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: