A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux
The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux
Title: A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux
Author: Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
Editor: Everett Ward Olmsted
Release date: June 1, 2004 [eBook #12504]
Most recently updated: December 15, 2020
Language: English, French
Credits: Produced by Anne Soulard, Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Produced by Anne Soulard, Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
A SELECTION FROM THE COMEDIES OF MARIVAUX
EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY EVERETT WARD OLMSTED
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1901
All rights reserved.
To Thomas Frederick Crane, A.M., Of Cornell University,
Whose Profound Scholarship, Inspiring Teachings,
And Lasting Friendship Are Here Gratefully Acknowledged.
PREFACE.
That so typical a representative of eighteenth century society, so gracious a personality, so charming a writer, and so superior a genius as Marivaux should be not only unedited, but practically unknown to the American reading public, is a matter of surprise. His brilliant comedies, written in an easy prose, and free from all impurities of thought or expression, offer peculiarly attractive texts for our classes. It is for these reasons that this edition was undertaken. The plays chosen, le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard, le Legs, and les Fausses Confidences are generally considered his best plays, and are fortunately free from dialect, which, in the mouths of certain characters of l'Épreuve and of la Mère confidente, charming as are these comedies, makes them undesirable for study in college or school. The text of les Fausses Confidences is that of 1758 (Paris, Duchesne, 5 vols.), the last collective edition published during the lifetime of the author, that of le Legs, from the edition of 1740 (Paris, Prault père, 4 vols.), while that of le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard, which is contained in neither the edition of 1758 nor in that of 1740, is from the first collective edition of his works of 1732 (Paris. Briasson, 2 vols.). It has not seemed wise to retain the curious orthography of these early editions, as the explanation of the same would uselessly burden the notes, and possibly confuse the student. An orthography following the same lines as that of the edition of les Grands Écrivains has been adopted.
The Introduction is rather extensive, but, as it serves in truth as an introduction to students in American schools of an author as yet little known, a less minute statement of his qualifications would hardly have been pardonable. Many quotations have been given, some from Marivaux himself, or from contemporary biographers, of so authoritative a nature as to add more weight than any summing up by the editor, and others from celebrated French critics, whose views, or whose picturesqueness of expression, have been often invaluable. In fact, the Introduction does not claim to be so much a literary essay as a compilation of authorities.
The notes to a text containing no historical, literary, or biographical allusions are naturally limited to explaining the difficulties of the French, and are less extensive than would otherwise be required.
Words and idioms, which, though unusual or difficult, can be found in any of the small dictionaries accessible to students, have been excluded from the notes as unnecessary, except such as might mislead unless explained, or such as differ from the modern use.
It remains for the editor to acknowledge his indebtedness for sympathetic interest and valuable suggestions to Gustave Larroumet, professor of French Literature at the University of Paris, and perpetual secretary of the Académie des Beaux Arts, to Professor Crane and Mr. Guerlac of Cornell University, and to Professor de Sumichrast of Harvard.
EVERETT WARD OLMSTED.
CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, N.Y.,
January 9, 1901.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION
CHRONOLOGY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
LE JEU DE L'AMOUR ET DU HASARD
LE LEGS
LES FAUSSES CONFIDENCES
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
Among the treasures of the Comédie-Française, interesting alike to students of letters and of art, is a painting by Vanloo. It bears the date of 1753, and represents a man of doubtful age—for it is hard to tell whether he is past his prime or not—yet, if the truth were known, one could not write him down for less than sixty-five. The face is life-like and attractive, full of an expression of gentle breeding, kindliness, wit, and subtlety. The eyes are rather dark, large, fine, and keen; with the thin lips, pursed in a half-smile, they form the most striking features of the countenance, and serve to give it that characteristic of finesse so peculiar to the man. The well-developed brow, the full cheeks, and faint suggestion of a double chin, the powdered hair, the black silk coat, the lace jabot, are all in keeping with our conception of this French dramatist, whom a competent critic[1] of to-day has classed as greater than any of his contemporaries in the same field, than Beaumarchais, Voltaire, Regnard, Le Sage, and second only to Molière, Corneille, and Racine. Marivaux, whose rehabilitation has come but slowly, and in spite of many critics, occupies a place to-day, not only with the ultra-refined, but in the hearts of the theatre-going public, which, I doubt not, even the most enthusiastic admirers among his contemporaries would not have dared to hope for him; for, next to Molière, no author of comedies appears so often upon the stage of the Théâtre-Français as does the author of le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard.
In the very heart of Paris, and just back of the Hôtel de Ville, stands the church of Saint-Gervais, a church of comparatively little fascination to the general student of art or history, although its mingling of Flamboyant and Renaissance styles may attract the specialist in architecture: but to the student of literary history it has a greater interest, for it is here that "poor Scarron sleeps." and it was in this parish that Pierre Cariet de Chamblain de Marivaux was born, and in this church, doubtless, that he was christened, although the register of baptism was destroyed at the time of the burning of the archives of the Hôtel de Ville, in May, 1871.
The date of his birth was February 4, 1688, a year noteworthy as introducing to the public the first edition of the Caractères of La Bruyère, with whom Marivaux has often been compared. His father was of an old Norman family, which had had representatives in the parlement of that province.[2] Since then the family had "descended from the robe to finance," following the expression of d'Alembert.[3] Ennobled by the robe, they had assumed the name de Chamblain, but unfortunately the latter name was common to certain financiers, and, to still better distinguish themselves, the family had adopted the additional name of Marivaux.[4] There seems, however, to have been no connection between them and the lords of Marivaux (or Marivaulx), a branch of the house of l'Isle-Adam.[5] Our author signed, himself de Marivaux or Carlet de Marivaux.
His childhood was passed at Riom in Auvergne, where his father had been appointed director of the Mint. Gossot declares that Marivaux was six years of age when he was taken to Riom,[6] but does not give his authority for the statement. It is certain, however, that he was so young at the time that some of his contemporaries supposed he had been born there.[7] Marivaux received his early education at Riom, and later at Limoges, where the family went to dwell, and where his father was perhaps again connected with the Mint.
His biographers differ with regard to the education he received. His earliest biographer, de La Porte, maintains that his father "ne négligea rien pour l'éducation de son fils, qui annonça de bonne heure, par des progrès rapides dans ses premières études, cette finesse d'esprit qui caractérise ses ouvrages."8] Lesbros de la Versane gives the same testimony: "Ses heureuses dispositions lui firent profiter de celle (the education) qu'il reçut," and adds: "Il fut admiré de ses maîtres, et il a fait les délices de tous ceux qui l'ont connu."[9] There is no reason why we should not accept the testimony of one who, in general, is so judicious in his statements as is de La Porte, and, particularly, when the adverse testimony comes from so evidently prejudiced a writer as Palissot.[10]
D'Alembert follows the testimony of Palissot and others, although he confesses that they are "in truth very ill disposed" towards Marivaux, and adds that perhaps they have very unjustly accused him of ignorance of Latin. Their pardoning him his lack of knowledge of Greek, d'Alembert cleverly ascribes to that "indulgent equity" which does not require of one's fellows that which one lacks himself.[11] The following extract from the Spectateur will prove that, while Marivaux could read the Greek writers in translations only, he was able to read Latin in the original: "Si c'est une traduction du grec, et qu'elle m'ennuie, je penche à croire que l'auteur y a perdu; si c'est du latin, comme je le sais, je me livre sans façon au dégoût ou au plaisir qu'il me donne."[12] It is also known that he completed his law studies and might have practiced, but for the hatred which he, in common with so many other young littérateurs in times past, had conceived for the profession.
Admitted early to the best society of Limoges, Marivaux enjoyed advantages from which he gained the polish that made him acceptable in the Paris salons of which he was later an habitué, When he was but seventeen years of age there occurred an incident, which, if it did not have so serious an effect upon his life as he himself believed, at least was not without its influence in fostering that spirit of observation and inquiry, not to say scepticism, with regard to the motives that influence his fellow man, which was so prominent a characteristic of this writer. Marivaux describes the incident in the first feuille of the Spectateur français, and, inasmuch as the sketch gives an excellent idea of the man, I translate it in full.
"At the age of seventeen I became attached to a young girl, to whom I owe the sort of life which I adopted. I was not uncomely then, I had a mild disposition and affectionate ways. The decorum which I noticed in the girl had drawn my attention to her beauty. I found in her, moreover, so much indifference to her charms, that I would have sworn she was ignorant of them. How simple minded I was at that time! What a pleasure, said I to myself, if I can win the love of a girl who does not care to have lovers, since she is beautiful without observing it, and hence is no coquette! I never left her without my affectionate surprise increasing at the sight of so many graces in a person who was not the more vain because of it. Were she seated or standing, speaking or walking, it always seemed to me that she was absolutely artless, and that she thought of nothing less than appearing to be what she was.
"One day in the country, when I had just left her, a forgotten glove caused me to retrace my steps to get it. I perceived the beauty in the distance, regarding herself in a mirror, and I noticed, to my great astonishment, that she was picturing herself to herself in all the phases in which, during our conversation, I had seen her face, and it turned out that the expressions of her countenance, which I had thought so unaffected, were, to name them correctly, only tricks; I judged from a distance that her vanity adopted certain ones, that it improved upon others; they were little ways that one might have noted down and that a woman might have learned like a musical air. I trembled for the risk which I should have run, if I had had the misfortune to experience again in good faith her deceptions, at the point of perfection to which her cleverness had carried them; but I had believed her natural, and had loved her only on that footing; so that my love ceased immediately, as if my heart had been only conditionally moved. She, in turn, perceived me in the mirror, and blushed. As for me, I entered laughing, and picking up my glove: 'Ah! mademoiselle, I beg your pardon,' I said to her, 'for having, up to this time, attributed to nature charms, the whole honour of which is due to your ingenuity alone.' 'What is the matter? What does this speech mean?' was her reply. 'Shall I speak to you more frankly?' I said to her: 'I have just seen the machinery of the Opera; it will still divert me, but it will touch me less.' Thereupon I went out, and it is from this adventure that there sprang up in me that misanthropy which has not left me, and which has caused me to pass my life in examining mankind, and in amusing myself with my reflexions."[13]
We could not have in miniature a more perfect sketch than this of the character of the man, with those peculiarities that were to make of him so original a writer, and little did Marivaux imagine that in the coquette of Limoges he "had seen the living and faithful image of his Muse,"[14] with all its archness, coquettishness, and ingenuity in style and expression. Marivaux had much of the feminine in his nature,—a rare intuition, a marked finesse in observation, an extreme sensitiveness with regard to his own and others' feelings, a dislike of criticism with a reluctance to reply to it, though never forgetting the attack, a certain timidity with men, a fondness for dress and luxury, an extreme love of conversation, generosity to the point of self-sacrifice, and a religious turn of mind in a sceptical century. His connection with the salons of Paris, where so much of his life was spent in the society of women, probably contributed largely to develop those traits that were doubtless innate.
With something of the coquette in his own nature, Marivaux had no patience with it in others. D'Alembert relates another incident, which will serve to show that not only affectation, but also everything that seemed to him too studied, received his condemnation. "One day, he went to see a man from whom he had received many letters, which were almost in his own style, and, which, as one may well imagine, had seemed to him very ingenious. Not finding him, he determined to wait. He noticed, by chance, on the desk of this man, the rough draughts of the letters which he had received from him, and which he supposed had been written off-hand. Here are rough draughts, said he, which do him no credit: henceforth, he may make minutes of his letters for whomsoever he likes, but he shall receive no more of mine. He left the house instantly, and never returned."[15]
At the age of eighteen[16] (1706), and shortly after leaving college, Marivaux made his début in literature as the result of a discussion in which he maintained that a comedy was not a difficult thing to write. Upon being challenged to prove his point, he set to work, and, a few days later, brought to the company a comedy in one act, entitled le Père prudent et équitable, ou Crispin l'heureux fourbe. It is the only one of Marivaux's comedies written in verse, which form of composition he adopted the better to test himself and to demonstrate his claim; but he took good care not to give to the public his comedy, "pour ne pas perdre en public," he said, "le pari qu'il avait gagné en secret,"[17] and it was not until nearly fifteen years later, when he had reached the age of thirty-two, that he entrusted a work to the stage. He did well to keep this comedy from the public, for it contained little that gave promise of genius, being juvenile in character, dull and faulty in versification, and largely, though poorly, imitated from Molière and Regnard.
It must have been shortly after this that Marivaux returned to Paris to continue his studies, and possibly to prepare himself for the life of a literary dilettante. His means were sufficient to enable him to indulge his taste in this way. Here we find him admitted to the salon of Mme. de Lambert, held in her famous apartments, situated at the corner of the rue Richelieu and the rue Colbert, and now replaced by a portion of the Bibliothèque Nationale. It was a rendezvous of select society on Wednesdays, and particularly of the literary set on Tuesdays, and among its habitués may be mentioned such men as Fontenelle, d'Argenson, Sainte- Aulaire, La Motte, and President Hénault. "It was," says Fontenelle, "with few exceptions, the only house which had preserved itself from the epidemic disease of gambling, the only one in which one met to converse reasonably and even with esprit upon occasion."[18] Its influence was inestimable upon literary questions of the time, and it might be considered almost as the antechamber of the French Academy. The envious dubbed it un bureau d'esprit, and its form of préciosité, lambertinage.
That Mme. de Lambert had a great influence in forming the mind of the young author no one can read his works and doubt. A "précieuse in the most flattering and most exact acceptation"[19] of the term, she promoted a similar turn of mind in Marivaux. His dislike for Molière may have received its encouragement from her, as she was never quite willing to forgive that great genius for his attack upon les femmes savantes. Marivaux, too, had, as Palissot expresses it, "un faible pour les précieuses,"[20] and for the author of those famous attacks, a contempt as unfeigned as absurd. The high moral character of his writings and his ideas on marriage and children may readily have found their origin with Mme. de Lambert.
Mme. de Tencin, to whose salon of the rue Saint-Honoré Marivaux was likewise welcomed, was as different a character from the kindly, serious, upright, and judicious Mme. de Lambert as can well be imagined, and it was only after the death of the latter, in 1733, that her salon was particularly brilliant. Her youth had been most disorderly. At an early age she had assumed the veil, but, through the efforts of her brother, the abbé de Tencin, and later cardinal, who, doubtless, saw in her a powerful factor for his own promotion, she obtained her secularization. Coming to Paris a short time before the death of Louis XIV, she was ready to welcome the gross immorality of the Regency, and, for personal advancement, entered into a series of liaisons with Prior, the friend of Lord Bolingbroke, René d'Argenson, the Regent himself, Dubois, and the Chevalier Destouches. The latter was the father of her son, whom she abandoned on the steps of the church Saint-Jean-le-Rond, and who, reared by a glazier's wife, became the celebrated d'Alembert. Another lover, Lafresnaye, whom she had induced to put all of his property in her name, shot himself, or was shot, at her house. Although imprisoned on suspicion at the Châtelet, and later at the Bastille, she soon gained her liberty by the intervention of powerful friends. That she could maintain her position in society as she did is a striking proof of its terribly corrupt condition. In her declining years she sought to veil the disorders of her youth by more serious pursuits, and gathered about her a number of literary spirits of whom she spoke as her bêtes or her ménagerie.
Marmontel gives the following description of the habitués of her salon and of the desire that pervaded all to show their wit: "L'auditoire était respectable. J'y vis rassemblés Montesquieu, Fontenelle, Mairan, Marivaux, le jeune Helvétius, Astruc, je ne sais qui encore, tous gens de lettres ou savants, et au milieu d'eux une femme d'un esprit et d'un sens profonds, mais qui, enveloppée dans son extérieur de bonhomie et de simplicité, avait plutôt l'air de la ménagère que de la maîtresse de la maison: c'était là Mme. de Tencin … je m'aperçus bientôt qu'on y arrivait préparé à jouer son rôle, et que l'envie d'entrer en scène n'y laissait pas toujours à la conversation la liberté de suivre son cours facile et naturel. C'était à qui saisirait le plus vite, et comme à la volée, le moment de placer son mot, son conte, son anecdote, sa maxime ou son trait léger et piquant; et, pour amener l'à-propos, on le tirait quelquefois d'un peu loin. Dans Marivaux, l'impatience de faire preuve de finesse et de sagacité perçait visiblement."[21]
Marivaux, in describing the feelings of Marianne upon being introduced into polite society at the home of Mme. Dorsin, makes an evident allusion to the salon of Mme. de Tencin, and shows how differently from Marmontel he regarded the spirit that marked those gatherings. As though to answer the latter's accusations, he exclaims: "On accuse quelquefois Ses gens d'esprit de vouloir briller; oh! il n'était pas question de cela ici." "Ce n'était point eux qui y mettaient de la finesse, c'était de la finesse qui s'y rencontrait; ils ne sentaient pas qu'ils parlaient mieux qu'on ne parle ordinairement; c'étaient seulement de meilleurs esprits que d'autres."[22] All that was said there, he adds, was uttered with so little effort, so naturally, so simply, and yet with so much brilliancy that one could see that it was a company of persons of exquisite taste and breeding. Society, as depicted here, was not "full of solemn and important trifles, difficult to learn, and, however ridiculous they are in themselves, necessary to be known under penalty of being ridiculous." [23] One was made to feel at home, and what one lacked in wit was supplemented by that of the company, without one's being made to feel that what he seemed to utter was not all his own.
The description of Mme. Dorsin is that of Mme. de Tencin herself, seen through the eyes of an enthusiastic friend, and she knew the art of gaining friends, and of keeping them, too. In fact, she was never weary of doing for them, as Marivaux had reason to know as well as any of them, and, had it not been for her efforts, he would never have belonged to the French Academy. Her judgment of the literary productions of her friends was most unprejudiced and judicious, so that whatever met with an enthusiastic reception in her salon was reasonably certain of success in the world.
After the death of Mme. de Tencin, in 1749, Marivaux frequented the mercredis of the bonne maman Geoffrin, and, through friendship for her, sustained the candidature of Marmontel for the French Academy.[24] However, he must have felt ill at ease in company with the philosophers and encylopedists who gave dignity to her salon, and, with his love of admiration, must have sighed for the days when he shone so brilliantly in the circle that surrounded Mme. de Lambert or Mme. de Tencin; and, perhaps in sheer desperation, was led to seek in the salons of the brilliant but discontented Mme. du Deffand, of that poet too highly valued by her contemporaries, Mme. du Bocage, and of the actress Mlle. Quinault cadette, that form of préciosité for which his mind was suited, and which he never found again, because he had outlived the fashion.
