INTRODUCTION

La Cigale chez les Fourmis is the joint work of the dramatists Eugène Labiche and Ernest Legouvé; but as the execution of the play is largely the work of Labiche, it may with fairness be attributed to him alone.

Eugène Labiche was born May 5, 1815, and died January 23, 1888. The study of the law proved distasteful to him, and at the age of twenty he began a literary career which was long and popular and fruitful. Commencing with newspaper work, he was later attracted to the stage, and for almost forty years, beginning with 1838, he wrought out a succession of farces and comedies, fifty-seven of the best of which are collected together in the Théâtre Complet

Wealthy, but without reputation, he retired from literary activity in 1876, and went to his country home in Normandy. His present fame is due somewhat . to chance ; for had he not possessed the friendship of Emile Augier, the most popular French dramatist of recent years, he would not have known the fame which his name now bears. Charmed with reading some of Labiche's works, Augier persuaded him to publish a collection of his plays. The result was the Théâtre Compiety for which Augier himself furnished the preface.