Jean-Toussaint Merle


Jean-Toussaint Merle was a French playwright and journalist.

Biography

Merle had a good education at the Central School of the department of Hérault before arriving in Paris in 1803. At first an employee at the Ministry of Interior, he soon left the position for military service, and returned to Paris only towards the end of 1808. He then made his debut in literature. His amiable character and easy spirit made him a reputation for indolence which seems in little agreement with the activity of his literary life. He put his name to more than one hundred and twenty plays, almost all of them made in collaboration.
In turn attached to various newspapers, he has written numerous articles in the Mercure de France, la Gazette de France, Le Diable boiteux, Le Nain jaune, etc. For a long time he wrote the dramatic serial of la Quotidienne. A spiritual critic and pleasant writer, he was among those who were appreciated by their contemporaries and whose name tend to disappear with the appropriateness of their works.
Managing director of the théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin from 1822 to 1826, he presented many plays, some of which were successful, at the théâtre du Vaudeville, théâtre des Variétés-Amusantes and théâtres des boulevards. He married the famous actress Marie Dorval, the widow of Allan-Dorval. While he accompanied the maréchal de Bourmont as secretary and historiographer, he had the opportunity to write Anecdotes historiques et politiques pour servir à l’histoire de la conquête d’Alger, 1831.

Publications

Theatre