Augier, Émile (1820-89). Successful French dramatist of the Second Empire who represents the ‘école du bon sens’, a reaction against the extravagances of Romantic drama and the superficiality of Scribe. Beginning with a run of insipid plays in verse—La Ciguë (1844), L'Aventurière (1848), Gabrielle (1849)—he made his name with a succession of dramas about social problems. The lightest of these was Le Gendre de Monsieur Poirier (1854), a satire on the conflict between profligate nobility and thrifty bourgeoisie which echoes Scribe's sentimentality, facile patriotism, and love of happy endings. His later plays, well observed and skilfully constructed, are more searching studies of the social and economic conflicts of his day, though they accept too trustingly the conventional morality of his own class. Le Mariage d'Olympe (1855) is a critical study of the shadowy world of the demi-monde, while Les Lionnes pauvres (1858) tackles the problem of adultery. More forceful than these are his satirical attack on the press baron Vernouillet in Les Effrontés (1861) and his powerful exposure of the politics of clericalism in Le Fils de Giboyer (1862). Technically, he learned from Scribe's plotting but applied those skills to more serious ends.
[S. Beynon John]
