Courteline, Georges

Courteline, Georges (1858-1929), pseudonym of Georges-Victor-Marcel Moinaux, French writer and dramatist. He was the son of Jules Moinaux, a humorist and dramatist who wrote mostly in collaboration with others. Initially persuaded by his father not to follow a literary career, he first enlisted in the army, then became a civil servant in the Ministère des Cultes. Both activities were to serve as an inexhaustible source of inspiration for his writings. After 14 years as a civil servant, the success brought by his comic novels allowed him to devote himself exclusively to writing. In his early works he had lampooned the army; he would now ridicule bureaucrats, as in Messieurs les Ronds-de-Cuir (1893; The Bureaucrats, 1928). His satirical wit, expressed through an admirable style, was mainly at the expense of the narrow petit-bourgeois mind and its attitudes. His spirited observation of human faults and feelings was best revealed on stage, particularly in his masterpiece Boubouroche (1893), which André Antoine commissioned for his Théâtre Libre. He was awarded the Légion d'honneur in 1899.