BERGERAC, SAVINIEN CYRANO DE (1619-55). A French novelist and dramatist, important in the development of realism in the novel and on the stage. Ile was born in Perigord, and edu cated at the College Beauvais, whose principal was the butt of his satire in Le pedant iolle (1654). Later he derived from Gassendi an in terest in science, and from Campanella some as trological lore. He divided his young manhood between literature and gay adventure, served two years in the Guards (1639-41), and was twice wounded. He had through life the reputation of a reckless duelist. lie traveled in England and Italy, possibly also in Poland. lie died as the re sult of an accident after an illness of fourteen months, during which it is claimed that his manu scripts were mistreated and altered by the Jes uits. He had published during his short and rest less life a volume of letters largely satirical, a Political satire on Mazarin as Le nthristre d'etat flambe ; Agrippine, a tragedy (1653) ; and Le pedant joue, a comedy (16'54). His most famous book, Histoire eomiqur des etats et empires de in Lune, appeared in 1656 (possibly in 1650), fol lowed in 1661 by Histoire comigue des elats et des empires du Soleil. These books were sug gested indirectly by Lucian, Dante. and Ariosto, but immediately by the English Godwin's Man in the Moon (1638), and Wilkins's Discorcry of a New World, i.e. the moon (1038). Thus Ber gerac was one of the first in France to show the influence of English fiction. Ills stories furnished suggestions to Fontanelle. Voltaire, Restif de la Bretonne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Jules Verne, pos sibly. also, to Swift; but the only editions known have evidently passed through a bungling cen sorship. probably that of the Inquisition, for Ber gerac was a free-thinker, who had dared to write "Reason alone is my queen," even in the day of Bossuet. What is left is verbally orthodox, but mockingly ironical. Even so, the books reveal a
mind of great originality and power. Both Comic Histories involve much of the science of the clay, much superstition ironically introduced, a keen satire on the Inquisition in Galileo's case, a defense of Copernicus. many fine descriptive passages, and some startling forebodings of mod ern discoveries (like the phonograph), of a uni versal language (Volaptik), and of the Wag nerian tone-drama. Through all runs a gasconad ing humor. His own large nose is justified by the moon-children, who tell him that it is the infallible sign of "a witty, courteous, affable, generous, open-minded man." Such little per sonal touches and a rare power of relating the impossible with logically and mathematically consistent detail give an air of probability to his most whimsical fancies. They are planless, and as works of literary art their place is low; but Bergerac was the first to use the novel to teach natural science, and so was a forerunner of the encyclopmdists of the next century, just as in the drama Ile had been first to break definitely with the unities in tragedy, which were not to be wholly done away till 1830, and his Pedant is almost the first French comedy of character in prose. The Comic History of the States and Empires of the Moon and of the Sun is re printed with a scholarly introduction by Paul Lacroix (Bibliophile Jacob, 1858). There are two English contemporary translations and a modern partial one, called forth by the popular ity of Ilostand's (q.v.) drama, Cgrano de Ber gerac. See the Life and Study, by Brun (1893). Bibliographical details and an appreciative criti cal essay are in K6rting's Gcschichte des fran ziisisehen Romans Inc SM. Jahrhundert, 169-205 (Leipzig, 1885-87).