At the point of laying down his pen Saint-Simon asks indulgence for his style in favour of the truth and exactitude which are “the law and the soul” of his memoirs. We have seen that in the matter of truth and exactitude the _Memoirs_ leave something to be desired, but the style needs no apology. The negligences, the repetitions, the occasional obscurity arising from the length of the sentences, to which Saint-Simon pleads guilty, are nothing compared with the general impression of individuality and life. _Je ne fus jamais un sujet académique._ There is certainly nothing academic about Saint-Simon’s style. It is the style of a man who does not stop to consult a dictionary as to the propriety of his words or the correctness of his constructions, but who is content to use the current language of his day. It is the style of a man who writes under the stress of strong emotion and vivid imagination. We seem to see the pen quivering in the writer’s fingers as he urges it across the paper in a vain endeavour to keep pace with the rapidity of his thought. There are passages, as for instance, the one just cited, which literally vibrate with passion, and the wonder is that while the passion of the orator or the pamphleteer or the satirist is but a transient outburst, that of Saint-Simon, writing, as he often does, years after the event, still glows at a white heat. Moreover, the more violent his passion the better he writes. Nowhere is his style more vivid than when he is recounting the _affaire du bonnet_. He is equally vigorous and impressive in his attack on Villars at the time of his appointment to the command in Flanders in 1710[12], and in that on Père Tellier in connexion with the bull _Unigenitus_[13]. His favourite words to express eagerness--_pétiller_, _sécher_, _griller_--are all suggestive of the extreme nervous tension under which he habitually wrote. [12] VIII. 32-34. [13] _ib._ 214-217.