Charles Rivière Dufresny

Charles Dufresny, Sieur de la Rivière (1648 – 6 October 1724) was a French playwright.

The allegation that his grandfather was an illegitimate son of Henry IV procured him the liberal patronage of Louis XIV, who gave him the post of valet de chambre, and affixed his name to many lucrative privileges.

Dufresny's expensive habits neutralized all efforts to enrich him, and as if to furnish a piquant commentary on the proverb that poverty makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows, he married, as his second wife, a washerwoman, in discharge of her bill a whimsicality which supplied Alain-René Lesage with an episode in Le Diable boiteux (1707), and was made the subject of a comedy by J.-M. Deschamps (Charles Rivière Dufresny, ou le mariage impromptu).

[1] His plays, destitute for the most part of all higher qualities, abound in sprightly wit and pithy sayings.

[1] His comedies include: He also wrote short stories: Histoire nouvelle et divertissante du Bonhomme Misère [fr], Le Puits de la vérité, histoire gauloise (1698), Amusements sérieux et comiques (Paris, 1699, in-12, Second edition augmented, 1707)?