NAZAIRE French dramatist and revolutionist, was born at Carcassonne. His real name was simply Fabre, the "d'Eglantine" being added in commemoration of his receiving the golden eglantine of Clemence Isaure from the academy of the floral games at Toulouse. Of his plays, Philinte, ou la suite du Misanthrope (1790), which professes to be a continuation of Moliere's Misanthrope, is best remembered. The character of Philinte had much political significance. Alceste received the highest praise, and evidently represents the citizen patriot, while Philinte is a dangerous aristocrat in disguise. Fabre was president and secretary of the club of the Cordeliers, and belonged also to the Jacobin club. He was private secretary to Danton, and sat in the National Convention. He voted for the king's death, support ing the maximum and the law of the suspected, and he was a bitter enemy of the Girondins. He sat on the committee entrusted with the formation of the republican calendar, and to him was due a large part of the new nomenclature, with its poetic Prairial and Floreal, its prosaic Primidi and Duodi. On Jan. 12, 1794, he was arrested by order of the committee of public safety on a ground less charge of malversation and forgery in connection with the affairs of the Compagnie des Indes. During his trial Fabre showed the greatest calmness and sang his own well-known song of Il pleut, it Aleut, bergere, rentre tes blancs moutons. He was guillo tined on April 5, 1794. On his way to the scaffold he distributed his manuscript poems to the people.
A posthumous play, Les Precepteurs, steeped with the doctrines of Rousseau's Emile, was performed on Sept. and met with an enthusiastic reception. Among Fabre's other plays are Convalescent de qualite (1791), and L'Intrigue epistolaire (1791) . In the latter play Fabre is supposed to have drawn a portrait of the painter Greuze.