It is only the mothers that merit our aversion.  With few exceptions, notably Mme. Argante in la Mere confidente, he paints them “laides, vaines, imperieuses, avares, entichees de prejuges.”  “Il ne pare pas du moindre rayon de coquetterie leurs maussades et acariatres personnes.  Il a de la peine a ne pas ceder, quand il s’agit d’elles, a la tentation de la caricature.  On dirait qu’il se venge."[129] The roles of fathers, on the other hand, are treated with great affection.  They are always kind and indulgent, and exercise their authority as little as possible.  Their motto is that of the good Monsieur Orgon of le Jeu de l’Amour et du Hasard:  “Il faut etre un peu trop bon pour l’etre assez.”

His amoureux are less varied and less attractive than his amoureuses, and, while no less refined and exquisite, are less sincere, more calculating and self-interested.

His valets, like his soubrettes, are more refined than those of Moliere, that is to say, are higher in the social scale, and are treated by their masters with more consideration.  The changes, soon to be wrought in the old regime, are already germinating.  While almost rivalling their masters in wit, they yet occupy a secondary place upon the stage, and rarely dwarf by their own cleverness, as do often those of Moliere, their master’s roles.[130] “Three of these valets are real creations.  Dubois of les Fausses Confidences, Trivelin, of la Fausse Suivante, Lepine of le Legs."[131] Trivelin is the ancestor of Beaumarchais’ Figaro.[132]

Marivaux has introduced into a number of his plays peasants of the cunning, calculating, Norman type, who speak a Norman patois, which may be a souvenir of his own Norman origin.

Piron, who could not resist an occasional thrust at his rivals, was guilty of the following witticism:  “Fontenelle a engendre Marivaux, Marivaux a engendre Moncrif, et Moncrif n’engendrera personne.”  The boutade is amusing, but not just.  Moncrif can hardly be considered an offspring of Marivaux, although he imitated certain of his coquettish graces,[133] any more, or perhaps even much less, than the latter, may be considered an offspring of Fontenelle.  Larroumet[134] mentions as true successors to Marivaux, in the line of proverbes and comedies de societe, Florian, in the eighteenth century, and in the nineteenth, Picard, Andrieux, Colin d’Harleville, Carmontelle, Theodore Leclercq, Alfred de Vigny and Alfred de Musset,[135] in the novel Paul Bourget and his school, and particularly Paul Hervieu, and in the journal, the masters of the modern chronique.