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BOURSAULT, EDME (1638-1701)

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 334 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BOURSAULT, EDME (1638-1701) , See also:French dramatist and See also:miscellaneous writer, was See also:born at Mussy l'Eveque, now Mussysur-See also:Seine (See also:Aube), in See also:October 1638. On his first arrival in See also:Paris in 1651 his See also:language was limited to a Burgundian See also:patois, but within a See also:year he produced his first See also:comedy, Le Mort vivant. This and some other pieces of small merit secured for him distinguished patronage in the society ridiculed by See also:Moliere in the Ecole See also:des femmes. Boursault was persuaded that the " Lysidas " of that See also:play was a See also:caricature of himself, and attacked Moliere in Le Portrait du peintre ou la contre-critique de l'Ecole des femmes (1663). Moliere retaliated in L'See also:Impromptu de See also:Versailles, and Boileau attacked Boursault in Satires 7 and 9. Boursault replied to Boileau in his See also:Satire des satires (1669), but was afterwards reconciled with him, when Boileau on his See also:side erased his name from his satires. Boursault obtained a considerable See also:pension as editor of a rhyming See also:gazette, which was, however, suppressed for ridiculing a Capuchin See also:friar, and the editor was only saved from the See also:Bastille by the interposition of See also:Conde. In 1671 he produced a See also:work of edification in Ad usum Delphini: la veritable etude des souverains, which so pleased the See also:court that its author was about to be made assistant See also:tutor to the dauphin when it was found that he was ignorant of See also:Greek and Latin, and the See also:post was given to See also:Pierre See also:Huet. Perhaps in See also:compensation Boursault was made See also:collector of taxes at Montlucon about 1672, an See also:appointment that he retained until 1688. Among his best-known plays are Le Mercure galant, the See also:title of which was changed to La Comedie sans titre (1683); La Prin-cesse de See also:Cleves (1676), an unsuccessful play which, when refurbished with fresh names by its author, succeeded as Germanicus; Esope d la ville (169o); and Esope d la tour (1701). His lack of dramatic See also:instinct could hardly be better indicated than by the See also:scheme of his Esope, which allows the fabulist to come on the See also:stage in each See also:scene and recite a See also:fable. Boursault died in Paris on the 15th of See also:September 1701.

The (Euvres choisies of Boursault were published in 1811, and a See also:

sketch of him is to be found in M. See also:Saint-Rene See also:Taillandier's Etudes litteraires (1881).

End of Article: BOURSAULT, EDME (1638-1701)

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