The innovation consisted in destroying the sharp distinction then existing between tragedy and comedy in French literature.

Indications of this change had been already offered in the work of Marivaux, and La Chaussée's plays led naturally to the domestic drama of Diderot and of Sedaine.

Alexis Piron nicknames the author "le Révérend Père Chaussée," and ridiculed him in one of his most famous epigrams.

The hostility of the critics did not prevent the public from shedding tears nightly over the sorrows of La Chaussée's heroine.

Villemain said of his style that he wrote prosaic verses with purity, while Voltaire, usually an adverse critic of his work, said he was "un des premiers après ceux qui ont du génie."