Charles Jacques Louis Auguste Rochette La Morlière

Charles-Jacques-Louis-Auguste Rochette de La Morlière (known as "Le Chevalier"; 22 April 1719 – 9 February 1785) was an 18th-century French playwright.

Biography An unscrupulous schemer, La Morlière first sought the support of the party of Voltaire, applauding the verse of the master, and when he found himself sufficiently established at café Procope, became an entrepreneur of success and dramatic falls. Surrounded by a paid gang, he moved to the parterre, giving the signal for applause for authors who had offered him some dinners or a few louis, and the signal for whistles against those from whom he had received nothing. In order to replace the whistle that the police did not always tolerate, he had imagined a sort of protracted yawn that produced a disastrous effect.

Believing himself master of the theater, La Morlière had the idea to use his means of action for his own account and wrote comedies but, despite all the efforts of his cabal, they fell, and with them his influence. Fréron, who he had attacked, gave him the final blow. Accused of baseness and cowardice and also of relations with the police, he was abandoned by everyone and ended his life in deep poverty.

He was among the regulars of Marie Anne Doublet's salon.

Works (in French original) 1746: Angola, histoire indienne, 2 vol. in-12, libertine novels reminding those of Crébillon fils. 1748: Les Lauriers ecclésiastiques ou Campagnes de l’abbé de T…, De l'Imprimerie ordinaire du clergé, Luxuropolis (Paris), 1 vol. in-8. 1749: Mirza-Nadir ou Mémoires et avantures du marquis de St. T***, gouverneur pour le roi de Perse de la ville du pays de Candahar, The Hague, 4 vol. in-12° 1752: Observations sur la tragédie du duc de Faix, de M. de Voltaire, in-12° 1754: Le Contrepoison des feuilles ou Lettres sur Fréron, in-12° 1769: Le Fatalisme ou Collection d’anecdotes pour prouver l’influence du sort sur l’histoire du cœur humain, work dedicated to Mme Du Barry, 2 vol. in-12°

His comedies in prose Le Gouverneur, three acts (1751), La Créole, one act (1754) and L’Amant déguisé, two acts (1758) seem not to have been printed.

In addition, he collaborated on the Anti-feuilles by Bénigne Dujardin.

Works (in English translation)