money to continue his idle way of life.

Another incident has come down to us from the same Sources[44]. A young actress, lacking in beauty and talent, had entered upon a career which Marivaux saw meant failure, and, to preserve her from the inevitable end, he persuaded her to enter a convent and provided the necessary funds, although at the price of great self-sacrifice.

Meanwhile Marivaux had married, at the age of thirty-three, a Mlle. Martin, "d'une bonne famille de Sens,"[45] whom he had the misfortune to lose within two years (in 1723), and whom he "regretted all his life."[46] She left him with an only daughter, who later became a nun and took the veil at the Abbaye du Trésor.

The Duke of Orléans, son of the Regent, through fondness for Marivaux, generously met all of the expenses of her installation.

Marivaux numbered among his faithful friends, La Motte, Fontenelle, Helvétius, Mme. de Lambert, Mme. de Tencin, Mme, de Bez, and, toward the end of his life, Mlle. de Saint-Jean, and, had it not been for their generous aid, he would have almost lacked the necessities of life, not to mention the means for his charities. Through the efforts of Mme. de Tencin, he received an annuity of three thousand livres from Mme. de Pompadour, who had the delicacy, however, to spare his pride by allowing him to attribute the gift to the generosity of Louis XV. The chagrin, caused by the discovery that the pension came, not from the king, but from the favourite, is said to have hastened his death, which followed a few months later.

This was not the only allowance that he received, for his income in this way amounted to "some four thousand livres," and with this sum he could have been quite comfortable "had he been less sensitive to the misfortunes of others and less liberal; but he spent only fifteen hundred for his own needs, and the rest was employed for those of others."[48] His friend Helvétius helped to swell the sum of his annual income, but, although he had succeeded in prevailing upon Marivaux to accept of his benevolence, the latter had at once too much self-respect and too much respect for his friend to feel bound for that reason to smother his own feelings and ideas. "One day, in a dispute, he quite lost his temper with Helvetius, who accepted this attack with the most philosophical tranquillity and contented himself by saying, when Marivaux had departed: 'How I would have replied to him, if I were not indebted to him for having been kind enough to accept of my services!'"[49] A charming reply, which speaks well for the hearts of both men. At another time, when Marivaux was ill, Fontenelle, fearing lest he might be in need of money, brought him a hundred louis, but Marivaux, deeply moved at his friend's generosity, yet too independent to accept it, said simply: "I regard them as received; I have made use of them, and I return them to you with gratitude." [50]

Such a character was not likely to sue for the favour of the great. Only three of his writings, and these among his early works, contain dedications—l'Homère travesti to the Duke de Noailles, la Double Inconstance to Madame de Prie, and the second Surprise de l'Amour to the Duchess du Maine.[51] His whole life exemplified the thought contained in these words from the Spectateur français:[52] "Quand on demande des grâces aux puissants de ce monde, et qu'on a le coeur bien placé, on a toujours l'haleine courte," and we shall see this same attitude characterizing his relations with the French Academy.

There were at this time in Paris, besides the Opera, three theatres, [53] —the Théâtre-Français (known also as the Comédie-Française), the Théâtre- Italien (or Comédie-Italienne), and the Theatre de la Foire, to name them in order of importance.

The Théâtre-Français had been regularly organized by royal edict on October 21, 1680, when the troupe of the Hôtel de Bourgogne and that of the Théâtre Guénégaud were united,[54] although its origin is much more ancient, going back as far as 1548, when the theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne was opened by the Confrères de la Passion. In 1720 it occupied the Théâtre de la Comédie-Française, on the rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain, since become the rue de l'Ancienne-Comédie. Its reputation, as a criterion of dramatic art, was already established, and this reputation has ever since been sustained.

In 1576[55] Henry III called from Venice a troupe of Italian actors, the Gelosi, and, from the time of their installation at Paris, in 1577, until 1697, when they were expelled from France by Louis XIV, for their temerity in ridiculing Mme. de Maintenon in la Fausse Prude, Paris had seen an almost uninterrupted succession of troupes of these Italian actors. Up to this time almost unlimited license in language and themes had been tolerated in them. The plays had been mostly in Italian, but, some time before their banishment, French had also made its way into their repertory, and, in spite of many complaints to the king on the part of the members of the Comédie-Française, who found this prejudicial to their interests, the French had held its ground, not, however, to the exclusion of the Italian, until after the time of their recall.

Their exile lasted nineteen years, or until 1716, when they were recalled by the Regent. A new troupe was organized under the direction of Louis Riccoboni, a famous actor, and author, among other works, of a valuable history of the Théâtre-Italien. Riccoboni took the young lovers' parts and the name of Lelio. The rest of the cast[56] was as follows: Joseph Baletti, called Mario, second lover; Thomasso Vicentini, called Thomassin, who took the rôles of Harlequin; Alborghetti, as Pantalon; Matterazzi, the doctor; Bissoni, as Scapin; and Giacoppo, as Scaramouche;[57] with Hélène Baletti, sister of Joseph Baletti and wife of Louis Riccoboni, who, under the name of Flaminia, for thirty-six years was to take the rôles of première amoureuse, of soubrette, and the travestis; Silvia, who later married Joseph Baletti, and performed for forty-two years the rôles of second amoureuse; and Violette, the charming soubrette, with one or two others of less consequence.[58] The characters are those of the old commedia dell'arte. However, written plays had now begun to take the place of the improvisation of the earlier Italian comedy.

Not long after the reëstablishment of the Théâtre-Italien at Paris, and, in fact, as early as the first of June of that same year, we find them housed in the Hôtel de Bourgogne, rue Mauconseil, over the principal door of which, after the death of the Regent in 1723, was engraved the following inscription: Hôtel des comédiens italiens ordinaires du Roi, entretenus par Sa Majesté, rétablis à Paris en 1716. In 1762 it lost its individuality, and became merged into the Opéra-Comique, but that was some years after the last play of Marivaux had been staged, and does not concern us here.

The Théâtre, or rather Théâtres de la Foire, for there were two that were particularly noteworthy, that of Saint-Germain and that of Saint-Laurent, had had a more humble, though scarcely less early, origin than either of the other theatres just mentioned, for, as early as the year 1595, an ambulant troupe had played at the former of these two fairs. For many years their performances consisted largely of juggling, tumbling, tight- rope walking, and the like, interspersed perhaps with dialogues, which, in time, came to occupy the principal part. The characters were largely borrowed from the Italian commedia dell'arte. Extreme license of expression characterized these plays. Music often accompanied them. In fact the Théâtre de la Foire was the germ that later developed into the Opéra-Comique. Harrassed not only by the