward, not inward. We can say that he sees himself as if from the outside, from the side not of feelings, but of actions. "This memoir is not intended to express my feelings,"- this is the general author’s principle, violated only in exceptional cases. But even when remembering his actions, Saint-Simon is not inclined, like another memoirist Cardinal Retz, to analyze his behavior or admit the mistakes he made. For himself, he is always right. The author’s actions in his struggle against the “usurpations” of the rights of duke-peers are described in especially detail: for Saint-Simon it is important to show by example exactly what should be done when class and ceremonial honor are affected.

The author's actions do not form the core of the narrative, as in ordinary memoirs. These are the notes of a man who all his life was more of an observer than an active figure. He urgently needed to find an organizing compositional principle for his numerous observations, and this principle was found when the above-mentioned diary of the Marquis Dangeau came into his hands. Its use meant a strong expansion of the original plan, a movement from memoirs to history based on the principle of synchronicity of the facts presented.

Saint-Simon never came to the actual diary form, but the text is clearly divided by year, so that the author constantly has to return to previous stories (publishers of selected passages in such cases usually combine these texts). Thus, the free genre of memoirs falls within the framework of the oldest, medieval form of historical chronicle - the form of annals - and obeys its laws. Within the same year, Saint-Simon can take liberties with chronology and group homogeneous messages by topic, and this grouping to a certain extent correlates with the rhythm of court life. In the summer there were military operations, and the young peer, like many courtiers, went to the army. Accordingly, he writes about the events that took place on his front, but not only on it - he considers it his duty to report on what he knows about military operations on all other fronts. In the autumn, military officers and generals returned to the court, the time of balls and weddings began, and Saint-Simon's story is filled with this information: details of marriage alliances, characteristics of the newlyweds, their relatives, etc. News about awards and appointments to court positions are accompanied by equally detailed comments. And you can always expect some colorful, sometimes anecdotal story from the life of those awarded and appointed, enlivening the picture of court life.

The report of the death of a famous character usually entails a story about other deaths that happened around the same time, so that a whole “obituary” section is formed, to which Saint-Simon attaches very great importance. A story about death is an occasion to remember the entire life of the deceased, to characterize him as a person. It is here that the famous Saint-Simon "portraits" appear. Biographical and characterological excursions can be extensive, leading far to the side: the death of the old father gave his son a reason to delve for a long time into the distant era of the reign of Louis XIII, giving praise to this revered monarch on occasion. In fact, the story about the death of Louis XIV with a very detailed description of his personality and reign also turns into a separate pamphlet.

Finally, it should be noted that Saint-Simon’s range of interests as a chronicler is not limited to his country and Spain, which especially interested him, which since 1700 has become a dynastic ally of France. He considers it his duty to report major events in other countries, both neighboring and distant: in Poland, Sweden, even in Russia. Young Peter I came into his field of vision during the Russian Great Embassy of 1697-1698. This information is fragmentary and contains gross errors, but an application for pan-European history has been made.

The unhurried passage of time, its rhythmic seasonal cycles, the diversity and variety of life, where routine and minor skirmishes alternate with shocks and catastrophes, where the funny is adjacent to the tragic - the reader of the Memoirs owes all these sensations to the synchronic method of organizing the material adopted by Saint-Simon. Unfortunately, these advantages of the book are lost when selected passages are published. Only when reading the full text does one realize the grandeur of the “cathedral” built by the old Duke.

An atypical memoirist, Saint-Simon is also atypical as a historian. He is not a professional: he makes many factual errors, sacrifices establishing the truth for the effectiveness of the story, and does not equip his work with numerous inclusions of published documents, which was very typical of real historians of his time. But the intentions of the Duke Peer could not include the desire to become a professional historian, as well as a professional writer.

The first readers of the Memoirs, who became acquainted with them in manuscript at the end of the 18th century, with all their fascination with Saint-Simon's colorful stories, were horrified by his style. They were accustomed to the language purified by the efforts of the Academy, to the clear, classically transparent syntax of Fenelon and Voltaire. Instead, there are long, confusing phrases through which the reader has to wade through, as if through a thicket, getting confused in the connections between pronouns and nouns (by the way, the image of a wild forest still often appears in the literature dedicated to the Memoirs); a mixture of linguistic archaism and crudely popular expressions; indecent, almost Rabelaisian attention to the functions of the “bottom”. Sometimes the author begins and abandons one topic, moves on to another, returns back, without taking into account what the reader knows and what he does not know. It was difficult to accept all this, especially since in other episodes, in numerous “inserted short stories”, Saint-Simon shows himself to be an excellent storyteller, able to maintain tension, create a clear, visible picture of what was happening. So why didn't he take the time to polish the entire text?

