Antoine-Marin Lemierre

Antoine-Marin Lemierre (12 January 1733 – 4 July 1793) was a French dramatist and poet.

He was born in Paris, into a poor family, but found a patron in the collector-general of taxes, Dupin, whose secretary he became.

Lemierre gained his first success on the stage with Hypermnestre (1758); Titre (1761) and Idomne (1764) failed on account of the subjects.

Artaxerce, modelled on Metastasio, and Guillaume Tell were produced in 1766; other successful tragedies were La Veuve de Malabar (1770) and Barnavelt (1784).

After the French Revolution he professed great remorse for the production of a play inculcating revolutionary principles, and there is no doubt that the horror of the excesses he witnessed hastened his death.