Edmé Boursault (October, 1638 - September 15, 1701), French dramatist and miscellaneous writer, was born at Mussy l'Evéque, now Mussy-sur-Seine (Aube). October is the tenth month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... Events March 29 - Swedish colonists establish first settlement in Delaware, called New Sweden. ... September 15 is the 258th day of the year (259th in leap years). ... Events January 18 - Frederick I becomes King of Prussia. ... A dramatist is an author of dramatic compositions, usually plays. ... Aube is a département in the northeastern part of France named after the Aube River. ...

On his first arrival in Paris in 1651 his language was limited to a Burgundian patois, but within a year he produced his first comedy, Le Mon vivant. This and some other pieces of small merit secured for him distinguished patronage in the society ridiculed by Molière in the Ecole des femmes. Boursault was persuaded that the Lysidas of that play was a caricature of himself, and attacked Molière in Le Portrait du peintre ou la contre-critique de l'Ecole des femmes (1663). Molière retaliated in L'Impromptu de Versailles, and Boileau attacked Boursault in Satires 7 and 9. Boursault replied to Boileau in his Satire des satires (1669), but was afterwards reconciled with him, when Boileau on his side erased his name from his satires. Patois, although without a formal definition in linguistics, can be used to describe a language considered as nonstandard. ... Molière, engraved frontispiece to his Works Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, better known as Molière (January 15, 1622 – February 17, 1673), was a French theatre writer, director and actor, one of the masters of comic satire. ... Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux, commonly called Boileau, (November 1, 1636 - March 13, 1711) was a French poet and critic. ...

Boursault obtained a considerable pension as editor of a rhyming gazette, which was, however, suppressed for ridiculing a Capuchin friar, and the editor was only saved from the Bastille by the interposition of Condé. In 1671 he produced a work of edification in Ad usum Delphini: la veritable étude des souverains, which so pleased the court that its author was about to be made assistant tutor to the dauphin when it was found that he was ignorant of Greek and Latin, and the post was given to Pierre Huet. Perhaps in compensation Boursault was made collector of taxes at Montlucon about 1672, an appointment that he retained until 1688. The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin is an order of friars in the Roman Catholic Church, the chief and only permanent offshoot from the Franciscans. ... The Bastille The Bastille was a prison in Paris, known formally as Bastille Saint-Antoine—Number 232, Rue Saint-Antoine. ... Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé (September 8, 1621 - November 11, 1686). ... The Dauphin was the heir apparent to the throne of France under the Valois and Bourbon dynasties. ... Latin is the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... Pierre Daniel Huet (1630-1721) was a French churchman and scholar, Bishop of Soissons from 1685 to 1689 and afterwards of Avranches. ... Events England, France, Munster and Cologne invade the United Provinces, therefore this name is know as ´het rampjaar´ (the disaster year) in the Netherlands. ... Events A high-powered conspiracy of notables, the Immortal Seven, invite William and Mary to depose James II of England. ...

Among his best-known plays are Le Mercure galant, the title of which was changed to La Comdie sans litre (1683); La Princesse de Clêves (1676), an unsuccessful play which, when refurbished with fresh names by its author, succeeded as Germanicus; Esope à la ville (1690); and Esope à la cour (1701). His lack of dramatic instinct could hardly be better indicated than by the scheme of his Esope, which allows the fabulist to come on the stage in each scene and recite a fable. Boursault died in Paris on the 15th of September 1701.

The Œuvres choisies of Boursault were published in 1811, and a sketch of him is to be found in M. Saint-René Taillandier's Etudes littéraires (1881).

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... The Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) in many ways represents the sum of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. ...