[1] He was born in Paris, and seems to have been connected most his life with a troupe of actors (the "Comédiens du Roi") headed by the actor named Valleran Lecomte, whom he provided with plays; Hardy may have toured the provinces and even acted with this company (his participation with this troupe is attested from 1611, but may have begun far earlier).
Hardy's plays were written for the stage, not to be read; and it was in the interest of the company that they should not be printed and thus fall into the common stock.
In 1623 Hardy published les Chastes et Loyales Amours de Théagène et Chariclée, a tragicomedy in eight "days" or "dramatic poems", and in 1624 he began a collected edition of his works, Le Théâtre d'Alexandre Hardy, parisien, of which five volumes (1624–1628) were published, one at Rouen and the rest in Paris.
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (paraphrasing), Hardy's importance in the history of the French theatre has been frequently overlooked.
[citation needed] It is impossible to know how much the dramatists of the seventeenth century were indebted to him in detail, since only a fraction of his work is preserved,[1] but generally Hardy may be credited with developing a French theater of action.