Chapter X: Lesage, Marivaux, Prevost, Crebillon (3)

[320] In a curious passage of Bk. XII. Chap. I. in which Gil disclaims paternity and resigns it to Marialva. This may have been prompted by a desire to lessen the turpitude of the go-between business; but it is a clumsy device, and makes Gil look a fool as well as a knave.

[321] One of Lesage's triumphs is the way in which, almost to the last, "M. de Santillane," despite the rogueries practised often on and sometimes by him, retains a certain gullibility, or at least ingenuousness.

[322] Not of course as opposed to "romantic," but as = "chief and principal."

[323] The reader must not forget that this formidable word means "privateer" rather than "pirate" in French, and that this was the golden age of the business in that country.

[324] Those who are curious may find something on him by the present writer, not identical with the above account, in an essay entitled _A Study of Sensibility_, reprinted in _Essays on French Novelists_ (London, 1891), and partly, but outside of the Marivaux part, reproduced in Chap. XII. of the present volume.

[325] By M. Gustave Larroumet. Paris, 1882.

[326] I need hardly say that I am not referring to things like _Rebecca and Rowena_ or _A Legend of the Rhine_, which "burst the outer shell of sin," and, like Mrs. Martha Gwynne in the epitaph, "hatch themselves a cherubin" in each case.

[327] The reader will perhaps excuse the reminder that the sense in which we (almost exclusively) use this word, and which it had gained in French itself by the time of Talleyrand's famous double-edged sarcasm on person and world (_Il n'est pas parvenu: il est arrive_), was not quite original. The _parvenu_ was simply a person who _had_ "got on": the disobliging slur of implication on his former position, and perhaps on his means of freeing himself from it, came later. It is doubtful whether there is much, if indeed there is any, of this slur in Marivaux's title.

[328] It is the acme of what may be called innocent corruption. She does not care for her master, nor apparently for vicious pleasure, nor--certainly--for money as such. She does care for Jacob, and wants to marry him; the money will make this possible; so she earns it by the means that present themselves, and puts it at his disposal.

[329] He is proof against his master's threats if he refuses; as well as against the money if he accepts. Unluckily for Genevieve, when he breaks away she faints. Her door and the money-box are both left open, and the latter disappears.

[330] Here and elsewhere the curious cheapness of French living (despite what history tells of crushing taxation, etc.) appears. The _locus classicus_ for this is generally taken to be Mme. de Maintenon's well-known letter about her brother's housekeeping. But here, well into another century, Mlle. Habert's 4000 _livres_ a year are supposed to be at least relative affluence, while in _Marianne_ (_v. inf._) M. de Climal thinks 500 or 600 enough to tempt her, and his final bequest of double that annuity is represented as making a far from despicable _dot_ even for a good marriage.

[331] The much greater blood-thirstiness of the French highwayman, as compared with the English, has been sometimes attributed by humanitarians to the "wheel"--and has often been considered by persons of sense as justifying that implement.

[332] The Devil's Advocate may say that Marianne turns out to be of English extraction after all--but it is not Marivaux who tells us so.

[333] To question or qualify Marianne's virtue, even in the slightest degree, may seem ungracious; for it certainly withstands what to some girls would have been the hardest test of all--that is to say, not so much the offer of riches if she consents, as the apparent certainty of utter destitution if she refuses. At the same time, the Devil's Advocate need not be a Kelly or a Cockburn to make out some damaging suggestions. Her vague, and in no way solidly justified, but decided family pride seems to have a good deal to do with her refusal; and though this shows the value of the said family pride, it is not exactly virtue in itself. Still more would appear to be due to the character of the suit and the suitor. M. de Climal is not only old and unattractive; not only a sneak and a libertine; but he is a clumsy person, and he has not, as he might have done, taken Marianne's measure. The mere shock of his sudden transformation from a pious protector into a prospective "keeper," who is making a bid for a new concubine, has evidently an immense effect on her quick nervous temperament. She is not at all the kind of girl to like to be the plaything of an old man; and she is perfectly shrewd enough to see that vengeance, and fear as regards his nephew, have as much as anything else, or more, to do with the way in which he brusques his addresses and hurries his gift. Further, she has already conceived a fancy, at least, for that nephew himself; and one sees the "jury droop," as Dickens has put it, with which the Counsel of the Prince of the Air would hint that, if the offers had come in a more seductive fashion from Valville himself, they might not have been so summarily rejected. But let it be observed that these considerations, while possibly unfair to Marianne, are not in the least derogatory to Marivaux himself. On the contrary, it is greatly to his credit that he should have created a character of sufficient lifelikeness and sufficient complexity to serve as basis for "problem"-discussions of the kind.