Marmontel, in describing the society that frequented the salon of Mme. Geoffrin, mentions d'Alembert as "the gayest, the most animated, the most amusing in his gayety,"[25] and goes on to say that Marivaux, too, "would have liked to have this playful humour; but he had in his head an affair which constantly preoccupied him and gave him an anxious air. As he had acquired through his works the reputation of a keen and subtle wit, he considered himself obliged to constantly display that turn of mind, and was continually on the watch for ideas susceptible of contrast or analysis, in order to set them off against each other or to put them through a test. He would agree that such a thing was true up to a certain point or under a certain aspect; but there was always some restriction, some distinction to be made, which he alone had perceived. This labor of attention was hard for him, often painful for the others; but sometimes there resulted from it happy observations and brilliant hits. However, by the anxiety of his glances, one could see that he was uneasy about the success that he was having or might have. There never was, I think, a more delicate, more tender, and more apprehensive amour-propre; but, as he carefully considered that of others, they respected his, and merely pitied him for not being able to determine to be simple and natural."[26]
Although this characterization by Marmontel may be true, too much must not be attributed to self-conceit, for Marivaux was rather timid and suspicious of himself at heart than self-conceited, and this very lack of confidence, this desire to please and to be thought well of, which caused him, at times, to emphasize before his friends his own worth, is a key to his nature, without which it would be difficult to understand him. This timidity of his explains his fear of being duped by the ingénue of Limoges, as well as his mistrust of the man who made rough draughts of his letters, instead of writing them off-hand. That Marivaux was over- sensitive we must agree, for, although the testimony of his contemporaries may be somewhat biased by jealousy, it is too overwhelmingly unanimous to be gainsaid.[27]
We cannot conclude, however, despite the testimony of Grimm, whose caustic tongue was none too chary of his friends, that intercourse with Marivaux was "épineux et insupportable," for, were it so, he never would have been so cordially welcomed into society as he was, for which, according to the abbé de La Porte, he possessed all the qualities required, "an exact honesty, a noble disinterestedness,… a pleasing candour, a charitable soul, a modesty without affectation and without pretense, an extremely sensitive courtesy, and the most scrupulous attention to avoid whatever might offend or displease."[28]
A brilliant conversationalist, Marivaux excelled in the quality, no less rare, of being a good listener, and never gave way to "that distraction which always wounds when it does not provoke laughter."[29]
The following incident[30] will serve to illustrate the extreme sensitiveness of Marivaux. He had confided to Mme. Geoffrin a certain grievance against Marmontel. She, in turn, spoke to the latter of the fancied slight, although she assured him that, even in his complaints, Marivaux spoke only well of him, a small matter, but one that proves the nobility of our author's nature. When the occasion presented itself, Marmontel asked for an explanation of his grievance, and, with some difficulty, elicited the following reply: "Have you forgotten that at the house of Mme. du Bocage, one evening, being seated near Mme. de Villaumont, you both kept looking at me and laughing, while whispering together? Assuredly you were laughing at me, and I do not know why, for on that day I was no more ridiculous than usual." Upon an assurance from Marmontel that he was not the object of their amusement, he declared that he believed him, but it is doubtful whether he ever quite forgave him or forgot the fact.
This habit of suspiciousness grew upon Marivaux with age; but we must return to his early years at Paris and to his first literary attempts, after this long digression, which has served, I hope, to give something of an idea of the milieu in which he moved, and of the influences at work upon the formation of his talent.
He had made his début, as has been said, with le Père prudent in 1706. This was followed a few years later by three mediocre novels. The first of these, written in 1712, though not published" until 1737, appeared under the several titles of Pharsamon, les Folies romanesques, and le Don Quichotte moderne, and was, as one of the titles discloses, an attack upon the romantic novel, as exemplified in those of Mlle. de Scudéry. It must not be considered a parody, but rather a weak imitation of Cervantes' Don Quijote. He was no more successful in les Aventures de…, ou les Effets surprenants de la sympathie (1713-1714), written, in much the same style, or in la Voiture embourbée,[31] which appeared between the two publications of the former. This latter follows a familiar device: that is to say, one of the personages of the main narrative begins a story. which is continued by another when he reaches the end of his imagination, and so on. The purpose of the story was to turn to ridicule romantic love, but, following the expression of Fournier, it advanced only "cahin-caha, comme le pauvre coche dont il contait les accidents, et il finit par s'embourber avec lui."[32] He somewhat redeemed himself in 1715 with le Triomphe de Bilboquet, ou la Défaite de l'Esprit, de l'Amour et de la Raison, a fancy inspired by the game of cup and ball, so much in vogue at that period that it threatened to usurp the time and rights of conversation, and had even made its way upon the stage, in which simple matter Marivaux found occasion for moral observation.
In 1717 he allied himself with le Nouveau Mercure, a paper devoted to the interests of the Modernes as against those of the Anciens. This quarrel over the comparative merits of the ancient and modern writers, begun in the first half of the seventeenth century with the abbé de Bois- Robert, Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin, and later Perrault, Fontenelle, La Motte, and others ranged on the side of the latter, while Boileau, Corneille, Racine, Rollin, Mme. Dacier, and followers strenuously upheld the honor of antiquity, had dragged on through the seventeenth and into the eighteenth century, until apparently the last word had been said by Mme. Dacier in her Préface à la traduction de l'Odyssée (1716). Marivaux, however, by turn of mind and training a modern, and ever the champion of his friend La Motte, and, perhaps more to avenge him for the "grosses paroles de Mme. Dacier"[33] than to depreciate le divin Homère (whom he made a point of always mentioning in that way), would not let the matter rest, and, in 1717, composed a burlesque poem entitled l'Iliade ravestie. Had he been familiar with the Greek language, he might never have committed this piece of literary impudence, but he knew Homer only through La Motte's reduction of the Iliad, which in turn was based upon Mme. Dacier's translation. If his object was to overthrow the great Greek poet, it must have been a bitter disappointment to Marivaux to see that his burlesque passed almost unnoticed by his contemporaries and was soon forgotten. The same year he wrote a Télémaque travesti, a parody on the masterpiece of Fénelon. This work was not published until 1736, when it was received with such disapprobation that he hastened to disavow its authorship.[34]
Marivaux was now some twenty-nine years of age, and had had but little success as a writer. He must have felt that parody was not his forte, and, with his connection with le Mercure, an opportunity was presented to deal with actualities, where his powers of observation might come into play. He was, as he says of himself, born an observer. "Je suis né de manière que tout me devient une matière de réflexion; c'est comme une philosophie de tempérament que j'ai reçue, et que le moindre objet met en exercice."[35] With his keen eyes constantly on the watch and his subtle mind ever ready to ferret out the eccentricities, defects, or hidden motives which some glance or gesture in his neighbor has revealed to him, and which a less delicate mind would have failed to grasp, going so far sometimes as to impute finesse where he has seen but the reflection of his own nature, he, nevertheless, presents to us, as no other author of the time, a vivid picture of the brilliant and refined society in which he moved, and sometimes, also, bold and clever sketches of the world at large. "C'est une fête délicieuse," he tells us, "pour un misanthrope, que le spectacle d'un si grand nombre d'hommes assemblés; c'est le temps de sa récolte d'idées. Cette innombrable quantité d'espèces de mouvements forme à ses yeux un caractère générique. A la fin, tant de sujets se réduisent en un; ce ne sont plus des hommes différents qu'il contemple, c'est l'homme représenté dans plusieurs milliers d'hommes."[36] Wherever he might be, on the street, at the homes of his friends, at church, or at the theatre, he was ever a prey to this demon of observation. Behold him coming from the theatre; forced by the throng to stop a moment, he employs the time to examine the passers-by: "J'examinais donc tous ces porteurs de visages, hommes et femmes; je tâchais de démêler ce que chacun pensait de son lot; comment il s'en trouvait; par exemple, s'il y en avait quelqu'un qui prît le sien en patience, faute de pouvoir faire mieux; mais je n'en découvris pas un, dont la contenance ne me dît: Je m'y tiens."[37]
Whatever he saw became food for meditation, and, if not used at once, was treasured up for future need. Marivaux came at last to surmise that here lay the secret of his inspiration, but it was not for some years yet that he expressed himself, as he did in the Spectateur français: "Ainsi je ne suis point auteur, et j'aurais été, je pense, fort embarrassé de le devenir… je ne sais point créer, je sais seulement surprendre en moi les pensées que le hasard me fait naître, et je serais fâché d'y mettre rien du mien."[38]
In the Mercure for August, September, and October, 1717, and for March and June, 1718, appeared from the pen of Marivaux "five letters to M. de M——, containing an adventure, and four letters to Mme. ——, containing reflections on the populace, the bourgeois, the merchants, the men and women of rank, and the beaux esprits." This seems to be a turning point in his literary life. He appears now to have grasped the idea of his own limitations and of his own powers, powers which will be disclosed, not only in his journalistic work, but in his novels and his plays. I refer to those excellences which are the direct result of the acuteness of his observation. These writings gained for him the agnomen of Théophraste moderne, which his sense of fitness and natural dislike of over-praise led him to disclaim in a letter to the Mercure of October, 1717. That same year a Portrait de Climène, ode anacréontique, proves that he had yet to sustain a real defeat in the line of verse before he came to realize that he should confine himself to prose alone. The Mercure of March, 1719, contained some Pensées sur divers sujets: sur la clarté du discours, sur la pensée sublime. The next year, 1720, however, was one of the utmost importance in determining his future career.
The statement has already been made that when Marivaux came to Paris his fortune, if not munificent, was at least ample for his needs, and, fond of his ease and indifferent to business affairs, he might have enjoyed independence for the rest of his life, had he not yielded to the influence of certain friends and entrusted his fortune to the speculations of the Law system. When the crash came, in May, 1720, he lost all that he had. In a letter, written in 1740, he relates the circumstances of the affair in so philosophical a tone that it is well worth reading. He says: "Oui, mon cher ami, je suis paresseux et je jouis de ce bien-là, en dépit de la fortune qui n'a pu me l'enlever et qui m'a réduit à très peu de chose sur tout le reste: et ce qui est fort plaisant, ce qui prouve combien la paresse est raisonnable, combien elle est innocente de tous les blâmes dont on la charge, c'est que je n'aurais rien perdu des autres biens si des gens, qu'on appelait sages, à force de me gronder, ne m'avaient pas fait cesser un instant d'être paresseux, je n'avais qu'à rester comme j'étais, m'en tenir à ce que j'avais, et ce que j'avais m'appartiendrait encore: mais ils voulaient, disaient-ils, doubler, tripler, quadrupler mon patrimoine à cause de la commodité du temps, et moitié honte de paraître un sot en ne faisant rien. moitié bêtise d'adolescence et adhérence de petit garçon au conseil de ces gens sensés, dont l'autorité était regardée comme respectable, je les laissai disposer, vendre pour acheter, et ils me menaient comme ils voulaient… Ah! sainte paresse! salutaire indolence! si vous étiez restées mes gouvernantes, je n'aurais pas vraisemblablement écrit tant de néants plus ou moins spirituels, mais j'aurais eu plus de jours heureux que je n'ai eu d'instants supportables…"[39]
Marivaux acknowledges his fondness of ease and idleness elsewhere, as well as in this letter,[40] and it would certainly seem natural, from what we know of the man, to accept his own statement. However, all men fond of idleness are not necessarily idle, nor do all lazy men lack industry. There are various motives that force them to labor, often mere pride, and more often still, necessity. Marivaux was a great worker, as his works in ten large volumes (as edited by Duviquet) prove, but they do not in the least disprove his statement that he was not fond of work, and it is undoubtedly true that, had it not been for the spur of necessity, he would not have written "tant de néants plus ou moins spirituels," and the world would have been deprived of his best writings, for the poorest work that he produced was done while he was rich.
The loss of his fortune was a cruel blow, for it deprived him of the means of gratifying his fondness for dress and good living[41], and, worst of all, it debarred him largely from indulging his passion for charity. His generosity and fellow-feeling for others were so great that he really suffered at sight of their misfortunes, if he was unable to alleviate them. "Quoi! voir les besoins d'un honnête homme, et n'être point en état de les soulager, n'est-ce pas les avoir soi-même? Je serai donc pauvre avec les indigents, ruiné avec ceux qui seront ruinés, et je manquerai de tout ce qui leur manquera," he exclaims in the thirteenth feuille of the Spectateur, and it was this spirit of generosity that led him to deprive himself often of the necessities of life for the sake of giving to others, and even, at times, to give unwisely.
The following anecdote, related by both Lesbros de la Versane[42] and d'Alembert[43], goes to show how far his love of giving sometimes led him. One day he was accosted by a beggar, who seemed to him so young and strong that he was indignant, and, with a desire to shame him, asked him why he did not work. "Hélas! monsieur, si vous saviez combien je suis paresseux!" was the unexpected answer of the youth. Marivaux, who hated all deceit, was so struck by the naïve frankness of the reply that he gave him 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 Théâtre-Français and the Théâtre- Italien, but also by the Opéra itself, they saw themselves obliged by the Court to abandon, in turn, dialogue and even monologue, and to depend upon placards as a means of expressing the plot to the audience. However, in spite of difficulties and opposition the Théâtre de la Foire maintained its ground.
Among the authors writing for the Théâtre-Français were such celebrities as Crébillon père,[59] Voltaire, Destouches, etc. No lesser names than those of Lesage and Piron were the support of the Théâtre de la Foire. It remained for Marivaux to render illustrious the Italian stage[60].
Here it was, then, on the fourth of March, 1720, that he made his début before the public with a comedy in three acts, l'Amour et la Vérité. It may be recalled that Crispin l'heureux fourbe had been presented only in private. Perhaps to give himself confidence in a line as yet almost untried, and which, after his boasting of fourteen years before and his rather unsuccessful attempt, he had come to consider as not so "easy" after all, he may have sought the aid of one of his co-workers on the Mercure. At any rate, the play was written in collaboration with the Chevalier de Saint-Jory, and was the only piece in which Marivaux accepted similar aid, "except for the musical diversions of his plays."[61] L'Amour et la Vérité failed to please the public, but, as it was never printed, we cannot judge of its merits.
However, that same year, Marivaux amply retrieved himself in the exquisite fairy-play of Arlequin poli par l'Amour, a comedy in one act, presented at the Théâtre-Italien, October 20, and which Jules Lemaître characterizes as perhaps of all his plays "the most purely poetical, in spite of the excess of esprit, and the one in which fancy is the freest."[62] It was greeted by the public with enthusiasm, and even such severe critics of Marivaux as La Harpe could find little to say against it,—that it "lacked intrigue" and had a "weak dénouement " possibly, but after all that he had made of Harlequin, "of that ideal personage, who up to that time had only known how to provoke laughter," an "interesting" character "by making him in love."[63]
The plot of the play is as follows: A fairy, enflamed with love for Harlequin, on account of his beauty, has caused him to be brought to her realm, but, in spite of all her charms and graces and her assiduous attentions, she cannot awaken love in him, nor change him from the rude and clownish fellow that he is; and it is not until he meets with Silvia, the shepherdess, that love is seen to be more potent than all the charms of fairy-land to make of simple Harlequin, as of Hawthorne's Faun, a man. The developing influence of love is the theme of the comedy, and, although the development is rapid, as befits a play, it is nevertheless by graduated stages. Each meeting of the lovers fans the flame, and the need of secrecy but stimulates their wit, until, at last, by a cunning wile, Harlequin gains possession of the fairy's wand and with it, of her power. This, of course, brings about the natural dénouement, and the play ends to the satisfaction of the lovers.
Many of the scenes are characterized by an artlessness and grace that recall Florian's les Deux Billets or Musset's A quoi rêvent les jeunes Filles. It is the poetry of an epoch of prose. "All the poetry of the first half of the eighteenth century is in Marivaux, as all the poetry of the second half is in Jean-Jacques Rousseau and in Bernardin de Saint- Pierre."[64] The first two plays of Marivaux presented to the public were performed upon the stage of the Théâtre-Italien, and throughout his life he showed a marked preference for that theatre.
His success was brilliant, and Arlequin poli par l'Amour had twelve representations. At last Marivaux appears to have found his true sphere; but no, he has still to feel his way, and to experience another check, before entrusting himself to the promptings of his genius. His was not a talent to blossom in a night, and only an over-zealous friend could say of him: "Il ne se décida point pour les lettres, il fut entraîné par elles. Il ne chercha point à devenir auteur, il fut étonné de l'être devenu."[65]
At this time tragedy still held sway over the hearts of the French, although the period of its glory was past. As nearly every writer of the century had produced his tragedy, not to mention the immediate friends of Marivaux, Fontenelle with his Aspar and La Motte with his Oedipe and Romulus, it is not strange that Marivaux felt tempted to try his wings in this upper sphere. His Annibal, a tragedy in five acts and in verse, was produced at the Théâtre-Français on December 16, 1720. In this play the very qualities, destined later to procure for the author such splendid successes in his comedies, were either lacking or out of place. It survived four representations, three at the Théâtre-Français and one at Court, and then disappeared from the repertory, not to be taken up again until Marivaux was an academician, and as such, in the minds of many, of course worthy of applause.
Marivaux had the good judgment to abandon a style of composition for which he was in no way fitted, and, on May 3, 1722, returned to the Théâtre- Italien with la Surprise de l'Amour, a comedy in three acts, and a decided success. His predilection for the Théâtre-Italien was such that he gave to it twenty of his plays, while only ten were brought out at the Théâtre-Français. "Of the six plays of our author which were to remain in the repertory, only one, le Legs, was first played at the Comédie- Française; the five others, la Surprise de l'Amour, le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard, l'École des Mères, les Fausses Confidences, l'Épreuve, appeared for the first time at the Théâtre-Italien."[66]
L'abbé de La Porte declares, moreover, that, had it not been for his support, through lack of spectators the actors would have been obliged to give up their theatre.[67]
Why was this preference of Marivaux for the Théâtre-Italien? In the first place, because he found the Italian actors better fitted to interpret him with that "brillante et abondante volubilité" of the Italian nature, which his plays seem to require, masterpieces, as they are, of dialogue and conversational style. Moreover, the Italians were performing in a foreign language and in a country in which they had a reputation yet to gain, and, consequently, were willing to accept suggestions from the author. At the Théâtre-Français, on the contrary, both actors and audience were under the ban of certain traditions, which hindered the one from performing with the requisite natural grace and the other from accepting without criticism that which at the Théâtre-Italien they might have received with enthusiasm.[68]
The prestige enjoyed by the members of the Comédie-Française was not calculated to make them readily accept advice, and Marivaux was often heard lamenting over their intractability. The beauty of his plays depends upon the artless grace with which they are rendered. "Il faut … que les acteurs ne paraissent jamais sentir la valeur de ce qu'ils disent, et qu'en même temps les spectateurs la sentent et la démêlent à travers l'espèce de nuage dont l'auteur a dû envelopper leurs discours."[69] Such were the recommendations of Marivaux, but all to no purpose. "J'ai eu beau le répéter aux comédiens, la fureur de montrer de l'esprit a été plus forte que mes très humbles remontrances; et *iis ont mieux aimé commettre dans leur jeu un contre-sens perpétuel, qui flattait leur amour-propre, que de ne pas paraître entendre finesse à leur rôle."[70]
Mlle. Lecouvreur, of the Comédie-Française, who played the rôles of the jeunes amoureuses, was the source of considerable annoyance to Marivaux. She would often catch the spirit of these subtle and metaphysical rôles in the first performances, but, encouraged by applause, and to improve, if possible, upon her manner, would so force the action as to become affected in the later representations.[71] At the Théâtre-Italien, however, Marivaux found an actress just suited to these rôles, Giovanna-Rosa Benozzi, the famous Silvia.
It was as a result of the presentation of the first Surprise de l'Amour that Marivaux made the acquaintance of the renowned actress.[72] With that characteristic timidity, which we have already noted, Marivaux had withheld from the public his name as author. Although Silvia had played her part well, she felt that there was still lacking a shade of meaning, which, if she only knew the author, she might grasp. Yielding to the solicitation of a friend of hers, Marivaux consented to pay her his respects, but on condition that he might keep his incognito. Upon being presented to the artist, he congratulated her upon her charming rendition of the play. Silvia was pleased with his appreciation, but, foreseeing possibilities in the piece as yet unattained by her, she said: "It is a charming comedy; but I have a grudge against the author… for not disclosing himself. We would play it a hundred times better, if he had merely deigned to read it to us."
