Sauvigny, Edme-Louis Billardon de
(1730–1812)> LIBRETTIST
Sauvigny, Edme-Louis Billardon de (1730, Paris; 19 August 1812, Paris), librettist, started life as a soldier-poet in the French cavalry. He entered the service of Stanislas, king of Poland, but returned to Paris after this monarch’s death and became a royal censor through the influence of the duchess de Chartres. He made his own first contribution to the theatre with his only successful work, La Mort de Socrate (1763). He subsequently wrote a number of other texts for the Comédie-Française…