Lemaitre, Francois Elie Jules
LEMAITRE, FRANCOIS ELIE JULES (1853- ), French critic and dramatist, was born at Vennecy (Loiret) on the 27th of April 1853. He became a professor at the university of Grenoble, but he had already become known by his literary criticisms, and in 1884 he resigned his position to devote himself entirely to literature. He succeeded J. J. Weiss as dramatic critic of the Journal des Dfbats, and subsequently filled the same office on the Revue des Deux Mondes. His literary studies were collected under the title of Les Contemporains (7 series, 1886- 1899), and his dramatic feuilletons as Impressions de ihtdtre (10 series, 1888-1898). His sketches of modern authors are interesting for the insight displayed in them, the unexpectedness of the judgments and the gaiety and originality of their expression. He published two volumes of poetry: Les Mfdaillons (1880) and F 'elites orienlales (1883); also some volumes of conies, among them En marge des vieux litres (1005). His plays are: Revoltfe (1889), Le depute Leveau, and Le Manage blanc (1891), Les Rois (1893), Le Pardon and L'Age difficile (1895), La Massiere (1005) and Bertrade (1906). He was admitted to the French Academy on the 16th of January 1896. His political views were defined in La Campagne nationalist (1902), lectures delivered in the provinces by him and by G. Cavaignac. He conducted a nationalist campaign in the Echo de Paris, and was for some time president of the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise, but resigned in 1904, and again devoted himself to literature.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
