Le Mariage d’Olympe

work by Augier

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June 30, 2026

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Le Mariage d'Olympe is a play by French dramatist Émile Augier, written in 1855. It is a didactic work that critiques the idea of rehabilitating a prostitute through love, a theme also explored by Alexandre Dumas fils in La Dame aux Camélias. Augier, a moralist and champion of marriage, uses this play to express his conservative views, suggesting an innate propensity to vice makes a woman a prostitute. The play was part of a trend in the Second Empire and early Third Republic of social drama that focused on contemporary values and preoccupations, often with a strong moralizing tone.12

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French literature
Drama
…one of his best-known plays, Le Mariage d’Olympe (1855; “The Marriage of Olympia”), which proposes that what makes a woman into a prostitute in the first place is an innate propensity to vice. On the other hand, Augier’s treatment of the venality of the press and the corruption of financiers…
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…one of his best-known plays, Le Mariage d’Olympe (1855; “The Marriage of Olympia”), which proposes that what makes a woman into a prostitute in the first place is an innate propensity to vice. On the other hand, Augier’s treatment of the venality of the press and the corruption of financiers…
Read More