Marivaux took the rôle, and, choosing a few passages, read into them all of their hidden meaning, with the fluent ease and clearness which had gained for him the reputation of a fascinating reader. Silvia listened with ever increasing surprise, and at last exclaimed: "Ah, sir, you are the author of the piece, or else the devil." He assured her with a smile that he was not the latter, and their friendship had begun, a friendship which had in it something akin to that of Racine and la Champmeslé, for, from this time on, Marivaux wrote most of his plays with Silvia in mind; but here the comparison must end, for no closer relation has ever been suggested by any of Marivaux's contemporaries, and it is not likely that so tempting a bit of scandal would ever have been allowed to pass unnoticed by the eighteenth century, "si friand d'indiscrétions de ce genre."[73]
As can be seen by a Compliment in prose and verse, addressed to Mlle. Silvia the same year that the first Surprise de l'Amour appeared. Marivaux joined also in the well-nigh universal chorus of praise which rose on all sides in celebration of the graceful actress. If the author contributed much to the perfection of her talent, she, too, lent no small part to the popularity which many of Marivaux's plays attained.
In the year of the presentation of the first Surprise de l'Amour, and the more speedily and surely to relieve his financial embarrassment, Marivaux turned his mind to journalism, and began the publication of what he termed le Spectateur français, modelled after Addison's Spectator. He adopted a literary fiction to introduce his observations and moral reflections similar to that which gave life to Sir Roger de Coverly, but the whole was carried out with less simplicity, logical development, and power in the creation of types, though, perhaps, with greater subtlety. Strange to say, the Spectateur has never been as much appreciated in France as in England, where Marivaux has been compared not unfavorably with La Bruyère.[74]
Germany was a scarcely less enthusiastic admirer, and even so severe a critic of French literature, as was Lessing, could find words of commendation for Marivaux; but the latter was less prodigal in his admiration of the works of foreign literatures. "and preferred unhesitatingly our writers to those of any nation, ancient or modern," says d'Alembert.[75]
The journal is composed of a series of feuilles or leaflets, more or less closely connected, familiar and conversational in character. Most of the sketches are characterized by that intuitive and feminine delicacy of perception and that subtlety sometimes lacking in Addison, and, while perhaps too often they appear over quintessenced or subtilized, at times they attain an eloquent and virile tone. Aside from their literary value, they are of great interest in the study of the author's character.
The humanity of the man and his sensitiveness to the wrongs of others are manifest in the description of a young girl forced to beg for a mother, sick and in want, or to accept dishonor with the assistance of a rich man, whose aid is offered at so dear a price. The concluding words of this sketch contain a confession of his own weakness, but with an eloquent and vigorous attack upon those who basely sacrifice the happiness of others for the gratification of their own pleasures. "Homme riche, vous qui voulez triompher de sa vertu par sa misère, de grâce, prêtez-moi votre attention. Ce n'est point une exhortation pieuse, ce ne sont point des sentiments dévots que vous allez entendre; non, je vais seulement tâcher de vous tenir les discours d'un galant homme, sujet à ses sens aussi bien que vous; faible, et, si vous voulez, vicieux; mais chez qui les vices et les faiblesses ne sont point féroces, et ne subsistent qu'avec l'aveu d'une humanité généreuse. Oui, vicieux encore une fois, mais en honnête homme, dont le coeur est heureusement forcé, quand il le faut, de ménager les intérêts d'autrui dans les siens, et ne peut vouloir d'un plaisir qui ferait la douleur d'un autre."[76]
Perhaps in no other writing has he attained the eloquence, sustained throughout the description, that characterizes the letter[77] from a father self-impoverished for his son's advancement and then abandoned by that same son.
One is not accustomed to think of Marivaux as a moralist, yet this frilled and powdered representative of the beau monde, this courtly gentleman, this graceful writer, was one of the powers for good of his time. Throughout his plays and novels, and particularly in his journals, may be seen this nobler side of the man's nature. He was a practical moralist, with little love for abstract theories, and a morality far from asceticism, but, with profound unselfishness and pity for his fellow-man, he strove to right the wrongs and correct the abuses of a cruelly indifferent and light-hearted society. He once said of himself: "Je serais peu flatté d'entendre dire que je suis un bel esprit; mais si on m'apprenait que mes écrits eussent corrigé quelques vices, ou seulement quelque vicieux, je serais vraiment sensible à cet éloge."[78] However, he was tolerant, as one who knows the weaknesses that flesh is heir to, and, whether his attack was aimed at the petty foibles or graver weaknesses of the individual, coquetry, ambition, avarice, hypocrisy, vanity, and the like, or at certain social evils, the reprimand was always given with a tone of moderation.
Throughout his writings Marivaux showed himself heartily opposed to the loose ideas then prevalent upon the marriage relation, and, as though to emphasize his convictions in this matter, his comedies all end with "the triumph of love in marriage." In certain ones, as for example le Petit Maître corrigé (acte I, scène XII) and l'Héritier de Village (scène II), this social evil is more directly attacked, as it is also in several portions of the Spectateur français, and particularly in the sixteenth feuille.
He was likewise an opponent of the strained relations that existed in most families between parents and children. Instead of the deplorable custom of making of each household a miniature court, in which the parents reigned over timid but unwilling subjects, he advocated intimate and loving relations. "Voulez-vous faire d'honnêtes gens de vos enfants? Ne soyez que leur père, et non pas leur juge et leur tyran. Et qu'est-ce que 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 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.
Ce lecteur aime pourtant les licences, mais non pas les licences extrêmes, excessives; celles-là ne sont supportables que dans la réalité qui en adoucit l'effronterie; elles ne sont à leur place que là, et nous les y passons, parceque nous y sommes plus hommes qu'ailleurs; mais non pas dans un livre, où elles deviennent plates, sales et rebutantes, à cause du peu de convenance qu'elles ont avec l'état tranquille d'un lecteur."[91]
The morality set forth in this passage is not stringent. Attention has already been called to the leniency of Marivaux with regard to weaknesses of a certain type, and to his confession of his own shortcomings. When we consider the extreme immorality of French society in the eighteenth century, to which taste Crébillon fils truckled, as did most of the dramatists and novelists to a certain degree, to which even Montesquieu in the Lettres persanes paid his tribute, we can esteem at its full value the "chaste pen" of Marivaux, in whose theatre the dignity and sacredness of marriage is never once abused, the moral tone of whose journals and of Marianne is uplifting, and even in whose Paysan parvenu the tone stops short of license, and illegitimate love is left unsatisfied.[92]
Mention has been made of the feminine side of Marivaux's writings, but the Paysan parvenu, published in 1735, some six years before the last publication of Marianne is of an entirely different type. Its principal character is not here a woman, but a young man, Jacob by name, a peasant boy, who, finding provincial life distasteful to him, comes to Paris, and, by the aid of his good looks, loose morals, self-assurance, adaptability, ambition, and a peculiar power over women, succeeds in gaining for himself an enviable position in the upper circles of the bourgeoisie, as well as the hand and fortune of a rich and pious old maid, Mlle. Habert, whom his youth and charms entice. Quite another Bel Ami, as Jules Lemaître[93] remarks; but the dissimilarity is no less striking than the resemblance. While the hero of Marivaux yields easily to temptation, we feel that it is due to youth, a lack of moral training and a desire to please, along with a shrewd ambition, to be sure, and after each step upward in the social scale a moral development takes place, rendered possible by a natural sentiment of honor, which was with him from the first, so that though the story has been left unfinished by Marivaux after the fifth part, we are led to expect at least a complete emancipation from the sins of the flesh, if not a high ethical status. The hero of Maupassant, on the other hand, is basely sensual and cruelly self-interested from the first, and totally lacking in those heart-qualities which, in spite of his vices, gain our sympathies for Jacob.
The style of the Paysan parvenu is simpler, less diffuse, bolder, and more virile, than that of Marianne; but its characters are uniformly less noble, and, if its general intent is not immoral, at least many of the scenes verge upon the risqué. What is the cause of this digression from a style of writing so much more natural to Marivaux? Fleury attributes the reason to his pique with Crébillon fils and his desire to prove to him "that in a work that borders upon license, brutal license is not enough; that it must be presented in a delicate form, and seasoned with wit and observation."[94] Certain it is that les Égarements de l'esprit et du coeur, published the following year (in 1736), shows the least immorality, as well as the most talent, of any of the works of this author.
The scene of Marianne is laid in aristocratic circles, while that of the Paysan presents to us the bourgeoisie and the world of finance. Though there are many differences between these two novels, there are likewise many points of similarity. We have to do with the same cunning observer, and with one who did not consider the common people beneath his notice. Marivaux has in his style of description many traits of the realist, as we understand the term to-day. Witness the quarrel of the linen dealer and the cabman in Marianne, of which Grimm writes as follows: "On est excédé, par exemple, de cette querelle de la lingère et du fiacre, dans la Marianne de M. de Marivaux: rien n'est mieux rendu d'après nature, et d'un goût plus détestable que le tableau que je cite."[95]
Another trait common to Marianne and le Paysan parvenu, and indeed in a degree to all of his writings, is his detestation of false piety and his attack upon hypocrisy in all its forms, whether in the person of M. de Climal, M. Doucin or Mlle. Habert aînée; but, while false devotion was constantly the object of his most bitter hatred, his attitude toward true religion was noteworthy, especially for the time in which he lived. "A Dieu ne plaise qu'on me soupçonne d'avoir, un seul instant de ma vie, douté de ce que nous dit cette religion,"[96] he exclaims through the lips of one of his characters.
His whole nature, his kindliness, his compassion for human suffering, his hope for the ultimate welfare of all, inclined him to a kindly dogmatism, which included even those unbelievers "qui ont beau faire, pour s'étourdir sur l'autre monde, et qui finiront par être sauvés malgré eux."[97] "La religion, disait-il, est la ressource du malheureux, quelquefois même celle du philosophe; n'enlevons pas à la pauvre espèce humaine cette consolation, que la Providence divine lui a ménagée."[98] He had a distinct dislike for philosophical arguments in refutation of things spiritual, and one day on being asked as to what he considered the nature of the soul, he replied, "Je sais qu'elle est spirituelle et immortelle, et je n'en sais rien de plus "; and when it was suggested to refer the discussion to Fontenelle, with his characteristic readiness of speech retorted, "Il a trop d'esprit pour en savoir là-dessus plus que moi."[99]
If Marivaux was preeminently admired in England for his Spectateur, he was scarcely less so for his novels; there is no doubt that Marianne inspired Richardson's Pamela and Clarissa Harlowe, and that le Paysan parvenu had its influence upon Fielding's Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones.[100]
Opinions differ greatly as to the comparative merits of Marivaux the novelist and Marivaux the dramatist. His contemporaries[101] considered him superior in the former capacity. Larroumet classes him in the "small number of those who have shown themselves equally fitted for the drama and the novel,"[102] while Sainte-Beuve [103] declares for the superiority of his drama. Certainly, one does not weary of his delightful comedies, never long enough to tire, even were they less fascinating than they are, for they never exceed three acts, except in the case of the Serments indiscrets, which is in five. His creative genius is seen, as nowhere else, in these brief comedies.
After the haute comédie of Molière, with its presentation of types of character rather than of individuals, and with its general lessons to mankind, it would have been impossible for Marivaux to have gained glory in the same field. His fondness for originality forbade him from following the traces of his predecessors. He preferred, he said, "être humblement assis sur le dernier banc dans la petite troupe des auteurs originaux, qu'orgueilleusement placé à la première ligne dans le nombreux bétail des singes littéraires."[104] So, in the midst of the society in which he moved, a society of idlers, rich, elegant, refined, men in periwigs, in rich brocades and laces, women too, bewitching with their powdered hair, their delicate complexions enhanced by rouge and patches coquettishly arranged, their caught-up skirts and low-cut bodices, Marivaux, with his keen eyes open to the love intrigues so artfully conducted, with his mind awake to all the witty sayings rife on everybody's tongue, and with his kindly, charitable heart, found inspiration for those dainty creations, so picturesque, so subtle, and so fascinating that they have never ceased to charm, perhaps less truly creations than sketches of the society about him, although no other writer has been able to handle his elusive pen in the portrayal of similar scenes.
In what does the originality of the comedies of Marivaux consist? In general, one may say, in his treatment of love, their prevailing theme. "Chez mes confrères," says Marivaux, "l'amour est en querelle avec ce qui l'environne, et finit par être heureux, malgré les opposants; chez moi, il n'est en querelle qu'avec lui seul, et finit par être heureux malgré lui. Il apprendra dans mes pièces à se défier encore plus des tours qu'il se joue, que des pièges qui lui sont tendus par des mains étrangères." It is true that throughout his plays the lovers rarely encounter any hindrance from without. There is very little action or intrigue. The dialogue, witty, brilliant, and ingenious, is all-important, and the denouement often depends upon a misunderstanding, so easy to explain that one sometimes wonders at the wilfulness of the characters in failing to set the matter right until the end.[105] As in all of his plays, marriage follows closely upon the solution of the difficulty; it has been said that his lovers "s'aiment le plus tard qu'ils peuvent, et se marient le plus tôt qu'il est possible." [106] With the respect which we have seen in Marivaux for the marriage relation, we are not surprised to note in his characters such fear of poorly assorted unions, that it is only with much questioning into their own and each other's hearts, and with manifold misgivings, that they are brought at last to say the final word.
Marivaux is the first of the French writers of comedy to treat love seriously,[107] but, though he freed the theme from the malice or flippancy with which it had been treated by his predecessors, he was nevertheless a stranger to that intense and passionate love that we have come to associate with the romantic drama. Some have gone so far as to say that it is not amour at all that he portrays, but only amour-propre. It is a gentle, courtly love, respectful, almost reverential, though not confiding. "Marivaux pense et dit de l'amour ce qu'en pensait, ce qu'en disait l'auteur de la première partie de ce Roman de la Rose,
Où l'art d'Amour est toute enclose.
Par sa fine sentimentalité, par sa casuistique amoureuse, par son goût pour l'allégorie, Marivaux aurait fraternisé, au XIIIe siècle, avec le suave Guillaume de Lorris."[108] His drama is eminently psychological. "J'ai guetté dans le coeur humain," says Marivaux "toutes les niches différentes où peut se cacher l'amour lorsqu'il craint de se montrer, et chacune de mes comédies a pour objet de le faire sortir d'une de ces niches."[109]
The absence of the broad comic of Molière, Regnard, or Beaumarchais is conspicuous. The comedies of Marivaux rarely provoke more than a smile, and never bursts of merriment. The pathetic is no less lacking, and yet the interest never flags. Where, then, is their charm? It lies in the brilliant dialogue and in the interest Marivaux has been able to awaken in the psychological development of love in the hearts of the chief characters. With so much similarity, it is yet wonderful to note the variety that the author has been able to introduce into his comedies, which some critics and envious ones of his time have dubbed, one and all, as so many Surprises de l'amour, D'Alembert, who was often so just, and at times so unjust, towards Marivaux, blames him for having made but one comedy in twenty different fashions,[110] but is fair enough to quote the author's own defence of the accusation, "Dans mes pièces, c'est tantôt un amour ignoré des deux amants, tantôt un amour qu'ils sentent et qu'ils veulent se cacher l'un à l'autre, tantôt un amour timide, qui n'ose se déclarer; tantôt enfin un amour incertain et comme indécis, un amour à demi-né, pour ainsi dire, dont ils se doutent sans être bien sûrs, et qu'ils épient au-dedans d'eux-mêmes avant de lui laisser prendre l'essor. Où est en cela toute cette ressemblance qu'on ne cesse de m'objecter?"[111]
The years have passed, and critics have fully justified this plea. The most convincing argument is undoubtedly the examination of the plays themselves. Leaving out of account le Père prudent and Annibal, the following more or less arbitrary classification may serve to show the predominating note in each comedy:—
I. Surprises de l'Amour.—The two Surprises de l'Amour (1722 and 1727), la Double Inconstance (1723), le Dénouement imprévu (1724), le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard (1730), les Serments indiscrets (1732), l'Heureux Stratagème (1733), la Méprise (1734), le Legs (1736), les Fausses Confidences (1737), la Joie imprévue (1738).
II. Comédies de caractère.—La Fausse Suivante (1724), le Petit-maître corrigé(1734), la Mère confidente (1735), les Sincères (1739), l'Épreuve (1740).
III. Comédies de moeurs.—L'Héritier de Village (1725), l'École des
Mères (1732), le Préjugé vaincu (1746).
IV. Comédies héroïques.—Le Prince travesti (1724), le Triomphe de l'Amour (1732), la Dispute (1744).
V. Comédies philosophiques.—L'Ile des Esclaves (1725), l'Ile de la
Raison (1727), la Colonie (1729).
VI. Comédies mythologiques.—Le Triomphe de Plutus (1728), la Réunion des Amours (1731).
VII. Comédies féeries.—Arlequin poli par l'Amour (1720), Félicie (1757).
VIII. Fantaisie.—Les Acteurs de bonne foi (1757).
Comedies which have been lost, wholly or in part, cannot be classified; but the following list may be of value for reference: —L'Amour et la Vérité (of which the prologue only has come down to us), la Commère, l'Heureuse Surprise (possibly the same as la Joie imprévue), l'Amante frivole, la Femme fidèle (fragments of which play have been printed by Larroumet [pp. 313-319] and by Fleury [pp. 365-371]).
From this classification it will be seen that by no means all of Marivaux's comedies could be termed Surprises de l'amour, although some of his best come within that category. There is a whole series of plays, to which Larroumet[112] calls attention, in which Marivaux has left the real for the imaginary world. There are times when we are almost inclined to admit with Lemaître "that fancy's wing, which bears so high and so far the poet of A Midsummer Night's Dream, has at least grazed the powdered brow of Marivaux." [113]
The poetic fantasies of the latter certainly recall the fanciful creations of the great English poet.
In the limited space of this Introduction it will be impossible to analyze the plots of any, save only the most important.[114] The following comedies are about the only ones presented regularly at the Comédie- Française: le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard, le Legs, les Fausses Confidences, and l'Épreuve; but this brief list by no means embraces all of his exquisite sketches of eighteenth century society. Add to these la Mère confidente, for which both Larroumet[115] and Sarcey[116] plead, or, at the suggestion of Lemaître,[117] la Surprise de l'Amour, les Sincères, la Double Inconstance, and les Serments indiscrets, and we shall still have left a whole series of treasures unexplored, especially in the realm of the fanciful. As we have already examined one of the most delightful pieces of the latter class, Arlequin poli par l'Amour, a hasty survey of his best known plays will have to suffice. It might be well to add here that Marivaux's favourite plays were the following: la Double Inconstance, the two Surprises de l'Amour, la Mère confidente, les Serments indiscrets, les Sincères and l'Ile des Esclaves.[118]
Le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard, a comedy in three acts, presented on January 23, 1730, at the Théâtre-Italien, is generally considered as the masterpiece of Marivaux, although he did not include it in the number of his favourites. It is certainly his best-known play. Its success was great and immediate, according to the Mercure of January, 1730. The plot is as follows: With the characteristic caution of the heroines of Marivaux, ever on their guard against an ill-assorted marriage, and with the sad experiences of certain friends of hers in mind to make her still more cautious, Silvia determines not to accept Dorante, the suitor chosen for her, until she has had an opportunity to study him in secret. She therefore modifies her dress to suit the rôle of her maid Lisette, which she assumes; but Dorante, who is no more willing to be mismated than is Silvia, determines upon the same stratagem, and arrives in the livery of Harlequin, who in turn is to play the part of the master.
