About the book: 1974 / In the history of French literature of the 17th century. the name of Tallemant de Reo occupies a special place. It is found quite often in contemporary memoirs and in historical works dedicated to the 17th century. His “Entertaining Stories”, depicting the life of French society in the era of Henry IV and Louis XIII, along with other memoirs of this time, served as a source for several historical novels of the era of French romanticism, in particular, for “The Three Musketeers” by A. Dumas. Undoubtedly belonging to the memoir genre , "Entertaining Stories" differs, however, from the memoirs of La Rochefoucauld, Cardinal de Retz or Saint-Simon. These were people who belonged to the upper strata of the hereditary aristocracy and were directly involved in the events that they reproduced in their memoirs in historical sequence, trying to sum up some results, prove the validity of their views, and refute their political enemies. Tallemant de Reo was a figure of a different scale and other social appearance. Coming from bourgeois circles, who refused any official career, a writer who had never been to court, Talleman had friendly relations with many different people of his time. Observant and curious, he, as Sainte-Beuve aptly put it, was born a “anecdotist.” In his memoirs, he recreated not only what he saw himself, but also what he heard from others, making extensive use of both the written sources provided to him and the oral stories of his contemporaries, and willingly recording various kinds of rumors and rumors that were in circulation at that time.” Entertaining stories" by Talleman de Reo are a valuable historical source that no scholar of 17th-century French history and literature can ignore; It is not for nothing that in the famous French dictionary “Great Larousse” references to Tallemant are found in almost every article relating to this era. Written at the end of the seventeenth century, discovered at the beginning of the nineteenth, but truly appreciated only in the mid-twentieth, Tallemant’s book has now become the subject of genuine scientific study - not only as a historical, but also as a literary monument.