CHENIER, :MARIE JOSEPH DE (1764-IS11). A French and dramatist. the younger brother of Andri• Marie de Chillier. Ile was horn in Constantinople. was educated in France, and en tered the army at seventeen, but soon left it. and at twenty produced (1784), a rather feeble tragedy. Ilk Cherles IX., however, excited in intense enthusiasm, its sic merit being supplemented both by the OCCa of the eve of the Revolution and by the genius of the great actor Talma. who achieved in it his first renown. This play is still acted. tither dramas, now forgotten. followed—Henri VIII. and Jean Calas in 1791, ('alus Gracchus in 179:2. This last was proscribed for its anti Jacobin phrase, 'Laws and not blood,' as was hi- Timoh'on in the following year. He now be came. as member of the Jacobin Club, a literary politician and political poet. He was suc cessively member of the Convention, the Coun cil of Five Hundred, the Tribunate, and of the Committees of Public Instruction. General Secur
ity, and Public Safety. Under Napoleon be was member of the Educational Jury of the Seine, and member of the Committee of Public In,true tion ( IS03-06). He lectured on literature under imperial patronage. and wrote, at Napoleon's command. a good Tableau historique des progres de la lith'rature francaise (1503), that has been often reprinted. Eis most noteworthy poems are the national song. the Chant du ; Sur In mart de Mirabeau ; and Nur l'oliaa•chie dr lobes pie•re. Ili. best satires are the Leltre d Voltaire ( ISM; . and the well-named r? S117" Ira ( 17971. which may scent to illu-trate the vice it denounces. Chr!nier also deserves remem brance for his work as translator, not only from the Latin and Greek poets, but from the German Lessing and the English Gray. Chi-nier's Works are collected in eight volumes (1823-26). His poetry is separately printed (iti44).