This artifice is not absolutely new to the French stage, and it is possible, as Fleury[119] thinks, that the idea of the double disguise may have been borrowed from a short play by Legrand, le Galant Coureur, The situation, most difficult to handle successfully, is treated with inimitable skill by Marivaux, especially that of the two lovers, whose disguise as servants is not enough to guarantee their hearts. The prejudice of birth, against which Marivaux contended so often, is overthrown, and the lovers are willing, if necessary, to yield all for love. Silvia is still struggling with her sense of duty, when she discovers Dorante's identity, but is unwilling to disclose herself and say the final word, until she is convinced that Dorante loves her for herself alone. The scenes between Harlequin and Lisette, their language, now exaggerated, now trivial, and their haste to fall in love, lend the comic to the play.
Le Legs, a comedy in one act, was produced at the Théâtre-Français, January 11, 1736. Its reception was rather cold the first night, but enthusiastic on subsequent performances. Lenient says of it: "Le Legs est entre toutes ses oeuvres le spécimen de la bluette réduite à sa plus simple expression, joignant la finesse et la ténuité de la trame à l'exiguïté de la donnée. Tout cela tiendrait dans une coquille de noix, et finit par remplir un acte. Les personnages, aussi légers, aussi volatils que le sujet lui-même, s'appellent le Marquis, la Comtesse, le Chevalier; ils représentent, comme nous l'avons dit, des espèces plus encore que des individus."[120]
A relative has left the Marquis six hundred thousand francs on condition that he marry Hortense, and if not, that he pay over to her two hundred thousand. The Marquis, in love with the Comtesse, to whom, through excessive timidity,—and here we have the motive of the play,—he dares not declare his passion, although encouraged in every way, is in business matters of a decidedly less timid nature, and seeks to secure all of the property, and at the same time preserve his heart for the one he loves. Hortense, likewise in love with another, the Chevalier, whose fortune is not large, seeks naturally to come into her inheritance without sacrificing herself to an odious marriage. In order to deceive the other into renouncing his share of the property, each feigns willingness to enter into the marriage as stipulated in the will.
The servants, as is usually the case in Marivaux's comedies, play an important rôle, and seek to further their own selfish interests. Lépine, un Gascon froid, with a genius for intrigue, urges on the marriage of the Marquis with the Comtesse, the more readily to secure for himself the hand of Lisette, who, in turn, opposes artfully the marriage of her mistress to further her own interests and to retain her freedom.
The play ends with the renunciation of the two hundred thousand francs on the part of the Marquis, who has at last become bold enough to declare himself, after manifold hints on the part of the Comtesse; and love triumphs. Thus with apparently little to work upon has been wrought out an entire comedy, interesting from beginning to end. Alfred de Musset has made over this comedy in his l'Ane et le Ruisseau, but has come far short of the original.
Les Fausses Confidences, a comedy in three acts, was brought out at the Comédie-Italienne, March 16, 1737. This piece has sometimes vied with le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard for the title of Marivaux's chef-d'oeuvre. Without doubt, it is one of the most charming of the author's works. The Mercure for March, 1737, informs us that the play "was received with favor by the public." Although it may be fittingly classed in the number of the Surprises de l'amour, it contains as well elements of the Préjugé vaincu, the prejudice overcome being that of wealth and position, which held a place, not only in the foolish vanity of Madame Argante, but even in the tender reserve of Araminte.
Dorante, a young man of honorable extraction, but poor, finds himself reduced to the position of steward or director in the house of Araminte, a rich young widow, to whose hand he is induced to aspire by Dubois, his former servant, now in her employ, who, by his profound knowledge of the feminine heart, aided by his master's comeliness, succeeds in overcoming the prejudice of social standing in the mind of Araminte, and triumphantly marries her to Dorante, in spite of Madame Argante's horror at the match and her enthusiastic support of the Count's suit.
The intrigue is all to the credit of Dubois, who not only has to fan the flame of love in the heart of Araminte, but also finds himself obliged to rally his master's failing courage, as when Dorante objects that she is too much above him, since he has neither rank nor wealth, and the valet replies: "Point de bien! votre bonne mine est un Pérou. Tournez-vous un peu, que je vous considère encore; allons, monsieur, vous vous moquez; il n'y a point de plus grand seigneur que vous à Paris; voilà une taille qui vaut toutes les dignités possibles, et notre affaire est infaillible absolument infaillible." His genius for intrigue is certainly admirable, and, were that a sufficient claim for glory, we would chime in with him in his final cry of victory, as the piece closes: "Ouf! ma gloire m'accable. Je mériterais bien d'appeler cette femme-là ma bru." The plot is complicated by the rôle of Mlle. Marton, companion to Araminte, who is led by M. Remy, Dorante's uncle, to consider herself the object of the young man's affection, and thus to second his ambition. She is easily consoled for her disappointment, however, and all ends to the honor of Dorante, who frankly confesses to Araminte his share in the intrigue, but assures her that a desire for her hand and property has culminated in a more noble passion, and we have again the triumph of love.
Marivaux, made use of the same theme in a later comedy, le Préjugé vaincu, but the prejudice attacked was that of birth, instead of wealth, as here, where both parties belong to the world of the bourgeoisie.[121]
L'Épreuve has been called le chant du cygne of Marivaux. It was the last play he gave to the Théâtre-Italien, and was performed November 19, 1740. It is a little comedy in one act, and belongs to the small number of those that were enthusiastically received on their "first night." Marivaux admits this characteristic of his plays in the Avertissement to les Serments indiscrets. "Presque aucune des miennes n'a bien pris d'abord; leur succès n'est venu que dans la suite, et je l'aime bien autant venu de cette manière-là."
This time it is a question of a rich young man, Lucidor, who loses his heart to a poor girl, another Angélique, but, to test her love and to learn, if possible, whether her affection is for himself rather than for his wealth, he puts her to a cruel test. He informs her that he has in mind for her a wealthy party and an intimate friend of his. In her artlessness Angélique concludes from his description that he means himself. In her joy she confides the matter to Lisette.
LISETTE.
Hé bien! Mademoiselle, êtes-vous instruite? A qui vous marie-t-on?
ANGÉLIQUE.
A lui, ma chère Lisette, à lui-même, et je l'attends.
LISETTE. A lui, dites-vous? Et quel est donc cet homme qui s'appelle lui par excellence? Est-ce qu'il est ici?
A charming bit of dialogue, and but another proof of Marivaux's insight into a young girl's heart. What is her chagrin, therefore, when he presents his valet, Frontin, disguised as the rich Parisian! She refuses his offer, and in desperation is about to consent to marry the peasant farmer Blaise, who had long sighed for the five thousand livres which are her marriage portion. This character is the amusing factor of the play, Lucidor urges him to win her hand, but offers, as a compensation, if he loses, twelve thousand livres. This, of course, is sufficient to turn the tide and to enlist the interest of Blaise to fail, if possible, in his forced suit of Angélique. The trial proves Angélique superior to money considerations, and love triumphs.
Why does the money question occupy so important a place in the works of Marivaux? Is it not, as some one has suggested, because in his own life he constantly felt the lack of it? Lesage's Turcaret and Sedaine's le Philosophe sans le savoir indicate, likewise, the new importance of wealth in the eighteenth century, which Marivaux could not have failed to notice or to incorporate in his works.
I cannot pass over in silence la Mère confidente, which, as Sainte-Beuve claims, is of an "ordre à part" among his comedies, and in which "il a touché des cordes plus franches, plus sensibles et d'une nature meilleure."[122] Like so many of his best plays, it was first presented at the Comédie-Italienne, May 9, 1735. This too was one of the plays, the reception of which was favorable. The lesson that it intended to teach, for it has a lesson, was one that we have already seen emphasized, by Marivaux, the rights of children, the duty of parents to respect them, and the advisability of gaining their love and confidence.
In Madame Argante of la Mère confidente we have the counterpart of the arrogant mother of the same name of les Fausses Confidences, indifferent to her daughter's real welfare, but powerless to control her will. Madame Argante of la Mère confidente believes in gentle government by love. Her daughter Angélique is a charming girl, anxious to do the right, but deeply in love with, a young man, Dorante, unknown to her mother, and without fortune. Madame Argante has already made her choice of an older man, Ergaste, for whose wealth and respectability she has a natural admiration, but, with her characteristic kindliness, determines not to force her choice upon her daughter. "Vous ne l'épouserez pas malgré vous, ma chère enfant," she says, meeting the objection of Angélique, and then, seeing that there is some secret trouble, she seeks in the most graceful, tactful way to learn the truth.
MADAME ARGANTE.
… Parle-moi à coeur ouvert; fais-moi ta confidente.
ANGÉLIQUE.
Vous, la confidente de votre fille?
MADAME ARGANTE. Oh! votre fille, et qui te parle d'elle? Ce n'est point ta mère qui veut être ta confidente; c'est ton amie, encore une fois.
ANGÉLIQUE, riant. D'accord; mais mon amie redira tout à ma mère; l'une est inséparable de l'autre.
MADAME ARGANTE. Eh bien! je les sépare, moi; je t'en fais serment. Oui, mets-toi dans l'esprit que ce que tu me confieras sur ce pied-là, c'est comme si ta mère ne l'entendait pas….
Little by little the mother gains the daughter's confidence, until at last, emboldened, Angélique confesses:
Vous m'avez demandé si on avait attaqué mon coeur? Que trop, puisque j'aime!
MADAME ARGANTE, d'un air sérieux.
Vous aimez?…
ANGÉLIQUE, riant. Eh bien! ne voilà-t-il pas cette mère qui est absente? C'est pourtant elle qui me répond; mais rassurez-vous, car je badine.[123]
Nothing could be more graceful or more natural. This, then, is that marivaudage, against which so much has been said!
Madame Argante has discovered the secret, and, fearful for her daughter's welfare, she allows the mother nature to assume the upper hand, and points out the danger of her course to Angélique, who, at last, comprehends, and agrees to renounce her lover. This she attempts to do, but love will have its way, and will not be put down. An elopement is arranged, which is interrupted by the arrival of Madame Argante, who takes Dorante to task for his indifference to the real happiness of Angélique. He is covered with confusion, confesses his mistake, and by his manly attitude gains the mother's heart and the daughter's hand. Ergaste, the rejected suitor, proves to be an uncle of Dorante, and in a spirit of self-abnegation, well nigh superhuman, devotes himself to celibacy and his fortune to the lovers. Lisette plays the rôle of the intrigante and temptress of her mistress. The comic of the piece is in the hands of Lubin, a peasant in the service of the family, who is bribed by each party to spy upon the other.
Lack of space forbids more than a mere mention of the remaining plays, many of which are worthy of being compared favourably with those which have been outlined. We have seen enough to convince us that, although his drama may be classified in general as psychological and féminin there is great diversity in the individual plays, and never monotony.
It has been said by certain of his contemporaries that in all the characters of his comedies he has but embodied himself, that they all have "the imprint of the style précieux, for which he has been reproached with so much reason in his novels and in his comedies,"[124] and that all,—"masters, valets, courtiers, peasants, lovers, mistresses, old men, and young men have the esprit of Marivaux."[125] To this accusation he makes reply in these words, quoted by d'Alembert: "On croit voir partout le même genre de style dans mes comédies, parce que le dialogue y est partout l'expression simple des mouvements du coeur: la vérité de cette expression fait croire que je n'ai qu'un même ton et qu'une même langue; mais ce n'est pas moi que j'ai voulu copier, c'est la nature et c'est peut-être parce que ce ton est naturel, qu'il a paru singulier."[126]
Both the accusation and the reply are somewhat justifiable. With all the diversity that may be found in his different characters, there is yet a similarity of sentiments and of expression, which is due, not to a desire of representing himself in his plays, but to looking for models to a society the very natural of which was artificial, and to looking always from one point of view. To the careful student of the human heart the infinite variety that Marivaux has known how to introduce into his characters, which are always clearly distinct from one another, even if by mere delicate shades of difference, is a greater cause for wonder than the general family resemblance that unites them all.[127]
The roles of women are the important ones in the works of this author. In this particular the comedies of Marivaux recall the tragedies of Racine. Brunetière[128] goes so far as to claim that "the rôles of women in Marivaux's drama are almost the only women's rôles" in the whole repertory of French comedies. Of Molière's drama he recognizes only three such rôles as clearly individualized, those of Agnès, Elmire and Célimène. "The others, whatever their name—Marianne, Élise, Henriette —are about the same ingénue, or—Dorine, Nicole, Toinon— about the same soubrette." Marivaux excels in his portrayal of the ingénue and of the coquette, but perhaps no rôle is more sympathetically developed than that of the young widow, now tender and yielding like Araminte of the Fausses Confidences, now vivacious and positive, but no less kindly, like the countess of the Legs.
His soubrettes resemble closely their mistresses, to such a degree that by exchanging rôles they may readily be mistaken for them, as we have seen in le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard. Unlike those of Molière, they are always refined and graceful, and are none the less witty. Contrary to their more cautious mistresses, they all, or nearly all, believe in love, and seek to further the marriage of the former. Lisette of le Legs is an exception. In short, all of the younger women of Marivaux are the perfection of grace, beauty, delicacy, wit or artlessness, and are simply irresistible.
It is only the mothers that merit our aversion. With few exceptions, notably Mme. Argante in la Mère confidente, he paints them "laides, vaines, impérieuses, avares, entichées de préjugés." "Il ne pare pas du moindre rayon de coquetterie leurs maussades et acariâtres personnes. Il a de la peine à ne pas céder, quand il s'agit d'elles, à la tentation de la caricature. On dirait qu'il se venge."[129] The rôles of fathers, on the other hand, are treated with great affection. They are always kind and indulgent, and exercise their authority as little as possible. Their motto is that of the good Monsieur Orgon of le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard: "Il faut être un peu trop bon pour l'être assez."
His amoureux are less varied and less attractive than his amoureuses, and, while no less refined and exquisite, are less sincere, more calculating and self-interested.
His valets, like his soubrettes, are more refined than those of Molière, that is to say, are higher in the social scale, and are treated by their masters with more consideration. The changes, soon to be wrought in the old régime, are already germinating. While almost rivalling their masters in wit, they yet occupy a secondary place upon the stage, and rarely dwarf by their own cleverness, as do often those of Molière, their master's rôles.[130] "Three of these valets are real creations. Dubois of les Fausses Confidences, Trivelin, of la Fausse Suivante, Lépine of le Legs."[131] Trivelin is the ancestor of Beaumarchais' Figaro.[132]
Marivaux has introduced into a number of his plays peasants of the cunning, calculating, Norman type, who speak a Norman patois, which may be a souvenir of his own Norman origin.
Piron, who could not resist an occasional thrust at his rivals, was guilty of the following witticism: "Fontenelle a engendré Marivaux, Marivaux a engendré Moncrif, et Moncrif n'engendrera personne." The boutade is amusing, but not just. Moncrif can hardly be considered an offspring of Marivaux, although he imitated certain of his coquettish graces,[133] any more, or perhaps even much less, than the latter, may be considered an offspring of Fontenelle. Larroumet[134] mentions as true successors to Marivaux, in the line of proverbes and comédies de société, Florian, in the eighteenth century, and in the nineteenth, Picard, Andrieux, Colin d'Harleville, Carmontelle, Théodore Leclercq, Alfred de Vigny and Alfred de Musset,[135] in the novel Paul Bourget and his school, and particularly Paul Hervieu, and in the journal, the masters of the modern chronique.
One feature common to all of the writings of our author, as to many of his contemporaries, is their lack of the sentiment of nature. There are no streams, no flowers, no birds throughout his works. The two slight exceptions, mentioned by Larroumet,[136] show so evident a lack of interest in the beauties of nature that they offer the strongest proof in support of the rule. Here they are, the first from the eighth and the second from the eleventh part of Marianne: "Pendant qu'on était là- dessus, je feignis quelque curiosité de voir un cabinet de verdure qui était au bout de la terrasse. Il me paraît fort joli, dis-je à Valville, pour l'engager à m'y mener." [137] —"Il faisait un fort beau jour, et il y avait dans l'hôtellerie un jardin qui me parut assez joli. Je fus curieuse de le voir, et j'y entrai. Je m'y promenai même quelques instants."[138] This passage, from the sixth part of the same work, shows a somewhat greater appreciation: " Ah, çà! vous n'avez pas vu notre jardin; il est fort beau; madame nous a dit de vous y mener; venez y faire un tour; la promenade dissipe, cela réjouît. Nous avons les plus belles allées du monde!"[139] There is one passage, however, in the fifth part, in which Marivaux gives evidence of a frank and simple enjoyment of nature: "Nous nous promenions tous trois dans le bois de la maison;… et comme les tendresses de Valvilîe interrompaient ce que nous disions, cette aimable fille et moi, nous nous avisâmes, par un mouvement de gaîté, de le fuir, de l'écarter d'auprès de nous, et de lui jeter des feuilles que nous arrachions des bosquets."[140]
Marivaux has had the singular honor of causing the creation of a new word in the French literary vocabulary, to designate his peculiar style, le marivaudage, a term which has had in the past rather more of discredit than of esteem in its general acceptation. Sainte-Beuve thus defines it: "Qui dit marivaudage, dit plus ou moins badinage à froid, espièglerie compassée et prolongée, pétillement redoublé et prétentieux, enfin une sorte de pédantisme sémillant et joli; mais l'homme, considéré dans l'ensemble, vaut mieux que la définition à laquelle il a fourni occasion et sujet."[141] With the increasing popularity of Marivaux, there has gradually arisen a different and more complimentary idea of the term. Deschamps, in his excellent work on the author, thus defines it: "Cet examen de conscience, dicté par une probité inquiète,—cette application à éviter les illusions qui trompent, à déjouer les pièges du caprice et de la fantaisie, à mettre au service du sentiment les plus subtiles lumières de la raison,…—l'esprit de finesse employé à découvrir les plus secrets mouvements de notre sensibilité,—par conséquent l'usage conscient d'un style ajusté à la ténuité de ces enquêtes, style qui n'est pas exempt de recherche, mais qui abonde en trouvailles décisives,—voilà précisément le marivaudage."[142]
Marivaux has been blamed for an affectation, an ingenuity, a delicacy of style, together with a diffuseness, which led him to turn a thought in so many different ways as to weary the reader, a habit of clothing in popular expressions subtle and over-refined ideas, and, finally, a studied and far-fetched neologism.[143]
His ideas on style may be found in the sixth leaflet of the Cabinet du Philosophe, in which he answers the accusations of his critics. With him the idea is primary and the word used to express it but secondary. Wherefore, an author should be judged rather by the thoughts which the words express than by the words themselves. If, moreover, the finesse of the writer is such that he can perceive certain shades of meaning, not evident to the more commonplace beholder, how can he make them clear without deviating from the regular forms of expression? A man who understands his language may have poor thoughts, but cannot express his thoughts poorly. "Venons maintenant à l'application de tout ce que j'ai dit. Vous accusez un auteur d'avoir un style précieux. Qu'est-ce que cela signifie?… Ce style peut-être bien n'est accusé d'être mauvais, précieux, guindé, recherché, que parce que les pensées qu'il exprime sont extrêmement fines, et ont dû se former d'une liaison d'idées singulières, lesquelles idées ont dû à leur tour être exprimées par le rapprochement de mots et de signes qu'on a rarement vus aller ensemble." We should have to tell him to think less, or else urge the others to allow him to use the only expressions possible of conveying his thoughts, even should they appear précieuses. If, then, his thoughts are understood, the next question is whether they could be formed with fewer ideas, and consequently fewer words, and still convey to the hearer all the necessary finesse, all of the delicate shades of meaning. "Il y a des gens qui, en faisant un ouvrage d'esprit, ne saisissent pas toujours précisément une certaine idée qu'ils voudraient joindre à une autre. Ils la cherchent; ils l'ont dans l'instinct, dans le fond de l'âme; mais ils ne sauraient la développer. Par paresse, ou par nécessité, ou par lassitude. ils s'en tiennent à une autre qui en approche, mais qui n'est pas la véritable: et ils l'expriment pourtant bien, parce qu'ils prennent le mot propre de cette idée à peu près ressemblante à l'autre, et en même temps inférieure." Montaigne, La Bruyère, Pascal, and all great writers, have had individual ideas, hence a singular style, as it is termed.
