Destouches (pseud. of Philippe Néricault) (1680-1754). Comic playwright. After a diplomatic career during the Regency, Destouches retired in 1727 to devote himself to writing plays. He wrote 19 for the Comédie-Française, and success came with the first, Le Curieux impertinent (1710). His most successful plays thereafter were: L'Ingrat (1712), L'Irrésolu (1713), Le Médisant (1715), Le Triple Mariage (1716), Le Philosophe marié (1727), Le Glorieux (1732), and Le Dissipateur (published 1736, performed 1753). Though not without their lighter side, his plays are intended to be serious and to edify the spectators by appealing to their sensibility. They illustrate the trials of virtue and the aberrations of fundamentally good characters, and reflect a systematically optimistic vision.
[John Dunkley]
