CUREL, FRANcOIS, VICOMTE DE (1854-1928), French dramatist and academician, was born in Metz on June Io, He was educated at the Ecole Centrale as a civil engineer, the family wealth being derived from smelting works. But for the war of 1870 and the consequent separation of Lorraine from France, Curel might have become an ironmaster. As it was, he turned to literature. His first publications were, L'Ete des fruits secs (188 5) and Le Sauvetage du grand duc (5889). In 1891 three pieces were accepted by Antoine for the Theatre Libre. The list of his plays includes L'Envers d'une sainte (1892) ; Les Fossiles (1892) , a picture of the prejudices of the provincial nobility; L'Invitee (1893), the story of a mother who returns to her chil dren after 20 years' separation; L'Amour brode (1893), which was withdrawn by the author from the Theatre Francais after the second representation; La Figurante (1896) ; Le Repas du lion (1898), dealing with the relations between capital and labour; La Fille sauvage (1902), the history of the development of the religious idea; La Nouvelle Idole (1899), dealing with the wor ship of science; and Le Coup d'aile (1906). In a collected edition of his works (1914) he explains his literary creed. He succeeded Paul Hervieu at the Academy in 1918. He had already broken his silence in 1914 with La Dense devant le Miroir, and after the World War he wrote two dramas treating the moral and psychological conditions arising out of the war and post-war con ditions: Terre inhumaine (1923; Eng. vers. No Man's Land), and La Viveuse et le Moribond (1926). Curel died on April 26, 1928.
See P. Blanchart, F. de Curel: son oeuvre (1924)•