LOUIS

See also:

• JEAN

JEAN NEPOMUCENE

See also:

• LOUIS JEAN NEPOMUCENE LEMERCIER (1771–1840)

LEMERCIER (1771–1840)  , French poet and dramatist, was born in Paris on the 21St of April 1771 . His father had been intendant successively to the duc de Penthievre, the comte de Toulouse and the unfortunate princesse de Lamballe, who was the boy's godmother . Lemercier showed great precocity; before he was sixteen his tragedy of Meleagre was produced at the Tlzedtre Francois . Clarissa Harlowe (1792) provoked the criticism that the author was not asset roue pour peindre les roueries . Le Tartufe revolutionnaire, a parody full of the most audacious political allusions, was suppressed after the fifth representation . In 1795 appeared Lemercier's masterpiece Agamemnon, called by Charles Labitte the last great antique tragedy in French literature . It was a great success, but was violently attacked later by Geoffroy, who stigmatized it as a bad caricature of Crebillon .