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.