Scribe, Augustin-Eugène (24 December 1791, Paris; 20 February 1861, Paris), librettist, was raised by his widowed mother and guardian, a lawyer named Bonnet . The latter urged his ward to follow a career before the bar, but the youth was more interested in the theatre and had his first work entitled Le Prétendu sans le savoir billed at the Variétés as early as 1810. The work did not make an impression upon the audience, but the resilient young man went on to produce another dozen mediocre…