c'est qu'être leur père? c'est leur persuader que vous les aimez. Cette persuasion-là commence par vous gagner leur coeur. Nous aimons toujours ceux dont nous sommes sûrs d'être aimés."[79]

Was it not Mme. de Lambert, from whom Marivaux gained many of his ideas, who had said: "Les enfants aiment à être traités en personnes raisonnables. Il faut entretenir en eux cette espèce de fierté, et s'en servir comme d'un moyen pour les conduire où l'on veut"? Where is there a more charming character than that of la Mère confidente, willing to sacrifice the dreaded name of mother in order to become her daughter's friend and confidante, or than the indulgent father of le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard? Such examples indicate the kindly philosophy that permeates his writings.

Marivaux has been said to have held revolutionary ideas, and, in some degree, to have forecast the terrible rending of society of 1789. While the unqualified statement may give rise to a false conception, and tend to exaggerate the part that he played in the progress of social emancipation, it is not difficult to discover in him the sentiments, if not of a revolutionist,[80] at least of a reformer. The prejudice of birth is attacked in the comedies les Fausses Confidences, le Préjugé vaincu, la Double Inconstance (acte III, scène IV), and in many a passage in other plays, le Dénoûment imprévu, l'Héritier de Village, etc., as well as in his novels and other writings, while the comedy l'Ile des Esclaves is a social satire on the abuses of the day. The increasing importance and the social elevation of servants in his drama is but another tendency along the same line.

One of the most obvious faults of the Spectateur français was the irregular and disconnected manner of its publication. Perhaps through natural indolence, but more likely through over conscientiousness and too high an ideal of artistic perfection, which caused him to magnify his own shortcomings and to soon tire of the subject in hand, he was inclined to abandon his work unfinished and to turn to newer interests. This tendency may be seen in the Spectateur, which, after sundry interruptions, finally reaches the twenty-fifth leaflet, after which it suddenly, and without warning, comes to an end.

Another journal in the same vein, l'Indigent Philosophe, undertaken in 1728, fared even worse, for it was carried only through the seventh leaflet, when it too succumbed, to be revived, however, in 1734, under the title of le Cabinet du Philosophe. The same fate awaited the latter, and Marivaux's enthusiasm forsook him at the end of the eleventh leaflet, Fleury[81] characterizes this as the best of his three periodical publications. but I am of the opinion of Lavollée,[82] who does not consider it comparable "either in interest or variety" with the Spectateur.

It is not alone in this style of literature that our author wearies of his theme and drops his pen, for neither of his novels Marianne nor le Paysan parvenu was completed. The former was begun in 1731, and the publication of its eleven parts was not completed until 1741, ten years later; but the periodical publication of novels was common at that epoch,[83] and the chef-d'oeuvre of Le Sage, contemporary with it (1715- 1735), was double that time in appearing.

It has long been thought that the twelfth part, which concludes the story of Marianne, was by Mme. Riccoboni; but Fleury[84] has proved quite satisfactorily that the Conclusion, which appeared in 1745, in an Amsterdam edition of Marianne, was written by one of those who, as d'Alembert says, "se sont chargés, sans qu'on les en priât, de finir les romans de M. de Marivaux, et (qui) ont eu dans cette entreprise un succès digne de leurs talents:" while a simple Continuation, written, in fact, by Mme. Riccoboni, and so cleverly, too, as to almost deceive the critics of the eighteenth century, did not appear until 1751.[85]

Marianne is a young girl, beautiful and of high birth, who, when but a small child, has the misfortune to lose her parents in an attack by robbers on the road to Bordeaux. Sheltered by a priest and his sister, she reaches the age of fifteen, without, however, having discovered who her parents were. Deprived by death of her guardians, she finds herself at this early age alone and unprotected in the streets of Paris. She seeks the counsel of a kindly priest, who refers her to a rich and apparently respectable man, but in reality the personification of hypocrisy. Of his character study of M. de Climal, Marivaux was justly proud. Few, if any, however, will justify him in rating it superior to Molière's Tartuffe.[86] Throughout her trials and temptations Marianne preserves her innocence and her hand for M. de Valville, a handsome and wealthy young aristocrat, who is really enamoured of Marianne, despite certain infidelities of which he is guilty, and which Marianne pardons with the same forbearing charity and kindly philosophy that characterize our author himself.[87]

The story of Marianne is interesting, though never of so absorbing an interest as to hold the reader's attention more closely than was held that of the writer himself. It is a book to be read by piecemeal, and it may be laid down at any time. Indeed, one is not surprised, nor much distressed, when the author fails to grasp again his fallen pen after the eleventh part. I would not in any way detract from the literary value of a work which, as even critical La Harpe declares, "assures him one of the first places among French novelists;"[88] but the interest inspired by Marianne is of much the same sort as that inspired by the Spectateur. The thread of the story serves merely to join the analyses of character, moral reflections, and digressions of various kinds which abound. The style is conversational, very similar to that of his journals.

Taken as a whole it may be considered as a psychological study of a young girl's heart, as viewed by herself in maturer years. I am half inclined to say the heart of a coquette, for Marianne has much of the coquette in her nature, but she has, too, the nobler qualities of heart and mind. She is an epitome, in short, of the feminine side of Marivaux.

One of the chief faults of the author's style is apparent in Marianne to a degree unparalleled by most of his other writings, and that is the fault of over-elaborate description or definition. His subtle mind could perceive so many delicate shades of character, which the less cultivated eye could not detect, that, by elaborating thereupon and endeavoring to disclose to others what he saw, he seemed to overdefine, or even to repeat himself, and sometimes became monotonous. His was the delicate ear of the musical prodigy, capable of grasping half-tones quite beyond the range of the normal ear, and his attempt to cause them to be heard and appreciated by his coarser fellows brought him only criticism and abuse. He realized at times his own powerlessness to convey in words all that he felt, and once said: "On ne saurait rendre en entier ce que sont les personnes; du moins cela ne me serait pas possible; je connais bien mieux celles avec qui je vis, que je ne les définirais; il y a des choses en elles que je ne saisis point assez pour les dire, et que je n'aperçois que pour moi, et non pas pour les autres: ou, si je les disais je les dirais mal: ce sont des objets de sentiment si compliqués, et d'une netteté si délicate, qu'ils se brouillent dès que ma réflexion s'en mêle; je ne sais plus par où les prendre pour les exprimer; de sorte qu'ils sont en moi et non pas à moi. N'êtes-vous pas de même? Il me semble que mon âme, en mille occasions, en sait plus qu'elle n'en peut dire, et qu'elle a un esprit à part, qui est bien supérieur à celui que j'ai d'ordinaire. Je