There is a great temptation to think that Saint-Simon's style is not accidental, that it is "a deliberately chosen instrument for great artistic tasks". The heterogeneity and sometimes chaotic style of the “Memoirs” is indeed in a certain adequate correspondence with the complexity and diversity of the life described in them. This is exactly how the romantics, in particular the author of the preface to the 1856-1858 edition, resolved this issue. Sainte-Beuve.

But this could not be the point of view of Saint-Simon himself. In his time there was no idea that unfinished, raw, unfinished things could in themselves have a certain aesthetic value. He admitted the shortcomings of his style, explaining them by the fact that the form of presentation was sacrificed to the content, that he wanted to fit into a condensed text all the information that overwhelmed it. He simply freed himself from the stylistic “fine-tuning” of the book - apparently because he considered this work to be the work of a literary specialist, and he did not intend to become one. Saint-Simon behaved as required by the norms of behavior of a secular “decent man” (honnete homme), who was especially afraid of being branded a pedant or a narrow specialist. “It will be a disaster for decent people if, by their appearance or manners, they are mistaken for specialists or artisans,”- wrote our author’s senior contemporary, moralist Antoine de Mere. It was much preferable to remain in the position of a secular person, conducting a relaxed, even if confused, conversation, free from subordination to the literary rules developed by professionals. When in the 19th century. The entire body of classicist aesthetics began to be subjected to fierce criticism by the romantics; Saint-Simon's free style was very to their taste and contributed to the resounding success of the Memoirs.

The same impression of complete ease is left by the “portraits” of Saint-Simon, which are completely different from the experiments of his predecessors. The literary tradition of descriptions of “characters”, the most brilliant representative of which at the end of the 17th century. was Jean La Bruyère (by the way, highly valued by Saint-Simon) based on ideas about the typical: the writer portrayed the bearers of a particular passion or shortcoming, trying to imagine how this main quality of the character would manifest itself in different everyday situations; This is not so much a portrait as a mask that can be tried on many people. In the genre of memoirs, there were biting, striking in their paradoxical “portraits” of historical characters by Retz. Saint-Simon did not focus on them: for all his masterly juggling with psychological characteristics, the cardinal did not “stoop” to creating a physically visible image. But it was precisely the resurrection of such images in memory that constituted the starting point of Saint-Simon’s characteristics, and the physical appearance (itself made up of many contradictory features) enters into complex relationships with the mental.

As if obeying an irrepressible desire to record all his memories, Saint-Simon combines “positive” and “negative” in disarray, without rational selection, as if not caring about the integrity of the impression. "The most beautiful in the world" The legs of the king's son in the most unexpected way end in unusually small and thin feet - the prince, it turns out, moved with caution, fearing a fall. In the "portrait" of the Duchess of Burgundy, the gaze moves from her drooping cheeks to "the most expressive and beautiful eyes in the world" then to the few and completely rotten teeth, then it is asked to imagine her gait "goddesses in the clouds" In his enthusiasm, Saint-Simon constantly uses superlatives when describing both beauties and ugliness, both virtues and vices, and is very fond of contrasts that reach the grotesque. And if, with all this, the viewer gets a solid image, but very rich in shades, then this is the art of a portrait painter, a true master of a realistic portrait. For Saint-Simon is not indifferent to his characters, he loves some, hates and despises others - and he knows how to illuminate the portrait so much with the light of his sympathy or antipathy that we share precisely his attitude.

As has already been said, Saint-Simon could not fully understand the significance of his stylistic innovation. But still, at the level of intuition, he must have felt that the style that developed as if by itself was suitable for his book. Apparently, the reluctance to straighten him out was partly due to this.

