Scarron, Paul (pōl skärôN`), 1610–60, French writer. His picaresque novel Le Romant comique (1651) vividly portrays the lives of a company of strolling players. He also wrote short stories, collected as Les Nouvelles tragi-comiques (1655), satires, and burlesque poems and plays. Scarron married (1652) Françoise d'Aubigné, known later as Mme de Maintenon. He was long bedridden with paralysis.

Scarron, Paul

(baptized July 4, 1610, Paris, France—died Oct. 7, 1660, Paris) French writer. With his first works, Scarron helped make the burlesque a characteristic literary form of his time. Virgile travesty, 7 vol. (1648–53) was a very successful parody of Virgil's Aeneid. Scarron's plays, often based on Spanish originals, were important in the theatrical life of Paris. He is now remembered for a single novel, Le Roman comique, 3 vol. (1651–57; “The Comic Novel”), which recounts the comical adventures of a company of strolling players; its realism makes it an invaluable source of information about conditions in the French provinces in the 17th century. His widow, Madame de Maintenon, was later married to Louis XIV.