Le Roy, Eugéne

Born Nov. 29, 1836, in Hautefort, department of Dordogne; died May 5, 1907, in Montignac, department of Dordogne. French writer.

Le Roy’s first novel The Mill of Frau was published in 1891. His better-known novel Jacqou le croquant, about a peasant youth who stirs up a peasant rebellion on the eve of the Revolution of 1830, was published in 1899 (Russian translation, Jacqou the Destroyer, 1905; in some Russian versions it is Jacqou the Poor; an abridged Russian translation, Jacqou le croquant, was published in 1936, 1962, and 1969).

Le Roy’s works, inspired by Enlightenment ideals, are profoundly democratic and imbued with a hatred of oppressors. He instinctively approached a Marxist position on the question of the revolutionary possibilities of the French peasantry (hence the hostile attitude of official French literary critics toward Le Roy). In the 1950’s progressive criticism rehabilitated Le Roy’s literary reputation.