epoch-making work, was composed. The example of _Manon_ was left for the
nineteenth century to develop, the others either died out (the adventure
romance, after Lesage's model, flourishing brilliantly in England, but
hardly at all in France), or else were subordinated to a purpose, the
purpose of advocating _philosophe_ views, or of pandering to the not
very healthy cravings of an altogether artificial society. Yet, so far
as merely literary merits are concerned, few branches of literature were
more fertile than this during the period.

[Sidenote: Lesage.]

The first, and on the whole, the most considerable name of the century
in fiction is that of the author of _Gil Blas_. Alain Rene Lesage was
born at Sarzeau, near Vannes, on the 8th of May, 1668, and died at
Boulogne on the 17th of November, 1747. He was bred a lawyer, and should
have had a fair competence, but, being early left an orphan, was
deprived of most of his property by the dishonesty of his guardian. He
married young, moreover, and, unlike most of the prominent men of
letters of his day, never seems to have enjoyed any solid patronage or
protection from any powerful man or woman. This is indeed sufficiently
accounted for by anecdotes which exist showing his extreme independence
of character. Like most men of talent in such circumstances, he turned,
though not very early, to literature, and began by a translation of the
'Letters' of Aristaenetus. No great success could have awaited him in
this line, and perhaps the greatest stroke of good-fortune in his life
was the suggestion of the Abbe de Lyonne that he should turn his
attention to Spanish literature, a suggestion which was not made more
unpalatable by the present of a small annuity. He translated the 'New
Don Quixote' of Avellaneda (than which he might have found a better
subject), and he adapted freely plays from Rojas, Lope de Vega, and
Calderon. It was not, however, till he was nearly forty that he produced
anything of real merit. The _Diable Boiteux_ appeared in 1707, and was
at once popular. Still Lesage did not desert the stage, and the
production of his admirable comedy _Turcaret_ ought to have secured him
success there. But the Comedie Francaise was at that time more under the
influence of clique than at any other time of its history; and Lesage,
disgusted with the treatment he received from it, gave himself up
entirely to writing farces and operettas for the minor theatres, and to
prose fiction