Chapter 10

LESAGE, MARIVAUX, PREVOST, CREBILLON 325

The subjects of the chapter--Lesage: his Spanish connections--Peculiarity of his work generally--And its variety--_Le Diable Boiteux_--Lesage and Boileau--_Gil Blas_: its peculiar cosmopolitanism--And its adoption of the _homme sensuel moyen_ fashion--Its inequality, in the Second and Fourth Books especially--Lesage's quality: not requiring many words, but indisputable--Marivaux: _Les Effets de la Sympathie_ (?)--His work in general--_Le Paysan Parvenu_--_Marianne_: outline of the story--Importance of Marianne herself--Marivaux and Richardson: "Marivaudage"--Examples: Marianne on the _physique_ and _moral_ of Prioresses and Nuns--She returns the gift-clothes--Prevost--His minor novels: the opinions on them of Sainte-Beuve--And of Planche--The books themselves: _Histoire d'une Grecque Moderne_--_Cleveland_--_Le Doyen de Killerine_--_The Memoires d'un Homme de Qualite_--Its miscellaneous curiosities--_Manon Lescaut_--Its uniqueness--The character of its heroine--And that of the hero--The inevitableness of both and the inestimableness of their history--Crebillon _fils_--The case against him--For the defendant: the veracity of his artificiality and his consummate cleverness--The Crebillonesque atmosphere and method--Inequality of his general work; a survey of it.