In the seventh leaflet of the Spectateur he replies to the accusation that he attempted in his writings to display his wit at the expense of naturalness. "Combien croit-on, par exemple, qu'il y ait d'écrivains, qui, pour éviter le reproche de n'être pas naturels font justement tout ce qu'il faut pour ne l'être pas, et d'autres qui se rendent fades, de crainte qu'on ne leur dise qu'ils courent après l'esprit! Courir après l'esprit, et n'être point naturel, voilà les reproches à la mode." What Marivaux sought, above everything else, was naturalness, and he prided himself upon employing more nearly than most writers the language of conversation. Summing up the whole matter, he declares: "J'ajouterai seulement, là-dessus, qu'entre gens d'esprit, les conversations dans le monde sont plus vives qu'on ne pense, et que tout ce qu'un auteur pourrait faire pour les imiter, n'approchera jamais du feu et de la naïveté fine et subite qu'ils y mettent."[144]
Although the term of néologue was applied to Marivaux by Voltaire, and has been repeated ever since, he was less of a neologist than a précieux in language.[145] That is to say, he was less inclined to coin new words, or even to use old words with new meanings, than he was to employ unusual and peculiar turns of expression.[146] Marivaux was not the only writer of the time to make use of expressions précieuses, and, although he figures rather more prominently than most of the authors ridiculed by Desfontaines in his Dictionnaire néologique,[147] he has the company of many others, and among them, of his friends La Motte, Fontenelle, de Houtteville, and even Montesquieu. Some of the expressions which were considered reprehensible by Desfontaines have since been received into common parlance, and so do not appear unnatural or unusual: sortir de sa coquille, etc.
Fleury[148] gives six divisions of the peculiar turns of expression employed by Marivaux, which constitute that part of the marivaudage most condemned by his critics:
1. The use of a common expression, in which a word is first taken in a figurative sense, to be followed by its literal sense:
Il ne veut que vous donner la main.—Eh! que veut-il que je fasse de cette main, si je n'ai pas envie de la prendre?
Son coeur ne se marie pas, il reste garçon.
2. The use of a metaphor unexpectedly carried out:
Un amour de votre façon ne reste pas longtemps au berceau: votre premier coup d'oeil a fait naître le mien; le second lui a donné la façon; le troisième l'a rendu grand garçon. Tâchons de l'établir au plus vite; ayez soin de lui, puisque vous êtes sa mère.
Monsieur a couru après moi, je m'enfuyais, mais il m'a jeté de l'or, des nippes et une maison fournie de tous ses ustensiles à la tête; cela m'a étourdie, je me suis arrêtée.
3. A metaphor piquant by its oddity:
_Je crois que j'ai laissé ma respiration en chemin.
La vie que je mène aujourd'hui n'est point bâtarde, elle vient bien en ligne droite de celle que je menais._
4. A phrase ending in a surprise:
Je gage que tu m'aimes.—Je ne parie jamais, je perds toujours.
5. A metonymy put into action:
Voyez-vous cette figure tendre et solitaire qui se promène là-bas en attendant la mienne?
6. A rough comparison, which will not admit of examination:
Si j'étais roi, nous verrions qui serait reine, et comme ce ne serait pas moi, il faudrait que ce fût vous.
Although these divisions are not altogether satisfactory, they, with the examples cited, will serve to convey an accurate enough idea of this side of the marivaudage. Such expressions, or, at least, those in which the exaggeration of the figure is most apparent, are usually found in the mouths of servants and peasants, to which class such complicated language is not unnatural.[149]
A very minor phase of the literary activity of Marivaux remains to be considered, and that is his work in criticism. Eulogiums of the tragedies of Crébillon père,[150] of the Romulus[151] and the Inès de Castro[152] of La Motte, and of the Lettres persanes[153] of Montesquieu constitute almost his entire equipment in this line.
That he was not an unbiased critic, this unwarranted praise of his friend La Motte is enough to prove: "Je sortais, il y a quelques jours, de la comédie, ou j'étais allé voir Romulus, qui m'avait charmé, et je disais en moi-même: on dit communément l'élégant Racine, et le sublime Corneille; quelle épithète donnera-t-on à cet homme-ci, je n'en sais rien; mais il est beau de les avoir méritées toutes les deux." His criticism of the Lettres persanes is, after all, the only one worthy of praise. In it he has shown himself a fair and competent judge of this first celebrated work of Montesquieu. I realize that, in thus restricting the critical works of Marivaux, it is taking a narrow view of criticism, and that his works ridiculing the classics, l'Iliade travestie and le Télémaque travesti, together with his ideas upon the quarrel of the ancients and moderns, as seen throughout certain of his works, and particularly in le Miroir, and lastly his opinion of criticism in general, and his defense of his own style, as embodied in works already mentioned, should be taken into consideration, if we had the time to study him as critic in this broader sense.
If Marivaux, yielding to his sense of etiquette and good breeding, was sparing in his criticism of his contemporaries, he was certainly not spared by them. The circle of his friends was small, but intimate, and his timidity with men, his suspiciousness, his lack of self-assertion, made him an easy prey to such unscrupulous opponents as Voltaire. Fond of the refined society of the salons, and repelled by the less feeling and more boisterous set of the cafés, which he avoided, Marivaux became a convenient object of attack for the cabals set in motion by the latter, and, although, in spite of his general suspiciousness, he refused to give credence[154] to an idea so obnoxious to him, it is not unlikely that the frequent failure of his comedies on their "first night" may be most satisfactorily explained in this way.
Marivaux was ever ready to accept a criticism that seemed to him deserved. "J'ai eu tort de donner cette comédie-ci au théâtre," he says in the preface to his Ile de la Raison: "Elle n'était pas bonne à être représentée, et le public lui a fait justice en la condamnant. Point d'intrigue, peu d'action, peu d'intérêt; ce sujet, tel que je l'avais conçu, n'était point susceptible de tout cela…." At another time, having been present at the first performance of one of his comedies, and noticing the undissimulated yawns of the parterre, he confessed, upon leaving the theatre, that no one had been more bored than he.[155] However, notwithstanding his readiness to acknowledge his own defects, and to defer to the opinions of others, Marivaux required the criticism to be fair- minded and impersonal.
The seventh leaflet of the Spectateur contains his ideas upon this matter of criticism, which a few selections will suffice to illustrate: "A l'égard de ces critiques qui ne sont que des expressions méprisantes, et qui, sans autre examen, se terminent à dire crûment d'un ouvrage cela ne vaut rien, cela est détestable, nous serons bientôt d'accord là-dessus, et je vous ferai convenir sur-le-champ que ces sortes de raisonnements à leur tour ne valent rien et sont détestables…. Ah! que nous irions loin, qu'il naîtrait de beaux ouvrages, si la plupart des gens d'esprit qui en sont les juges, tâtonnaient un peu avant de dire, cela est mauvais ou cela est bon! … mais je voudrais des critiques qui pussent corriger et non pas gâter, qui réformassent ce qu'il y aurait de défectueux dans le caractère d'esprit d'un auteur, et qui ne lui fissent pas quitter ce caractère. Il faudrait aussi pour cela, s'il était possible, que la malice ou l'inimitié des partis n'altérât pas les lumières de la plupart des hommes, ne leur dérobât point l'honneur de se juger équitablement, n'employât pas toute leur attention à s'humilier les uns les autres, à déshonorer ce que leur talents peuvent avoir d'heureux, à se ruiner réciproquement dans l'esprit du public…."[156] When obliged to endure unfair and personal criticism, as he often was, Marivaux met it invariably with contemptuous silence,[157] saying to his friends: "J'aime mon repos et je ne veux point troubler celui des autres."[158]
Among those most bitter and most constant in their attacks upon him was Voltaire, some of whose remarks have come down to us. "C'est un homme," says Voltaire, "qui passe sa vie à peser des riens dans des balances de toile d'araignée" … or again: "C'est un homme qui sait tous les sentiers du coeur humain, mais qui n'en connaît pas la grande route." On June 8, 1732, writing to M. de Fourmont, Voltaire declares: "Nous allons avoir cet été une comédie en prose du sieur Marivaux, sous le titre les Serments indiscrets. Vous comptez bien qu'il y aura beaucoup de métaphysique et peu de naturel."
The strong antipathy felt by Marivaux for Voltaire forced him at times, in the presence of friends, to give vent to his feelings in words quite as spiteful as those of his enemy: "M. de Voltaire est le premier homme du monde pour écrire ce que les autres ont pensé…. M. de Voltaire est la perfection des idées communes…. Ce coquin-là a un vice de plus que les autres; il a quelquefois des vertus." But his retorts never went so far as publication, and when, in 1735, the Lettres philosophiques of Voltaire were condemned to be burned by Parliament, and Marivaux was urged by a publishing house, offering a good round sum, to make the most of Voltaire's discomfiture and write a refutation of the same, he refused, with his characteristic nobility of soul, to advance his own interests at the expense of those of his enemy. As much cannot be said of the latter, who, in letters written at this time, shows a cowardly fear of Marivaux's acceptance of the offer.
Voltaire was not the only rival to show hostility. Destouches, in the Envieux, ou la Critique du Philosophe marié (XII), Le Sage, in Gil Blas (Book VII, chapter XIII), as well as Crébillon fils, in the work already mentioned, were among the number.
Marivaux's admission to the French Academy had long been a matter of grave doubt to his friends, for he was too honest for intrigue and too proud to sue for favours, and there was much opposition on the part of many members, who declared that their purposes were at war, as they had assumed the task of composing the language, while he seemed to aim at its decomposition; but Mme. de Tencin had set her mind upon making of him an academician, and spared no pains to accomplish her purpose. The influence of this brilliant, scheming, unprincipled, and headstrong woman, aided by Bouhier, president of the parliament of Dijon, and likewise a warm supporter of Marivaux, gained the day, and she had the pleasure of seeing her old friend, upon his fifty-fifth birthday, February 4, 1743, received within the ranks of the forty Immortals. Voltaire, although a dangerous competitor, was not received until three years later; Piron, Le Sage, and Crébillon fils, never.
Strangely enough, this painter of gay and brilliant society succeeded to the fauteuil of an ecclesiastic, l'abbé d'Houtteville, and was welcomed by another, Languet de Gergy, archbishop of Sens. At his death his place was filled by still another, a certain abbé de Radonvilliers. The task of the archbishop was not one of the easiest, for it devolved upon him to eulogize an author, many of whose works, by reason of his ecclesiastical position, he was not supposed to have read. The acquaintance that he shows with them, however, is rather too intimate to credit his assertion that his judgment is drawn from hearsay: but with due deference to public opinion and his supposed position, the archbishop lauds rather the character of the man than the excellence of the author, declaring that it is not so much for the multitude of his books, though welcomed by the public with avidity, that Marivaux owes his election, as it is to "l'estime que nous avons faite de vos moeurs, de votre bon coeur, de la douceur de votre société, et, si j'ose le dire, de l'amabilité de votre caractère."[159]
Along with much praise of the author's ability, with flattering comparisons such as these: "Théophraste moderne, rien n'a échappé à vos portraits critiques…. Le célèbre La Bruyère paraît, dit-on, ressusciter en vous…" are criticisms upon the immoral influence of certain of his works, particularly the Paysan parvenu, which claim to have a moral aim. The archbishop suggests that his descriptions of licentious love are painted in such "naïve and tender colors" that they must create upon the reader an impression other than that intended by the author, and that the young may be led to follow the example of the "paysan, parvenu à la fortune par des intrigues galantes," in spite of his recommendations of sobriety.[160]
Nothing, perhaps, could have so wounded Marivaux as this imputation, for few writers have been actuated by purer and more noble motives, and it was with difficulty that he restrained his impulse to call upon the assembled company for justification.[161] This is but another instance of his extreme sensibility, for, despite the criticism more or less just, the spirit of the discourse was both kindly and complimentary, as may be seen from these closing words: "J'ai rendu justice, monsieur, à la beauté de votre génie, à sa fécondité, à ses agréments: rendez-la, je vous prie, de votre part, au ministère saint dont je suis chargé; et en sa faveur, pardonnez-moi une critique qui ne déroge point, ni à ce qui est dû d'estime à votre aimable caractère, ni à ce qui est dû d'éloge à la multitude, à la variété, à la gentillesse de vos ouvrages."[162]
No sooner was Marivaux a member of the French Academy than epigrams, such as this, began to be showered upon him: "Il eût été mieux placé à l'Académie des Sciences, comme inventeur d'un idiome nouveau, qu'à l'Académie Française, dont assurément il ne connaissait pas la langue."[163]
From the time of his admission to the French Academy until his death he wrote little of value. A Lettre à une dame sur la perte d'un perroquet, in verse, may serve to represent the decline of his genius. His popularity waned and was eclipsed by that of the vigorous writers and philosophical thinkers that followed him. His graceful sketches were soon to be forgotten in those terrible scenes that closed the century, which the most morbid and foreboding mind could scarcely have foreseen or pictured in the lurid colourings that history has painted them. His closing years were embittered by a knowledge of his failing powers and a growing suspiciousness of those about him, and his increasing poverty would have made his sufferings more keen, had it not been for the generous devotion of a friend, Mlle. de Saint-Jean, with whom he lived for the last few years of his life, in her apartments, rue de Richelieu, and whose modest fortune he shared. He died on February 12,[164] "after a rather long illness,"[165] which he bore with fortitude, and "with all the tranquillity of a Christian philosopher"[166] saw the inevitable end approach. His death passed almost unnoticed by his contemporaries.
Although at the time of his death he was seventy-five years of age, as Collé records in his journal, "he did not seem to be fifty-eight."[167] He had that gift, which none but his own light-hearted time has known, of warding off, if not old age itself, at least the appearance of it. And from that first half of the eighteenth century, that period of perennial youth, have come down to us those ever fresh and rose-hued creations, which are our charm to-day, recalling, as they do, a society long past, a brilliancy of wit, of conversation well-nigh forgotten, a gayety, a thoughtlessness, which we of the money-loving, practical, and scientific twentieth century may long for, but not know.
CHRONOLOGY OF THE WORKS OF MARIVAUX.
(Taken from the third appendix of Larroumet's "Marivaux", edition of 1882, pp. 592-596.)
[Note: T.I. indicates the Théâtre-Italien and T.F. the Théâtre-
Français.]
1706. Le Père prudent et équitable, ou Crispin l'heureux fourbe,
comedy in one act, in verse, printed in 1712.
1712. Pharsamon, ou les Folies romanesques, novel in ten parts,
printed in 1737.
1713-1714. Les Aventures de…, ou les Effets surprenants de la sympathie, novel in five volumes. La Voiture embourbée, novel in one volume.
1715. Le Triomphe du Bilboquet, ou la Défaite de l'Esprit, de l'Amour
et de la Raison.
1717. L'Iliade travestie, in twelve books and in verse,
Le Télémaque travesti, in three books, printed in 1736.
1717-1718. Five Lettres contenant une aventure, four Lettres à madame…, contenant des réflexions sur la populace, les bourgeois et les marchands, les hommes et les femmes de qualité,—et les beaux esprits, in le Mercure for August, September and October, 1717, March and June, 1718.
1717. Portrait de Climène, ode anacréontique in le Mercure for
September,
Lettre écrite à l'auteur du Mercure (October), to object to the
agnomen of Théophraste moderne.
1719. Pensées sur divers sujets: sur la clarté du discours, sur la pensée sublime, in le Mercure for March.
1720. March 4. L'Amour et la Vérité, comedy in three acts, in collaboration with the Chevalier de Saint-Jory. T.I. Prologue inserted in le Mercure for March. October 19. Annibal, tragedy in five acts and in verse, T.F. Four representations, one of which at the court. October 20. Arlequin poli par l'Amour, comedy in one act. T.I. Twelve representations.
1722. May 3. The first Surprise de l'Amour, comedy in three acts. T.I. Sixteen representations. Compliment, in prose and verse, to Mlle. Sylvia. Réflexions sur le Romulus de la Motte, pamphlet.
1722-1723. Le Spectateur français, journal in twenty-five leaflets.
1723. April 6. La Double Inconstance, comedy in three acts. T.I. Number of representations unknown: break in the registers of the theatre, from March to June.
1724. February 5. Le Prince travesti, comedy in three acts. T.I.
Sixteen representations.
July 8. La Fausse Suivante, comedy in three acts. T.I. Thirteen
representations.
December 2. Le Dénouement imprévu, comedy in one act. T.F. Six
representations.
1725. March 5. L'Ile des Esclaves, comedy in one act. T.I. Twenty-one
representations.
August 19. L'Héritier de Village, comedy in one act. T.I. Six
representations.
1727. September 11. Les Petits Hommes, ou l'Ile de la Raison, comedy
in three acts. T.F. Four representations. Received August 3.
December 31. The second Surprise de l'Amour, comedy in three
acts. T.F. Fourteen representations. Received January 30.
1728. April 22. Le Triomphe de Plutus, comedy in one act. T.I. Twelve
representations.
L'Indigent philosophe ou l'Homme sans souci, journal in seven
leaflets.
1729. April 18. La Nouvelle Colonie, ou la Ligue des Femmes, comedy
in three acts. T.I. Number of representations unknown. Reduced
later to one act, to be played in the théâtres de société;
published in this form in le Mercure for December, 1750.
1730. January 23. Le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard, comedy in three
acts. T.I. Fourteen representations.
1731-1741. La Vie de Marianne, ou les Aventures de Madame la comtesse
de…, novel in eleven parts.
1731. November 5. La Réunion des Amours, comedy in one act, T.F. Nine
representations. Received October 4.
1732. May 12. Le Triomphe de l'Amour, comedy in three acts. T.I. Number of representations unknown. June 8. Les Serments indiscrets, comedy in five acts. T.F. Nine representations. Received March 9, 1731. July 26. L'Ecole des Mères, comedy in one act. T.I. Fourteen representations.