* * * Special mention should be made of how a book hidden from the public by its author found its way to the reader and gained wide popularity. Fearing that the impartial characteristics of the court of the “Sun King” would turn out to be too topical and counting on the attention of fairly distant posterity, Saint-Simon bequeathed his manuscript to a relative from another branch of his family who was under his care - Claude de Saint-Simon, Bishop of Metz. Five years later, in 1760, after the death of this prelate, the government laid hands on the entire archive of the writer. Remembering that the late Duke was at one time Ambassador Extraordinary to Spain, his papers were placed for safekeeping in the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, access to which was strictly limited.

However, the “imprisonment” of the book was not too harsh. The thoroughly shaken official ideology was no longer capable of strict prohibitions. The ministers themselves ordered lists of the most colorful passages for themselves and their friends. There were also excerpts in circulation that were copied for the author’s friends during his lifetime. By the 1780s, the existence of the Memoirs was widely known, and some writers used excerpts from them without citing the author's name.

Finally, in 1788-1791, in the midst of the outbreak of revolutionary upheavals, one enterprising publisher, Abbot J.-L. Sulavi managed to publish, in three stages, 20 small volumes containing randomly selected and arranged fragments from the Memoirs. Despite the poor quality of the publication, its relevance ensured its great success. Then, already during the Restoration, a new selective edition appeared in 1818 (6 volumes with a foreword by Prof. F. Laurent), where, unlike the Sulavi edition, the passages were arranged not in thematic, but in chronological order. This is exactly what was in the library of A.S. Pushkin.

But only in 1828 did the royal government, having satisfied the request of the peer of France, the marquis and general Henri-Jean-Victor de Saint-Simon (he was then the head of the Saint-Simon family), agreed to hand over to him the clean original of the “Memoirs” of his famous relative, and only then did it become possible to carry out the first complete edition of a book on this most authoritative text. It was published under the auspices of the Marquis himself (who, by the way, on his mother’s side was the nephew of another famous Saint-Simon, the great utopian) in 21 volumes in 1829 - 1830, was a huge success and served as the basis for a number of reprints. The situation could not have been more conducive to its topicality: it was the eve of the July Revolution of 1830, which put an end to Charles X’s attempts to return to old-style absolutism. In addition, the romantic writers who determined the development of literature admired the bright, uninhibited style of Saint-Simon, seeing in him their ally and predecessor.

However, this first complete edition was published hastily, did not have not only comments, but even an introduction, and contained many errors. There was a need for a critical edition, with careful verification of the text, and such work was done by the famous historian A. Cheruel in a 20-volume edition of 1856 - 1858. Cheruel himself, as an admirer of the monarchy of Louis XIV, was by no means in agreement with political views Saint-Simon (he “settled scores with him” in a special monograph “Saint-Simon as a historian of Louis XIV,” published in 1865) and, perhaps, that is why the introduction to his publication was written not by him, but by the greatest French critic C. -ABOUT. Sainte-Beuve, who emphasized the literary merits of the work.

Cheruel's demonstration of Saint-Simon's mistakes as a historian did not at all detract from the writer's merits in the eyes of the public. “Memoirs” began to be viewed as a genuine encyclopedia of the “century of Louis XIV”; a desire arose to know as much as possible about the people and events mentioned in them, and therefore the need for detailed comments, of which there were very few in Cheruel’s edition, increased. Extensive commentary became the main task of the next edition of the Memoirs, which took up as many as 43 volumes and was published from 1879 to 1930, first edited by A.-M. Boilil, and then L. Lesestre in the series "Great Writers of France".

Both Cheruel and Boilil worked from the clean original of “Memoirs,” which in 1863 was acquired by the famous publishing house Gachette, which for a time became a monopoly in the publication of this book. Now this manuscript is kept in the Paris National Library (nouv. acq. fr. 23096 - 23107). Other papers of Saint-Simon are still kept in the archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In the 20th century interest in Saint-Simon has not weakened; there is a scientific “Society of Friends of Saint-Simon”, which has been publishing its annual “Notebooks” since 1973. After the gigantic monument to the erudition of Boilil and Lesestre, several more compact editions of the Memoirs were published: the first edition in the “Library of the Pleiades” series, edited by Gonzaga-Truc (8 volumes, 1948-1961), Ramsey’s edition (18 volumes, 1977) and the second edition of the "Library of the Pleiades", edited by the most prominent expert on Saint-Simon, Yves Coirot (8 volumes, 1983-1988).

