Mercier, Louis-Sébastien

Mercier, Louis-Sébastien (1740–1814), French dramatist, an exponent of the drame bourgeois popularized by Diderot. His plays, in which he gives elaborate directions for scenery, were more popular outside France, particularly in Germany, on account of their unimpeachable morality and declamatory style. A characteristic example of his work is La Brouette du vinaigrier (1784), the story of a marriage between a wealthy young girl and the son of a working-class man. He had earlier adapted Lillo's The London Merchant (1731) as Jenneval (1768), allowing the hero to escape punishment by a last-minute conversion. In the same spirit of optimism he gave his translation of Romeo and Juliet a happy ending and reduced King Lear to the tale of a bourgeois household quarrelling over the misdeeds of the servants. Having taken refuge in Switzerland because of his political views, Mercier returned to Paris on the outbreak of the Revolution; as a deputy he voted against the execution of Louis XVI and in favour of a life sentence. He was later imprisoned, but was saved from the guillotine by the fall of Robespierre in 1794.