LESAGE, le-siizh', ALALN RExE (166S-1717). A French novelist and dramatist, born in Sar zenu. Brittany, May S. 1008, famous for his Gil Bla-c. Left an orphan at fourteen and de spoiled by his uncles of his patrimony, he went to Paris in 1690, studied for the law, married in 1031• gave up law for letters, won the patron age of the Abbe de Lyonne. from whom he re ceived a pension of 600 and supported him self by hack work in not always faithful transla tions from the Spanish (Thcdtre Espignol, 1700: Avellaneda's unauthorized New idrcntnr•cs of D.n Quixote. 1701; etc.). Lesage's original work in both fiction and drama begins with 1707 with the comedy Crispin, rival cic son maitre• and the novel Le cliable boiteux. the idea for which was borrowed from Guevara's Diablo ('ojuelo ( 1G11 ) and the details from other sources, though none could question the originality of its wit and spirit. Then followed Lesage'. greatest comedy, Turcaret (1709). In this play Lesage fiercely assailed the tax-gatherers or traitairts. Such was their power that they could keep this play off the stage for a while, but the Dauphin took side, with Lesage and Turcurrt was put on. his trouble with the 'fheltre Francai. led him to work thereafter for the rival and inferior'1heltre de In 1'oire, for which Lesage wrote a host of tarees and light operetta:. once popular lint now forgotten, giving his ripe t thought uic:urtime to Gil Blass, hi. neatest novel. lit-gnu in 1715 eoutinued in 1724, completed in 1735. an d d iu 1717. Gil Blu.s i.. derived in part from the following work-: Di.sqrazui dcl cony d'tllirurv, in a French translation; from a French work founded on the .uceclote.sch con nte-ducdrUHcuria, by M. de Va ldory; from the 11 i.s!aire du comic due ar'ec des refexions politiquc.s et ertrieu•scs ( Cologne. 1 633 ) . Lesage also borrowed from the life of Clbregon. and from a number of p:ui ish narratives or plays. The Lazrrr-illo de 'loran's is a prototype of Gil Blas. The borrowed episodes of Gil Bias constitute about one-fifth of the whole. It tells the stony of a young rogue who is rut upon the world and has innumerable adventures which he recounts in a light, .satirical, low, and often cynical vein. Lesage wrote also a French adaptation of the Spanish 0uznviii c1 AIfaraehe (1732), a picaroon novel, and the similar though more independent piearoou stories, Estcraaille Gonzales ( 1731) and Le Bach elicr de ."alarnaiiqlie (1736), as well as Les acentures clu cheualier dv' fleauehesne founded eu conteni porn ry memoirs, all works little read, and not likely to be much read, but not without interest as experi ments in realistic fiction.
Lesage's domestic life was happy and un eventful. He lived respectably, on the borderland of Bohemia, and if he died poor it was rather be cause he was independent than because he was reckless, his good humor being always restrained by a sane judgment. In his lifetime• though always popular• he was enjoyed rather than appreciated• for, though not a creative genius, he was so keen an observer and so remarkable an assimilator a to be in several vvays an inno vator: not the father of realism, but its prophet. Le diable boiteux is a satire on contemporary Parisian society, under a Spanish veil, owing inure to La Bruyere's Car•aetrre.s than to Oue vara. Kees were soon provided in abundance• and even now the allusions to Fontenelle. Ninon de l'Enelos, Voltaire, and others are unnuistak able. (''rispin and Turcaret. too, are prose pic tures of Parisian life• the former farcical, the latter a cruelly realistic satire on mercantile pettiness, provincial narrowness, and most of all of the new plutocracy. This satiric realism finds its final expression in Gil Bias• the story of a self-made man and studied more from French life than from any Spanish ron:unee. tt least four men were then living in France—Dubois, Alberoni. Barjae. and (iourvllle—valets or favor ites, whose adventures might have suggested those of Lesage's Spanish hero. The story aims through the experiences e f a checkered life to show how character is formed by cnvironnmeuuI iron impressions rouse reflection. reflection airs consc•ienee, and both react on conduct so :rs grad ually to transform it. That is the moral, and to draw it Lesage paints tire world as he finds it with keen understanding and the charity of wi. dam. So Gil Blass has endured for nearly two centuries as a gospel of a iio•ldly-wisr loan's common sense. Lesage's permanence in Trench literature seems more assured to-day than at any time since his death, which occurred in Paris, November 17, 1747.
Lesage's works are best edited by Renouard in 12 volumes (1821), to be supplemented by Le Tla'ritre do la Foire (10 vols., 1737) and 1111D11b 161DA manuscripts in the French National Li brary. Consult : the Life by Lintilhac ( Paris, 1893) the Introduction by Anatole France to Lonerre's ed. of Le diable buitemr; Brunetiere, Critiques, vol. iii. ( Paris, 1880 ) ; Faguet, sWcie ( ib.. 1885 ) ; Sainte-11min.. causeries, vol. ii. (ib., 1881) ; L. Claretie, Lcsagc row:oder (lb., 1890) ; Barheret, Lesage et le Thad•e de la Foire (Dijon, 1887).