The new form of administration, however, was not a success and after a trial of two years was abandoned. Nor did Saint-Simon himself shew any political capacity. He was wanting in tact and adaptability, and worse than this he frittered away on futile questions of precedence and etiquette the time and energy that might have been given to really important matters. Such influence as he had with the Regent came to an end with the rise to power of Dubois, who gladly furthered his request to be sent on a special mission to Spain (1721). On the death of the Regent (1722) he left the Court and lived for some time with his family in a house which he rented in the Rue Saint-Dominique. But after the marriage of his two sons he resided for at least half the year at his _château_ of La Ferté-Vidame, about 30 miles north-west of Chartres. The _château_ itself, which, as we know from engravings, had the air of a feudal fortress, and in every room of which hung a portrait of Louis XIII, no longer exists. But the park, enclosed by a wall of nearly nine miles, and the forest beyond have preserved their original character. Here Saint-Simon began and completed the definitive version of his _Memoirs_, and here in 1743, to his overwhelming grief, he lost his wife, his faithful companion of nearly fifty years. Other misfortunes followed; his two sons preceded him to the grave, and he was driven by his debts to make over the whole of his property to his creditors. He died at Paris in 1755 at the age of eighty. The lives of his father and himself cover between them nearly a century and a half. Saint-Simon, as we see him in Rigaud’s portrait, was small and delicate--a typical old man’s child--with an extremely alert and eager face. It has been observed that he is seldom mentioned in contemporary memoirs, but these are not numerous for the latter part of the reign of Louis XIV, while three of the chief memoir-writers of the Regency, when Saint-Simon was most prominent, Barbier, Buvat, and Marais, did not belong to Court circles. When he is mentioned it is in no complimentary terms. D’Argenson attacks him for advocating severe measures against the Duc du Maine after the conspiracy of Cellamare. “Mark,” he says, “the odious and bloodthirsty character (_anthropophage_) of this little saint without genius.” But then Saint-Simon in his on the whole highly favourable portrait of D’Argenson’s father, the celebrated head of the Paris police, had said that his character was supple, and that his terrifying appearance resembled that of the three judges of Hades.