INTRODUCTION

It has been well said that there îs no more effective cure for d3rspepsia than a dose ôf Labiche — one hour after meals. Such a prescription might prove equally efEective in many otiier ills incident to tiie strain and pressure of modem life. People sometimes f orget that there are simple means of enjoyment at hand, such as the reading of good comédies. When we think of comedy we naturally tum to France, for of ail civilized counr tries there is none which has produced a larger number of excellent comédies than that country. The French hâve been called "Z^ comédiens du bon Dieu^\ and the fact that nearly ail other nations adapt and perform the comédies produced by the genius of France would prove, it seems, the truth of this saying. Among the authors of French comedy no one has more largely contributed to keep alive that spirit of gaiety and lightheartedness for which the French are so jusUy famous than Eugène- Marin Labiche.*

Labiche was bom in Paris on the S^ of May, 1815. He attended school at the Collège Bourbon, and was destined by his parents to become a lawyer. His native inclination and talent for literature, however, were averse to the practice of law. It was at the âge of about twenty that he began his literary career by writing short stories, theatrical criticisms and accounts of travel for the minor newspapers and reviews of the time. He also wrote some novels of slight ment. His first pièce entiUed Monsieur de Coyllin ou V Homme infiniment foli^ written for

* " Labiche restera comme le seul homme de notre temps qui ait eu complètement cette qualité : la belle humeur. Et il restera comme le représentant attitré d'un genre intermédiaire entre la farce et la comédie, et qui mêle aux observation* de l'une les bouffonneries de l'autre." — Rtn/ Doumic,