ed her natural, and had loved her only
on that footing; so that my love ceased immediately, as if my heart had
been only conditionally moved. She, in turn, perceived me in the mirror,
and blushed. As for me, I entered laughing, and picking up my glove: 'Ah!
mademoiselle, I beg your pardon,' I said to her, 'for having, up to this
time, attributed to nature charms, the whole honour of which is due to
your ingenuity alone.' 'What is the matter? What does this speech mean?'
was her reply. 'Shall I speak to you more frankly?' I said to her: 'I have
just seen the machinery of the Opera; it will still divert me, but it will
touch me less.' Thereupon I went out, and it is from this adventure that
there sprang up in me that misanthropy which has not left me, and which
has caused me to pass my life in examining mankind, and in amusing myself
with my reflexions."[13]

We could not have in miniature a more perfect sketch than this of the
character of the man, with those peculiarities that were to make of him so
original a writer, and little did Marivaux imagine that in the coquette of
Limoges he "had seen the living and faithful image of his Muse,"[14] with
all its archness, coquettishness, and ingenuity in style and expression.
Marivaux had much of the feminine in his nature,--a rare intuition, a
marked finesse in observation, an extreme sensitiveness with regard to his
own and others' feelings, a dislike of criticism with a reluctance to
reply to it, though never forgetting the attack, a certain timidity with
men, a fondness for dress and luxury, an extreme love of conversation,
generosity to the point of self-sacrifice, and a religious turn of mind in
a sceptical century. His connection with the salons of Paris, where so
much of his life was spent in the society of women, probably contributed
largely to develop those traits that were doubtless innate.

With something of the coquette in his own nature, Marivaux had no patience
with it in others. D'Alembert relates another incident, which will serve
to show that not only affectation, but also everything that seemed to him
too studied, received his condemnation. "One day, he went to see a man
from whom he had received many letters, which were almost in his own
style, and, which, as one may well imagine, had seemed to him very
ingenious. Not finding him, he determined to wait. He noticed, by chance,
on the desk of this man, the rough draughts of the letters which he had
received fro