To these two classes of favourable and unfavourable portraits, the former softened by affection, the latter exaggerated by hate, must be added a large number of portraits in which good and bad are intermingled, and which bear throughout the stamp of an impartial estimate. One of the finest of these is the Prince de Conti; less elaborate but hardly less skilful is the Cardinal de Rohan. But the palm for this class of portrait must be awarded to that of the Duke of Orleans. As one of the protagonists in Saint-Simon’s drama he is naturally a prominent figure and the general impression that we get of his character is deepened by numerous touches. But just before the close of Louis XIV’s reign he is presented in a long and leisurely digression, which forms one of the great chapters in Saint-Simon’s narrative. At the other end of the scale to this full-length and elaborately drawn portrait are the little miniatures of minor personages with which the work is interspersed. Among the most notable are Mme de Castries, the Duchesse de Gesvres, M. du Guet, Le Haquais, Toussaint Rose, one of the King’s secretaries, and Bontemps, his chief valet. But whether the portraits are finished works of art or mere sketches, whether they are inspired by hatred or by admiration, whether they are partial or impartial, they all alike have this virtue that they are intensely alive. We know the originals both in their outward semblance and in their inmost being. While Racine is concerned only with souls, while La Bruyère’s main interest is in habits and manners as an index to character, Saint-Simon, who began his survey of humanity just before his two older contemporaries finished theirs, gives us body and soul alike. In this he resembles Balzac, but he has this advantage over the great novelist that dealing with real men and women, and not with the creatures of his imagination, he is never tempted to make the outward appearance match the inner character. Nor, as superficial judges are apt to do in real life, does he hastily infer the character from the outward appearance. He deals with both on their merits; he first calls up before us the outward man, and then he gives us his character from an independent study of his idiosyncrasies and actions. “The features of the portrait,” to borrow Montaigne’s phrase, “may go astray,” but we have before us a living man, drawn by a supreme artist. Thus the whole work, if not like Balzac’s, a complete _comédie humaine_, may be fitly called the _Comédie de Versailles_.