ETIENNE, CHARLES GUILLAUME (1778-1845)

This article appears in Volume V09, Page 852 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: EMS-EUD

ETIENNE, CHARLES GUILLAUME (1778-1845) , French dramatist and miscellaneous writer, was born near Saint Dizier, Haute Marne, on the 5th of January 1778. He held various municipal offices under the Revolution and came in 1796 to Paris, where he produced his first opera, Le Reeve, in 1799, in collaboration with Antoine Frederic Gresnick. Although Etienne continued to write for the Paris theatres for twenty years from that date, he is remembered chiefly as the author of one comedy, which excited considerable controversy. Les Deux Gendres was represented at the Theatre Francais on the 11th of August 181o, and procured for its author a seat in the

Academy

ACADEMY, GREEK
ACADEMY, ROYAL

. A rumour was put in circulation that Etienne had

drawn

DRAWN

largely on a manuscript play in the imperial library, entitled Conaxa, ou les gendres dupes. His rivals were not slow to take up the charge of plagiarism, to which Etienne replied that the story was an old one (it existed in an old French

fabliau

FABLIAU

) and had already been treated by Alexis

Piron

PIRON, ALEXIS (1689-1773)

in Les Fils ingrats. He was, however, driven later to make admissions which at least showed a certain lack of candour. The bitterness of the attacks made on him was no doubt in part due to his position as editor-in-

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

of the official Journal de l'Empire. His next play, L'Intrigante (1812), hardly maintained the high-level of Les Deux Gendres; the patriotic opera L'Oriflamme and his lyric masterpiece Joconde date from 1814. Etienne had been secretary to Hugues

Bernard

Maret, duc de Bassano, and in this capacity had accompanied

Napoleon

NAPOLEON

throughout his campaigns in Italy, Germany, Austria and Poland. During these journeys he produced one of his best pieces, Brueys et Palaprat (1807). During the Restoration Etienne was an active member of the opposition. He was seven times returned as deputy for the department of Meuse, and was in full sympathy with'the revolution of 1830, but the reforms actually carried out did not fulfil his expectations, and he gradually retired from public life. Among his other plays may be noted: Les Deux Meres, Le Pacha de Suresnes, and La Petite Ecole des peres, all produced in 1802, in collaboration with his friend Gaugiran de

Nanteuil

NANTEUIL, ROBERT (1623-1678)

(1778-183o). With Alphonse Dieudonne Martainville (1779-1830) he wrote an Histoire du Thedtre Francais (4 vols., 1802) during the revolutionary period. Etienne was a bitter opponent of the romanticists, one of whom, Alfred de Vigny, was his successor and panegyrist in the

Academy

ACADEMY, GREEK
ACADEMY, ROYAL

. He died on the 13th of March 1845.
His Euvres (6 vols., 1846-1853) contain a notice of the author by L. Thiesse.

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