Even other branches
of art were greatest in satire. Daumier's _Robert Macaire_ sketches
and the _Mayeux_ of Travies had large material supplied them in the
various types of citizen, greedy of pleasure and gold. The _mot_:
"Enrichissez-vous," attributed to Guizot, was the axiom of the time,
accepted as the _nec plus ultra_ by the vast majority of people. It
invaded all circles with its lowering expedience; and he who was to
depict its effects most puissantly did not escape its thrall.
* * * * *
When Balzac began to write, no French novelist had a reputation as
such that might be considered great. Up to the epoch of the
Restoration, the novel had been declared to be an inferior species of
literature, and no author had dreamed of basing his claims to fame on
fiction. Lesage had been and was still appreciated rather on the
ground of his satire; and the Abbe Prevost, his slightly younger
contemporary, received but little credit in his lifetime for the
_Manon Lescaut_ that posterity was to prize. Throughout the eighteenth
century, he was chiefly regarded as a literary hack who had translated
Richardson's _Pamela_ and done things of a similar kind to earn his
livelihood.
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