Étienne Vigée

Louis-Jean-Baptiste-Étienne Vigée (2 December 1758 – 8 August 1820) was a French playwright and man of letters.

Étienne Vigée, 1773, painted by his sister

Born into an artistic family, he was the son of the pastellist Louis Vigée and the brother of the celebrated painter Élisabeth Vigée. He was popular in the salons for his pleasant personality and quick wit. Although employed as a secretary to the Countess of Provence, he wrote verse in praise of the French Revolution, but his enthusiasm quickly faded and he was at one point arrested as a Girondist. He would live long enough to write poetry both in praise of Napoleon and Louis XVIII.

He succeeded Sautreau de Marsy as editor of the Almanach des Muses in 1794, and replaced La Harpe at the Lycée, but had nowhere near the same success as a teacher. A skilled imitator of Dorat and Gresset, he put together several clever plays with many points of interest both in style and plotting.

Works

Plays
  • Les Aveux difficiles (1783), one act in verse
  • La Fausse coquette (1784), three acts in verse
  • Les Amants timides (1785)
  • La Belle-Mère, ou les Dangers d’un second mariage (1788), five acts in verse
  • L’Entrevue (1788), one act in verse
  • Le Projet extravagant (1792)
  • La Matinée d’une jolie femme (1792)
  • La Vivacité à l’épreuve (1793)
  • Ninon de Lenclos (1797)
  • La Princesse de Babylone (1815)

A sample can be found in Bibliothèque dramatique (1824).

Other
  • Manuel de littérature (Paris, 1809, duodecimo)
  • La Tendresse filiale, poem (Paris, 1812, sextodecimo)
  • Poésies, first published with Poèmes by Legouvé (1799, octavo), then alone (5th ed. Paris, 1813, octodecimo)
  • Procès et mort de Louis XVI, fragments d’un poème (Paris, 1814, octavo)
  • Le Pour et le Contre, dialogue en vers (Paris, 1818, octavo)

Bibliography
  • Élisabeth Vigée, Souvenirs, Paris, H. Fournier, 1835, 3 vol. octavo
  • Gustave Vapereau, Dictionnaire universel des littératures, Paris, Hachette, 1876, p. 2032
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