BATAILLE, HENRI (18 7 2—I g 2 2 ), French dramatist, was born April 4, 1872, at Nimes. In early youth he thought of becom ing a painter and, in 189o, entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts. His first venture into dramatic work, La belle au bois dormant given at the Thefitre de l'Oeuvre in 1894, was a failure ; but his reputation was definitely established by a book of verse La cliambre blanche (1895), and when his Breton drama La lepreuse was produced in 1896, he stood revealed as a dramatist of real promise. From that time onwards he developed his gift for writ ing plays in which passion is shown to sway men's lives more than their beliefs, until he reached maturity with Maman Colibri (1904), La marche nuptiale (19o5) and Poliche (19o7). Among his other works are La femme nue (1908), La vierge folle (I 910), La divine tragedie, a book of war poems (1916) and La chair humaine (1922). He died at Rueil, near Paris, on March 2 1922.