CHAPELAIN, JEAN (1595-1674), French poet and man of letters, was born in Paris and spent 17 years in the service of M. de la Trousse, grand provost of France. He was employed by Richelieu in the organization of the Academie Francaise. In 1632, in a conversation with the cardinal, he had laid down the canon of the unities of time and space which should govern the drama. The unities had already been advocated by Scaliger (Art poetique, 1561) and by the abbe d'Aubignac (Pratique du thea tre, 1657), but the doctrine appears to have been unfamiliar to Richelieu, who invited Chapelain to draw up the Sentiments de l'Academie sur le Cid, in which deviation from the rule is de nounced. His great reputation seemed to be enhanced by the success of the first 12 cantos of his epic La Pucelle (1656), on which he had been at work for 20 years, but it was shattered by Boileau in his early satires, and the remaining cantos of the epic remained unprinted until 1882, when they were edited by H. Herluison.
Chapelain drew up the statutes of the Academy, and laid down the rules for the great grammar and dictionary to be produced. In 1663 he was employed by Colbert to draw up a list of men of letters with observations for use by the Crown in the distribution of honours and pensions. This task showed him to be a generous and kindly critic.