Peter the Great in the Memoirs of Marquis de Dangeau and Duc de Saint-Simon

Abstract

The article for the first time compares the image of Peter the Great in the memoirs of two contemporary French writers Philippe de Courcillon, Marquis de Dangeau (1638‒1720), and Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon (1675–1755). Both Saint- Simon’s continuity in relation to Dangeau’s memoirs and the methods and techniques of their original literary processing are shown. The influence of the writers’ world outlooks and their political views on their interpretations of the figure of Peter the Great is revealed. For Dangeau, Peter the Great was a “curious case”, while for Saint-Simon he was the model of an enlightened monarch, a reigning ascetic striving for knowledge and transformation of his state. In this capacity, Peter the Great is opposed to the depraved and pleasure-seeking French court of the era of the Regency. It has been proved that Saint-Simon stood at the origins of “Peter’s myth” in France. The differences in the poetics of the memoirs of Dangeau and Saint-Simon have been revealed. Dangeau’s laconic and fact-based style emphasizes the mastery of the psychological portrait and the breadth of generalizations of the moralist and thinker Saint-Simon.