1733. June 6. L'Heureux Stratagème, comedy in three acts. T.I.
Eighteen representations.
1734. Le Cabinet du Philosophe, journal in eleven leaflets.
August 6. La Méprise, comedy in one act. T.I. Three
representations.
November 6. Le Petit-Maître corrigé, comedy in three acts. T.F.
Two representations. Received September 21.
1735. May 9. La Mère confidente, comedy in three acts, T.I. Seventeen representations.
1735. Le Paysan parvenu, novel in five parts.
1736. January 11. Le Legs, comedy in one act. T.F. Seven
representations. Received April 20, 1735.
1737. March 16. Les Fausses Confidences, comedy in three acts. T.I.
Number of representations unknown.
1738. July 7. La Joie imprévue, comedy in one act. T.I. Number of
representations unknown.
1739. January 13. Les Sincères, comedy in one act. T.I. Number of
representations unknown.
1740. November 19. L'Épreuve, comedy in one act. T.I. Twenty
representations.
1743. February 4. Discours de réception to the French Academy.
1744. August 24. Réflexions sur les progrès de l'esprit humain, read
before the French Academy; inserted in le Mercure for June,
1755, under the title of Réflexions sur Thucydide.
October 19. La Dispute, comedy in one act. T.F. One
representation.
December 29. Réflexions sur les différentes sortes de gloire,
read before the French Academy; printed in le Mercure for March,
1751, under the title of Réflexions sur les hommes.
1746. August 6. Le Préjugé vaincu, comedy in one act. T.F. Seven
representations.
1748. April 4. Réflexions sur l'esprit humain, in the form of a
letter read before the French Academy.
1749. August 24. Réflexions sur Corneille et sur Racine, read before the French Academy; inserted in le Mercure for April, 1755, under the title of Réflexions sur l'esprit humain à l'occasion de Corneille et de Racine. September 24. Continuation of the same reading.
1750. August 25. Continuation of the same reading. December 27. Compliment addressed in the name of the French Academy to the Chancellor de Lamoignon; inserted in le Mercure for March, 1751.
1751. January 8. Compliment addressed in the name of the French Academy to the garde des sceaux. August 24. Réflexions sur les Romains et sur les anciens Perses, read before the French Academy; inserted in le Mercure for October, 1751.
1754. L'Éducation d'un prince, dialogue, in le Mercure, first volume for December.
1757. Les Acteurs de bonne foi, comedy in one act, published in le Conservateur for November, 1757. March 5. Reading and reception at the Comédie-Française of Félicie, comedy in one act, not played; published in le Mercure for March, 1757. Date unknown. Lettre à une dame sur la perte d'un perroquet (in verse).
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.
[Footnote: The first biographical and literary study upon Marivaux is that of the Abbé de la Porte, published four years before the former's death in the Observateur littéraire of 1759, vol. 1, p. 73, etc., reprinted with additional details in the edition of the Oeuvres diverses de Marivaux, published in 1765 by Duchesne, and again in the edition of the Oeuvres complètes, published in 1781 by the widow Duchesne. It is to this last- named text that I refer in the introduction. This essay by De la Porte is quite fair and trustworthy. It is particularly interesting as being the first. It is followed by an Éloge, or, rather, a contemptuous sketch, for it is anything but a eulogy, published by Palissot (and de Sivry) in the Nécrologe des hommes célèbres of 1764. In 1769 Lesbros de la Versane published l'Esprit de Marivaux ou Analectes de ses ouvrages, preceded by an Éloge historique de cet auteur, "a panegyric without reservation upon the man and the writer." It is to a reprint of this Éloge, published by Gogué et Née de la Rochelle, Paris, 1782, that I make my references. These are the sources from which d'Alembert drew most of the matter for his Éloge, which is characterized by a kindly criticism, that, though sometimes too severe, does not offend. These four are the principal early sources from which Marivaux's biographers have drawn, and, if we add Desfontaines' Dictionnaire néologique, published in 1726 (and several times reprinted), Grimm's Correspondance littéraire (1753-1790), Collé's Journal et mémoires (1748-1772), Marmontel's Mémoires, published in 1804, those of the President Henault, published by the Baron de Vigan, Paris, 1854, those of the Abbé de Trublet, published in Amsterdam, 1759, and La Harpe's Cours de littérature ancienne et moderne (see edition by Buchon, Paris, 1825-1826), we shall have almost covered the ground of early sources. Much of the first part of this note is taken from Larroumet's Marivaux, p. 14, note 2.]
COLLECTIVE EDITIONS.
MARIVAUX: Les Comédies de Monsieur de Marivaux, jouées sur le Théâtre de l'Hôtel de Bourgogne, par les Comédiens Italiens ordinaires du Roy. Paris, Briasson, 2 vol. in-12, 1732.
MARIVAUX: Oeuvres de théâtre de M. de Marivaux. A Paris, chez Prault père, 4 vol. in-12, 1740.
MARIVAUX: Oeuvres de théâtre de M. de Marivaux, de l'Académie françoise. Nouvelle édition. A Paris, chez N.B. Duchesne, rue S. Jacques, au-dessous de la Fontaine S. Benoît, au Temple du Goût; 5 vol. in-12, avec portrait gravé par Chenu d'après Garand, 1758.
MARIVAUX: Oeuvres complètes. Paris, chez Gogué et Née de la Rochelle,
12 vol. in-8, 1781-1782.
MARIVAUX: Oeuvres complètes de Marivaux de l'Académie Française
(Duviquet). Paris, Haut-Coeur et Gayet jeune, P.J. Gayet et
Dauthereau, 10 vol. in-8, 1825-1830.
WORKS CONSULTED OR REFERRED TO IN THE INTRODUCTION.
BIBLIOTHÈQUE FRANÇAISE, ou Histoire littéraire de la France. Tome XXII,
dernière partie. Amsterdam, H. du Sauzet, 1736.
FERDINAND BRUNETIÈRE: Nouvelles critiques sur l'histoire de la
littérature française. Paris, Hachette et Cie., 1882.
CHARLES COLLÉ: Journal et mémoires sur les hommes de lettres, les ouvrages
dramatiques et les événements les plus mémorables du règne de Louis
XV (1748-1772), (édition Honoré Bonhomme). Tome II. Paris,
Firmin-Didot Frères, Fils et Cie., 1868.
D'ALEMBERT (Jean Le Rond, dit): Éloge de Marivaux. Contained in his
Oeuvres philosophiques, historiques et littéraires. Tome X. Paris,
Jean-François Bastien, An XIII (1805).
GASTON DESCHAMPS: Marivaux (in les Grands écrivains de la France).
Paris, Hachette et Cie., 1897.
L'ABBÉ PIERRE-FRANÇOIS GUYOT DESFONTAINES: Dictionnaire néologique à l'usage des beaux esprits du siècle. Amsterdam, Michel-Charles le Cène, 1731.
JEAN FLEURY: Marivaux et le marivaudage. Paris, E. Pion et Cie., 1881.
LÉON FONTAINE: Le Théâtre et la philosophie au XVIIIe siècle. Versailles,
Cerf et Fils, 1879.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTANELLE: Éloge de Mme. de Lambert. Contained in
his Oeuvres. Tome VII. Paris, J.F. Bastien et J. Servière, 1792.
EDOUARD FOURNIER: Étude sur la vie et les oeuvres de l'auteur. Preceding
the Théâtre complet de Marivaux. Laplace et Sanchez, 1878.
EMILE GOSSOT: Marivaux moraliste. Paris, Didier et Cie., 1881.
FRÉDÉRIC-MELCHIOR GRIMM ET DENIS DIDEROT: Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique … depuis 1753 jusqu'en 1790. Tomes I (1753-1756), III (1761-1764), and IV (1764-1765). Paris, Furne et Ladrange, 1829.
LE PRÉSIDENT CHARLES-J.-F. HÉNAULT: Mémoires (édition Le Baron de
Vigan). Paris, 1854.
ARSÈNE HOUSSAYE: Galerie du XVIIIe siècle. Première série. Paris, Hachette
et Cie., 1858.
JEAN-FRANÇOIS DE LA HARPE: Cours de littérature ancienne et moderne.
Tomes XIII, XIV, XVI. Paris, P. Dupont et Ledentu, 1825.
L'ABBÉ JOSEPH DE LA PORTE: Essai sur la vie et sur les ouvrages de M. de Marivaux. Contained in the Oeuvres complètes de M. de Marivaux. Tome I. Paris, la Veuve Duchesne, 1781. [References in the introduction are to this edition of De la Porte, unless otherwise stated.]
L'ABBÉ JOSEPH DE LA PORTE: Lettre IV, concerning the Nouvelle édition du Théâtre de M. de Marivaux. In the Observateur littéraire for 1759. Tome I. Amsterdam, 1759.
GUSTAVE LARROUMET: Marivaux, sa vie et ses oeuvres d'après de nouveaux documents. Paris, Hachette et Cie. The editions of 1882 and 1894. [References in the introduction are to the former, unless otherwise stated.]
LESBROS DE LA VERSANE: Éloge historique. In the Esprit de Marivaux.
Paris, Gogué et Née de la Rochelle, 1782.
RENÉ LAVOLLÉE: Marivaux inconnu (extrait de la Revue de France). Paris,
Imprimerie de la société anonyme de publication, périodiques, 1880.
JULES LEMAÎTRE: Impressions de théâtre. Deuxième et quatrième séries.
Paris, H. Lecène et H. Oudin, 1888 and 1890.
CHARLES LENIENT: La Comédie en France au XVIIIe siècle. Tome I. Paris,
Hachette et Cie., 1888.
M. DE LESCURE: Éloge de Marivaux. In the Théâtre choisi de Marivaux.
Paris, Firmin-Didot et Cie., 1894.
HENRI LION: La comédie "métaphysique" de Marivaux. In the Histoire de
la langue et de la littérature française, under the direction of
Petit de Julleville. Tome VI. Paris, Armand Colin et Cie., 1900.
JEAN-FRANÇOIS MARMONTEL: Mémoires (édition Maurice Tourneux). Tomes I
and II. Paris, Librairie des Bibliophiles, 1891.
CHARLES PALISSOT: Éloge de Marivaux. In le Nécrologe des hommes célèbres
de France, par une société de gens de lettres. Paris, Moreau, 1767.
PAUL-E.-A. POULET-MALASSIS: Théâtre de Marivaux. Bibliographie des
éditions originales et des éditions collectives données par l'auteur.
Paris, P. Rouquette, 1876.
WILHELM PRINTZEN: Marivaux, sein Leben, seine Werke und seine
litterarische Bedeutung. Münster, 1885.
CHARLES-AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE: Causeries du lundi. Tome IX. Paris,
Garnier Frères, 1854.
FRANCISQUE SARCEY: Quarante ans de théâtre. Tome II. Bibliothèque des
annales politiques et littéraires, Paris, 1900.
FRANCISQUE SARCEY: Preface to vol. 1 of the Théâtre choisi de Marivaux.
Paris, Librairie des Bibliophiles, E. Flammarion successeur. 1892.
L'ABBÉ NICOLAS-CHARLES-JOSEPH DE TRUBLET: Mémoires. Amsterdam, 1739.
* * * * *
LE JEU DE L'AMOUR ET DU HASARD
COMÉDIE EN TROIS ACTES
Représentée pour la première fois par les Comédiens Italiens ordinaires du Roi, le 23 janvier 1730.
ACTEURS.
M. ORGON.
MARIO.
SILVIA.[1]
DORANTE.
LISETTE, femme de chambre de Silvia.
ARLEQUIN,[2] valet de Dorante.
UN LAQUAIS.
* * * * *
La scène est à Paris.
ACTE I
SCÈNE PREMIÈRE.
SILVIA, LISETTE.
SILVIA.
Mais, encore une fois, de quoi vous mêlez-vous? Pourquoi répondre de mes sentiments?
LISETTE.
C'est que j'ai cru que, dans cette occasion-ci, vos sentiments ressembleroient à ceux de tout le monde. Monsieur votre père me demande si vous êtes bien aise qu'il vous marie, si vous en avez quelque joie. Moi, je lui réponds qu'oui[3]; cela va tout de suite;[4] et il n'y a peut-être que vous de fille[5] au monde pour qui ce oui-là ne soit pas vrai. Le non n'est pas naturel.
SILVIA.
Le non n'est pas naturel? Quelle sotte naïveté! Le mariage auroit donc de grands charmes pour vous?
LISETTE.
Eh bien! c'est encore oui, par exemple.
SILVIA.
Taisez-vous; allez répondre vos impertinences ailleurs,[6] et sachez que ce n'est pas à vous à juger[7] de mon coeur par le vôtre.
LISETTE.
Mon coeur est fait comme celui de tout le monde. De quoi le vôtre s'avise- t-il de n'être fait comme celui de personne?
SILVIA.
Je vous dis que, si elle osoit, elle m'appellerait une originale.[8]
LISETTE.
Si j'étois votre égale, nous verrions.
SILVIA.
Vous travaillez à me fâcher. Lisette.
LISETTE.
Ce n'est pas mon dessein. Mais, dans le fond, voyons, quel mal ai-je fait de dire à monsieur Orgon que vous étiez bien aise d'être mariée?
SILVIA.
Premièrement, c'est que tu n'as pas dit vrai: je ne m'ennuie pas d'être fille.
LISETTE.
Cela est encore tout neuf.[9]
SILVIA.
C'est qu'il n'est pas nécessaire que mon père croie me faire tant de plaisir en me mariant, parce que cela le fait agir avec une confiance qui ne servira peut-être de rien.
LISETTE.
Quoi! vous n'épouserez pas celui qu'il vous destine?
SILVIA.
Que sais-je? Peut-être ne me conviendra-t-il point, et cela m'inquiète.
LISETTE.
On dit que votre futur est un des plus honnêtes hommes du monde; qu'il est bien fait, aimable,[10] de bonne mine; qu'on ne peut pas avoir plus d'esprit; qu'on ne sauroit être d'un meilleur caractère. Que voulez-vous de plus? Peut-on se figurer de mariage plus doux, d'union[11] plus délicieuse?[12]
SILVIA.
Délicieuse? Que tu es folle, avec tes expressions!
LISETTE.
Ma foi! Madame, c'est qu'il est heureux qu'un amant de cette espèce-là veuille se marier dans les formes;[13] il n'y a presque point de fille, s'il lui faisoit la cour, qui ne fût en danger de l'épouser sans cérémonie. Aimable, bien fait, voilà de quoi vivre[14] pour l'amour; sociable et spirituel, voilà pour l'entretien de la société. Pardi![15] tout en sera bon[16] dans cet homme-là; l'utile et l'agréable, tout s'y trouve.[17]
SILVIA.
Oui, dans le portrait que tu en fais, et on dit qu'il y ressemble; mais c'est un on dit, et je pourrais bien n'être pas de ce sentiment-là, moi. Il est bel homme, dit-on, et c'est presque tant pis.
LISETTE.
Tant pis! tant pis! mais voilà une pensée bien hétéroclite![18]
SILVIA.
C'est une pensée de très bon sens.[19] Volontiers un bel homme est fat; je l'ai remarqué.
LISETTE.
Oh! il a tort d'être fat, mais il a raison d'être beau.
SILVIA.
On ajoute qu'il est bien fait; passe.[20]
LISETTE.
Oui-da,[21] cela est pardonnable.
SILVIA.
De beauté[22] et de bonne mine, je l'en dispense; ce sont là des agréments superflus.
LISETTE.
Vertuchoux![23] si je me marie jamais, ce superflu-là sera mon nécessaire.[24]
SILVIA.
Tu ne sais ce que tu dis. Dans le mariage, on a plus souvent affaire à l'homme raisonnable qu'à l'aimable homme: en un mot, je ne lui demande qu'un bon caractère, et cela est plus difficile à trouver qu'on ne pense. On loue beaucoup le sien; mais qui est-ce qui a vécu avec lui? Les hommes ne se contrefont-ils[25] pas, surtout quand ils ont de l'esprit? N'en ai- je pas vu, moi, qui paroissoient, avec leurs amis, les meilleures gens du monde? C'est la douceur, la raison, l'enjouement même; il n'y a pas jusqu'à leur physionomie qui ne soit garante de toutes les bonnes qualités qu'on leur trouve. Monsieur un tel a l'air d'un galant homme, d'un homme bien raisonnable, disoit-on tous les jours d'Ergaste. Aussi l'est-il[26] répondoit-on; je l'ai répondu moi-même. Sa physionomie ne vous ment pas d'un mot.[27] Oui, fiez-vous y à cette physionomie si douce, si prévenante, qui disparoit un quart d'heure après, pour faire place à un visage sombre, brutal, farouche, qui devient l'effroi de toute une maison. Ergaste s'est marié; sa femme, ses enfants, son domestique, ne lui connoissent encore que ce visage-là, pendant qu'il promène partout ailleurs cette physionomie si aimable que nous lui voyons, et qui n'est qu'un masque qu'il prend au sortir de chez lui.
LISETTE.
Quel fantasque avec ses deux visages!
SILVIA.
N'est-on pas content de Léandre, quand on le voit? Eh bien! chez lui, c'est un homme qui ne dit mot, qui ne rit ni qui ne gronde:[28] c'est une âme[29] glacée, solitaire, inaccessible. Sa femme ne la connoît point, n'a point de commerce avec elle; elle n'est mariée qu'avec une figure qui sort d'un cabinet, qui vient à table, et qui fait expirer de langueur, de froid et d'ennui tout ce qui l'environne. N'est-ce pas là un mari bien amusant?
LISETTE.
Je gèle au récit que vous m'en faites. Mais Tersandre, par exemple?
SILVIA.
Oui, Tersandre! il venoit l'autre jour de s'emporter contre sa femme. J'arrive, on m'annonce: je vois un homme qui vient à moi les bras ouverts, d'un air serein, dégagé; vous auriez dit qu'il sortait de la conversation la plus badine; sa bouche et ses yeux rioient encore. Le fourbe! Voilà ce que c'est que les hommes. Qui est-ce qui croit que sa femme est à plaindre avec lui? Je la trouvai toute abattue, le teint plombé, avec des yeux qui venoient de pleurer; je la trouvai comme je serai peut-être: voilà mon portrait à venir; je vais du moins risquer d'en être une copie. Elle me fit pitié, Lisette; si j'allois te faire pitié aussi? Cela est terrible! qu'en dis-tu? Songe à ce que c'est qu'un mari.
LISETTE.
Un mari? c'est un mari. Vous ne deviez pas finir par ce mot-là; il me raccommode avec tout le reste.[30]
SCÈNE II.
M, ORGON, SILVIA, LISETTE.
M. ORGON.
Eh! bonjour, ma fille. La nouvelle que je viens t'annoncer te fera-t-elle plaisir? Ton prétendu arrive aujourd'hui; son père me l'apprend par cette lettre-ci. Tu ne me réponds rien; tu me parois triste. Lisette de son côté baisse les yeux. Qu'est-ce que cela signifie? Parle donc, toi; de quoi s'agit-il?
LISETTE.
Monsieur, un visage qui fait trembler, un autre qui fait mourir de froid, une âme gelée qui se tient à l'écart; et puis le portrait d'une femme qui a le visage abattu, un teint plombé, des yeux bouffis et qui viennent de pleurer; voilà, Monsieur, tout ce que nous considérons avec tant de recueillement.
