Rotrou, JEAN DE, a French tragic poet, second only to his friend and contemporary Corneille, was born at Dreux, August 21, 1609, went early to Paris, and became a busy playwright, as well as one of the five poets—the others were Corneille, Colletet, Bois-Robert, and L'Etoile—who worked up into dramatic form the ideas of Richelieu. His first piece, L'Hypochondriaque, was followed by La Baque de l'Oubli, imitated from Lope de Vega, and that by Cleagénor et Doristée, Diane, Les Occasions Perdues, L'Heureuse Constance, all in the Spanish romantic style. Next followed a busy period of classical influence, culminating in his last years with three masterpieces, Le Vritable Saint Genest, a tragedy of Christian martyrdom under Diocletian; Don Bertrand, a capital comedy; and Venceslas, which kept the stage almost down to our own day. Tradition tells that Rotrou led a dissipated life in Paris, and further was inordinately addicted to gambling; more honourable is the authentic history of his death. He held an official post at Dreux, and when he heard that the plague had broken out there, and that the mayor had fled like Montaigne in the same circumstances from Bordeaux, he hastened to the town to preserve order, caught the pestilence, and died a few hours after, June 28, 1650.
As many as thirty-five of his plays are still extant, but many more are lost. A complete edition was edited by Viollet-le-Duc (5 vols. 1820-22); six of the plays, by M. de Ronchaud (2 vols. 1882). See Jarry's Essai (1868), the works by Person on Saint-Genest (1882) and Venceslas (1882), and G. Steffens, Rotrou-Studien (i. 1891).