AUBIGNAC

aubignac, francois hedelin, abbe d' (1604-1676), french author, was born at paris on the 4th of august 1604. his father practised at the paris bar, and his mother was a daughter of the great surgeon ambroise pare. francois hedelin was educated for his father's profession, but, after practising for some time at nemours he abandoned law, took holy orders, and was appointed tutor to one of richelieu's nephews, the duc de fronsac. this patronage secured for him the abbey of aubignac and of mainac. the death of the duc de fronsac in 1646 put an end to hopes of further preferment, and the abbe d'aubignac retired to nemours, occupying himself with literature till his death on the 25th of july 1676. he took an energetic share in the literary controversies of his time. against gilles menage he wrote a _terence justifie_ (1656); he laid claim to having originated the idea of the "_carte de tendre_" of mlle de scudery's _clelie_; and after being a professed admirer of corneille he turned against him because he had neglected to mention the abbe in his _discours sur le poeme dramatique_. he was the author of four tragedies: _la cyminde_ (1642), _la pucelle d'orleans_ (1642), _zenobie_ (1647) and _le martyre de sainte catherine_ (1650). _zenobie_ was written with the intention of affording a model in which the strict rules of the drama, as understood by the theorists, were observed. in the choice of subjects for his plays, he seems to have been guided by a desire to illustrate the various kinds of tragedy--patriotic, antique and religious. the dramatic authors whom he was in the habit of criticizing were not slow to take advantage of the opportunity for retaliation offered by the production of these mediocre plays. it is as a theorist that d'aubignac still arrests attention. it has been proved that to jean chapelain belongs the credit of having been the first to establish as a practical law the convention of the unities that plays so large a part in the history of the french stage; but the laws of dramatic method and construction generally were codified by d'aubignac in his _pratique du theatre._ the book was only published in 1657, but had been begun at the desire of richelieu as early as 1640. his _conjectures academiques sur l'iliade d'homere_, which was not published until nearly forty years after his death, threw doubts on the existence of homer, and anticipated in some sense the conclusions of friedrich august wolf in his _prolegomena ad homerum_ (1795). the contents of the _pratique du theatre_ are summarized by f. brunetiere in his notice of aubignac in the _grande encydopedie._ see also g. saintsbury, _hist. of criticism_, bk. v., and h. rigault, _hist. de la querelle des anciens et modernes._ (1859).