belles
allees 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 Valvilie interrompaient ce que nous disions, cette
aimable fille et moi, nous nous avisames, par un mouvement de gaite, de le
fuir, de l'ecarter d'aupres 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 a froid, espieglerie
compassee et prolongee, petillement redouble et pretentieux, enfin une
sorte de pedantisme semillant et joli; mais l'homme, considere dans
l'ensemble, vaut mieux que la definition a 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, dicte par une probite inquiete,--cette application a
eviter les illusions qui trompent, a dejouer les pieges du caprice et de
la fantaisie, a mettre au service du sentiment les plus subtiles lumieres
de la raison,...--l'esprit de finesse employe a decouvrir les plus secrets
mouvements de notre sensibilite,--par consequent l'usage conscient d'un
style ajuste a la tenuite de ces enquetes, style qui n'est pas exempt de
recherche, mais qui abonde en trouvailles decisives,--voila precisement 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, m