ater blood-thirstiness of the French highwayman, as
compared with the English, has been sometimes attributed by
humanitarians to the "wheel"--and has often been considered by persons
of sense as justifying that implement.

[332] The Devil's Advocate may say that Marianne turns out to be of
English extraction after all--but it is not Marivaux who tells us so.

[333] To question or qualify Marianne's virtue, even in the slightest
degree, may seem ungracious; for it certainly withstands what to some
girls would have been the hardest test of all--that is to say, not so
much the offer of riches if she consents, as the apparent certainty of
utter destitution if she refuses. At the same time, the Devil's Advocate
need not be a Kelly or a Cockburn to make out some damaging suggestions.
Her vague, and in no way solidly justified, but decided family pride
seems to have a good deal to do with her refusal; and though this shows
the value of the said family pride, it is not exactly virtue in itself.
Still more would appear to be due to the character of the suit and the
suitor. M. de Climal is not only old and unattractive; not only a sneak
and a libertine; but he is a clumsy person, and he has not, as he might
have done, taken Marianne's measure. The mere shock of his sudden
transformation from a pious protector into a prospective "keeper," who
is making a bid for a new concubine, has evidently an immense effect on
her quick nervous temperament. She is not at all the kind of girl to
like to be the plaything of an old man; and she is perfectly shrewd
enough to see that vengeance, and fear as regards his nephew, have as
much as anything else, or more, to do with the way in which he brusques
his addresses and hurries his gift. Further, she has already conceived a
fancy, at least, for that nephew himself; and one sees the "jury droop,"
as Dickens has put it, with which the Counsel of the Prince of the Air
would hint that, if the offers had come in a more seductive fashion from
Valville himself, they might not have been so summarily rejected. But
let it be observed that these considerations, while possibly unfair to
Marianne, are not in the least derogatory to Marivaux himself. On the
contrary, it is greatly to his credit that he should have created a
character of sufficient lifelikeness and sufficient complexity to serve
as basis for "problem"-discussions of the kind.

[334] To put the drift of the above in other words, we do not need