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LOUIS SEBASTIEN MERCIER (1740-1814)

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 153 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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LOUIS SEBASTIEN See also:MERCIER (1740-1814)  , See also:French dramatist and See also:miscellaneous writer, was See also:born in See also:Paris on the 6th of See also:June 1740 . He began his See also:literary career by See also:writing heroic epistles, but See also:early came to the conclusion that Boileau and See also:Racine had ruined the French See also:language, and that the true poet was he who wrote in See also:prose . The most important of his miscellaneous See also:works are L' An 2440 (1770) ; L'Essai sur fart dramatique (1773); Neologie (18or); Le Tableau de Paris (1781–1788); Le nouveau Paris (1799); Histoire de See also:France (1802) and See also:Satire contre Racine et Boileau (18o8) . He decried French tragedy as a See also:caricature of See also:antique and See also:foreign customs in bombastic See also:verse, and advocated the comedic larmoyante as understood by See also:Diderot . To the philosophers he was entirely hostile . He denied that See also:modern See also:science had made any real advance; he even carried his conservatism so far as to maintain that the See also:earth was a circular See also:flat See also:plain around which revolved the See also:sun . See also:Mercier wrote some sixty dramas, among which may be mentioned See also:Jean Hennuyer (1772); La Destruction de la ligue (1782); Jenneval (1769); Le See also:Juge (1774) ; Natalie (1775) and La Brouette du vinaigrier (1775) . In politics he was a Moderate, and as a member of the See also:Convention he voted against the See also:death See also:penalty for See also:Louis XVI . During the Terror he was imprisoned, but was released after the fall of See also:Robespierre . He died in Paris on the 25th of See also:April 1814 . See See also:Leon Bechard, Sebastien Mercier, sa See also:vie, son oeuvre (Paris, 1903); R . See also:Doumic in the Revue See also:des deux mondes (15th See also:July 1903) .

End of Article: LOUIS SEBASTIEN MERCIER (1740-1814)
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