not. But,
curiously enough, the reproach of sniggering, which lies so heavily on
Laurence Sterne and Francois Arouet, does not lie on Crebillon. He has
an audacity of grave persiflage[345] which is sometimes almost Swiftian
in a lower sphere: and it saves him from the unpardonable sin of the
snigger. He has also--as, to have this grave persiflage, he almost
necessarily must have--a singularly clear and flexible style, which is
only made more piquant by the "-assiez's" and "-ussiez's" of the older
language. Further, and of still greater importance for the novelist, he
has a pretty wit, which sometimes almost approaches humour, and, if not
a diabolically, a _diablotin_ically acute perception of human nature as
it affects his subject. This perception rarely fails: and conventional,
and very unhealthily conventional, as the Crebillon world is, the people
who inhabit it are made real people. He is, in those best things of his
at least, never "out." We can see the ever-victorious duke (M. de
Clerval of the _Hasard_ is perhaps the closest to the Richelieu model of
all Crebillon's coxcomb-gallants), who, even after a lady has given him
most unequivocal proofs of her affection, refuses for a long time, if
not finally, to say that he loves her, because he has himself a
graduated scheme of values in that direction, and though she may have
touched his heart, etc., she has not quite come up to his "love"
standard.[346] And we know, too, though she is less common, the
philosophical Marquise herself, who, "possessing" the most notoriously
inconstant lover in all Paris (this same M. de Clerval, it happens),
maintains her comparative indifference to the circumstance, alleging
that even when he is most inconstant he is always "very affectionate,
though a little _extinguished_." And in fact he goes off to her from the
very fireside, where such curious things have chanced. Extravagant as
are the situations in _La Nuit et le Moment_, the other best thing, they
are, but for the _longueurs_ already censured, singularly verisimilar on
their own postulates. The trusty coachman, who always drives
particularly slowly when a lady accompanies his master in the carriage,
but would never think of obeying the check-string if his master's own
voice did not authorise it; the invaluable _soubrette_ who will sit up
to any hour to play propriety, when her mistress is according a
_tete-a-tete_, but who, most naturally, always falls asleep--these
complete, at