rue of him, and perhaps more true than of
any one else who can be called a man of letters.

Probably no one has read all he wrote;[420] even the late M. Assezat,
who knew more about him than anybody else, does not, I think, pretend to
have done so. He was himself a printer, and therefore found exceptional
means of getting the mischief, which his by no means idle hands found to
do, into publicity of a kind, though even their subject does not seem to
have made his books popular.[421] His largest work, _Les
Contemporaines_, is in forty-two volumes, and contains some three
hundred different sections, reminding one vaguely, though the
differences in detail are very great, of Amory's plan, at least, for the
_Memoirs of Several Ladies_. His most remarkable by far, the
quasi-autobiographical _Monsieur Nicolas_,[422] in fourteen. He could
write with positive moral purpose, as in the protest against _Le Paysan
Parvenu_, above referred to; in _La Vie de Mon Pere_ (a book agreeably
free from any variety of that sin of Ham which some biographical
writings of sons about their fathers display); and in the unpleasantly
titled _Pornographe_, which is also morally intended, and dull enough to
be as moral as Mrs. Trimmer or Dr. Forsyth.

Indeed, this moral intention, so often idly and offensively put forward
by those who are themselves mere pornographers, pervades Restif
throughout, and, while it certainly sometimes does carry dulness with
it, undoubtedly contributes at others a kind of piquancy, because of its
evident sincerity, and the quaint contrast with the subjects the author
is handling. These subjects make explicit dealing with himself
difficult, if not impossible: but his _differentia_ as regards them may,
with the aid of a little dexterity, be put without offence. In the first
place, as regards the comparison with Rousseau, Restif is almost a
gentleman: and he could not possibly have been guilty of Rousseau's
blackguard tale-telling in the cases of Madame de Warens (or, as I
believe, we are now told to spell it "Vuarrens") or Madame de Larnage.
The way in which he speaks of his one idealised mistress, Madame
"Parangon," is almost romantic. He is, indeed, savage in respect to his
wife--whom he seems to have married in a sort of _clairvoyant_ mixture
of knowledge of her evil nature and fascination by her personal charms
and allurements, though he had had no difficulty in enjoying these
without marriage. But into none other of his