Olivier de Clisson

Olivier de Clisson , 1336-1407, French soldier, b. Brittany. He fought on the English side in the War of the Breton Succession but entered the French service as companion in arms to Bertrand Du Guesclin . In 1380 he became constable of France. He defeated (1382) the insurgents of Ghent under Philip van Artevelde at Roosebeke (modern-day Westrozebeke). One of the Marmousets , he made use of his position to satisfy his boundless avidity; he became one of the richest men of his time. After King Charles VI became (1392) insane, Clisson retired to Brittany, where he served as guardian of the duchy after the death (1399) of Duke John de Montfort.

Saint-Foix, Marie Olivier Georges du Parc Poulain, Comte de (b Paris, 1874; d Aix-en-Provence, 1954). Fr. musicologist. Author, with T. de Wyzewa, of life of Mozart in 5 vols., 1912–46 (last 3 vols. by Saint-Foix alone). Wrote book on Mozart's syms. (1932, Eng. edn. 1947).

Beauval [ Jean Pitel] (c.1635–1709), French actor who, with his wife Jeanne Olivier de Bourguignon (c.1648–1720), was in several provincial troupes before joining Molière's company in 1670. Beauval, though in general a mediocre actor, was apparently excellent as Thomas Diafoirus in Molière's Le Malade imaginaire (1673), in which his wife played Toinette and his daughter Louise the child Louison. Mme Beauval was an excellent comic actress, given to uncontrollable fits of laughter, which Molière incorporated into her part of Nicole in Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1671). After Molière's death the Beauvals joined the company at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and became members of the Comédie-Française on its foundation in 1704.