and his servant out to the nearest
hotel, fetches the proper ministress, and, not content with this Good
Samaritanism, effects a legitimate union between Jeanneton and her
lover, half gives and half procures them a comfortable maintenance,
resists temptation of repayment (_not_ in coin) on more than one
occasion, and sets out, on foot, to Caudebec, to see about a heritage
which has come to Jeanneton's husband. On the way he falls in with
Angelique (a lady this time), falls also in love with her, and marries
her. The later part of the story, as is rather the way with Pigault,
becomes more "accidented." There are violent scenes, jealousies, not
surprising, between the two heroines, etc. But the motto-title of
Marmontel's _Heureusement_ governs all, and the end is peace, though not
without some spots in its sun. That the public of 1799 did not like the
book and did like _La Folie Espagnole_ is not surprising; but the
bearing of this double attempt on the growth of novel-writing as a
regular craft is important.

[Sidenote: _Mon Oncle Thomas._]

Perhaps on the whole _Mon Oncle Thomas_, which seems to have been one of
the most popular, is also one of the most representative, if not the
best, of Pigault-Lebrun's novels. Its opening, and not its opening only,
is indeed full of that mere nastiness which we, with Smollett and others
to our _dis_credit, cannot disclaim for our own parallel period, and
which was much worse among the French, who have a choice selection of
epithets for it. But the fortunes of the youthful Thomas--child of a
prostitute of the lowest class, though a very good mother, who
afterwards marries a miserly and ruffianly corporal of police--are told
with a good deal of spirit--one even thinks of _Colonel Jack_--and the
author shows his curious vulgar common sense, and his knowledge of
human nature of a certain kind, pretty frequently, at least in the
earlier part of the book.

[Sidenote: _Jerome._]

_Jerome_ is another of Pigault's favourite studies of boys--distinctly
blackguard boys as a rule--from their mischievous, or, as the early
English eighteenth century would have put it, "unlucky" childhood, to
their most undeserved reward with a good and pretty wife (whom one
sincerely pities), and more or less of a fortune. There is, however,
more vigour in _Jerome_ than in most, and, if one has the knack of
"combing out" the silly and stale Voltairianism, and paying little
attention to the far from exciting s