right|300px|Paul Scarron

'''Paul Scarron''' (c. July, French Madame de Maintenon, was baptized on July 4 1610.

His father, of the same name, was a member of the La Beaumelle (''Mémoires ... de Mme de Maintenon'') that--when in residence at his canonry of Le Mans--he once tarred and feathered himself as a carnival freak and, being obliged to take refuge from popular wrath in a swamp, was crippled from rheumatism.

What is certain is that Scarron, after having been in perfect health for nearly thirty years, passed twenty more in a state of miserable deformity and pain. His head and body were twisted, and his legs became useless. He bore up against his sufferings with invincible courage, though his circumstances were further complicated by a series of lawsuits with his stepmother over his father's property, and by the poverty and misconduct of his sisters, whom he supported. Scarron returned to Paris in 1640, and in 1643 appeared a ''Recueil de quelques vers burlesques'', and in the next year ''Typhon ou la gigantomachie''. At Le Mans he had conceived the idea of the ''Roman comique'', the first part of which was printed in 1651.

In Fouquet, and one from the queen, which was withdrawn because he was suspected of ''Frondeur'' sentiments. When Mazarin received the dedication of ''Typhon'' coldly, Scarron changed it to a burlesque on the minister. In 1651 he definitely took the side of the Fronde in a Mazarinade, a violent pamphlet. He now had no resources but his "marquisat."

In his early years he had been something of a libertine. In 1649 a penniless lady of good family, Céleste Palaiseau, kept his house in the Rue d'Enfer, and tried to reform the gay company which assembled there. But in 1652, sixteen years after he had become almost entirely paralysed, he married a girl of much beauty and no fortune, Françoise d'Aubigné, afterwards famous as Madame de Maintenon. Scarron had long been able to endure life only by the aid of constant doses of opium, and he died on the 6th of October 1660.

Scarron's work is very abundant and very unequal. The piece most famous in his own day, his ''Virgile travesti'' (1648-1653), is now thought a somewhat ignoble waste of singular powers for burlesque. But the ''Roman comique'' (1651-1657) is a work the merit of which is denied by no competent judge. Unfinished, and a little desultory, this history of a troop of strolling actors is almost the first French novel, in point of date, which shows real power of painting manners and character, and is singularly vivid. It is in the style of the Spanish picaresque romance, and furnished Théophile Gautier with the idea and with some of the details of his ''Capitaine Fracasse''. Scarron also wrote some shorter novels: ''La Precaution inutile'', which inspired Sedaine's ''Gageure imprévue; Les Hypocrites'', to which Tartuffe owes something, and others. Of his plays ''Jodelet'' (1645) and ''Don Japhel d'Arménie'' (1653) are the best.

thumb|200px|Paul Scarron
'''Paul Scarron''' est un français né le 4 juillet 1610 à Paris, mort le 6 octobre 1660 à Paris.

==Biographie==
Issu de la noblesse de robe, septième enfant d'un conseiller à la cour de comptes, il entre dans les ordres en Mans de 1632 à 1640, dans l'entourage de l'évêque Charles de Beaumanoir et fréquente les salons provinciaux. En 1638, il est atteint d'une maladie, après, selon la légende, un bain nu durant le carnaval, qui finit par le rendre paralysé des jambes. Il commence à écrire ses premières œuvres à partir de 1643. À partir de 1638, Scarron n'est plus qu'un pauvre corps, tordu et perclus, immobilisé dans un fauteuil, tel qu'il s'est dépeint lui-même avec une féroce et ironique minutie.

Il rentre à quartier du Marais, salon qui sera bientôt couru par tous les familiers du Louvre.

Lui-même rappelle ses souffrances dans son épitaphe restée célèbre :
:''Celui qui cy maintenant dort
:''Fit plus de pitié que d'envie,
:''Et souffrit mille fois la mort
:''Avant que de perdre la vie.
::''Passant, ne fais ici de bruit
::''Garde bien que tu ne l'éveilles :
::''Car voici la première nuit
::''Que le pauvre Scarron sommeille.''

==Œuvre==
Scarron représente le genre burlesque dans la comédie du . En 1643, son ''Recueil de quelques vers burlesques'' est l'origine d'une vogue immense. Il publie ensuite ''Le Typhon'' (1644), puis de 1648 à 1652 le ''Virgile travesti'', parodie de ''l'Énéide''. Tout en écrivant ses meilleures comédies (''Jodelet ou le Maître valet'', 1645, et ''Don Japhet d'Arménie'', 1653), Scarron rédige également un roman : ''Le Roman comique'', considéré comme son chef-d'œuvre. La première partie est publiée en 1651, la seconde en 1657. Scarron meurt avant d'avoir écrit la troisième.

Il est également l'auteur de plusieurs autres comédies : ''L'Écolier de Salamanque'' (1654), ''Le Marquis ridicule ou la comtesse faite à la hâte'' (1655), ''La Fausse Apparence'' (1657), ''Le Prince corsaire'' (1658).

Presque toutes ses pièces sont imitées de modèles espagnols, notamment de Tirso de Molina et de Francisco de Rojas.