Racine, Louis

(1692-1763)

   writer

   Born in Paris, Louis Racine was the last son of the dramatist jean racine. An attorney, he left the bar to live with the priests of the oratory, where he wrote a religious poem, La Grâce (1720). Ruined by the john law financial debacle, he took an administrative post with the government, becoming inspector general of finances and the director of salt taxes (gabelle). A scholar, he was, at age 26, a member of the Writers' Academy, but his Jansenist views, which were apparent in his collection of writings (La Religion, 1747), were an obstacle to his election to the Académie Française. He wrote numerous other works, including the important Mémoires sur la vie de Jean Racine (1747), and did a translation of John Milton's Paradise Lost (1750).