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AUGIER, GUILLAUME VICTOR SMILE (182o-...

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Originally appearing in Volume V02, Page 901 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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AUGIER, See also:GUILLAUME See also:VICTOR SMILE (182o-1889) , See also:French dramatist, was See also:born at See also:Valence, Dr6me, on the 17th of See also:September 182o. He was the See also:grandson of Pigault See also:Lebrun, and belonged to the well-to-do bourgeoisie in principles and in thought as well as by actual See also:birth. He received a See also:good See also:education and studied for the See also:bar. In 1844 he wrote a See also:play in two acts and in See also:verse, La Cigue, refused at the See also:Theatre See also:Francais, but produced with considerable success at the Odeon. This settled his career. Thenceforward, at fairly See also:regular intervals, either alone or in collaboration with other writers—Jules See also:Sandeau, See also:Eugene-See also:Marie See also:Labiche, Ed. Foussier—he produced plays which were in their way eventful. Le Fils de Giboyer (1862)—which was regarded as an attack on the clerical party in See also:France, and was only brought out by the See also:direct intervention of the emperor—caused some See also:political excitement. His last See also:comedy, See also:Les See also:Fourchambault, belongs to the See also:year 1879. After that date he wrote no more, restrained by an See also:honourable fear of producing inferior See also:work. The See also:Academy had See also:long before, on the 31st of See also:March 1857, elected him to be one of its members. He died in his See also:house at Croissy on the 25th of See also:October 1889.

Such, in briefest outline, is the See also:

story of a See also:life which Angier himself describes as " without incident "—a life in all senses honourable. Augier, with See also:Dumas fils and See also:Sardou, may be said to have held the See also:AUGITE 9.0 I French See also:stage during the Second See also:Empire. The See also:man respected himself and his See also:art, and his art on its ethical side—for he did not disdain to be a teacher—has high qualities of rectitude and self-See also:restraint. Uprightness of mind and of See also:heart, generous honesty, as Jules See also:Lemaitre well said, constituted the very soul of all his dramatic work. L'Aventuriere (1848), the first of Augier's important See also:works, already shows a deviation from romantic See also:models; and in the Mariage d'Olympe (1855) the courtesan is shown as she is, not glorified as in Dumas's See also:Dame aux Camelias. In Gabrielle (1849) the See also:husband, not the See also:lover, is the sympathetic, poetic See also:character. In the Lionnes pauvres (1858) the wife who sells her favours comes under the lash. Greed of See also:gold, social demoralization, See also:ultramontanism, lust of See also:power, these are satirized in Les Effrontes (1861), Le Fils de Giboyer (1862), Contagion, first announced under the See also:title of Le See also:Baron d'Estrigaud (1866), Lions et renards (1869)—which, with Le Gendre de M. Poirier (1854), written in collaboration with Jules Sandeau, reach the high-See also:water See also:mark of Augier's art; in Philiberte (1853) he produced a graceful and delicate See also:drawing-See also:room comedy; and in See also:Jean de Thommeray, acted in 1873 after the See also:great reverses of 1870, the regenerating See also:note of patriotism rings high and clear. His last two dramas, Madame Caverlet (1876) and Les Fourchambault (1879), are problem plays. But it would be unfair to suggest that Emile Angier was a preacher only. He was a moralist in the great sense, the sense in which the See also:term can be applied to See also:Moliere and the great dramatists—a moralist because of his large and sane outlook on life.

Nor does the See also:

interest of his dramas depend on elaborate See also:plot. It springs from character and its See also:evolution. His men and See also:women move as See also:personality, that mysterious See also:factor, dictates. They are real, several of them typical. Augier's first See also:drama, La Cigue, belongs to a See also:time (1844) when the romantic drama was on the wane; and his almost exclusively domestic range of subject scarcely lends itself to lyric outbursts of pure See also:poetry. But his verse, if not that of a great poet, has excellent dramatic qualities, while the See also:prose of his prose dramas is admirable for directness, alertness, See also:sinew and a large and effective wit. Perhaps it wanted these qualities to enlist See also:laughter on his See also:side in such a See also:war as he waged against false See also:passion and false sentiment. (F. T.

End of Article: AUGIER, GUILLAUME VICTOR SMILE (182o-1889)

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