42

At the core of Commynes’ Mémoires: the Saint-Pol affair, an exemplary case. The Saint-Pol affair stands at the very core of Commynes’ Mémoires, not only in Books III and IV, but in the entire work, through which it runs like a thread. Like the moralist he was, Commynes drew several essential lessons from this episode. But he was even more interested in political errors. Saint-Pol was a war-monger who was neither able nor willing to choose his side; he wanted to get the better of his collaborators who were his superiors; he brought the hatred of princes and their advisers on his head. Carried away by pride, he gave in to cruelty, and was thus rewarded by God’s wrath: God himself, and not Fortuna, was responsible for the Constable’s fall. In contrast to Saint-Pol, the Sire de Lescun and Commynes himself provide two counter-examples of virtuous conduct.