crois aussi que les hommes sont bien au-dessus de tous les livres qu'ils font."[89]

It was with great difficulty that Marivaux could prevail upon himself to draw a description or a reflection to an end, feeling, as he did, that there was always something left unsaid. His struggle with himself and his apology to the reader are sometimes quite amusing in their naïveté. "Me voilà au bout de ma réflexion," he says: "j'aurais pourtant grande envie d'y ajouter quelques mots pour la rendre complète: le voulez-vous bien? Oui, je vous en prie. Heureusement que mon défaut là-dessus n'a rien de nouveau pour vous. Je suis insupportable avec mes réflexions, vous le savez bien."[90]

The success that greeted Marianne was calculated to make his rivals in the field of fiction jealous. Perhaps no one felt more keenly than did Crébillon fils the growing popularity of a novel the purity of which but enhanced the obscenity of his own writings. To this feeling may be attributed his attack upon Marivaux's style in a very free and tiresome story, entitled Tanzaï et Néadarné, ou l'Écumoire, in which his rival's muse is represented as a mole. The mole relates her life, in a most diffuse and wearisome manner, constantly interrupting the story with reflections and digressions. The imitation was so clever that it deceived even Marivaux himself into thinking that a justification of his style was intended. Doubtless the offense that he felt was the greater, owing to this additional wound to his amour-propre. At any rate, for the first time he dignified a criticism by a reply in print. Even here he did not go so far as to mention any name, but the allusion to Crébillon fils was evident. "Il est vrai, monsieur, que nous sommes naturellement libertins, ou, pour mieux dire, corrompus; mais en fait d'ouvrages d'esprit, il ne faut pas prendre cela à la lettre ni nous traiter d'emblée sur ce pied-là. Un lecteur veut être ménagé. Vous, auteur, voulez-vous mettre sa corruption dans vos intérêts? Allez-y doucement du moins, apprivoisez-la, mais ne la poussez pas à bout.