Merville (playwright)

Merville, real name Pierre-François Camus (1781 in Pontoise – 1853 in Belleville (Seine)) was a 19th-century French Algerian settler who initially worked as a physician, then an actor and finally a playwright.

Biographie

Pierre-François Camus took the surname of his mother, Villemer, which he transformed into Merville as pen name. It is under this pen name that he began in theater. We owe him some thirty-five theatre plays which he signed alone or in collaboration and which were given on the most important Parisian stages (Opéra-Comique, Ambigu-Comique, Second Théâtre-Français, Théâtre de Madame, Favart, Odéon, Porte-Saint-Martin, etc.). All of them had very honorable success. Among these, it is worth mentioning La Famille Glinet, ou les premiers temps de la ligue which was, at that time, the talk of the town because it was suspected that King Louis XVIII had closely worked on it. This play was a five-act comedy presented for the first time at the Théâtre Favart by the comedians of the Odéon, 18 July 1818.

Merville also wrote three novels: Le Vagabond, histoire contemporaine in 4 volumes (this novel is an exaggeration of the miseries of the people), Le Baron de l'Empire in 5 volumes (this novel tells the story of Charette and some peculiarities of the wars in the Vendée and Jacquot's fate), and Saphorine, ou l'aventurière du Faubourg Saint-Antoine in 2 volumes.

The first published work by Merville is dated 1814. It was Lequel des deux ? ou la Lettre équivoque, comédie en 1 acte, en prose which was the first play to be presented, in Paris, in 1814, on the stage of the Théâtre de l'Odéon.

The latest edition of a work by Merville is dated 1881. It is En revenant de Pontoise. Les Oubliettes de P.-F. Camus dit Merville, réédition annotée. Recherches sur l'origine du dicton, opinions de divers auteurs, recueillies, commentées et publiées par Henri Le Charpentier.

Pierre-François Camus-Merville lived in Villiers-sur-Tholon (Yonne) where he was city councilor from 1846 to 1848. He was a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur. ^[1]

Works

References