CHAPTER XI
The use of the novel for "purpose"; Voltaire—General characteristics of his tales—Candide—Zadig and its satellites—Micromégas—L'Ingénu—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 Émile—La Nouvelle Héloïse—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.
CHAPTER XII
"Sensibility." Minor and Later Novelists. The French Novel, c. 1800
"Sensibility"—A glance at Miss Austen—The thing essentially French—Its history—Mme. de Tencin and Le Comte de Comminge—Mme. Riccoboni and Le Marquis de Cressy—Her other work: Milady Catesby—Mme. de Beaumont: Lettres du Marquis de Roselle—Mme. de Souza—Xavier de Maistre—His illustrations of the lighter side of Sensibility—A sign of decadence—Benjamin Constant: Adolphe—Mme. de Duras's "postscript"—Sensibilité and engouement—Some final words on the matter—Its importance here—Restif de la Bretonne—Pigault-Lebrun: the difference of his positive and relative importance—His life and the reasons for giving it—His general characteristics—L'Enfant du Carnaval and Les Barons de Felsheim—Angélique et Jeanneton—Mon Oncle Thomas—Jérôme—The redeeming points of these—Others: Adélaïde de Méran and Tableaux de Société—L'Officieux—Further examples—Last words on him—The French novel in 1800.
Chronological Conspectus of the Principal Works of French Fiction noticed in this Volume