Jean-Louis Laya

Who was Jean-Louis Laya?

Jean-Louis Laya was a French dramatist born in Paris. He wrote his first comedy in collaboration with Gabriel-Marie Legouvé in 1785. The piece, however, though accepted by the Comédie française, was never represented. In 1789 he produced a plea for religious toleration in the form of a five-act tragedy in verse, Jean Calas. In his next work, the injustice of the disgrace cast on a family by the crime of one of its members formed the theme of Les Dangers de l'opinion.

It is by his Ami des lois that Laya is best remembered. This energetic protest against mob rule, with its scarcely veiled characterizations of Robespierre as Nomophage and of Marat as Duricrne, was an act of the highest courage, for the play was produced at the Théâtre Français only nineteen days before the execution of Louis XVI.

Ten days after its first production the piece was prohibited by the Commune, but the public demanded its representation; the mayor of Paris was compelled to appeal to the National Convention, and the piece was played while some 30,000 Parisians guarded the hall. Laya went into hiding, and several persons convicted of having a copy of the obnoxious play in their possession were guillotined.