PICARD, Louis-Benoit, a celebrated French comic dramatist, was born in Paris in July 1769. Although educated for the law, he soon abandoned every pursuit to give himself up entirely to writing for the stage. His ready activity in this new profession was almost unparalleled. He brought into play a fertile brain, a happy skill in sketching manners, a lively wit, a great knowledge of scenic effect, and an abundant flow of diction. Prose comedies, poetical comedies, comic operas, were produced in rapid succession to delight the theatres. The business
of actor, which he undertook in 1797, and that of theatrical manager, which he began not long afterwards, did not withdraw him from the literature of the stage. He continued to write until he had produced more than seventy dramas. Death only put an end to his industry in 1828. The best, though still incomplete, collection of Picard's plays, was that published in 10 vols. 8vo, 1821-23. A supplementary volume, in 8vo, was issued in 1832. He was also the author of Le Gil-Blas de la Révolution and other novels.