Chapter 11

THE _PHILOSOPHE_ NOVEL 377

The use of the novel for "purpose"; Voltaire--General characteristics of his tales--_Candide_--_Zadig_ and its satellites--_Micromegas_--_L'Ingenu_--_La Princesse de Babylone_--Some minors--Voltaire, the Kehl edition, and Plato--An attempt at different evaluation of himself--Rousseau: the novel character of the _Confessions_--The ambiguous position of _Emile_--_La Nouvelle Heloise_--Its numerous and grave faults--The minor characters--The delinquencies of Saint-Preux--And the less charming points of Julie; her redemption--And the better side of the book generally--But little probability of more good work in novel from its author--The different case of Diderot--His gifts and the waste of them--The various display of them--_Le Neveu de Rameau_--_Jacques le Fataliste_--Its "Arcis-Pommeraye" episode--_La Religieuse_--Its story--A hardly missed, if missed, masterpiece--The successors--Marmontel--His "Telemachic" imitations worth little--The best of his _Contes Moraux_ worth a good deal--_Alcibiade ou le Moi_--_Soliman the Second_--_The Four Flasks_--_Heureusement_--_Le Philosophe Soi-disant_--A real advance in these--Bernardin de Saint-Pierre.