ered by a priest and his sister, she
reaches the age of fifteen, without, however, having discovered who her
parents were. Deprived by death of her guardians, she finds herself at
this early age alone and unprotected in the streets of Paris. She seeks
the counsel of a kindly priest, who refers her to a rich and apparently
respectable man, but in reality the personification of hypocrisy. Of his
character study of M. de Climal, Marivaux was justly proud. Few, if any,
however, will justify him in rating it superior to Moliere's Tartuffe.[86]
Throughout her trials and temptations Marianne preserves her innocence and
her hand for M. de Valville, a handsome and wealthy young aristocrat, who
is really enamoured of Marianne, despite certain infidelities of which he
is guilty, and which Marianne pardons with the same forbearing charity and
kindly philosophy that characterize our author himself.[87]

The story of _Marianne_ is interesting, though never of so absorbing an
interest as to hold the reader's attention more closely than was held that
of the writer himself. It is a book to be read by piecemeal, and it may be
laid down at any time. Indeed, one is not surprised, nor much distressed,
when the author fails to grasp again his fallen pen after the eleventh
part. I would not in any way detract from the literary value of a work
which, as even critical La Harpe declares, "assures him one of the first
places among French novelists;"[88] but the interest inspired by
_Marianne_ is of much the same sort as that inspired by the _Spectateur_.
The thread of the story serves merely to join the analyses of character,
moral reflections, and digressions of various kinds which abound. The
style is conversational, very similar to that of his journals.

Taken as a whole it may be considered as a psychological study of a young
girl's heart, as viewed by herself in maturer years. I am half inclined to
say the heart of a coquette, for Marianne has much of the coquette in her
nature, but she has, too, the nobler qualities of heart and mind. She is
an epitome, in short, of the feminine side of Marivaux.

One of the chief faults of the author's style is apparent in _Marianne_ to
a degree unparalleled by most of his other writings, and that is the fault
of over-elaborate description or definition. His subtle mind could
perceive so many delicate shades of character, which the less cultivated
eye could not detect, that, by elaborating thereupon and en