THE ADVENTURES OF GIL BLAS OF SANTILLANE

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY TOBIAS SMOLLETT

PRECEDED BY A BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL NOTICE OF LE SAGE BY GEORGE SAINTSBURY

With Twelve Original Etchings by R. de Los Rios

IN THREE VOLUMES—VOL. I.

LONDON J. C. NIMMO AND BAIN 14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C. NEW YORK: SCRIBNER, WELFORD & CO. 1881

THE AUTHOR'S DECLARATION.

There are some people in the world so mischievous as not to read a work without applying the vicious or ridiculous characters it may happen to contain to eminent or popular individuals. I protest publicly against the pretended discovery of any such likenesses. My purpose was to represent human life historically as it exists: God forbid I should hold myself out as a portrait-painter. Let not the reader then take to himself public property; for if he does, he may chance to throw an unlucky light on his own character: as Phædrus expresses it, Stulte nudabit animi conscientiam.

Certain physicians of Castille, as well as of France, are sometimes a little too fond of trying the bleeding and lowering system on their patients. Vices, their patrons, and their dupes, are of every day's occurrence. To be sure, I have not always adopted Spanish manners with scrupulous exactness; and in the instance of the players at Madrid, those who know their disorderly modes of living may reproach me with softening down their coarser traits: but this I have been induced to do from a sense of delicacy, and in conformity with the manners of my own country.

GIL BLAS TO THE READER

Reader! hark you, my friend! Do not begin the story of my life till I have told you a short tale.

Two students travelled together from Penafiel to Salamanca. Finding themselves tired and thirsty, they stopped by the side of a spring on the road. While they were resting there, after having quenched their thirst, by chance they espied on a stone near them, even with the ground, part of an inscription, in some degree effaced by time, and by the tread of flocks in the habit of watering at that spring. Having washed the stone, they were able to trace these words in the dialect of Castille: Aqui està encerrada el alma del licenciado Pedro Garcias. "Here lies interred the soul of the licentiate Peter Garcias."

Hey-day! roars out the younger, a lively, heedless fellow, who could not get on with his deciphering for laughter: This is a good joke indeed: "Here lies interred the soul." ... A soul interred! ... I should like to know the whimsical author of this ludicrous epitaph. With this sneer he got up to go away. His companion, who had more sense, said within himself: Underneath this stone lies some mystery; I will stay, and see the end of it. Accordingly, he let his comrade depart, and without loss of time began digging round about the stone with his knife till he got it up. Under it he found a purse of leather, containing a hundred ducats, with a card on which was written these words in Lathi: "Whoever thou art who hast wit enough to discover the meaning of the inscription, I appoint thee my heir, in the hope thou wilt make a better use of my fortune than I have done!" The student, out of his wits at the discovery, replaced the stone in its former position, and set out again on the Salamanca road with the soul of the licentiate in his pocket.

Now, my good friend and reader, no matter who you are, you must be like one or the other of these two students. If you cast your eye over my adventures without fixing it on the moral concealed under them, you will derive very little benefit from the perusal: but if you read with attention you will find that mixture of the useful with the agreeable, so successfully prescribed by Horace.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL NOTICE OF LE SAGE, BY GEORGE SAINTSBURY

BOOK THE FIRST.

CHAPTER I.

The Birth and Education of Gil Blas.

CHAPTER II.

Gil Blas's Alarm on his Road to Pegnaflor; his Adventures on his Arrival in that Town; and the Character of the Men with whom he Supped.

CHAPTER III.

The Muleteer's Temptation on the Road; its Consequences, and the Situation of Gil Blas between Scylla and Charybdis.

CHAPTER IV.

Description of the Subterranean Dwelling and its Contents.

CHAPTER V.

The Arrival of the Banditti in the Subterraneous Retreat, with an Account of their Pleasant Conversation.

CHAPTER VI.

The Attempt of Gil Blas to Escape, and its Success.

CHAPTER VII.

Gil Blas, not being able to do what he likes, does what he can.

CHAPTER VIII.

Gil Blas goes out with the Gang, and Performs an Exploit on the Highway.

CHAPTER IX.

A more Serious Incident.

CHAPTER X.

The Lady's Treatment from the Robbers. The Event of the Great Design conceived by Gil Blas.

CHAPTER XI.

The History of Donna Mencia de Mosquera.

