[241] PATE D’HOMME. A familiar expression for ‘sort of a man.’

[242] VOUS M’EN DIREZ DES NOUVELLES, ‘You will see that I am right.’  See Nouvelle, Littre, 1 deg..  Compare:  “(Madame Patin) Tu ne sais ce que tu dis.  (Lisette) Vous m’en direz des nouvelles” (Dancourt, le Chevalier a la Mode, I, IX).

[243] VOS PETITES MANIERES, ‘Your rude manners.’  By apposition to les belles manieres, the manners of a class above one’s own.

[244] NOUS VIVRONS BUT A BUT, ‘We shall live on the same footing.’  To understand Harlequin’s impertinent remark, it must be remembered that while he is well aware of the real rank of both Lisette and Silvia, Dorante is still ignorant of it.  Harlequin knows his master to be in love with the latter, and to be about to marry her, in spite of the apparently tremendous difference in rank, and allows himself a little sarcasm at the expense of his master.  This attitude of the domestic towards his superior is not infrequent in the comedies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

[245] PREVENU, ‘Forestalled.’

[246] CE N’EST PAS A MOI A ...  DEMANDER.  See note 7.

[247] ENTENDEZ. Entendre is here used for comprendre.

[248] EST-CE A VOUS A VOUS PLAINDRE.  See note 7.  Some later editions print de vous plaindre.

[249] VOUS RENDRE SENSIBLE.  See note 153.

[250] VOUS ETES SENSIBLE A, ‘You share.’

[251] JE N’Y TACHERAI POINT.  This construction would not now be admissible.  The modern form would be, Je ne tacherai point de le faire.

[252] LE MERITE VAUT BIEN LA NAISSANCE.  A theme often repeated by Marivaux.  Compare:  “Son exemple encourageait quiconque avait du merite sans naissance” (Voltaire, Russie, I, 12).  Voltaire founded his comedy, Nanine, upon this line of Marivaux.  The Comte d’Olban has fallen in love with Nanine, a girl brought up by his mother, the Marquise d’Olban, and who occupies the position of half maid, half companion.  She is a peasant’s daughter, but the Count marries her, nevertheless, after he has declaimed a number of speeches full of very noble and liberal ideas on equality and the worth of real virtue, of which the following extract is a fair sample:—­

  Je ne prends point, quoiqu’on en puisse croire,
  La vanite pour l’honneur et la gloire,
  L’eclat vous plait; vous mettez la grandeur
  Dans des blasons:  je la veux dans le coeur. 
  L’homme de bien, modeste avec courage,
  Et la beaute spirituelle, sage
  Sans bien, sans nom, sans tous ces titres vains,
  Sont a mes yeux les premiers des humains.

[253] MADAME.  Note that this is the first time Dorante has so addressed Silvia.  That is because it is only now that he has learned her real rank.

[254] ALLONS, SAUTE, MARQUIS! from Regnard’s le Joueur (1696), IV, vi.

LE LEGS.