Philippe Néricault Destouches

Philippe Néricault Destouches ( born April 9, 1680 in Tours, † July 4, 1754 at Fortoiseau at Melun ) was a French playwright.

Life and work

Little is known about the origin and youth of Destouches, except that he came from a humble background, but received a decent education. Maybe he was a young man, a soldier, perhaps an actor. 1705 he received in Paris following the Brulart Roger de Sillery, marquis de Puysieux ( 1640-1719 ), the French chief diplomat (of 1697 ) for the Swiss cantons, and entered into his service. About him, he was social and literary contacts, including to the arrivierten author Nicolas Boileau, who encouraged him.

In 1710 he accompanied Puysieulx in Switzerland, where he took his first piece for performance, Le Curieux impertinent ( the outrageous curious ). This was adopted by the Comédie- Française in Paris, and also the subsequent pieces, L' ingrat ( the ingrate, 1712), L' Irrésolu ( who is irresolute, 1713), Le Médisant ( the slanderer, 1715 ) or Le Jaloux ( the Jealous, 1716) came out there successfully.

Meanwhile Destouches had met the Abbé and soon Cardinal Guillaume Dubois, who served from 1715 the regent of France, Philippe of Orléans, first as Foreign Minister and later as First Minister. From him he was taken in 1717 to diplomatic negotiations to London, where he remained as Secretary, proved itself in various missions and also married an Englishwoman.

When he returned from England in 1723, he was rewarded with the ennobling office of a " royal door guard " ( Garde de la porte du Roi ) and admission to the Académie française ( fauteuil 6). In 1725 he resigned from the diplomatic service, acquired the estate Fortoiseau near Melun, 40 km southeast of Paris, and turned again to literature to. His next piece of Le Philosophe marié ou le Mari honteux de l' être ( the married philosopher, or to his marriage Ashamed Husband, 1727) was immediately a success.

Its climax as the author reached Destouches with Le Glorieux ( the Snooty, 1732), a play about an impoverished but arrogant nobleman who repents at the end to more modesty and gets a rich citizen daughter. The piece saw 30 performances in a row and was then played often.

The specialty of the comedies of Destouches, anticipate the already many elements of the " drame bourgeois" ( Civil tragedy ) is the representation of disturbing, but not too bad vices and weaknesses, most of which prove to be cured at the end. The actions of the pieces seem to modern readers too morally correct, the figures psychologically undifferentiated and too shallow.

In his later years Destouches acquired the office of the royal governor of the city of Melun, one of the many honorary positions without specific remit, which awarded the Ancien Régime.

Several of his plays were performed only posthumously.

Works (selection)

• Le Curieux impertinent (1710 )
• L' ingrat ( 1712)
• L' Irrésolu (1713 )
• Le Médisant (1715 )
• Le Jaloux ( 1716)
• Le Philosophe marié ( 1727)
• Le Glorieux ( 1732)
• Le Dissipateur ( The Spendthrift, 1736)
• La Fausse Agnès ( The wrong A., 1736)
• L' Ambitieux et l' Indiscrète ( The ambitious and indiscreet, 1737)
• L' Amour usé ( The worn Love, 1741)
• Les Amours de Ragonde ( Love the R., 1742)