Marivaux has had the singular honor of causing the creation of a new word in the French literary vocabulary, to designate his peculiar style, _le marivaudage_, a term which has had in the past rather more of discredit than of esteem in its general acceptation. Sainte-Beuve thus defines it: "Qui dit _marivaudage_, dit plus ou moins badinage a froid, espieglerie compassee et prolongee, petillement redouble et pretentieux, enfin une sorte de pedantisme semillant et joli; mais l'homme, considere dans l'ensemble, vaut mieux que la definition a laquelle il a fourni occasion et sujet."[141] With the increasing popularity of Marivaux, there has gradually arisen a different and more complimentary idea of the term. Deschamps, in his excellent work on the author, thus defines it: "Cet examen de conscience, dicte par une probite inquiete,--cette application a eviter les illusions qui trompent, a dejouer les pieges du caprice et de la fantaisie, a mettre au service du sentiment les plus subtiles lumieres de la raison,...--l'esprit de finesse employe a decouvrir les plus secrets mouvements de notre sensibilite,--par consequent l'usage conscient d'un style ajuste a la tenuite de ces enquetes, style qui n'est pas exempt de recherche, mais qui abonde en trouvailles decisives,--voila precisement le marivaudage."[142] Marivaux has been blamed for an affectation, an ingenuity, a delicacy of style, together with a diffuseness, which led him to turn a thought in so many different ways as to weary the reader, a habit of clothing in popular expressions subtle and over-refined ideas, and, finally, a studied and far-fetched neologism.[143]