Monsieur Alain-Réné Le Sage. He was an only
son. His father was a country lawyer, and
a rich man according to provincial ideas of
wealth. Alain-René was born in the year
sixteen hundred and sixty-eight, at Sarzeau,
a little town in the peninsula of Rhuys, four
leagues from Vannes. When he was nine
years old he lost his mother. When he was
fourteen years old he lost his father. He
passed then under the guardianship of an
uncle, who lost for him his inheritance.
The son of an educated man, he received
liberal instruction, — that is to say, he was
sent to a school established by the Jesuits at
Vannes,—and he was a quick pupil. Of his
life during the first years of orphanhood no
record remains; but it was probably through
the good offices of his father's friends that he
obtained employment upon the collection of
the customs in Bretagne. He either
abandoned that employment or was dismissed
from it. The pure tone of his character
makes it likely that he forsook the calling as
offensive to the generosity of youth and
inconsistent with his nobler aspirations.
Certainly he left it with a full knowledge of the
general character of the class of men—farmers
of revenue—under whom he served, and the
disgust that he felt towards them stuck by
him throughout his life.

Thus it happened that, at the age of twenty-
four, Le Sage travelled to Paris, meaning
there to graduate at the university, and
to find, if he could, new means of livelihood.
He was a handsome and agreeable young
fellow, remarkable for his wit and his good
taste in literature, by which he was not
without hope that he might get a living. He
won quickly the good graces of the ladies
whom he met. One lady of quality, it is said,
made him an offer of her hand and fortune;
but he scorned selfishness in marriage; and,
having quietly fallen in love with Marie-
Elisabeth Hudyard, a tradesman's daughter—
who had, like himself, more treasure in the
heart than in the pocket — he made her his
wife when he was a few months more than
twenty-six years old.

Remaining true to literature, he was
advised to translate the Letters of Aristenetes.
His friend, Monsieur Danchet, being
made professor of rhetoric at Chartres,
promised his influence to get them printed there.
The translation was accordingly made, and
published, as it appears, at Rotterdam. The
world, however, took but very little notice of
it. Young Le Sage had obtained for himself a
status as an advocate before the Court of
Parliament, when he married and settled in
Paris. Though, in want of money, and apt at
making friends who could have put him on the
road to loaves and fishes, he had a spirit above
begging, and besieged no man with solicitation.
Even while living in discomfort, he
refused to sell his independence to the
Marshal de Villeroi: and a little employment
that, after a time, came to him he abandoned
as soon as he felt it possible to live by
devoting himself wholly to literary work. The
difficult first step in the career of a man of
letters was made easier to Le Sage by the Abbé
de Lionne, a passionate admirer of Spanish
literature, who taught Le Sage the language
out of which his pleasures were derived ;
and, by presenting him with a moderate
annuity, enabled him to employ this
acquisition to advantage. Le Sage then
commenced in good earnest his career of
authorship, by working on the dramatic
stores of Spain, whereof few grains had
then been scattered among readers north of
the Pyrenees. Translations, or imitations,
of some of the best comedies of Lope de
Vega, Calderon, and others, were published
by him or performed at the Théâtre Français,
with limited success. A more favourable
reception did not greet the appearance
of two small volumes, comprising his
version of Avellaneda's continuation of Don
Quixote.

Following, in spite of discouragement, the
course on which he had embarked, he brought
out, in seventeen hundred and seven, his
famous Diable Boiteux. To what extent
Le Sage is indebted, in this production,
to Velez, from whom, avowedly, the idea is
taken, he has himself stated, in his dedication
to the Spanish author, of the enlarged edition
of seventeen hundred and twenty-six. The
success of the Diable Boiteux was prodigious.
So eager was the demand for it, that, we are
told, two young gallants of the court, happening
to enter the publisher's shop to purchase
copies when (of the second edition) only one
remained on hand, were hardly prevented
from deciding the question which of them
should have it by a duel. Such extreme
popularity was owing, not to the merit of
the work only, but also to the introduction
into it of many piquant anecdotes and lively
satires upon living personages.

Le Sage had presented to the Theatre Français
a comedy in one act, with the title of the
Presents, — Les Etrennes—to be performed on
a day of New Year's gifts, the first of January
seventeen hundred and six. It was a work
begotten of his experience among the farmers
of revenue, and was designed, in a spirit of
righteous indignation, to inflict public chastisement
upon them for their villanous extortions.
The piece was refused. Le Sage was, however,
very much in earnest. He took it back; and,
instead of cutting down or mollifying the
expression of his scorn, he extended it into
a five-act comedy, and called it after its
hero, Turcaret. This change was very far
from removing his difficulties. The class
attacked was powerful, and it resorted to all
possible expedients to escape a public flogging.
But, while the stage was denied to him,
Le Sage could nevertheless secure a certain
degree of publicity and influential advocates
for his work by reading it in some of those
brilliant Parisian coteries the titled members