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DESTOUCHES, PHILIPPE (168o-1754)

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Originally appearing in Volume V08, Page 104 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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DESTOUCHES, PHILIPPE (168o-1754) , See also:French dramatist, whose real name was Nericault, was See also:born at See also:Tours in See also:April 1680. When he was nineteen years of See also:age he became secretary to M. de Puysieux, the French See also:ambassador in See also:Switzerland. In 1716 he was attached to the French See also:embassy in See also:London, where he remained for six years under the See also:abbe See also:Dubois. He contracted with a See also:Lancashire See also:lady, Dorothea See also:Johnston, a See also:marriage which was not avowed for some years. He See also:drew a picture later of his own domestic circumstances in Le Philosophe See also:marie (1726). On his return to See also:France (1723) he was elected to the See also:Academy, and in 1727 he acquired considerable estates, the See also:possession of which conferred the privileges of See also:nobility. He spent his later years at his See also:chateau of Fortoiseau near See also:Melun, dying on the 4th of See also:July 1754. His See also:early comedies were: Le Curieux Impertinent (1710), L'Ingrat (1712), L'Irresolu (1713) and Le Medisant (1715). The best, of these is L'Irresolu, in which Dorante, after hesitating throughout the See also:play between Julie and Celimene, marries Julie, but concludes the play with the reflection: " J'aurais mieux fait, je crois, d'epouser Celimene." After eleven years of See also:diplomatic service Destouches returned to the See also:stage with the Philosophe marie (1727), followed in 1732 by his masterpiece Le Glorieux, a picture of the struggle then beginning between the old nobility and the wealthy parvenus who found their opportunity in the poverty of France. Destouches wished to revive the See also:comedy of See also:character as understood by See also:Moliere, but he thought it desirable that the moral should be directly expressed. This moralizing tendency spoilt his later comedies. Among them may be mentioned: Le See also:Tambour nocturne (1736), La Force du naturel (1750) and Le Dissipaleur (1736).

His See also:

works were issued in collected See also:form in 1755, 1757, 1811 and, in a limited edition (6 vols.), 1822.

End of Article: DESTOUCHES, PHILIPPE (168o-1754)

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