CHAPTER XII.

A disagreeable Interruption.

CHAPTER XIII.

The lucky Means by which Gil Blas escaped from Prison, and his Travels afterwards.

CHAPTER XIV.

Donna Mencia's Reception of him at Burgos.

CHAPTER XV.

Gil Blas dresses himself to more Advantage, and receives a second Present from the Lady. His Equipage on setting out from Burgos.

CHAPTER XVI.

Showing that Prosperity will slip through a Man's Fingers.

CHAPTER XVII.

The Measures Gil Blas took after the Adventure of the ready-furnished Lodging.

BOOK THE SECOND.

CHAPTER I.

Fabricio introduces Gil Blas to the Licentiate Sedillo, and procures him a Reception. The Domestic Economy of that Clergyman. Picture of his Housekeeper.

CHAPTER II.

The Canon's Illness; his Treatment; the Consequence; the Legacy to Gil Blas.

CHAPTER III.

Gil Blas enters into Doctor Sangrado's Service, and becomes a famous Practitioner.

CHAPTER IV.

Gil Blas goes on practising Physic with equal Success and Ability. Adventure of the recovered Ring.

CHAPTER V.

Sequel of the foregoing Adventure. Gil Blas retires from Practice, and from the Neighborhood of Valladolid.

CHAPTER VI.

His Route from Valladolid, with a Description of his Fellow-traveller.

CHAPTER VII.

The Journeyman Barber's Story.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Meeting of Gil Blas and his Companion with a Man soaking Crusts of Bread at a Spring, and the Particulars of their Conversation.

CHAPTER IX.

The Meeting of Diego with his Family; their Circumstances in Life; great Rejoicing on the Occasion; the parting Scene between him and Gil Blas.

BOOK THE THIRD.

CHAPTER I.

The Arrival of Gil Blas at Madrid. His first Place there.

CHAPTER II.

The Astonishment of Gil Blas at meeting Captain Rolando in Madrid, and that Robber's curious Narrative.

CHAPTER III.

Gil Blas is dismissed by Don Bernard de Castil Blazo, and enters into the Service of a Beau.

CHAPTER IV.

Gil Blas gets into Company with his Fellows; they show him a ready Road to the Reputation of Wit, and impose on him a singular Oath.

CHAPTER V.

Gil Blas becomes the Darling of the Fair Sex, and makes an interesting Acquaintance.

CHAPTER VI.

The Prince's Company of Comedians.

CHAPTER VII.

History of Don Pompeyo de Castro.

CHAPTER VIII.

An Accident, in Consequence of which Gil Blas was obliged to look out for another Place.

CHAPTER IX.

A new Service after the Death of Don Matthias de Silva.

CHAPTER X.

Much such another as the Foregoing.

CHAPTER XI.

A theatrical Life, and an Author's Life.

CHAPTER XII.

Gil Blas acquires a Relish for the Theatre, and takes a full Swing of its Pleasures, but soon becomes disgusted.

BOOK THE FOURTH.

CHAPTER I.

Gil Blas, not being able to reconcile himself to the Morals of the Actresses, quits Arsenia, and gets into a more reputable. Service.

CHAPTER II.

Aurora's Reception of Gil Blas. Their Conversation.

CHAPTER III.

A great Change at Don Vincent's. Aurora's strange Resolution.

CHAPTER IV.

"The Fatal Marriage"—a Novel.

CHAPTER V.

The Behavior of Aurora de Guzman on her Arrival at Salamanca.

CHAPTER VI.

Aurora's Devices to secure Don Lewis Pacheco's Affections.

ALAIN RENÉ LESAGE.

A critic of whom I desire to speak with all respect—the Rector of Lincoln—has said that "mere style cannot confer immortality upon any book apart from its contents." The context from which this remark is taken deals with the Provinciales and Pensées of Pascal, concerning which Mr. Pattison thinks that the former are but an ephemeral pamphlet, the latter are for all time. So startling a judgment makes the reader a little inclined to dogmatize hyperbolically in his turn, and to say that there is nothing perennial but style. This, indeed, would be merely running from one extreme to another; nevertheless, there is more truth in it than in the other exaggeration, for the attitude of men's minds changes singularly, from one time to another, with regard to any "contents;" it changes very little with regard to the expression of those contents. This is, perhaps, nowhere seen more clearly than in the case of very voluminous authors whose works are preserved in unequal remembrance. When such cases are examined, it will generally be found that the reason for the preference which

