MARIVAUX, PIERRE CARLET DE CHAMBLAIN DE, one of the most prolific and ingenious writers of the eighteenth century, in the department of comedy and romance, was born at Paris in the year 1688. He was of an ancient family of the robe, which had given magistrates to the parliament of Rouen; and his father, who held the office of director of the mint at Riom, having little fortune to leave him, spared no pains on his education. Young Marivaux early discovered the subtlety and activity of his genius. Before the completion of his studies at college, he had rendered himself the friend of his masters, and the master of his fellow-students. The society to which he was introduced on his entrance into life also contributed to the development of his talents, and exercised a sensible influence on the character of his writings. Admitted into the salons of the opulent females of the capital, who then vied with one another in protecting men of letters, he there contracted that affectation of wit, of which the comedies of Molière had not yet entirely cured the précieuses of the age. It was there that he became acquainted with Lamotte, and more especially with Fontenelle, whose conversation, though full of attraction, was in no respect calculated to give him a taste for simplicity. Soon afterwards he figured amongst the writers of every description who composed the court of Madame de Tencin, and whom that celebrated woman familiarly called her "beasts." It was in this society that Marivaux, naturally inclined to controversy, and fond of paradox, though otherwise gentle and tolerant, amused himself in tilting with the partisans of antiquity, depreciating poetical talent, and deriding the admirers of Voltaire, whom he cavalierly denominated "an arrant bel-esprit, the perfection of common ideas." He even went so far as to maintain that Molière did not understand comedy, and pretended that he could not conceive how people should admire the Tartuffe and the Femmes-Savantes. In other respects his history presents no remarkable event. Married in 1721, he lost his wife two years afterwards; and his only daughter having embraced a religious life, he thus found himself freed from all family ties, and at liberty to follow the bent of his own inclinations. In fact, it is the same with his life as with his genius; it is altogether composed of little traits, a few of which will serve better to give an idea of his character than the most elaborate general description.
Finding himself one day in a circle where some persons were discussing the nature of the soul, he had the good sense to admit that this question was beyond his comprehension. In this case, said one of the interlocutors, I must go in quest of M. Fontenelle. "You may spare yourself the trouble," replied Marivaux; "Fontenelle has too much sense to know more of the subject than I do." Notwithstanding the extreme sensitiveness of his self-love, he rarely replied to the criticisms which were made on his productions. "I love my own peace above everything," said he; "and I do not wish to disturb that of others." Living in the world at a period when Pyrrhonism in matters of religion was the fashion, he combatted, without asperity, but with laudable zeal, that truly deplorable mania. "Ah, my God," said he on one occasion to a freethinker, who was otherwise an honest man, "take not from poor humanity that consolation which Providence has reserved for it. You may do what you will to cast off all thoughts of the other world; you will be saved in spite of yourself." On this subject we may also cite his reply to Lord Bolingbroke,
Marclis who, credulous on many points, affected to call in question the truths of religion. "If you do not believe, my Lord, it is certainly not from want of faith." Marivaux had only a small income, yet he found means to make a regular allowance to a young orphan, whom he had withdrawn from the stage in order to place her in a religious house. Towards the close of his life, when he began to feel the approach of want, he accepted for himself a pension from his friend Helvetius, who had the generosity never to assume the character of a benefactor. This trait recalls another which does no less honour to the men of letters. Marivaux was sick, and his friend Fontenelle, fearing that he wanted money, lost no time in carrying to him an hundred louis, of which he begged his acceptance. "I hold them as received," replied Marivaux; "I have made use of them, and I restore them to you with all the gratitude which such a service demands." If Marivaux had some defects of character; if, for example, he was not altogether insensible to jealousy, nor a stranger to the spirit of coterie, and if the efforts that he made to appear modest proved insufficient to disguise the susceptibility of his self-love; he was also distinguished for magnanimous disinterestedness and severe probity. He died at Paris, on the 12th of February 1763, at the age of seventy-five. He had been unanimously admitted a member of the French Academy in 1743; and it is not indifferent to remark that he had Voltaire as a competitor.
The number of his works is so considerable that we shall only notice the more interesting and important of them. To the Théâtre-Italien he contributed, L'Amour et la Vérité, 1720; Arlequin poli par Amour, 1720; La Surprise de l'Amour, 1722; La Double Inconstance, 1723; Le Prince travesti, 1724; L'Île des Esclaves, 1725; L'Héritier de Village, 1725; Le Triomphe de Plutus, 1728; La Nouvelle Colonie, ou la Ligue des Femmes, 1729; Jeux de l'Amour et du Hazard, 1730; Le Triomphe de l'Amour, 1732; L'École des Mères, 1732; L'Heureux Stratagème, 1732; La Méprise, 1734; La Mère Confidante, 1735; Les Fausses Confidences, 1736; La Joie imprévue, 1738; Les Sincères, 1739; and L'Épreuve, 1740. The dramatic works of Marivaux originally represented at the Théâtre-Français are somewhat less numerous. They consist of Annibal, a tragedy, 1720; Le Denouement imprévu, a comedy, 1724; L'Île de la Raison, ou les Petits Hommes, derived from the romance of Gulliver, 1727; La Surprise de l'Amour, 1727; La Réunion des Amours, 1731; Les Serments indiscrets, 1732; Le Petit-Maître corrigé, 1734; Le Legs, 1736; La Dispute, 1744; and Le Préjugé, 1746. The dramatic pieces of Marivaux were collected and published in seven vols. 12mo, and of this collection there have been several editions. His romances are in general more esteemed than his plays, although now-a-days they are perhaps even less read. They consist of Don Quichotte moderne; Effets Surprenants de la Sympathie; La Vie de Marianne; Le Paysan Parvenu; and Le Philosophe indigent. Le Spectateur Français was a species of critical and moral journal in imitation of the English Spectator, but in which the delineations are presented, so to speak, in half tint. His works have been collected and published in twelve vols. Paris, 1781, in 8vo. (A.)