Robert Macaire is a fictional character, an unscrupulous swindler, who appears in a number of French plays, films, and other works of art.
He was principally the creation of an actor, Frédérick Lemaître, who took the stock figure of "a ragged tramp, a common thief with tattered frock coat patched pants" and transformed him during his performances into "the dapper confidence man, the financial schemer, the juggler of joint-stock companies" that could serve to lampoon financial speculation and government corruption.
[1] Playwright Benjamin Antier (1787–1870), with two collaborators Saint-Amand and Polyanthe, created the character Robert Macaire in the play l'Auberge des Adrets, a serious-minded melodrama.
[4] The book Physiologie du Robert-Macaire (1842) written by Pierre-Joseph Rousseau (1797–1849) and illustrated by Honoré Daumier[5] identified Macaire with a variety of contemporary social types, all involved in "shady schemes for instant wealth", and especially Émile de Girardin (1806-1881), a businessman who promoted his financial adventures through his own newspaper, La Presse.
The French film Les Enfants du Paradis (1945), set in the 1830s, presents Pierre Brasseur as Lemaître playing the role of Macaire.