posterity has expressed has been almost entirely due to literary merit. Between the merit of the contents of Defoe's different novels there is not very much to choose; yet no one who speaks with competence will question that the literary art of Robinson Crusoe is, on the whole, far superior to that of Moll Flanders and Colonel Jack. So, in the not wholly dissimilar case of our present author, the contents of Estévanille Gonzales and The Bachelor of Salamanca are not much less interesting, if they are less interesting at all, than those of Le Diable Boiteux and Gil Blas, while Guzman d'Alfarache has perhaps a positive advantage over much of the latter. But Lesage was never so well inspired from the literary point of view as in the two works which have been justly deemed his masterpieces, and in this lies the justice of the selection.

The reasons of the inequality of Lesage's work are to be sought in the same cause which, in all probability, accounts for such inequality in all cases. Where men never write below themselves, it will almost invariably be found that their work has either been thrown off in the heyday of youth, or, if spread over a long course of years, has been written for pleasure merely; at any rate, without any immediate pressure of want. Pegasus, as one of the greatest of English writers in our time has put it, must, in the unhappier cases, be too frequently spurred, and will not always answer to the spur. Now the long life of the author of Gil Blas was anything but one of ease. He had few patrons, and was not of a temper to have many. Literature, unfortunately, was stick, crutch and all to him, and he was unlucky in his law affairs, a fact which probably accounts for the continual satire he pours on law and lawyers. Yet, by birth, at any rate, he belonged to the profession. His father, Claude Lesage, was at once Advocate, Notary and Greffier (Registrar) of the Royal Court of the small district

of Rhuys, the out-of-the-way peninsula which bounds the Morbihan on its eastern side. Alain René was born on the 8th of May, 1668 (his mother being by name Jeanne Brenugat), at Sarzeau, the chief town of the district, which, it may be well to remind readers, was also the locality of the Abbey of St. Gildas de Rhuys, the very uneasy refuge of Abelard after his calamities. It is not a little characteristic of the peculiar bent of Lesage's genius, that it shows hardly any local colour, though Brittany has, of all French provinces, left most mark on her children as a rule, and though Lesage's birthplace lay in perhaps the most striking part of the Duchy, But Lesage left his native province young; he never, so far as I know, returned to it, and he very probably had unpleasant associations connected therewith. The father's triple office was profitable enough, but he died when his son was young, and the property he left him was dissipated or embezzled by a dishonest guardian, a personage of frequent occurrence in those days, and one whom Lesage

smites again and again in his novels. That the boy was at school at Vannes, the neighbouring episcopal city, until 1686, is known; but this is almost all that is known about his youth, and then he disappears for some eight years. It has been supposed that he may have held some small post in the financial department of the province, or that he may have continued his studies at Paris, the latter being by far the more probable hypothesis. Anyhow, in 1692 he was admitted as an advocate at the Bar of Paris. But he apparently got no clients, and when he was six-and-twenty he took to himself a wife, Marie Elisabeth Huyard. She is said to have been remarkably beautiful, and they lived for many years together, it would seem, happily enough; but she had no fortune, she was only a tradesman's daughter, and his marriage can hardly have added to the young lawyer's resources. Falling in with an old schoolfellow, Danchet, who had already made some mark in literature, he was recommended by him to seek the same refuge for the destitute. His coup d'essai, a translation of the letters of Aristænetus,

which appeared in 1695 (he had been married in August or September, 1694), has made his biographers and critics rather merry. He certainly might have done better, but it is doubtful whether the oddity of the choice—comparatively worthless as the book is—struck that age as it strikes ours. The indiscriminate reign of the classics, early and late, good and bad, genuine and spurious, was not yet over, and many a young man of letters had made his début with work not intrinsically better. Lesage, however, had no luck—he had not much at any period during his life—and the book fell flat. A more useful adviser in every sense, however, fell to his lot in the person of the Abbe de Lyonne. Lyonne not merely gave him, or procured him, a pension or annuity of six hundred livres—no despicable assistance to modest housekeeping at that time, when living at Paris was extraordinarily cheap—but recommended him to study Spanish literature, of which he himself was a great lover. Three-quarters of a century before, this literature had been greatly admired and largely borrowed from

