Jean-François Regnard

Jean-François Regnard (Paris, 1655 – Grillon castle, near Dourdan, 1709) was a French dramatist and writer, best known for his comedies in verse. His work follows in the path of Molière and remains a key reference for understanding the comic theatre of the age of Louis XIV.

The son of a prosperous merchant, he received a solid classical education but soon showed a taste for independence and pleasure. After his father's death he inherited a fortune, which he later claimed to have increased by gambling, a habit that stayed with him all his life. On a voyage home from Italy in 1678 his ship was captured by Algerian pirates and he was sold as a slave; he was freed a couple of years later. In 1681 he travelled through Flanders, Holland, Denmark and Sweden, reaching as far as Lapland. He later visited Poland, Hungary and Germany before settling in France for good.

Back in Paris he held a post in the Treasury that demanded little of his time and wrote farces for the Théâtre des Italiens. After inheriting his mother's fortune in 1693, he devoted himself mainly to comedies for the Comédie-Française. The best known are The Gamester, The Absent-Minded Man, The Twin Menaechmi and The Universal Legatee, the last often regarded as his masterpiece. His style follows Molière closely, with light intrigues, clever servants and sharp portraits of manners.

His account of a journey through Lapland, published long after it was written, describes the Sami with humour and some distance, and interests historians and readers of travel writing today. His legacy lives on mainly in the French comic repertoire, where he is seen as a successor to the Molièrean tradition.