Paul Scarron

Paul Scarron (1610–1660) was a French poet, novelist and playwright from Paris. Crippled by illness from his late twenties, he turned his suffering into comedy and became a celebrated wit; he married the young Françoise d’Aubigné, later Madame de Maintenon, wife of Louis XIV.

He wrote the burlesque Virgile travesti, a parody of the Aeneid, comedies such as Jodelet, and the Roman comique (1651–57), about a troupe of travelling actors. His self-composed epitaph is still often quoted.