Lavedan,_Henri_Léon_Émile

Lavedan, Henri Léon Émile (1859- ), French dramatist and man of letters, was born at Orleans, the son of Hubert Léon Lavedan, a well-known Catholic and liberal journalist. He contributed to various Parisian papers a series of witty tales and dialogues of Parisian life, many of which were collected in volume form. In 1891 he produced at the Théâtre Français Une Famille, followed at the Vaudeville in 1894 by Le Prince d’Aurec, a satire on the nobility, afterwards re-named Les Descendants. Later brilliant and witty pieces were Les Deux noblesses (1897), Catherine (1897), Le Nouveau jeu (1898), Le Vieux marcheur (1899), Le Marquis de Priola (1902), and Varennes (1904), written in collaboration with G. Lenôtre. He had a great success with Le Duel (Comédie Française, 1905), a powerful psychological study of the relations of two brothers. Lavedan was admitted to the French Academy in 1898.