Louis Abel Beffroy de Reigny

Louis Abel Beffroy de Reigny (pronounced [lwi abɛl bɛfʁwa də ʁɛɲi]) (November 6, 1757 – December 17, 1811), was a French dramatist and man of letters.

He was born at Laon, Aisne.

Under the name of "Cousin Jacques" he founded a periodical called Les Lunes (1785–1787). The Courrier des planetes ou Correspondance du Cousin Jacques avec le firmament (1788–1792) followed. Nicodeme clans la Lune, ou la révolution pacifique (1790) a three-act farce, is said to have had more than four hundred representations.

In spite of his protests against the evils of the Revolution he escaped interference through the influence of his brother, Louis Etienne Beffroy, who was a member of the Convention.

Of La Petite Nanette (1795) and several other operas he wrote both the words and the music. His Dictionnaire neologique (3 vols, 1795–1800) of the chief actors and events in the Revolution was interdicted by the police and remained incomplete. Beffroy spent his last years in retirement, dying in Paris on December 17, 1811.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Beffroy de Reigny, Louis Abel". Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.