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JEAN LOUIS LAYA (1761-1833)

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Originally appearing in Volume V16, Page 311 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JEAN LOUIS LAYA (1761-1833)  , French dramatist, ,was born in Paris on the 4th of December 1761 and died in August 1833 . He wrote his first
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comedy in collaboration with Gabriel M . J . B . Legouve in 1785, bu,t the piece, though accepted by the Comedie Francaise, was never represented . In 1789 he produced a plea for religious toleration in the form of a five-act tragedy in verse,
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Jean Galas; the injustice of the disgrace cast on a
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family by the crime of one of its members formed the theme of
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Les Dangers de l'opinion (1790); but it is by his Ami
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des lois (1793) that Laya is remembered . This energetic protest against
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mob-
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rule, with its scarcely veiled characterizations of Robespierre as Nomophage and of Marat as Duricrane, was an act of the highest courage, for the
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play was ,produced at the Theatre Francais (temporarily Theatre de la Nation) only 1 The verb " to lie," to speak falsely, to tell a falsehood, is in O . Eng . Mogan; it appears in most Teutonic
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languages, e.g . Dutch lugen, Ger. liigen . nineteen days before the execution of Louis XVI . Ten days after its first production the piece was prohibited by the commune, but the public demanded its representation; the mayor of Paris was compelled to
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appeal to the convention, and the piece was played while some 30,000 Parisians guarded the hall .

Laya went into hiding, and several persons convicted of having a copy of the

obnoxious play in their possession were guillotined . At the end of the Terror Laya returned to Paris . In 1813 he re-placed Delille in the Paris chair of
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literary
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history and French
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poetry; he was admitted to the Academy in 18'7 . Laya produced in 1797 Les Deux Stuarts, and in 1799 Falkland, the title-role of which provided Talma with one of his finest opportunities . Laya's
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works, which chiefly owe their
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interest to the circumstances attending their production, were collected in 1836—1837 . See
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Notice biographique sur J . L . Laya (1833) ; Ch . Nodier, Discours de reception, 26th December 1833) ; Welschinger, Thedtre de la revolution (188o) .

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