REGNARDJean François (1656-1709), who in general estimation ranks next to Molière among French comic dramatists, was born at Paris in 1656, and daring at least the earlier part of his life had a singularly adventurous career considering his time, station, and country. His father was a rich shopkeeper, who educated his son carefully, and died when he was about twenty, leaving Regnard master of what was for the time a considerable fortune. Regnard, who was apparently beyond his day in affection for travelling, set off at once for Italy and there gambled perseveringly. A young tradesman’s son in such circumstances ought, according to precedent and poetical justice, to have been fleeced to his last penny; but Regnard, according to the story, increased his fortune by ten thousand crowns. In Italy (on his second visit according to some authorities) he met and fell in love with a young married lady of Provençal birth. With her and her husband (it is difficult not to believe that biographers have taken the facts of a short autobiographical romance which Regnard wrote, under the title of La Provençale , rather literally) he set out for France on board an English frigate. This was attacked by two Algerian rovers; the captain and the crew were cut to pieces, and the passengers taken to Algiers and sold. Regnard, who, being skilful in cookery, was a valuable slave, is said to have been taken by his master to Constantinople, but after about two years’ captivity he was ransomed with his lady love for twelve thousand livres. The husband was supposed to be dead, and Regnard was preparing to marry the widow when a proper time of mourning had elapsed, but the husband reappeared and the lover was disappointed. The disappointment set him once more on a roving life, and he journeyed ...by Holland, Denmark, and Sweden to Lapland, and thence by Poland, Turkey, Hungary, and Germany back to France, having commemorated what was then the somewhat extraordinary feat of visiting the head of the Gulf of Bothnia by a Latin inscription on the rocks, which was visible thirty years later. He returned to Paris at the end of 1683. He now appears to have entirely exhausted his roving inclinations, and for the second half of his life (for this date of December 1683 nearly bisects it) his existence, if not exactly sedentary, was divided between luxury and letters. He bought the place of treasurer of France in the Paris district; he had a house at Paris in the Rue Richelieu; and he acquired the small estate of Grillon near Dourdan (about equidistant between Rambouillet and Fontainebleau), where he hunted, feasted, and wrote comedies. This latter amusement he began in 1688 with a piece called Le Divorce, which was performed at the Théâtre Italien, and followed it up with many other small pieces, which are not, however, his titles to fame. He gained access to the Théâtre Français in 1694 with a slight piece called Attendez-moi sous VOrme, and two years later produced there the masterly comedy of Le Joueur, in reference to which his ally Dufresny attempted to make out a charge of plagiarism. Le Distrait (1697), Le Retour Imprévu (1700), Les Folies Amoureuses (1704), Les Menèchmes (1705), a clever following of Plautus, and, lastly, his masterpiece, Le Légataire Universel (1708), with one or two less meritorious pieces, were also produced at the Français.
Regnard’s death, after a quarter of a century of quiet living, renews the doubtful and romantic circumstances of his earlier life. Some hint at poison; there is a wild and wonderful story of his having deliberately made up a prescription of horse medicine for himself and taken it with fatal consequences; while other more prosaic accounts give as the cause of death his having gone out hunting while under an ordinary course of treatment, and on his return, when much heated, having swallowed a large quantity of iced water. At any rate he died on the 4th September 1709.
Besides the plays noticed above and others, Regnard wrote a certain number of miscellaneous poems, the above-mentioned novel of La Provençale, and several short accounts iu prose of his travels. He quarrelled with Boileau and was reconciled with him, owing to which fact the expressions of that critic concerning Reguard’s literary merit were not wholly consistent. The saying, however, which is attributed to him when some one, thinking to curry favour, remarked that Regnard was only a mediocre poet, ‘ ‘ 11 n’est pas médiocrement gai,” is both true and very appropriate. Regnard’s verse is not particularly good (in his non-dramatic work it is sometimes positively bad), and his French style, especially in his purely prose works, is not considered faultless. He is often unoriginal in his plots, and, whether Dufresny was or was not justified in his complaint about Le Joueur, it seems likely that Regnard owed not a little to him and to others; but he had a thorough grasp of comic situation and incident and a most amusing faculty of dialogue. He is often not far from the verge of farce, but he certainly might plead Molière’s example in this respect. There is no trace in him of Molière’s ethical value, and he is seldom a serious critic of society and life, while in point of refinement of incident and language his drama is a distinct relapse from his master’s. But there are few things in artificial comedy more amusing and more dexterously managed than the series of devices whereby the miserly uncle of Le Légataire Universel is brought to make his nephew rich and happy.
The first edition of Regnard’s complete works was published in 1731 (5 vois., Paris), one of the last in 1854 (2 vols.). There is a good selection of almost everything important in the Collection Didot.
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