* * * Saint-Simon's book soon attracted the attention of Russian readers. All editions of the Memoirs are well represented in Russian libraries, starting with the very first editions of Sulavi in ​​1788-1791. However, Saint-Simon did not arouse much interest in himself for a long time and was not the subject of controversy. There was no need for translations into Russian as long as the entire educated elite of society was fluent in French.

The first translation of excerpts from "Memoirs" appeared only in 1899 in the very popular magazine "World of God", published in St. Petersburg in 1892-1906. and united authors from the liberal and legal Marxist intelligentsia: it published P.N. Miliukov, P.B. Struve, E.V. Tarle, M.I. Tugan-Baranovsky and others. The name of the translator is not indicated, and as a preface a slightly abbreviated translation of Sainte-Beuve's introductory article to the Cheruel edition of 1856-1858 is given. There are no interlinear comments, and besides, the translator handled the original text freely, reducing numerous repetitions, introductory remarks, details that are not of interest to the general reader, etc. It can be considered a symbolic coincidence that in Russia, as in France, a growing interest in Saint-Simon emerged on the eve of the revolution designed to put an end to absolutist methods of government. Readers of The World of God did not need anyone's prompting to perceive the French Duke primarily as an exposer of the despotic regime.

For the second time, the Russian reader had the opportunity to get acquainted with Saint-Simon in 1934 - 1936, when a two-volume collection of translations of selected passages from “Memoirs” appeared in the Academia publishing house. The main work on preparing the book was done by I.M. Grevs (1860-1941), an honored historian of the old generation and a very authoritative teacher, master of St. Petersburg medieval studies. It was he who compiled and translated Saint-Simon's fragments, wrote comments and the introductory article "Saint-Simon, His Life and Memoirs". However, the collection also had a second introduction, of a more general, “introductory” nature - “France at the turn of the 18th century,” written by another historian, G.S. (Ts.) Fridland (1896-1937), who was also very famous at that time, but who had a completely different biography and scientific orientation. He belonged to the generation of young Marxist historians that formed after the revolution, and led an active struggle on the “ideological front” against bourgeois concepts in historical science. He himself was a very serious expert on the history of the Great French Revolution, the author of monographs on Marat and Danton, and the publisher of Marat's pamphlets. Thus, Fridland in this case had to play the role of a commissar under the non-party specialist Greves. The irony of fate, however, was manifested in the fact that old Grevs died a natural death, and Fridlyand was repressed, so his article can only be read from copies of the book left for special storage - in all others, the corresponding pages were torn out, and the author’s name was scraped out title page.

With sweeping strokes, Fridland drew a general sociological diagram of a kind of “theater of three actors.” Here is the aristocracy leading the nobility, which during the years of the Fronde tried to prevent the strengthening of royal power, relying on broad social movement of the people's lower classes. The bourgeoisie, which supported absolutism in this struggle, created its greatness, and a century later itself came to power. The people, who constantly fought against the class state, were the support first of the aristocracy and then of the bourgeoisie. Saint-Simon's place in this coordinate system is undeniable: a reactionary who would like to return to the times of noble greatness. True, he, being under the spell of an absolute monarchy, did not dare to dream of genuine noble rule, but sought to ensure that the king shared at least part of his power with the aristocracy. Such a thinker deserves only contempt; he is guilty even of finding some attractive features in such a complete insignificance as Louis XIV. This assessment is borrowed from English liberal historiography, especially from Macaulay. But at the same time, Macaulay considered Saint-Simon one of the most liberal people of his time, while Friedland, armed with a class approach, resolutely rejected such condescension.

Greves's introduction introduces the reader much more closely to the author of "Memoirs" as an extraordinary person and a talented writer. It can be said that thanks to the scientific and personal authority of Grevs, it was his brightly written article that determined the attitude of the Russian public interested in history towards Saint-Simon.

