onage. He got on neither at the Bar, his first
profession, nor with the regular actors, and he took vengeance in his
books on both; while at least one famous anecdote shows his way of
treating a patron--indeed, as it happened, a patroness--who presumed.

[314] Asmodeus, according to his usual station in the infernal
hierarchy, is _demon de la luxure_: but any fears or hopes which may be
aroused by this description, and the circumstances of the action, will
be disappointed. Lesage has plenty of risky situations, but his language
is strictly "proper."

[315] Against this may be cited his equally anecdotic acceptance of
Regnard, who was also "run" against Moliere. But Regnard was a "classic"
and orthodox in his way; Lesage was a free-lance, and even a Romantic
before Romanticism. Boileau knew that evil, as evil seemed to him, _had_
come from Spain; he saw more coming in this, and if he anticipated more
still in the future, 1830 proved him no false prophet.

[316] In other words, there is a unity of personality in the attitude
which the hero takes to and in them.

[317] And in it too, of course; as well as in Spain's remarkable but too
soon re-enslaved criticism.

[318] As he says of himself (vii. x.): _Enfin, apres un severe examen je
tombais d'accord avec moi-meme, que si je n'etais pas un fripon, il ne
s'en fallait guere._ And the Duke of Lerma tells him later, "_M. de
Santillane, a ce que je vois, vous avez ete tant soit peu_ picaro."

[319] The two most undoubted cases--his ugly and, unluckily, repeated
acceptance of the part of Pandarus-Leporello--were only too ordinary
rascalities in the seventeenth century. The books of the chronicles of
England and France show us not merely clerks and valets but gentlemen of
every rank, from esquire to duke, eagerly accepting this office.

[320] In a curious passage of Bk. XII. Chap. I. in which Gil disclaims
paternity and resigns it to Marialva. This may have been prompted by a
desire to lessen the turpitude of the go-between business; but it is a
clumsy device, and makes Gil look a fool as well as a knave.

[321] One of Lesage's triumphs is the way in which, almost to the last,
"M. de Santillane," despite the rogueries practised often on and
sometimes by him, retains a certain gullibility, or at least
ingenuousness.

[322] Not of course as opposed to "romantic," but as = "chief and
principal."

[323] The reader must not forget that this formidable word means
"privatee