The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-06 00:00:00

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the Admiralty :—Lieut. J. 111. D. Elphin
the Prince Consort; W. H. Adam, surgeo;,-iiii 4—.4# 1144301
Adventure ; S. S. C. Hall, assistant paymafei,,,,..,z;
the Roy al Adelaide, supernumerary; It, • t (4:l4"L7ct,
son, second master, to the Duncan for the

J. M. Ross, master's assistant to the Duncan for
the Nimble; Lieut. 11. F. Broadrick-, to the Cano-
pus ; Lieut. A. Eaton to the St. Vincent, vice K. E.
A. Dyer, assist. paymaster, to the Duncan for the
Nimble ; F. 11. Henderson, first class assist. engi-
neer, to the Cornwallis, for the tenders ; and E. W.
Boulton, assist. engineer, to the Duncan.
Septimus Robert Welch has been appointed
Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve.

The French Pepys and the French Evelyn.

Within the last two years, the " Journal of 0
Marquis de Dangeau" has been publi,hed in ri't,e-
teen volumes, and the " Memoirs of the i)lie Cr,
Simon" in twenty volumes. Of these works,
pair naturally together, yielding matter for a plea-
sant dash of anecdotical gossip over the Court of
Louis XIV., the new number of the EdinburlA
-Review speaks as follows :
" Without I)augeau the Memoirs of Saint-Simon
would perhaps never have existed in their com-
plete form ; without Saint-Simon the dry and frigid
daily annals of Dangeau would never have been
printed. Dangeau is the stock, incapable of pro-
ducing palatable fruit itself, on which the meat
luxuriant and aromatic growth of French literature
in that age was grafted. Dangeau, in his daily task
of four and forty years, never rises beyond the level
of the Court Circular; he witnesses the most im-
portant events of an eventful reign without an ex-
pression of wonder or emotion ; even his anecdotes
are without point; he is as exact and as unmeaning
as a piece of clockwork. Saint-Simon, on the con-
trary, painted in colours that will never die every
figure and every scene, the bare mention of which
suffices to his mechanical anti-type. In the slender
entries of the one it is .nar cely possible to trace
more than a feeble pulsation of passions which
might have touched the soul of even a master of
the ceremonies; in the torrent of eloquence and of
scorn poured forth by the other, Versailles lives
again, with all its conflicts, its follies, its jealousies,
and its power. Dangeau was a gilded insect,
hovering about the Court parterre, ex enthroned
upon its blossoms; Saint-Simon was a mind, intent
to try the Court by the touch and standard of
honour, rectitude, and truth. The former shared
the pleasures and the honours of Louis XIV. with-
out limit ; the latter cared little for his pleasures,
and never possessed his confidence; but stood be-
hind his throne and upon his tomb to be the avenger
of his faults, even to the third and fourth genera..
tion. The easy and prosperous Marquis cared
not to cast a look beyond the galleries of
Versailles, in which he spent his existence ; his
conception of immortality was an apotheosis on a
ceiling. How little could he have conceived it pos.
Bible that he was day by day preparing materials
for one who was to speak of all he adored in the
language of doom—to consign himself and all his
silken fellows to the pillory of history,and to herald
by lurid and prophetic flashes the approach of that
storm which the monarchy of France was not des-
tined to survive ! Dangeau, born in the King's own
year, had seen the dawn and the meridian of a
gay, splendid, and victorious reign, and his idolatry
of the Royal Sun of France was at least sincere.
When Saint-Simon came to Court, 37' years
younger, the shadows were already lengthening;
an age of cant had succeeded to an age of vice ;
the gloom of religious bigotry was followed by the
shame of unsuccessful war and the horror of unna-
tural deaths : long before he had completed his task
the grave had closed upon Louis, and the heavens
themselves were gathering over France: