BERGERAC, Savinien Cyrano de, French
author: b. 1619; d. 1655. He was distinguished
for his courage in the field, and for the number
of his duels, more than a thousand, most of
them fought on account of his monstrously
large nose. His writings, which are often
crude, but full of invention, vigor and wit, include a tragedy, ‘Agrippine,’ which was regarded at the time as the vehicle of atheistic teaching; and a comedy, ‘The Pedant Tricked,’ from which Corneille and Molière have freely borrowed ideas; and his ‘Comical History of the States and Empires of the Sun and the Moon’ probably suggested ‘Micromégas’ to Voltaire, and ‘Gulliver’ to Swift. His works have been frequently republished. He was made the hero of a drama bearing his name, written by Edmond Rostand, the French playwright, which had a phenomenal success in the United States in 1899-1900, and was the occasion of a suit for plagiarism. See .