Alexis Piron (9 July 1689 – 21 January 1773) was a French

epigram An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word is derived from the Greek "inscription" from "to write on, to inscribe", and the literary device has been employed for over two mille ...

matist and

dramatist A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

Life

He was born at

Dijon Dijon (, , ) (dated) * it, Digione * la, Diviō or * lmo, Digion is the prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department and of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in northeastern France. the commune had a population of 156,920. The earlies ...

, where his father, Aimé Piron, was an apothecary. Piron senior wrote verse in the Burgundian language. Alexis began life as clerk and secretary to a banker, and then studied law. In 1719, when nearly thirty years old, he went to Paris, where an accident brought him money and notoriety. The jealousy of the regular actors produced an edict restricting the Théâtre de la Foire, or licensed booths at fair times, to a single character on the stage. None of the ordinary writers for this theatre would attempt a monologue-drama for the purpose, and Piron made a great success with a piece called ''Arlequin Deucalion'', representing

Deucalion In Greek mythology, Deucalion (; grc-gre, Δευκαλίων) was the son of Prometheus; ancient sources name his mother as Clymene, Hesione, or Pronoia.A scholium to ''Odyssey'' 10.2 (='' Catalogue'' fr. 4) reports that Hesiod called Deucalion ...

immediately after the Deluge, amusing himself with recreating in succession the different types of man. In 1728 he produced ''Les Fils ingrats'' (known later as ''L'Ecole des pères'') at the

Comédie-Française The Comédie-Française () or Théâtre-Français () is one of the few state theatres in France. Founded in 1680, it is the oldest active theatre company in the world. Established as a French state-controlled entity in 1995, it is the only state ...

. He attempted tragedy in ''Callisthene'' (1730), ''Gustave Vasa'' (1733) and ''Fernand Cortes'' (1744), but none of these succeeded, and Piron returned to comedy with ''La Metromanie'' (1738), in which the hero, Damis, suffers from the verse mania. His most intimate associates at this time were

Mademoiselle Quinault Mademoiselle (abbreviated as ''Mlle'' or ''M'') may refer to: * Mademoiselle (title), the French-language equivalent of the title "miss" Film and television * ''Mademoiselle'' (1966 film), a French-British drama directed by Tony Richardson * '' ...

, the actress, and her friend Marie Thérèse Quénaudon, known as Mlle de Bar. This lady was slightly older than Piron and not beautiful, but after twenty years' acquaintance he married her in 1741. He was elected in 1753 to the

Académie française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

, but his enemies raked up a certain ''Ode à Priape'', dating from his early days, and induced

Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...

to interpose his veto. Piron was nevertheless given a pension, and during the last fifty years of his life was never in want. His best title to remembrance lies in his epigrams. The burlesque epitaph on himself, in which he ridicules the Academy — "Ci-gît Piron qui ne fut rien/Pas même académicien" "Here lies Piron, who was nothing,/Not even a member of the

rench The Rench is a right-hand tributary of the Rhine in the Ortenau (Baden (Land), Central Baden, Germany). It rises on the southern edge of the Northern Black Forest at Kniebis near Bad Griesbach im Schwarzwald. The source farthest from the mouth is ...

Academy"—is well-known, while many others are as brilliant.

Friedrich Melchior, baron von Grimm Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm (26 September 172319 December 1807) was a German-born French-language journalist, art critic, diplomat and contributor to the ''Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers'' ...

called him a "machine a saillies." He was later (1762) elected to membership in the

Académie des Sciences, Arts et Belles-Lettres de Dijon The Académie de Dijon Dijon (, , ) (dated) * it, Digione * la, Diviō or * lmo, Digion is the prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department and of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in northeastern France. the commune had a population ...

. Piron published his own theatrical works in 1758, and after his death his friend and

literary executor The literary estate of a deceased author consists mainly of the copyright and other intellectual property rights of published works, including film, translation rights, original manuscripts of published work, unpublished or partially completed wo ...

, Rigoley de Juvigny, published his ''Œuvres completes''. M. Bonhomme produced a critical edition in 1859, completed by ''Poésies choisies et pièces inédites'' in 1879. Piron is compared to the Elder in

The Brothers Karamazov ''The Brothers Karamazov'' (russian: Братья Карамазовы, ''Brat'ya Karamazovy'', ), also translated as ''The Karamazov Brothers'', is the last novel by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky spent nearly two years writing '' ...

by Fyodor Pavlovich as a compliment of wit.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Piron, Alexis 1689 births 1773 deaths Writers from Dijon 18th-century French dramatists and playwrights 18th-century French poets 18th-century French male writers