FABRE D'GLANTINE, PHILIPPE(-FRANOIS-NAZAIRE)

born July 28, 1750, Carcassonne, Fr. died April 5, 1794, Paris French political dramatic satirist and prominent figure in the French Revolution; as deputy in the National Convention he voted for the death of Louis XVI. He added the appellation d'glantine to his surname, Fabre, after falsely claiming that he had won a golden eglantine in a literary competition. After publishing the poem tude de la nature (1783; Study of Nature), he wrote many comedies, the most celebratedLe Philinte de Molire (1790), a sequel to Molire's Misanthropein which the major characters are drawn as a politically dangerous aristocrat and a virtuous Republican. His best known work is the song Il pleut, il pleut, bergre (It's raining, it's raining, shepherdess), a song which French children still sing today. Although Fabre had little knowledge of astronomy, he was in charge of the committee that drew up the Republican calendar. Fabre was guillotined in 1794, having aroused the enmity of Maximilien Robespierre, as being too moderate in his views.