in France, but the age of the great writers of Louis the Thirteenth's time and his son's had put it out of fashion. Lesage began by simple translation or adaptation, and, as in the case of Aristænetus, he was not too fortunate in his models. In drama, at least, he did not go far wrong, choosing Rojas, Lope de Vega and Calderon for his originals, and producing plays which were sometimes acted. But a version of the worthless New Don Quixote of Avellaneda was sorry work for the future author of Gil Blas. The play which he conveyed from Calderon—Don César Ursin—had some merit; and in 1707, being then hard upon his fortieth year, he scored two great successes. His little piece of Crispin Rival de son Maître appeared, and was loudly and deservedly applauded, while the Diable obtained still greater favour. It ran through several editions in the year, and many legends of the usual character we told about its success. The most characteristic, and probably the truest, is that Boileau found his footboy with a copy, and declared that if such a

book stayed a night in his house the boy should not stay another. Lesage was already hailed as a Molière Redivivus, and this of itself was sufficient to irritate Boileau in his sour old age. But it would probably have been sufficient for that vigorous but narrow critic that the book was not in any style which he had himself recommended, or which he could understand; for Boileau was the incarnation of the merely French spirit of literature in its most contracted form; Lesage, as we shall see, was not specially or primarily French at all except in his wit, the very quality which the author of the Namur Ode was least qualified to appreciate. Lesage, however, had not yet arrived at his apogee. Despite his theatrical successes he was never on very good terms with the players of the regular theatre, and a small piece—Les Etrennes—was refused by them at the beginning of 1708. The author took it back, set to work on it, and refashioned it into Turcaret, the best French comedy, beyond all doubt, of the eighteenth century, and probably the best of its kind to be found outside

the covers of Molière's works. It is in connection with Turcaret, the success of which was very great, though the powerful class offended by it did not conceal their displeasure, that one of the few personal and characteristic anecdotes we possess of Lesage is told. He had been asked to read his play to a fashionable company at the Duchess of Bouillon's, and, being delayed by law business, was late. The Duchess—let it be remembered that it was some half-century before all Paris interested itself in the quarrel of two "miserable scribblers who live in garrets"—rebuked him with some asperity for keeping her an hour waiting. "Eh bien, Madame," replied the poet; "je vous ai fait perdre une heure, je vais vous en faire gagner deux;" and he put his manuscript in his pocket, and, resisting all entreaties, went away. The anecdote rests on the authority of Colle, who, in such a case, is fairly trustworthy, and it probably explains why Lesage's life was one of struggle. Though his independence was, most likely, natural and usual, it is said to have been made more touchy on this particular

occasion by the fact that he had lost the case which had detained him. However this may be, his dissatisfaction with the Maison de Molière soon assumed a still more active form, and for five-and-twenty years the best living comic dramatist of France gained his bread chiefly by writing for the stage of the Foire, the irregular but licensed booths set up during fair time. Lesage is said to have written no less than twenty-four farce-operettas, as they may perhaps best be termed, for these boards, and the number of his works for them alone, or in collaboration, is sometimes put at sixty-four and sometimes at a hundred and one. It was about the time that he took to this occupation, in which he was kept in company by not a few writers of talent, if not of genius, notably by Piron, that Gil Blas appeared in 1715. This, his greatest work, was scarcely so popular as Le Diable Boiteux, and it was long before it was finished, while the number of editions during the thirty years of the author's life was by comparison surprisingly small. Among the few positive

statements that we have about Lesage's literary gains is one to the effect that a hundred pistoles had been advanced to him as prepayment for the last volume several years before it was completed. It does not of course follow that this was the whole price. The two first parts, as has been said, appeared in 1715, the third in 1724, the fourth in 1735. Thus Lesage evidently took time about his greatest work, though he was compelled to do much else in a hurry. His productions were sufficiently miscellaneous, though most of them had to do with the vein of literary ore which had been so fortunately indicated to him. A version of Guzman d'Alfarache, much altered and improved; Histoire d'Estévanille Gonzales and Le Bachelier de Salamanque, were the chief of these, while he also translated the Orlando Inamorato. A curious collection of imaginary letters, called the Valise Trouvée, and some minor works, came from his pen; besides which he was at the close of his life occupied on a collection of anecdotes which appeared after his death. He also