M. ORGON.
Que veut dire ce galimatias? Une âme, un portrait! Explique-toi donc: je n'y entends rien.
SILVIA.
C'est que j'entretenois Lisette du malheur d'une femme maltraitée par son mari; je lui citois celle de Tersandre, que je trouvai l'autre jour fort abattue, parce que son mari venoit de la quereller; et je faisois là- dessus mes réflexions.
LISETTE.
Oui, nous parlions d'une physionomie qui va et qui vient; nous disions qu'un mari porte un masque avec le monde, et une grimace[31] avec sa femme.
M. ORGON.
De tout cela,[32] ma fille, je comprends que le mariage t'alarme, d'autant plus que tu ne connois point Dorante.
LISETTE.
Premièrement, il est beau; et c'est presque tant pis.
M. ORGON.
Tant pis! Rêves-tu, avec ton tant pis?
LISETTE.
Moi, je dis ce qu'on m'apprend: c'est la doctrine de Madame; j'étudie sous elle.
M. ORGON.
Allons, allons, il n'est pas question de tout cela. Tiens, ma chère enfant, tu sais combien je t'aime. Dorante vient pour t'épouser. Dans le dernier voyage que je fis en province, j'arrêtai ce mariage-là avec son père, qui est mon intime et mon ancien ami; mais ce fut à condition que[33] vous vous plairiez à tous deux et que vous auriez entière liberté de vous expliquer là-dessus. Je te défends toute complaisance à mon égard. Si Dorante ne te convient point, tu n'as qu'à le dire, et il repart; si tu ne lui convenois pas, il repart de même,
LISETTE.
Un duo de tendresse en décidera, comme à l'Opéra: «Vous me voulez, je vous veux; vite un notaire[34]!» ou bien: «M'aimez-vous? non; ni moi non plus, vite à cheval!»
M. ORGON.
Pour moi, je n'ai jamais vu Dorante: il étoit absent quand j'étois chez son père; mais, sur tout le bien[35] qu'on m'en a dit, je ne saurois craindre que vous vous remerciiez[36] ni l'un ni l'autre.
SILVIA.
Je suis pénétrée de vos bontés, mon père. Vous me défendez toute complaisance, et je vous obéirai.
M. ORGON.
Je te l'ordonne.
SILVIA.
Mais, si j'osois, je vous proposerois, sur une idée qui me vient, de m'accorder une grâce qui me tranquilliseroit tout à fait.
M. ORGON.
Parle … Si la chose est faisable, je te l'accorde.
SILVIA.
Elle est très faisable; mais je crains que ce ne soit abuser de vos bontés.
M. ORGON.
Eh bien! abuse. Va, dans ce monde, il faut être un peu trop bon pour l'être assez.
LISETTE.
Il n'y a que le meilleur de tous les hommes qui puisse dire cela.
M. ORGON.
Explique-toi, ma fille.
SILVIA.
Dorante arrive ici aujourd'hui…. Si je pouvois le voir, l'examiner un peu sans qu'il me connût! Lisette a de l'esprit, Monsieur; elle pourroit prendre ma place pour un peu de temps, et je prendrois la sienne.
M. ORGON, à part.
Son idée est plaisante.[37] (Haut.) Laisse-moi rêver un peu à ce que tu me dis là. (A part.) Si je la laisse faire, il doit arriver quelque chose de bien singulier. Elle ne s'y attend pas elle-même…. (Haut.) Soit, ma fille, je te permets le déguisement. Es-tu bien sûre de soutenir le tien, Lisette?
LISETTE.
Moi, Monsieur? Vous savez qui je suis; essayez de m'en conter,[38] et manquez de respect, si vous l'osez, à cette contenance-ci. Voilà un échantillon des bons airs[39] avec lesquels je vous attends. Qu'en dites- vous? Hem? retrouvez-vous Lisette?
M. ORGON.
Comment donc! je m'y trompe actuellement moi-même. Mais il n'y a point de temps à perdre: va t'ajuster suivant ton rôle. Dorante peut nous surprendre. Hâtez-vous, et qu'on donne le mot à toute la maison.
SILVIA.
Il ne me faut presque qu'un tablier.[40]
LISETTE.
Et moi, je vais à ma toilette. Venez m'y coiffer, Lisette, pour vous accoutumer à vos fonctions…. Un peu d'attention à votre service, s'il vous plaît.
SILVIA.
Vous serez contente, marquise. Marchons!
SCÈNE III.
MARIO, M. ORGON, SILVIA.
MARIO.
Ma soeur, je te félicite de la nouvelle que j'apprends…. Nous allons voir ton amant, dit-on.
SILVIA.
Oui, mon frère, mais je n'ai pas le temps de m'arrêter: j'ai des affaires sérieuses, et mon père vous les dira. Je vous quitte.
SCÈNE IV.
M. ORGON, MARIO.
M. ORGON.
Ne l'amusez pas,[41] Mario; venez, vous saurez de quoi il s'agit.
MARIO.
Qu'y a-t-il de nouveau, Monsieur?
M. ORGON.
Je commence par vous recommander d'être discret sur ce que je vais vous dire, au moins.
MARIO.
Je suivrai vos ordres.
M. ORGON.
Nous verrons Dorante aujourd'hui; mais nous ne le verrons que déguisé.
MARIO.
Déguisé! Viendra-t-il en partie de masque?[42] lui donnerez-vous le bal?
M. ORGON.
Écoutez l'article[43] de la lettre du père. Hum!… _Je ne sais, au reste, ce que vous penserez d'une imagination[44] qui est venue à mon fils: elle est bizarre, il en convient lui-même; mais le motif est pardonnable et même délicat: c'est qu'il m'a prié de lui permettre de n'arriver d'abord chez vous que sous la figure[45] de son valet, qui, de son côté, fera le personnage de son maître.
MARIO.
Ah! ah! cela sera plaisant.[46]
M. ORGON.
Écoutez le reste: Mon fils sait combien l'engagement qu'il va prendre est sérieux, et il espère, dit-il, sous ce déguisement de peu de durée, saisir quelques traits du caractère de notre future[47] et la mieux connaître, pour se régler ensuite sur ce qu'il doit faire, suivant la liberté que nous sommes convenus de leur laisser. Pour moi, qui m'en fie bien à ce que vous m'avez dit de votre aimable fille, j'ai consenti à tout, en prenant la précaution de vous avertir, quoiqu'il m'ait demandé le secret de votre côté. Vous en userez là-dessus avec la future comme vous le jugerez à propos…. Voilà ce que le père m'écrit. Ce n'est pas le tout;[48] voici ce qui arrive: c'est que votre soeur, inquiète de son côté sur le chapitre[49] de Dorante, dont elle ignore le secret, m'a demandé de jouer ici la même comédie, et cela, précisément pour observer Dorante, comme Dorante veut l'observer. Qu'en dites-vous? Savez-vous rien de plus particulier que cela? Actuellement la maîtresse et la suivante se travestissent. Que me conseillez-vous, Mario? Avertirai-je votre soeur, ou non?
MARIO.
Ma foi, Monsieur, puisque les choses prennent ce train-là, je ne voudrois pas les déranger, et je respecterois l'idée qui leur est inspirée[50] à l'un et à l'autre. Il faudra bien qu'ils se parlent souvent tous deux sous ce déguisement. Voyons si leur coeur ne les avertiroit[51] pas de ce qu'ils valent. Peut-être que Dorante prendra du goût pour ma soeur, toute soubrette qu'elle sera, et cela seroit charmant pour elle.
M. ORGON.
Nous verrons un peu comment elle se tirera d'intrigue.[52]
MARIO.
C'est une aventure qui ne sauroit manquer de nous divertir. Je veux me trouver au début et les agacer[53] tous deux.
SCÈNE V.
SILVIA, M. ORGON, MARIO.
SILVIA.
Me voilà, Monsieur: ai-je mauvaise grâce en femme de chambre? Et vous, mon frère, vous savez de quoi il s'agit, apparemment… Comment me trouvez- vous?
MARIO.
Ma foi, ma soeur, c'est autant de pris que le valet;[54] mais tu pourrois bien aussi escamoter Dorante à ta maîtresse.
SILVIA.
Franchement, je ne haïrois pas de lui plaire sous le personnage que je joue; je ne serois pas fâchée de subjuguer sa raison, de l'étourdir[55] un peu sur la distance qu'il y aura de lui à moi. Si mes charmes font ce coup-là, ils me feront plaisir; je les estimerai. D'ailleurs, cela m'aiderait à déméler Dorante. A l'égard de son valet, je ne crains pas ses soupirs; ils n'oseront m'aborder; il y aura quelque chose dans ma physionomie qui inspirera plus de respect que d'amour à ce faquin-là.
MARIO.
Allons, doucement, ma soeur: ce faquin-là sera votre égal…
M. ORGON.
Et ne manquera pas de t'aimer.
SILVIA.
Eh bien! l'honneur de lui plaire ne me sera pas inutile. Les valets sont naturellement indiscrets; l'amour est babillard, et j'en ferai l'historien de son maître.
UN VALET.
Monsieur, il vient d'arriver un domestique qui demande à vous parler; il est suivi d'un crocheteur[56] qui porte une valise.
M. ORGON.
Qu'il entre: c'est sans doute le valet de Dorante. Son maître peut être resté au bureau pour affaires. Où est Lisette?
SILVIA.
Lisette s'habille, et dans son miroir[57] nous trouve très imprudents de lui livrer Dorante; elle aura bientôt fait.
M. ORGON.
Doucement! on vient.
SCENE VI.
DORANTE en valet, M. ORGON, SILVIA, MARIO.
DORANTE.
Je cherche M. Orgon: n'est-ce pas à lui que j'ai l'honneur de faire la révérence?
M. ORGON.
Oui, mon ami, c'est à lui-même.
DORANTE.
Monsieur, vous avez sans doute reçu de nos nouvelles; j'appartiens à monsieur Dorante, qui me suit, et qui m'envoie toujours[58] devant, vous assurer de ses respects, en attendant qu'il vous en assure lui-même.
M. ORGON.
Tu fais ta commission de fort bonne grâce. Lisette, que dis-tu de ce garçon-là?
SILVIA.
Moi, Monsieur, je dis qu'il est bien venu,[59] et qu'il promet.
DORANTE.
Vous avez bien de la bonté; je fais du mieux qu'il m'est possible.
MARIO.
Il n'est pas mal tourné, au moins: ton coeur n'a qu'à se bien tenir,[60]
Lisette.
SILVIA.
Mon coeur! c'est bien des affaires.[61]
DORANTE.
Ne vous fâchez pas, Mademoiselle; ce que dit Monsieur ne m'en fait point accroire.[62]
SILVIA.
Cette modestie-là me plaît; continuez de même.
MARIO.
Fort bien! Mais il me semble que ce nom de Mademoiselle qu'il te donne est bien sérieux.[63] Entre gens comme vous, le style des compliments ne doit pas être si grave; vous seriez toujours sur le qui-vive:[64] allons, traitez-vous plus commodément.[65] Tu as nom[66] Lisette; et toi, mon garçon, comment t'appelles-tu?
DORANTE.
Bourguignon, Monsieur, pour vous servir.
SILVIA.
Eh bien! Bourguignon, soit.
DORANTE.
Va donc pour Lisette;[67] je n'en serai pas moins votre serviteur.
MARIO.
Votre serviteur! Ce n'est point encore là votre jargon: c'est «ton serviteur» qu'il faut dire.
M. ORGON.
Ah! ah! ah! ah!
SILVIA, bas à Mario.
Vous me jouez, mon frère.
DORANTE.
A l'égard du tutoiement, j'attends les ordres de Lisette.
SILVIA.
Fais comme tu voudras, Bourguignon; voilà la glace rompue, puisque cela divertit ces messieurs.
DORANTE.
Je t'en remercie, Lisette; et je réponds sur le champ à l'honneur que tu me fais.
M. ORGON.
Courage, mes enfants! Si vous commencez à vous aimer vous voilà débarrassés des cérémonies.
MARIO.
Oh! doucement! S'aimer, c'est une autre affaire: vous ne savez peut-être pas que j'en veux au coeur de Lisette,[68] moi qui vous parle. 11 est vrai qu'il m'est cruel; mais je ne veux pas que Bourguignon aille sur mes brisées.[69]
SILVIA.
Oui! le prenez-vous sur ce ton-là? Et moi, je veux que Bourguignon m'aime.
DORANTE.
Tu te fais tort de dire «je veux,» belle Lisette; tu n'as pas besoin d'ordonner pour être servie.
MARIO.
Monsieur Bourguignon, vous avez pillé cette galanterie-là quelque part.
DORANTE.
Vous avez raison, Monsieur, c'est dans ses yeux que je l'ai prise.
MARIO.
Tais-toi, c'est encore pis: je te défends d'avoir tant d'esprit.
SILVIA.
Il ne l'a pas à vos dépens, et, s'il en trouve dans mes yeux, il n'a qu'à prendre.
M. ORGON.
Mon fils, vous perdrez votre procès;[70] retirons-nous. Dorante va venir, allons le dire à ma fille; et vous, Lisette, montrez à ce garçon l'appartement de son maître. Adieu, Bourguignon.
DORANTE.
Monsieur, vous me faites trop d'honneur.
SCÈNE VII.
SILVIA, DORANTE.
SILVIA, à part.
Ils se donnent la comédie;[71] n'importe, mettons tout à profit. Ce garçon-ci n'est pas sot, et je ne plains pas la soubrette qui l'aura.[72] II va m'en conter:[73] laissons-le dire, pourvu qu'il m'instruise.
DORANTE, à part.
Cette fille-ci m'étonne! Il n'y a point de femme au monde à qui sa physionomie ne fît honneur: lions connoissance avec elle…. (Haut.) Puisque nous sommes dans le style amical,[74] et que nous avons abjuré les façons, dis-moi, Lisette, ta maîtresse te vaut-elle? Elle est bien hardie d'oser avoir une femme de chambre comme toi!
SILVIA.
Bourguignon, cette question-là m'annonce que, suivant la coutume, tu arrives avec l'intention de me dire des douceurs: n'est-il pas vrai?
DORANTE.
Ma foi, je n'étois pas venu dans ce dessein-là, je te l'avoue; tout valet que je suis, je n'ai jamais eu de grande liaison avec les soubrettes: je n'aime pas l'esprit domestique; mais, à ton égard, c'est une autre affaire. Comment donc! tu me soumets; je suis presque timide; ma familiarité n'oseroit s'apprivoiser avec toi; j'ai toujours envie d'ôter mon chapeau[75] de dessus ma tête, et, quand je te tutoie, il me semble que je joue:[76] enfin j'ai un penchant à te traiter avec des respects qui te feroient rire. Quelle espèce de suivante es-tu donc, avec ton air de princesse?
SILVIA.
Tiens, tout ce que tu dis avoir senti en me voyant est précisément l'histoire de tous les valets qui m'ont vue.
DORANTE.
Ma foi, je ne serois pas surpris quand ce seroit aussi l'histoire de tous les maîtres.
SILVIA.
Le trait est joli, assurément; mais, je te le répète encore, je ne suis pas faite aux cajoleries de ceux dont la garde-robe ressemble à la tienne.
DORANTE.
C'est-à-dire que ma parure ne te plaît pas?
SILVIA.
Non, Bourguignon; laissons-la l'amour, et soyons bons amis.
DORANTE.
Rien que cela? Ton petit traité n'est composé que de deux clauses impossibles.
SILVIA, à part.
Quel homme pour un valet! (Haut.) Il faut pourtant qu'il s'exécute; on m'a prédit que je n'épouserai jamais qu'un homme de condition, et j'ai juré depuis de n'en écouter jamais d'autres.
DORANTE.
Parbleu! cela est plaisant![77] Ce que tu as juré pour homme, je l'ai juré pour femme, moi: j'ai fait serment de n'aimer sérieusement qu'une fille de condition.
SILVIA.
Ne t'écarte donc pas de ton projet.
DORANTE.
Je ne m'en écarte peut-être pas tant que nous le croyons: tu as l'air bien distingué, et l'on est quelquefois fille de condition sans le savoir.
SILVIA.
Ah! ha! ha! Je te remercierois de ton éloge si ma mère n'en faisoit pas les frais.
DORANTE.
Eh bien! venge-t-en sur la mienne, si tu me trouves assez bonne mine pour cela.
SILVIA, à part.
Il le mériteroit. (Haut.) Mais ce n'est pas là de quoi il est question: trêve de badinage. C'est un homme de condition qui m'est prédit pour époux, et je n'en rabattrai rien.
DORANTE.
Parbleu! si j'étois tel, la prédiction me menacerait; j'aurois peur de la vérifier. Je n'ai pas de foi à l'astrologie, mais j'en ai beaucoup à ton visage.
SILVIA, à part.
Il ne tarit point. (Haut.) Finiras-tu? Que t'importe la prédiction, puisqu'elle t'exclut?
DORANTE.
Elle n'a pas prédit que je ne t'aimerois point.
SILVIA.
Non, mais elle a dit que tu n'y gagnerois rien; et moi, je te le confirme.
DORANTE.
Tu fais fort bien, Lisette: cette fierté-là te va à merveille, et, quoiqu'elle me fasse mon procès,[78] je suis pourtant bien aise de te la voir; je te l'ai souhaitée d'abord que[79] je t'ai vue: il te falloit encore cette grâce-là, et je me console d'y perdre, parce que tu y gagnes.
SILVIA, à part.
Mais, en vérité, voilà un garçon qui me surprend, malgré que j'en aie…[80] (Haut.) Dis-moi, qui es-tu, toi qui me parles ainsi?
DORANTE.
Le fils d'honnêtes gens qui n'étoient pas riches.
SILVIA.
Va, je te souhaite de bon coeur une meilleure situation que la tienne, et je voudrois pouvoir y contribuer; la fortune a tort avec toi.[81]
DORANTE.
Ma foi! l'amour a plus de tort[82] qu'elle: j'aimerois mieux qu'il me fût permis de te demander ton coeur que d'avoir tous les biens du monde.
SILVIA, à part.
Nous voilà, grâce au Ciel, en conversation réglée. (Haut.) Bourguignon, je ne saurois me fâcher des discours que tu me tiens; mais, je t'en prie, changeons d'entretien. Venons à ton maître. Tu peux te passer de me parler d'amour, je pense?
DORANTE.
Tu pourrais bien te passer de m'en faire sentir, toi.
SILVIA.
Ahi! je me fâcherai; tu m'impatientes. Encore une fois, laisse là ton amour.
DORANTE.
Quitte donc ta figure.
SILVIA, à part.
A la fin, je crois qu'il m'amuse…[83] (Haut.) Eh bien! Bourguignon, tu ne veux donc pas finir? Faudra-t-il que je te quitte? (A part.) Je devrois déjà l'avoir fait.
DORANTE.
Attends, Lisette, je voulois moi-même te parler d'autre chose; mais je ne sais plus ce que c'est.
SILVIA.
J'avois de mon côté quelque chose à te dire, mais tu m'as fait perdre mes idées aussi, à moi.
DORANTE.
Je me rappelle de[84] t'avoir demandé si ta maîtresse te valoit.
SILVIA.
Tu reviens à ton chemin par un détour: adieu.
DORANTE.
Et non, te dis-je, Lisette; il ne s'agit ici que de mon maître.
