Edmé Boursault (October, 1638 - September 15, 1701) was a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
dramatist and miscellaneous writer, born at Mussy l'Evéque, now
Mussy-sur-Seine Mussy-sur-Seine is a commune in the Aube department in north-central France.-References:*...
(
AubeAube is a department in the northeastern part of France named after the Aube River. In 1995, its population was 293,100 inhabitants.- History :Aube is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...
).
On his first arrival in Paris in 1651 his language was limited to
Burgundian languageThe Burgundian language may refer to:*Burgundian language , the Oïl language known in French as Bourguignon, spoken in the region of Burgundy* Sometimes the Franc-Comtois language is referred to as part of the Burgundian group...
, but within a year he produced his first comedy,
Le Mon vivant. This and some other pieces of small merit secured for him distinguished patronage in the society ridiculed by
MolièreJean-Baptiste Poquelin, mostly known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
in the
Ecole des femmes.
Edmé Boursault (October, 1638 - September 15, 1701) was a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
dramatist and miscellaneous writer, born at Mussy l'Evéque, now
Mussy-sur-Seine Mussy-sur-Seine is a commune in the Aube department in north-central France.-References:*...
(
AubeAube is a department in the northeastern part of France named after the Aube River. In 1995, its population was 293,100 inhabitants.- History :Aube is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...
).
On his first arrival in Paris in 1651 his language was limited to
Burgundian languageThe Burgundian language may refer to:*Burgundian language , the Oïl language known in French as Bourguignon, spoken in the region of Burgundy* Sometimes the Franc-Comtois language is referred to as part of the Burgundian group...
, but within a year he produced his first comedy,
Le Mon vivant. This and some other pieces of small merit secured for him distinguished patronage in the society ridiculed by
MolièreJean-Baptiste Poquelin, mostly known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
in the
Ecole des femmes. Boursault was persuaded that the Lysidas of that play was a caricature of himself, and attacked Molière in
Le Portrait du peintre ou la contre-critique de l'Ecole des femmes (1663). Molière retaliated in
L'Impromptu de Versailles, and
BoileauNicolas Boileau-Despréaux was a French poet and critic.-Biography:Boileau was born in the rue de Jérusalem, in Paris, France. He was brought up to the law, but devoted to letters, associating himself with La Fontaine, Racine, and Molière...
attacked Boursault in Satires 7 and 9. Boursault replied to Boileau in his
Satire des satires (1669), but was afterwards reconciled with him, when Boileau on his side erased his name from his satires.
Boursault obtained a considerable pension as editor of a rhyming gazette, which was, however, suppressed for ridiculing a Capuchin friar, and the editor was only saved from the
BastilleThe Bastille was a fortress-prison in Paris, known formally as Bastille Saint-Antoine—Number 232, Rue Saint-Antoine—best known today because of the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, which along with the Tennis Court Oath is considered the beginning of the French Revolution. The event was...
by the interposition of
CondéLouis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé was a French general and the most famous representative of the Condé branch of the House of Bourbon. Prior to his father's death in 1646, he was styled the Duc d'Enghien...
. In 1671 he produced a work of edification in
Ad usum Delphini: la veritable étude des souverains, which so pleased the court that its author was about to be made assistant tutor to the dauphin when it was found that he was ignorant of
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
and
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
, and the post was given to
Pierre HuetPierre Daniel Huet was a French churchman and scholar, editor of the Delphin Classics and Bishop of Soissons from 1685 to 1689 and afterwards of Avranches.-Life:...
. Perhaps in compensation Boursault was made collector of taxes at Montlucon about 1672, an appointment that he retained until 1688.
Among his best-known plays are
Le Mercure galant, the title of which was changed to
La Comédie sans titre ("Play without a title") (1683) when the publisher of the literary review of the same name objected (see "
Mercure de FranceThe "Mercure de France" was a French gazette and literary magazine first published from 1672 to 1724 under the title "Mercure galant" and "Nouveau Mercure galant" . The title was changed to "Mercure de France" in 1724...
");
La Princesse de Clêves (1676), an unsuccessful play which, when refurbished with fresh names by its author, succeeded as
Germanicus;
Esope à la ville (1690); and
Esope à la cour (1701). His lack of dramatic instinct could hardly be better indicated than by the scheme of his
Esope, which allows the fabulist to come on the stage in each scene and recite a fable. Boursault died in Paris on the 15th of September 1701.
The
Œuvres choisies of Boursault were published in 1811, and a sketch of him is to be found in M. Saint-René Taillandier's
Etudes littéraires (1881).
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