Victor Henri Joseph Brahain Ducange

Victor Henri-Joseph Brahain du Cange (or Ducange) (November 24, 1783 – October 15, 1833) was a French novelist and dramatist, born at the Hague, where his father was secretary to the French embassy.

Dismissed from the civil service at the Restoration, Ducange became one of the favorite authors of the liberal party, and owed some part of his popularity to the fact that he was fined and imprisoned more than once for his outspokenness. He was six months in prison for an article in his journal (1822); for Valentine (1821), in which the royalist excesses in the south of France were pilloried, he was again imprisoned; and after the publication of (1823), he took refuge for some time in Belgium.

Ducange wrote numerous plays and melodramas, among which the most successful were (1836), and (1827), in which Frédérick Lemaître found one of his best parts. Many of his books were prohibited, ostensibly for their coarseness, but perhaps rather for their political tendencies. He died in Paris.

Works Theatre 1813: Palmerin, ou le Solitaire des Gaules, in three acts 1813: Pharamond, ou l’Entrée des Francs dans les Gaules, in three acts 1818: Le Prince de Norvège, ou la Bague de fer, in three acts 1819: Le Prisonnier vénitien, in three acts, with Dupetit-Méré 1819: Calas, in three acts 1819: La Tante à marier, one-act comédie en vaudeville 1819: La Maison du Corrégidor, ou Ruse et malice, in three acts 1820: Le Colonel et le Soldat, in three acts 1820: Thérèse, ou l’Orpheline de Genève, in three acts 1821: La Suédoise, in three acts 1822: Élodie, ou la Vierge du monastère, in three acts 1823: Lisbeth, in three acts 1824: Les Diamants, in three acts 1826: Mac Doivell, in three acts 1826: Trente ans, ou la Vie d’un joueur 1828: Polder, ou le Bourreau d’Amsterdam, with Pixérécourt, in three acts 1828: La Fiancée de Lammermoor, in three acts 1829: Sept heures ou Charlotte Corday, three-act melodrama with Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois, Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin 1830: Le Jésuite, with Pixérécourt, en trois actes 1831: La Vendetta, ou la Fiancée corse, in three acts 1831: Il y a seize ans, in three acts 1831: l’Oiseau bleu, with Simonnin, two-act féerie

Novels 1819: Agathe, ou le Petit Vieillard de Calais, Paris, 2 vol. in-12° 1820: Albert, ou les Amants missionnaires, 2 vol. in-12° 1820: Valentine ou le Pasteur d'Uzès, (this work in which he condemned the massacres of 1815, earned him seven months in jail.) 1823: Léonide, ou la Vieille de Suresnes, 5 vol. in-12° 1825: La Luthérienne, 6 vol. in-12° 1825: Le Médecin confesseur, 6 vol. in-12° 1826: Les Trois Filles de la Veuve, 6 vol. in-12° 1827: L’Artiste et le Soldat, 5 vol, in-12° 1830: Isaurine, 5 vol. in-12° 1830: Ludovica, 6 vol. in-12° 1832: Marc Loricot, 6 vol. in-12° 1834: Les Mœurs, tales and short stories, 2 vol. in-12° 1835: Joasine, ou la Fille du prêtre, 5 vol, in-12°