Author Dufresny Charles Rivière

Charles Dufresny, Sieur de la Rivière (1648, Paris - 6 October 1724, Paris) was a French dramatist. The allegation that his grandfather was an illegitimate son of Henry IV procured him the liberal patronage of Louis XIV, who gave him the post of valet de chambre, and affixed his name to many lucrative privileges. Dufresny's expensive habits neutralized all efforts to enrich him, and as if to furnish a piquant commentary on the proverb that poverty makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows, he married, as his second wife, a washerwoman, in discharge of her bill a whimsicality which supplied Lesage with an episode in the Diable boiteux, and was made the subject of a comedy by J. M. Deschamps (Charles Rivière Dufresny, ou le marriage impromptu). His plays, destitute for the most part of all higher qualities, abound in sprightly wit and pithy sayings. In the six volumes of his Théatre (Paris, 1731), some of the best are L'Esprit de contradiction (1700), Le Double Veuvage (1701), La Joueu