DELAVIGNE, JEAN FRANCOIS CASIMIR '843), French poet and dramatist, was born on April 4, 1793, at Havre, and was educated in Paris at the Lycee Napoleon. His Dithyrambe sur la naissance du roi de Rome (1811) secured for him a sinecure in the revenue office. Inspired by the catastrophe of 1815, Delavigne wrote the stirring patriotic poems entitled Messeniennes. In 1819 his play Les vepres Siciliennes, refused for the Theatre Francais, was performed at the Odeon. In Paria (1821) he expressed political opinions which led to his deprivation of a comfortable sinecure, but Louis Philippe compensated him by making him librarian at the Palais Royal. Here he wrote the Ecole des vieillards (1823), his best comedy, which gained his election to the Academy in 18'25. To this period also belong La Princesse Aurelie (1828) and Marino Faliero (1829), a drama in the romantic style.
At the revolution of 183o his song "La Parisienne," set to music by Auber, was on the lips of every Frenchman, and rivalled in popularity the "Marseillaise." Of the many historical dramas written by Delavigne under the July monarchy the most famous is Louis XI. (1837). His last work was Charles VI. (1843), an opera libretto partly written by his brother Germain (179o 1868). In 1843 he started for Italy in search of health, but died at Lyons on Dec. 1, 1843.