_18th-Century Fiction._--With prose fiction the case was altogether different. We have seen how the short tale of a few pages had already in the 16th century attained high if not the highest excellence; how at three different periods the fancy for long-winded prose narration developed itself in the prose rehandlings of the chivalric poems, in the _Amadis_ romances, and in the portentous recitals of Gomberville and La Calprenede; how burlesques of these romances were produced from Rabelais to Scarron; and how at last Madame de Lafayette showed the way to something like the novel of the day. If we add the fairy story, of which Perrault and Madame d'Aulnoy were the chief practitioners, and a small class of miniature romances, of which _Aucassin et Nicolette_ in the 13th, and the delightful _Jehan de Paris_ (of the 15th or 16th, in which a king of England is patriotically sacrificed) are good representatives, we shall have exhausted the list. The 18th century was quick to develop the system of the author of the _Princesse de Cleves_, but it did not abandon the cultivation of the romance, that is to say, fiction dealing with incident and with the simpler passions, in devoting itself to the novel, that is to say, fiction dealing with the analysis of sentiment and character. Le Sage, its first great novelist, in his _Diable boiteux_ and _Gil Blas_, went to Spain not merely for his subject but also for his inspiration and manner, following the lead of the picaroon romance of Rojas and Scarron. Like Fielding, however, whom he much resembles, Le Sage mingled with the romance of incident the most careful attention to character and the most lively portrayal of it, while his style and language are such as to make his work one of the classics of French literature. The novel of character was really founded in France by the abbe Prevost d'Exilles (1697-1763), the author of _Cleveland_ and of the incomparable _Manon Lescaut_. The popularity of this style was much helped by the immense vogue in France of the works of Richardson. Side by side with it, however, and for a time enjoying still greater popularity, there flourished a very different school of fiction, of which Voltaire, whose name occupies the first or all but the first place in every branch of literature of his time, was the most brilliant cultivator. This was a direct development of the earlier _conte_, and consisted usually of the treatment, in a humorous, satirical, and not always over-decent fashion, of contemporary foibles, beliefs, philosophies and occupations. These tales are of every rank of excellence and merit both literary and moral, and range from the astonishing wit, grace and humour of _Candide_ and _Zadig_ to the book which is Diderot's one hardly pardonable sin, and the similar but more lively efforts of Crebillon _fils_ (1707-1777). These latter deeps led in their turn to the still lower depths of La Clos and Louvet. A third