Still, it must be recognized that this introduction, despite the reservations about the difference between the subjective position of the author of the Memoirs, an obvious supporter of absolute monarchy, and the objective meaning of his creation, is marked by the stamp of its time, with its inevitable tendency to too broad sociological generalizations. Even the language of Saint-Simon is defined as "a superstructure over his social well-being." Grevs considered it possible to draw a straight line between the crisis of the early 18th century. and the Great French Revolution. He considers the cross-cutting theme of “Memoirs” "the beginning of the fall of the monarchy in France" so the whole book is "one of the essential sources on the history of the French Revolution." Based on this premise, he selected excerpts for publication. Before the prospect of revolution, Saint-Simon, the ideologist of the highest aristocracy, who hated the bourgeoisie who took over the state apparatus, was powerless. Logically, this formulation of the question led to the idea that at the end of the reign of Louis XIV, France entered an era of protracted, hopeless crisis that lasted almost a century - and this fatalistic stereotype actually spread in Soviet historiography, closing the way to understanding the dynamic development of the French economy in the 18th century. V.

An antiquarian and medievalist, Grevs never studied the history of France during the era of absolutism as a researcher. Conceding to the general sociological scheme, he could make mistakes both in the motivations for Saint-Simon's actions, as mentioned above, and in his comments on the topic of French administrative history. For example, he considered provincial intendants to be representatives of the middle bourgeoisie and conductors of bourgeois influence, and the head of the Paris municipality, a royal official, only traditionally called a “merchant foreman,” was really a merchant and the head of a merchant corporation.

However, at that time, large-scale sociological constructions did not yet look as simplified as they do now: French historiography itself saw the meaning of the history of the Old Order in the struggle between the declining nobility and the bourgeoisie rising to power, and the highest officials state apparatus, ministers and parliamentarians, although they were in the ranks of the “nobility of the robe”.

After the publication of Grevs, excerpts from the Memoirs were published in our country twice more. In 1976, the Progress publishing house published two volumes of such passages in the original, without translations, but with comments and an introductory article in Russian. The author of this article and one of the compilers of the collection (together with E.L. Linetskaya) was the famous Soviet literary critic L.Ya. Ginsburg (1902-1990). 15 years later, in 1991, the same publishing house published a new two-volume book, which included, translated by Yu.B. Korneeva, three dozen fragments of "Memoirs". The introductory article was written by another prominent literary critic, A.D. Mikhailov, a specialist in the history of French literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In both articles, the reader will find many interesting thoughts about the style of Saint-Simon, about the unique genre features of his book, about his art as a “portrait painter” and characterologist. As for general historical judgments, both authors pay tribute to the old sociological scheme, archaic ideas about the views of the duke-memoirist. However, this A.D. Mikhailov's definition of Saint-Simon's position - "a little naive liberal conservatism"- with its justified inconsistency, it goes beyond these ideas and indicates a desire to revise them.

Such a revision is indeed overdue, and it was the task of this essay to promote it.

NOTES

1. See: Shishkin V.V. Noble entourage of Louis XIII. - French Yearbook 2001. M., 2001. p. 100.

2. Estat de la France comme elle estoit gouvernee en l"an 1648 et 1649. - Archives curieuses de l"histoire de France, ser. 2, t. 6. Paris, 1838, p. 394.

3. For some reason, Grevs got this impression. Cm.: Grevs I.M. Saint-Simon, his life and memoirs. - Saint-Simon.
Memoirs, vol. 1. M.-L.. 1934, p. 12.

4. Their common grave has not been preserved: during the years of the revolution, local sans-culottes, who respected the tombs of their lords no more than the Parisians respected the tomb of kings, threw the remains into a landfill.

5.Grevs I.M. Decree. cit., p. 15.

6. Saint-Simon L. de. Traites politiques et autres ecrits. Paris, 1996, p. 3-41. Previously, this note was usually dated 1711; a new dating was substantiated in 1996 by I. Cuaro (Ibid., pp. 1351 - 1352). Indeed, a naive plan for creating
"secret syndicate" of duke-peers speaks in favor of the author's youth.

27. Mikhailov A.D. Poetry and the truth of history ("Memoirs" of Saint-Simon). - There, Prince. 1, p. 5-41.

French thinker, utopian socialist. The driving forces of historical

development considered progress scientific knowledge, morality and religion.

In the essay "New

Christianity" (1825) declared the liberation of the working class as the goal of his aspirations; he saw the solution to this problem in the establishment of a "new" religion ("all people are brothers").

