plot is somewhat extravagant, inasmuch as it lies in the effort of a knavish valet, not as usual to further his master’s interests, but to supplant that master in love and gain. But the charm of the piece consists first in the lively bustling action of the short scenes which take each other up so promptly and smartly that the spectator has not time to cavil at the improbability of the action, and secondly in the abundant wit of the dialogue. Turcaret is a far more important piece of work and ranks high among comedies dealing with the actual society of their time. The only thing which prevents it from holding the very highest place is a certain want of unity in the plot. This want, however, is compensated in Turcaret by the most masterly profusion of character-drawing in the separate parts. Turcaret, the ruthless, dishonest and dissolute financier, his vulgar wife as dissolute as himself, the harebrained marquis, the knavish chevalier, the baroness (a coquette with the finer edge taken off her fine-ladyhood, yet by no means unlovable), are each and all finished portraits of the best comic type, while almost as much may be said of the minor characters. The style and dialogue are also worthy of the highest praise; the wit never degenerates into mere “wit-combats.”
It is, however, as a novelist that the world has agreed to remember Le Sage. A great deal of unnecessary labour has been spent on the discussion of his claims to originality. What has been already said will give a sufficient clue through this thorny ground. In mere form Le Sage is not original. He does little more than adopt that of the Spanish picaroon romance of the 16th and 17th century. Often, too, he prefers merely to rearrange and adapt existing work, and still oftener to give himself a kind of start by adopting the work of a preceding writer as a basis. But it may be laid down as a positive truth that he never, in any work that pretends to originality at all, is guilty of anything that can fairly be called plagiarism. Indeed we may go further, and say that he is very fond of asserting or suggesting his indebtedness when he is really dealing with his own funds. Thus the Diable boiteux borrows the title, and for a chapter or two the plan and almost the words, of the Diablo Cojuelo of Luis Velez de Guevara. But after a few pages Le Sage leaves his predecessor alone. Even the plan of the Spanish original is entirely discarded, and the incidents, the episodes, the style, are as independent as if such a book as the Diablo Cojuelo had never existed. The case of Gil Blas is still more remarkable. It was at first alleged that Le Sage had borrowed it from the Marcos de Obregon of Vincent Espinel, a curiously rash assertion, inasmuch as that work exists and is easily accessible, and as the slightest consultation of it proves that, though it furnished Le Sage with separate incidents and hints for more than one of his books, Gil Blas as a whole is not in the least indebted to it. Afterwards Father Isla asserted that Gil Blas was a mere translation from an actual Spanish book—an assertion at once incapable of proof and disproof, inasmuch as there is no trace whatever of any such book. A third hypothesis is that there was some manuscript original which Le Sage may have worked up in his usual way, in the same way, for instance, as he professes himself to have worked up the Bachelor of Salamanca. This also is in the nature of it incapable of refutation, though the argument from the Bachelor is strong against it, for there could be no reason why Le Sage should be more reticent of his obligations in the one case than in the other. Except, however, for historical reasons, the controversy is one which may be safely neglected, nor is there very much importance in the more impartial indication of sources—chiefly works on the history of Olivares—which has sometimes been attempted. That Le Sage knew Spanish literature well is of course obvious; but there is as little doubt (with the limitations already laid down) of his real originality as of that of any great writer in the world. Gil Blas then remains his property, and it is admittedly the capital example of its own style. For Le Sage has not only the characteristic, which Homer and Shakespeare have, of absolute truth to human nature as distinguished from truth to this or that national character, but he has what has been called the quality of detachment, which they also have. He never takes sides with his characters as Fielding (whose master, with Cervantes, he certainly was) sometimes does. Asmodeus and Don Cleofas, Gil Blas and the Archbishop and Doctor Sangrado, are produced by him with exactly the same impartiality of attitude. Except that he brought into novel writing this highest quality of artistic truth, it perhaps cannot be said that he did much to advance prose fiction in itself. He invented, as has been said, no new genre; he did not, as Marivaux and Prévost did, help on the novel as distinguished from the romance. In form his books are undistinguishable, not merely from the Spanish romances which are, as has been said, their direct originals, but from the medieval romans d’aventures and the Greek prose romances. But in individual excellence they have few rivals. Nor should it be forgotten, as it sometimes is, that Le Sage was a great master of French style, the greatest unquestionably between the classics of the 17th century and the classics of the 18th. He is perhaps the last great writer before the decadence (for since the time of Paul Louis Courier it has not been denied that the philosophe period is in point of style a period of decadence). His style is perfectly easy at the same time that it is often admirably epigrammatic. It has plenty of colour, plenty of flexibility, and may be said to be exceptionally well fitted for general literary work.
The dates of the original editions of Le Sage’s most important works have already been given. He published during his life a collection of his regular dramatic works, and also one of his pieces for the Foire, but the latter is far from exhaustive; nor is there any edition which can be called so, though the Œuvres choisies of 1782 and 1818 are useful, and there are so-called Œuvres complètes of 1821 and 1840. Besides critical articles by the chief literary critics and historians, the work of Eugène Lintilhac, in the Grands écrivains français (1893), should be consulted. The Diable boiteux and Gil Blas have been reprinted and translated numberless times. Both will be found conveniently printed, together with Estévanille Gonzales and Guzman d’Alfarache, the best of the minor novels, in four volumes of Garnier’s Bibliothèque amusante (Paris, 1865). Turcaret and Crispin are to be found in all collected editions of the French drama. There is a useful edition of them, with ample specimens of Le Sage’s work for the Foire, in two volumes (Paris, 1821). (G. Sa.)
LES ANDELYS, a town of northern France, capital of an
arrondissement in the department of Eure about 30 m. S.E. of
Rouen by rail. Pop. (1906) 3955. Les Andelys is formed by
the union of Le Grand Andely and Le Petit Andely, the latter
situated on the right bank of the Seine, the former about half a mile
from the river. Grand Andely, founded, according to tradition,
in the 6th century, has a church (13th, 14th and 15th centuries)
parts of which are of fine late Gothic and Renaissance architecture.
The works of art in the interior include beautiful stained
glass of the latter period. Other interesting buildings are the
hôtel du Grand Cerf dating from the first half of the 16th century,
and the chapel of Sainte-Clotilde, close by a spring which, owing
to its supposed healing powers, is the object of a pilgrimage.
Grand Andely has a statue of Nicolas Poussin, a native of the
place. Petit Andely sprang up at the foot of the eminence on
which stands the château Gaillard, now in ruins, but formerly
one of the strongest fortresses in France (see Fortification and Siegecraft and Castle). It was built by Richard Cœur
de Lion at the end of the 12th century to protect the Norman
frontier, was captured by the French in 1204 and passed finally
into their possession in 1449. The church of St Sauveur at
Petit Andely also dates from the end of the 12th century. Les
Andelys is the seat of a sub-prefect and of a tribunal of first
instance, has a preparatory infantry school; it carries on silk
milling, and the manufacture of leather, organs and sugar.
It has trade in cattle, grain, flour, &c.
LES BAUX, a village of south-eastern France, in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, 11 m. N.E. of Arles by road. Pop. (1906) 111. Les Baux, which in the middle ages was a flourishing town, is now almost deserted. Apart from a few inhabited dwellings, it consists of an assemblage of ruined towers, fallen walls and other débris, which cover the slope of a hill crowned by the remains of a huge château, once the seat of a celebrated “court of love.” The ramparts, a medieval church, the château, parts of which date to the 11th century, and many of the dwellings are,