SILVIA.
Eh bien! soit: je voulois te parler de lui aussi, et j'espère que tu voudras bien me dire confidemment[85] ce qu'il est. Ton attachement pour lui m'en donne bonne opinion: il faut qu'il ait du mérite, puisque tu le sers.
DORANTE.
Tu me permettras peut-être bien de te remercier de ce que tu me dis là, par exemple?
SILVIA.
Veux-tu bien ne prendre pas garde[86] à l'imprudence que j'ai eue de le dire?
DORANTE.
Voilà encore de ces réponses qui m'emportent! Fais comme tu voudras, je n'y résiste point, et je suis bien malheureux de me trouver arrêté par tout ce qu'il y a de plus aimable au monde.
SILVIA.
Et moi je voudrois bien savoir comment il se fait que j'ai la bonté de t'écouter, car, assurément, cela est singulier!
DORANTE.
Tu as raison, notre aventure est unique.
SILVIA, à part.
Malgré tout ce qu'il m'a dit, je ne suis point partie, je ne pars point, me voilà encore, et je réponds! En vérité, cela passe la raillerie. (Haut.) Adieu.
DORANTE.
Achevons donc ce que nous voulions dire.
SILVIA.
Adieu, te dis-je; plus de quartier. Quand ton maître sera venu, je tâcherai, en faveur de[87] ma maîtresse, de le connoître par moi-même, s'il en vaut la peine. En attendant, tu vois cet appartement: c'est le vôtre.
DORANTE.
Tiens! voici mon maître.
SCÈNE VIII.
DORANTE, SILVIA, ARLEQUIN.
ARLEQUIN.
Ah! te voilà, Bourguignon? Mon porte-manteau[88] et toi, avez-vous été bien reçus ici?
DORANTE.
Il n'étoit pas possible qu'on nous reçût mal, Monsieur.
ARLEQUIN.
Un domestique là-bas m'a dit d'entrer ici, et qu'on alloit avertir mon beau-père, qui étoit avec ma femme.
SILVIA.
Vous voulez dire monsieur Orgon et sa fille, sans doute, Monsieur?
ARLEQUIN.
Et oui, mon beau-père et ma femme, autant vaut.[89] Je viens pour épouser, et ils m'attendent pour être mariés; cela est convenu; il ne manque plus que la cérémonie, qui est une bagatelle.
SILVIA.
C'est une bagatelle qui vaut bien la peine qu'on y pense.
ARLEQUIN.
Oui; mais, quand on y a pensé, on n'y pense plus.
SILVIA, bas à Dorante.
Bourguignon, on est homme de mérite à bon marché chez vous, ce me semble.
ARLEQUIN.
Que dites-vous là à mon valet, la belle?[90]
SILVIA.
Rien: je lui dis seulement que je vais faire descendre[91] monsieur Orgon.
ARLEQUIN.
Et pourquoi ne pas dire mon beau-père, comme moi?
SILVIA.
C'est qu'il ne l'est pas encore.
DORANTE.
Elle a raison, Monsieur: le mariage n'est pas fait.
ARLEQUIN.
Eh bien! me voilà pour le faire.
DORANTE.
Attendez donc qu'il soit fait.
ARLEQUIN.
Pardi! voilà bien des façons pour un beau-père de la veille ou du lendemain![92]
SILVIA.
En effet, quelle si grande différence y a-t-il entre être mariée ou ne l'être pas? Oui, Monsieur, nous avons tort, et je cours informer votre beau-père de votre arrivée.
ARLEQUIN.
Et ma femme aussi, je vous prie. Mais, avant que de[93] partir, dites-moi une chose: vous qui êtes si jolie, n'êtes-vous pas la soubrette de l'hôtel?[94]
SILVIA.
Vous l'avez dit.
ARLEQUIN.
C'est fort bien fait; je m'en réjouis. Croyez-vous que je plaise ici?
Comment me trouvez-vous?
SILVIA.
Je vous trouve … plaisant[95].
ARLEQUIN.
Bon, tant mieux; entretenez-vous dans ce sentiment-là, il pourra trouver sa place.
SILVIA.
Vous êtes bien modeste de vous en contenter. Mais je vous quitte; il faut qu'on ait oublié d'avertir votre beau-père, car assurément il seroit venu; et j'y vais.
ARLEQUIN.
Dites-lui que je l'attends avec affection.
SILVIA, à part.
Que le sort est bizarre! Aucun de ces deux hommes n'est à sa place.
SCÈNE IX.
DORANTE, ARLEQUIN.
ARLEQUIN.
Eh bien! Monsieur, mon commencement va bien: je plais déjà à la soubrette.
DORANTE.
Butor que tu es!
ARLEQUIN.
Pourquoi donc? Mon entrée est si gentille!
DORANTE.
Tu m'avois tant promis de laisser là tes façons de parler sottes et triviales! Je t'avois donné de si bonnes instructions! Je ne t'avois recommandé que d'être sérieux. Va, je vois bien que je suis un étourdi de m'en être fié à toi.[96]
ARLEQUIN.
Je ferai encore mieux dans les suites,[97] et, puisque le sérieux n'est pas suffisant, je donnerai du mélancolique;[98] je pleurerai, s'il le faut.
DORANTE.
Je ne sais plus où j'en suis; cette aventure-ci m'étourdit. Que faut-il que je fasse?
ARLEQUIN.
Est-ce que la fille n'est pas plaisante?[99]
DORANTE.
Tais-toi; voici monsieur Orgon qui vient.
SCÈNE X.
M. ORGON, DORANTE, ARLEQUIN.
M. ORGON.
Mon cher Monsieur, je vous demande mille pardons de vous avoir fait attendre; mais ce n'est que de cet instant[100] que j'apprends que vous êtes ici.
ARLEQUIN.
Monsieur, mille pardons, c'est beaucoup trop, et il n'en faut qu'un quand on n'a fait qu'une faute: au surplus, tous mes pardons sont à votre service.
M. ORGON.
Je tâcherai de n'en avoir pas besoin.
ARLEQUIN.
Vous êtes le maître, et moi votre serviteur.
M. ORGON.
Je suis, je vous assure, charmé de vous voir, et je vous attendois avec impatience.
ARLEQUIN.
Je serois d'abord venu ici avec Bourguignon; mais, quand on arrive de voyage, vous savez qu'on est si mal bâti![101] et j'étois bien aise de me présenter dans un état plus ragoûtant.[102]
M. ORGON.
Vous y avez fort bien réussi. Ma fille s'habille; elle a été un peu indisposée. En attendant qu'elle descende, voulez-vous vous rafraîchir?
ARLEQUIN.
Oh! je n'ai jamais refusé de trinquer[103] avec personne.
M. ORGON.
Bourguignon, ayez soin de vous, mon garçon.
ARLEQUIN.
Le gaillard est gourmet: il boira du meilleur.
M. ORGON.
Qu'il ne l'épargne pas.
ACTE II.
SCÈNE PREMIÈRE.
LISETTE, M. ORGON.
M. ORGON.
Eh bien! que me veux-tu, Lisette?
LISETTE.
J'ai à vous entretenir un moment.
M. ORGON.
De quoi s'agit-il?
LISETTE.
De vous dire l'état où sont les choses, parce qu'il est important que vous en soyez éclairci, afin que vous n'ayez point à vous plaindre de moi.
M. ORGON.
Ceci est donc bien sérieux?
LISETTE.
Oui, très sérieux. Vous avez consenti au déguisement de mademoiselle Silvia; moi-même je l'ai trouvé d'abord sans conséquence, mais je me suis trompée.
M. ORGON.
Et de quelle conséquence est-il donc?
LISETTE.
Monsieur, on a de la peine à se louer soi-même; mais, malgré toutes les règles de la modestie, il faut pourtant que je vous dise que, si vous ne mettez ordre[104] à ce qui arrive, votre prétendu gendre[105] n'aura plus de coeur à donner à mademoiselle votre fille. Il est temps qu'elle se déclare, cela presse: car, un jour plus tard, je n'en réponds plus.
M. ORGON.
Eh! d'où vient qu'il ne voudra plus de ma fille? Quand il la connoîtra, te défies-tu de ses charmes?
LISETTE.
Non; mais vous ne vous méfiez pas assez des miens. Je vous avertis qu'ils vont leur train,[106] et que je ne vous conseille pas de les laisser faire.
M. ORGON.
Je vous en fais mes compliments Lisette. (Il rit.) Ah! ah! ah!
LISETTE.
Nous y voilà:[107] vous plaisantez, Monsieur, vous vous moquez de moi.
J'en suis fâchée, car vous y serez pris.
M. ORGON.
Ne t'en embarrasse pas, Lisette; va ton chemin.
LISETTE.
Je vous le répète encore, le coeur de Dorante va bien vite. Tenez, actuellement je lui plais beaucoup, ce soir il m'aimera, il m'adorera demain. Je ne le mérite pas, il est de mauvais goût,[108] vous en direz ce qu'il vous plaira; mais cela ne laissera pas que d'être.[109] Voyez-vous, demain je me garantis adorée.
M. ORGON.
Eh bien! que vous importe? S'il vous aime tant, qu'il vous épouse.
LISETTE.
Quoi! vous ne l'en empêcheriez pas?
M. ORGON.
Non, d'homme d'honneur,[110] si tu le mènes jusque là.
LISETTE.
Monsieur, prenez-y garde. Jusqu'ici je n'ai pas aidé à mes appâts, je les ai laissé faire tout seuls, j'ai ménagé sa tête:[111] si je m'en mêle, je la renverse, il n'y aura plus de remède.
M. ORGON.
Renverse, ravage, brûle, enfin épouse, je te le permets, si tu le peux.
LISETTE.
Sur ce pied-là, je compte ma fortune faite.
M. ORGON.
Mais, dis-moi, ma fille t'a-t-elle parlé? Que pense-t-elle de son prétendu?
LISETTE.
Nous n'avons encore guère trouvé le moment[112] de nous parler, car ce prétendu m'obsède; mais, à vue de pays,[113] je ne la crois pas contente; je la trouve triste, rêveuse, et je m'attends bien qu'elle me priera de le rebuter.
M. ORGON.
Et moi, je te le défends. J'évite de m'expliquer avec elle; j'ai mes raisons pour faire durer ce déguisement: je veux qu'elle examine son futur plus à loisir. Mais le valet, comment se gouberne-t-il? ne se mêle-t-il pas d'aimer ma fille?
LISETTE.
C'est un original: j'ai remarqué qu'il fait l'homme de conséquence avec elle, parce qu'il est bien fait;[114] il la regarde, et soupire.
M. ORGON.
Et cela la fâche.
LISETTE.
Mais… elle rougit.
M. ORGON.
Bon, tu te trompes: les regards d'un valet ne l'embarrassent pas jusque là.[115]
LISETTE.
Monsieur, elle rougit.
M. ORGON.
C'est donc d'indignation.
LISETTE.
A la bonne heure.[116]
M. ORGON.
Eh bien! quand tu lui parleras, dis-lui que tu soupçonnes ce valet de la prévenir contre son maître; et, si elle se fâche, ne t'en inquiète point: ce sont mes affaires. Mais voici Dorante, qui te cherche apparemment.
SCENE II.
LISETTE, ARLEQUIN, M. ORGON.
ARLEQUIN.
Ah! je vous trouve, merveilleuse dame! je vous demandois à tout le monde.
Serviteur, cher beau-père, ou peu s'en faut.
M. ORGON.
Serviteur. Adieu, mes enfants: je vous laisse ensemble; il est bon que vous vous aimiez un peu avant que de[117] vous marier.
ARLEQUIN.
Je ferois bien ces deux besognes-là à la fois, moi.
M. ORGON.
Point d'impatience. Adieu.
SCÈNE III.
LISETTE, ARLEQUIN.
ARLEQUIN.
Madame, il dit que je ne m'impatiente pas; il en parle bien à son aise, le bonhomme!
LISETTE.
J'ai de la peine à croire qu'il vous en coûte tant d'attendre, Monsieur; c'est par galanterie que vous faites l'impatient: à peine êtes-vous arrivé. Votre amour ne sauroit être bien fort: ce n'est tout au plus qu'un amour naissant.
ARLEQUIN.
Vous vous trompez, prodige de nos jours: un amour de votre façon[118] ne reste pas longtemps au berceau; votre premier coup d'oeil a fait naître le mien, le second lui a donné des forces, et le troisième l'a rendu grand garçon. Tâchons de l'établir au plus vite; ayez soin de lui, puisque vous êtes sa mère.
LISETTE.
Trouvez-vous qu'on le maltraite? est-il si abandonné?
ARLEQUIN.
En attendant qu'il soit pourvu, donnez-lui seulement votre belle main blanche pour l'amuser un peu.
LISETTE.
Tenez donc, petit importun, puisqu'on ne sauroit avoir la paix qu'en vous amusant.
ARLEQUIN, lui baisant la main.
Cher joujou de mon âme! cela me réjouit comme du vin délicieux. Quel dommage de n'en avoir que roquille![119]
LISETTE.
Allons, arrêtez-vous; vous êtes trop avide.
ARLEQUIN.
Je ne demande qu'à me soutenir, en attendant que je vive.
LISETTE.
Ne faut-il pas avoir de la raison?
ARLEQUIN.
De la raison! Hélas! je l'ai perdue; vos beaux yeux sont les filous qui me l'ont volée.
LISETTE.
Mais est-il possible que vous m'aimiez tant? Je ne saurois me le persuader.
ARLEQUIN.
Je ne me soucie pas de ce qui est possible, moi, mais je vous aime comme un perdu,[120] et vous verrez bien dans votre miroir que cela est juste.
LISETTE.
Mon miroir ne servirait qu'à me rendre plus incrédule.
ARLEQUIN.
Ah! mignonne, adorable! votre humilité ne seroit donc qu'une hypocrite!
LISETTE.
Quelqu'un vient à nous: c'est votre valet.
SCÈNE IV.
DORANTE, ARLEQUIN, LISETTE.
DORANTE.
Monsieur, pourrois-je vous entretenir un moment?
ARLEQUIN.
Non: maudite soit la valetaille[121] qui ne sauroit nous laisser en repos!
LISETTE.
Voyez ce qu'il vous veut, Monsieur.
DORANTE.
Je n'ai qu'un mot à vous dire.
ARLEQUIN.
Madame, s'il en dit deux, son congé sera[122] le troisième. Voyons!
DORANTE, bas à Arlequin.
Viens donc, impertinent![123]
ARLEQUIN, bas à Dorante.
Ce sont des injures, et non pas des mots, cela… (A Lisette) Ma reine, excusez.
LISETTE.
Faites, faites.
DORANTE.
Débarrasse-moi de tout ceci.[124] Ne te livre point;[125] parois sérieux et rêveur, et même mécontent: entends-tu?
ARLEQUIN.
Oui, mon ami; ne vous inquiétez pas, et retirez-vous.
SCÈNE V.
ARLEQUIN, LISETTE.
ARLEQUIN.
Ah! Madame! sans lui j'allois vous dire de belles choses, et je n'en trouverai plus que de communes à cette heure, hormis mon amour, qui est extraordinaire. Mais, à propos de mon amour, quand est-ce que le vôtre lui tiendra compagnie?
LISETTE.
Il faut espérer que cela viendra.
ARLEQUIN.
Et croyez-vous que cela vienne?
LISETTE.
La question est vive:[126] savez-vous bien que vous m'embarrassez?
ARLEQUIN.
Que voulez-vous? je brûle, et je crie au feu.
LISETTE.
S'il m'étoit permis de m'expliquer si vite…
ARLEQUIN.
Je suis du sentiment que vous le pouvez en conscience.
LISETTE.
La retenue de mon sexe ne le veut pas.
ARLEQUIN.
Ce n'est donc pas la retenue d'à présent, qui donne bien d'autres permissions.
LISETTE.
Mais que me demandez-vous?
ARLEQUIN.
Dites-moi un petit brin[127] que vous m'aimez. Tenez, je vous aime, moi.
Faites l'écho: répétez, Princesse.
LISETTE.
Quel insatiable! Eh bien! Monsieur, je vous aime.
ARLEQUIN.
Eh bien! Madame, je me meurs, mon bonheur me confond, j'ai peur d'en courir les champs.[128] Vous m'aimez! cela est admirable!
LISETTE.
J'aurois lieu, à mon tour, d'être étonnée de la promptitude de votre hommage. Peut-être m'aimerez-vous moins quand nous nous connoîtrons mieux.
ARLEQUIN.
Ah! Madame, quand nous en serons là, j'y perdrai beaucoup, il y aura bien à décompter.[129]
LISETTE.
Vous me croyez plus de qualités que je n'en ai.
ARLEQUIN.
Et vous, Madame, vous ne savez pas les miennes, et je ne devrois vous parler qu'à genoux.
LISETTE.
Souvenez-vous qu'on n'est pas les maîtres[130] de son sort.
ARLEQUIN.
Les pères et mères font tout à leur tête.[131]
LISETTE.
Pour moi, mon coeur vous auroit choisi, dans quelque état que vous eussiez été.
ARLEQUIN.
Il a beau jeu[132] pour me choisir encore.
LISETTE.
Puis-je me flatter que vous êtes de même à mon égard?
ARLEQUIN.
Hélas! quand vous ne seriez que Perrette ou Margot,[133] quand je vous aurois vue, le martinet à la main, descendre à la cave, vous auriez toujours été ma princesse.
LISETTE.
Puissent de si beaux sentiments être durables!
ARLEQUIN.
Pour les fortifier de part et d'autre, jurons-nous de nous aimer toujours, en dépit de toutes les fautes d'orthographe[134] que vous aurez faites sur mon compte.
LISETTE.
J'ai plus d'intérêt à ce serment-là que vous, et je le fais de tout mon coeur.
ARLEQUIN se met à genoux.
Votre bonté m'éblouit, et je me prosterne devant elle.
LISETTE.
Arrêtez-vous! Je ne saurais vous souffrir dans cette posture-là; je serois ridicule de vous y laisser: levez-vous. Voilà encore quelqu'un.
SCÈNE VI.
LISETTE, ARLEQUIN, SILVIA.
LISETTE.
Que voulez-vous, Lisette?
SILVIA.
J'aurois à vous parler, Madame.
ARLEQUIN.
Ne voilà-t-il pas![135] Hé! ma mie,[136] revenez dans un quart d'heure, allez: les femmes de chambre de mon pays n'entrent point qu'on ne les appelle.[137]
SILVIA.
Monsieur, il faut que je parle à Madame.
ARLEQUIN.
Mais voyez l'opiniâtre soubrette! Reine de ma vie, renvoyez-la. Retournez- vous en, ma fille; nous avons ordre de nous aimer avant qu'on nous marie; n'interrompez point nos fonctions.
LISETTE.
Ne pouvez-vous pas revenir dans un moment, Lisette?
SILVIA.
Mais, Madame…
ARLEQUIN.
Mais, ce mais-là n'est bon qu'à me donner la fièvre.
SILVIA, à part.
Ah! le vilain homme! (Haut.) Madame, je vous assure que cela est pressé.
LISETTE.
Permettez donc que je m'en défasse, Monsieur.
ARLEQUIN.
Puisque le diable le veut,[138] et elle aussi… Patience… je me promènerai en attendant qu'elle ait fait. Ah! Les sottes gens que nos gens!