[334] To put the drift of the above in other words, we do not need to hear any more of Marianne in any position, because we have had enough shown us to know generally what she would do, say, and think, in all positions.

[335] It has been observed that there is actually a Meredithian quality in Aristides of Smyrna, though he wrote no novel. A tale in Greek, to illustrate the parallel, would be an admirable subject for a University Prize.

[336] Two descriptions of "Marivaudage" (which, by the way, was partly anticipated by Fontenelle)--both, if I do not mistake, by Crebillon _fils_--are famous: "Putting down not only everything you said and thought, but also everything you would like to have thought and said, but did not," and, "Introducing to each other words which never had thought of being acquainted." Both of these perhaps hit the modern forms of the phenomenon even harder than they hit their original butt.

[337] It is only fair to the poor Prioress to say that there is hardly a heroine in fiction who is more deeply in love with her own pretty little self than Marianne.

[338] One does not know whether it was prudence, or that materialism which, though he was no _philosophe_, he shared with most of his contemporaries, which prevented Marivaux from completing this sharp though mildly worded criticism. The above-mentioned profane have hinted that both the placidity and the indifference of the persons concerned, whether Catholic or Calvinist, arise from their certainty of their own safety in another world, and their looking down on less "guaranteed" creatures in this. It may be just permissible to add that a comparison of Chaucer's and Marivaux's prioresses will suggest itself to many persons, and should be found delectable by all fit ones.

[339] His books on Margaret of Anjou and William the Conqueror are odd crosses between actual historical essays and the still unborn historical novel.

[340] Mlle. de Launay, better known as Mme. de Staal-Delaunay, saw, as most would have seen, a resemblance in this to the famous Mlle. Aisse's. But the latter was bought as a little child by her provident "protector," M. de Ferreol. Mlle. Aisse herself had earlier read the _Memoires d'un Homme de Qualite_ and did not think much of them. But this was the earlier part. It would be odd if she had not appreciated Manon had she read it: but she died in the year of its appearance.

[341] The excellent but rather stupid editor of the [Dutch] _Oeuvres Choisies_ above noticed has given abstracts of Prevost's novels as well as of Richardson's, which the Abbe translated. These, with Sainte-Beuve's of the _Memoires_, will help those who want something more than what is in the text, while declining the Sahara of the original. But, curiously enough, the Dutchman does not deal with the end of _Cleveland_.

[342] He had a fit of apoplexy when walking, and instead of being bled was actually cut open by a village super-Sangrado, who thought him dead and only brought him to life--to expire actually in torment.

[343] Crebillon _pere_, tragedian and academician, is one of the persons who have never had justice done to them: perhaps because they never quite did justice to themselves. His plays are unequal, rhetorical, and as over-heavy as his son's work is over-light. But, if we want to find the true tragic touch of verse in the French eighteenth century, we must go to him.

[344] "Be it mine to read endless romances of Marivaux and Crebillon."

[345] Learnt, no doubt, to a great extent from Anthony Hamilton, with whose family, as has been noticed, he had early relations.

[346] He goes further, and points out that, as she is his _really_ beloved Marquise's most intimate friend, she surely wouldn't wish him to declare himself false to that other lady?--having also previously observed that, after what has occurred, he could never think of deceiving his Celie herself by false declarations. These topsy-turvinesses are among Crebillon's best points, and infinitely superior to the silly "platitudes reversed" which have tried to produce the same effect in more recent times.

[347] It has been said more than once that Crebillon had early access to Hamilton's MSS. He refers directly to the Facardins in _Ah! Quel Conte!_ and makes one of his characters claim to be grand-daughter of Cristalline la Curieuse herself.

[348] Nor perhaps even then, for passion is absolutely unknown to our author. One touch of it would send the curious Rupert's drop of his microcosm to shivers, as _Manon Lescaut_ itself in his time, and _Adolphe_ long after, show.

[349] Some remarks are made by "Madame _Hepenny_"--a very pleasing phoneticism, and, though an actual name, not likely to offend any actual person.

[350] No sneer is intended in this adjective. Except in one or two of the personages of _Les Egarements_, Crebillon's intended gentlemen are nearly always well-bred, however ill-moralled they may be, and his ladies (with the same caution) are ladies. It is with him, in this last point at any rate, as with our own Congreve, whom he rather closely resembles in some ways: though I was amused the other day to find some twentieth-century critical objections to actresses' rendering of _Love for Love_ as "too well-bred." The fact is that the tradition of "breeding" never broke down in France till the _philosophe_ period, while with us it lasted till--when shall we say?