Every morning in the luxurious chambers where the young son of Count Balthazar de Saint-

Simon, a footman came in and uttered the same words: “Get up, Count, you

great things await." This was not the free whim of a commoner. Observe this

The ceremony was ordered by a young aristocrat who, at the dawn of his life, believed

that fate will grant him immortality.

scientific study of man and society. This concept of Saint-Simon was based on

the principle of historicism, that is, viewing society as an integral organism,

which naturally develops from lower to higher stages

Saint-Simon developed a scheme of historical progress, according to which each specific social system

rests on a certain system of views and beliefs, and

if such views and beliefs lose credibility, the social order collapses. So he

believed that the victory of the Enlightenment over theology led to the destruction of feudal

building Only a new level of ideas - modern "positive" sciences - can be

basis for post-feudal

th, industrial order This will happen after the old ones are replaced

the ruling classes - landowners and clergy - will receive a rising class

scientists, engineers, artists, as well as industrialists and manufacturers

Saint-Simon was one of the first thinkers who identified the main features of the emerging

industrial society (or "industrial system") Criticizing

capitalist society of that time, Saint-Simon says that "it reveals

is truly a picture of a world turned upside down", in it "less

the wealthy daily deprive themselves of part of the funds they need in order to

increase the surplus of large owners"

Saint-Simon believed that only the comprehensive development of production could save working masses from disasters through the effective use

scientific principles

organization of society These principles should be the introduction of universal

compulsory productive work, ensuring equal opportunities for everyone

apply your abilities, create a planned organization of production, which

must provide all the needs of society Society must become big

productive association, and the whole world will gradually turn into a worldwide

and political power, which is exercised by trained administrators, will be

applied manufacturing science

Saint-Simon did not believe that the future society would be classless, but he believed that

workers and bourgeoisie unite in a single class of "industrialists", where workers

must obey their "natural" leaders. In the future, all people will

belong to a single class of producers with common interests and

will be liquidated

The teachings of Saint-Simon had a great influence on many thinkers and had

followers The school of Saint-Simonism was created, which over time

turned into a religious sect, but soon disintegrated. One of the disciples of Saint

Simon was Comte, who at one time served as the secretary of Saint-Simon, who continued

develop the theory of positivist science and philosophy and what he called the new

science - sociology

Having lived a life of amazing metamorphoses, a descendant of an aristocratic family, Claude Henri

French thinker, utopian socialist.

Received home education under the guidance of D'Alembert

In his youth, he ordered the footman to wake himself up only with the following words: “Get up, Count, you have great things to do.”

He coined a phrase that became one of the symbols of socialism: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.”

In 1820 he wrote the work: Organizer / L’Organisateur where he indicated that if France suddenly lost 3000 its outstanding physicists, chemists, physiologists, artists, as well as the most capable technicians, bankers, merchants, manufacturers, rural owners, artisans, then “... the nation will become a body without a soul... And it will need at least a whole generation to recoup its losses "

