EVREMOND, CHARLES DE ST DENIS, a polite scholar and soldier, was born at St Denis le Guast in Lower Normandy in 1618. He was intended for the profession of the law, and commenced study with this view; but he soon quitted it, and became an ensign before he was sixteen. A military life, however, did not prevent him from cultivating literature, and he signalized himself by his politeness and wit as much as by his bravery. The king made him a maréchal-de-camp, and gave him a pension of three thousand livres per annum. He served under the Duke of Candale in the war of Guienne, and in Flanders, till the suspension of arms was agreed on between France and Spain; and he afterwards accompanied Cardinal Mazarin when he went to conclude the peace with Don Louis de Haro, the king of Spain's first minister. He wrote, as he had promised, to the Marquis de Crequis, a long letter concerning this negotiation, in which he showed that the cardinal had sacrificed the honour of France to his own private interest, and rallied his eminence in a very satirical manner. This letter having fallen into the hands of the cardinal's friends some time after the death of that minister, it was represented as a state crime, and the author was obliged to fly to Holland. But he had too many friends in England, whither he had the year before accompanied the Count de Soissons, in order to compliment Charles II. upon his restoration, to make any long stay in Holland; and therefore he passed over into England, where he was received with great respect, admitted into the intimate friendship of several persons of distinction, and honoured with a pension of £300 a year. But he had a great desire to revisit his native country; and, after the peace of Nimeguen, he wrote a
letter in verse to the king of France, to ask leave to return, but in vain. Upon the death of King Charles he lost the pension which had been conferred on him; and he did not rely much on King James, though that prince had been extremely kind to him. But the Revolution proved more advantageous to him than might have been expected. King William, who had known him in Holland, gave him substantial marks of favour. But he died of a stranguary in 1703, at the age of ninety, and was interred in Westminster Abbey, where a monument is erected to his memory. His behaviour was engaging, and his humour cheerful, but he had a strong disposition to satire. He professed the Roman Catholic religion, in which he was born; but at bottom he was believed to be a freethinker. He always spoke of his disgrace with the resolution of a gentleman; and however strong a desire he may have had to return to his country, he never solicited the favour with meanness; so that, when permission was unexpectedly granted to him in the decline of his life, he replied, that the infirmities of age did not permit him to leave a country where he had lived agreeably. There have been many editions of his works; but the best is that of Amsterdam in 1726, in 5 vols. 12mo, to which is prefixed his life by Dr des Maizeaux, who has also given an accurate English translation of them in 3 vols. 8vo.