Works
Beginning his literary career in 1772 with the critically acclaimed Lucie, ou les Parents imprudents and finishing in 1792 with L'Aîné et le cadet, Collot was an accomplished, if minor, dramatist in a turbulent period of the French stage.
Before the Revolution he wrote at least fifteen plays, of which ten survive, including Lucie, an adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor (as M. Rodomont, ou l'Amant loup-garou), and an adaptation of Pedro Calderón de la Barca's El Alcalde de Zalamea (Il y a bonne justice, ou le Paysan magistrat), all three of which kept the stage throughout France for over a decade. During the first three years of the Revolution he wrote at least seven more plays, of which six survive, juggling the tearful love themes of le drame bourgeois with political themes and messages in such plays as L'Inconnu, ou le Préjugé vaincu and Socrate (on Socrates).
In 1791 he wrote the prize-winning L'Almanach de père Gérard, a fictional account of revolutionary morality which went on to become the best-seller of the period, establishing his political credentials in the process.
He was also one of the authors of the first French republican Constitution, which was written in 1793 but never applied.
Read more about this topic: Jean-Marie Collot D'Herbois
Famous quotes containing the word works:
“When life has been well spent, age is a loss of what it can well spare,—muscular strength, organic instincts, gross bulk, and works that belong to these. But the central wisdom, which was old in infancy, is young in fourscore years, and dropping off obstructions, leaves in happy subjects the mind purified and wise.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I look on trade and every mechanical craft as education also. But let me discriminate what is precious herein. There is in each of these works an act of invention, an intellectual step, or short series of steps taken; that act or step is the spiritual act; all the rest is mere repetition of the same a thousand times.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law.”
—Bible: New Testament, Galatians 2:15-16.