It was as a result of the presentation of the first Surprise de l’Amour that Marivaux made the acquaintance of the renowned actress.[72] With that characteristic timidity, which we have already noted, Marivaux had withheld from the public his name as author.  Although Silvia had played her part well, she felt that there was still lacking a shade of meaning, which, if she only knew the author, she might grasp.  Yielding to the solicitation of a friend of hers, Marivaux consented to pay her his respects, but on condition that he might keep his incognito.  Upon being presented to the artist, he congratulated her upon her charming rendition of the play.  Silvia was pleased with his appreciation, but, foreseeing possibilities in the piece as yet unattained by her, she said:  “It is a charming comedy; but I have a grudge against the author... for not disclosing himself.  We would play it a hundred times better, if he had merely deigned to read it to us.”

Marivaux took the role, and, choosing a few passages, read into them all of their hidden meaning, with the fluent ease and clearness which had gained for him the reputation of a fascinating reader.  Silvia listened with ever increasing surprise, and at last exclaimed:  “Ah, sir, you are the author of the piece, or else the devil.”  He assured her with a smile that he was not the latter, and their friendship had begun, a friendship which had in it something akin to that of Racine and la Champmesle, for, from this time on, Marivaux wrote most of his plays with Silvia in mind; but here the comparison must end, for no closer relation has ever been suggested by any of Marivaux’s contemporaries, and it is not likely that so tempting a bit of scandal would ever have been allowed to pass unnoticed by the eighteenth century, “si friand d’indiscretions de ce genre."[73]

As can be seen by a Compliment in prose and verse, addressed to Mlle. Silvia the same year that the first Surprise de l’Amour appeared.  Marivaux joined also in the well-nigh universal chorus of praise which rose on all sides in celebration of the graceful actress.  If the author contributed much to the perfection of her talent, she, too, lent no small part to the popularity which many of Marivaux’s plays attained.

In the year of the presentation of the first Surprise de l’Amour, and the more speedily and surely to relieve his financial embarrassment, Marivaux turned his mind to journalism, and began the publication of what he termed le Spectateur francais, modelled after Addison’s Spectator.  He adopted a literary fiction to introduce his observations and moral reflections similar to that which gave life to Sir Roger de Coverly, but the whole was carried out with less simplicity, logical development, and power in the creation of types, though, perhaps, with greater subtlety.  Strange to say, the Spectateur has never been as much appreciated in France as in England, where Marivaux has been compared not unfavorably with La Bruyere.[74]