"In the era of revolution Saint-Simon passionately devoted himself to democracy: in one meeting he resigned the title of count and declared: “There are no more lords, gentlemen!” Saint-Simon also understood the other side of the revolution well. A lot of the property of the old rulers - the king, the clergy, the nobility - was thrown onto the market. The democratic count, together with the international swindler and Illuminati, the Saxon aristocrat in the Prussian service in Paris and London, Count Redern, embarked on the purchase and sale of confiscated national property and quickly made a large fortune. He almost died in the terrible era of terror; He spent a whole year in prison, but his wealth returned to him.
His house has now become one of the first salons of the republic: scientists, bankers, artists, technicians met at the hospitable patron of the arts; new plans and scams replaced each other, a lot of money was wasted, the excitement was carried out with the frivolity of a grand seigneur, but at the same time the count was a philanthropist, he looked for talented young men in the attics, doctors and technicians, and generously helped them. He was constantly surrounded by students of the newly created Polytechnic School in the era of the revolution, this peculiar, sort of social sect in the new France, in which the cult exact sciences connected with the ardent trend towards social reform. Saint-Simon knew how to inspire and gather around himself enterprising people striving forward; he threw around a lot of happy ideas, he himself embarked on hundreds of things. In the midst of a frantic thirst for life, he had a persistent thought that wealth was a great social factor, that he personally needed it for broad social projects, for scientific experiments, for generally useful inventions that would lead to the well-being of the masses. One day he convenes the capitalists close to him and proves to them the need to revive morality; for this purpose, a gigantic bank should be established, the income from which will go towards the implementation of structures useful to humanity.
About 10 years later, this brilliantly dissolute life ended: Saint-Simon was completely ruined. The last 20 years of his life (1825) were spent in the struggle against poverty: he begged for alms from his old clients, whom he had once royally fed. He was forced to save himself from hunger with a pen. But now, 45 years old, he just began to write his wonderful books, full of madness and depth, charlatanism and a truly prophetic spirit. And again they reflected the careless and capricious gentleman of the 18th century: nothing systematic, short brochures, incoherent articles, full of repetitions and at the same time surprises, all of this hastily, as necessary, thrown onto paper. Again, projects are pouring in endlessly. There is a plan for a worldwide scientific academy, and a program for pan-European reconciliation with one parliamentary constitution for all of Europe, there is a catechism of industrialists and the outlines of a “New Christianity”; a project on how to force the English to respect the freedom of navies on the seas, which is quickly turning into a treatise on universal gravitation; there are all kinds of advice for governments, for scientists and artists, there are supposed manifestos for the pope, ordinances for the king, etc.
All of these are some kind of general, authoritative solutions to world, scientific and social issues, revelations and discoveries, “final” determinations of the future paths of philosophy or future lines of social development.
Again - a call for a union of science and wealth; Once again, hot budding talents and seekers gather around a strange dreamer: a future historian Thierry, who declared himself the enthusiastically adopted son of Saint-Simon, the philosopher Comte, both of whom were successively his secretaries. Again around him are some mystical bankers, like his faithful apostle, Olenda Rodrigue, a Portuguese Jew, from that group of resurgent Judaism, which, under the impression of the French Revolution, which liberated this nation from centuries-old oppression, rushed to teach about the upcoming great emancipation of all mankind.
All this is some kind of spontaneously emerging circles of enthusiasts who clearly see and smell each other in the crowd. Saint-Simon gets closer to Rouget de Lilem, composer of La Marseillaise, and is passionate about the idea of ​​social education of the masses through music.
Full of vicissitudes, bitter and interesting with adventures, his life is put together into a whole theory: in order to be a true thinker, one must try everything, live as original as possible, run through all social strata, put oneself in all sorts of positions, create for oneself such relationships as never before. didn't exist yet. The mixture of cynicism and nobility, passionate conviction and magic in Saint-Simon's nature was surprisingly suitable for the theory of “experimental” life; the poor projector, in whose eyes even the revolution stopped halfway, suddenly remembered his ancient family, treated the Bourbons as minor nobles and saw his ancestor Charlemagne at night, who told him: “My son, your successes as a philosopher will be equal to my military and state exploits!” He imagined castles in the air of the triumph of industry, he dreamed of a great scientific laboratory, like Condorcet, where he himself would be a dictator. What remained of him were fragments, scattered thoughts that were difficult to read.
“I write,” he declares, “because I have new ideas. I express them as they appear in my mind. I leave it to professional writers to polish them. I write as a nobleman, as a descendant of the Count of Vermandois, as the heir of a peer, the Duke of Saint-Simon. Everything that was done and said great was done and said by nobles: Copernicus, Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, Newton and Leibniz were nobles. Napoleon would also have begun to express in writing the projects that he is now carrying out in practice, if the throne had not accidentally been cleared for him.” Saint-Simon had little knowledge; most of the facts were grasped on the fly, by ear; It is impossible to look for a harmonious philosophy from him. But this was not his strength: he was an adventurer of thought and an inventor of ideas; he was a great guide of people and, as a man of extraordinary sensitivity to the new, a man of happy frankness, he gave impetus to major scientific, social, and technical movements.”

Whipper R.Yu. , Social teachings And historical theories XVIII and XIX centuries. in connection with the social movement in the West, M., “State public historical library Russia", 2007, p. 183-186.

According to the economist Friedrich von Hayek, precisely from activities Henri Saint-Simon and his followers, an “engineering” view of society begins to exist, according to which it is assumed that humanity is able, within the framework of the original rational plan, to consciously direct its own evolution...

In 1926 V.V. Veresaev quoted a statement Henri Saint-Simon, Unfortunately, Not indicating