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 descended from an ancient family of Rouen, and was born at Paris in the year 1688. Young Marivaux early gave evidence of the subtlety and activity of his genius, which was carefully developed by all the appliances of an excellent education. The society to which he was introduced on his entrance into life 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 each other 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 the numerous writers who composed the salon 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. 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-Servantes. Living in the world at a period when Pyrrhonism in matters of religion was the fashion, he combated, 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." If he was slightly tinctured with vanity, 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 had Voltaire for a competitor. Marivaux's dramatic pieces, while displaying much talent, are nevertheless inferior to his romances. He never surpassed his Mariamne, or his Paysan Parencu; delineations which, although characterized by the peculiar manner of the writer,—what the French call marivauxages,—yet interest and charm the reader by their subtle knowledge of the human heart, and by their accurate and masterly touches of character.

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 Écossais, 1725; L'Hérédité de Village, 1725; Le Triomphe de Piété, 1729; La Nouvelle Colonie, ou la Ligue des Femmes, 1729; L'École de L'Amour et du Hasard, 1730; Le Triomphe de l'Amour, 1732; L'École des Mères, ou le Rêve de Sirènes, 1732; La Marie, 1734; La Mère Consciente, 1735; Les Faux Confesseurs, 1736; La Joie Impression, 1738; Les Sincères, 1739; and L'Epreuve, 1740. The dramatic works of Marivaux, originally represented at the Théâtre-François, are somewhat less numerous. They consist of Amalial, a tragedy, 1720; Le Désenchantement Impromptu, 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 Sorciers Indicibles, 1732; Le Petit-Maître Corrigé, 1734; Le Loge, 1735; La Dispute, 1744; and Le Prétendu, 1746. His romances consist of Le Don Quichotte Moderne; Le Mariage Samson, ou la Symphonie; La Vie de Mariamne; Le Paysan Parencu; Le Philosophe Indigent. His works were collected and published in 12 vols., Paris 1781, in 8vo.