victions in this matter, his comedies all end with "the
triumph of love in marriage." In certain ones, as for example _le Petit
Maitre corrige_ (acte I, scene XII) and _l'Heritier de Village_ (scene
II), this social evil is more directly attacked, as it is also in several
portions of the _Spectateur francais_, and particularly in the sixteenth
_feuille_.

He was likewise an opponent of the strained relations that existed in most
families between parents and children. Instead of the deplorable custom of
making of each household a miniature court, in which the parents reigned
over timid but unwilling subjects, he advocated intimate and loving
relations. "Voulez-vous faire d'honnetes gens de vos enfants? Ne soyez que
leur pere, et non pas leur juge et leur tyran. Et qu'est-ce que c'est
qu'etre leur pere? c'est leur persuader que vous les aimez. Cette
persuasion-la commence par vous gagner leur coeur. Nous aimons toujours
ceux dont nous sommes surs d'etre aimes."[79]

Was it not Mme. de Lambert, from whom Marivaux gained many of his ideas,
who had said: "Les enfants aiment a etre traites en personnes
raisonnables. Il faut entretenir en eux cette espece de fierte, et s'en
servir comme d'un moyen pour les conduire ou l'on veut"? Where is there a
more charming character than that of _la Mere confidente_, willing to
sacrifice the dreaded name of mother in order to become her daughter's
friend and confidante, or than the indulgent father of _le Jeu de l'Amour
et du Hasard_? Such examples indicate the kindly philosophy that permeates
his writings.

Marivaux has been said to have held revolutionary ideas, and, in some
degree, to have forecast the terrible rending of society of 1789. While
the unqualified statement may give rise to a false conception, and tend to
exaggerate the part that he played in the progress of social emancipation,
it is not difficult to discover in him the sentiments, if not of a
revolutionist,[80] at least of a reformer. The prejudice of birth is
attacked in the comedies _les Fausses Confidences_, _le Prejuge vaincu_,
_la Double Inconstance_ (acte III, scene IV), and in many a passage in
other plays, _le Denoument imprevu_, _l'Heritier de Village_, etc., as
well as in his novels and other writings, while the comedy _l'Ile des
Esclaves_ is a social satire on the abuses of the day. The increasing
importance and the social elevation of servants in his drama is but
another tendency along the same line.

One