Léon Laya was a French playwright. He was the son of the académicien

Académie française

L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...

 Jean-Louis Laya

Jean-Louis Laya

Jean-Louis Laya was a French dramatist born in Paris. He wrote his first comedy in collaboration with Gabriel-Marie Legouvé in 1785. The piece, however, though accepted by the Comédie française, was never represented. In 1789 he produced a plea for religious toleration in the form of a five-act...

.

Léon Laya was the author of a number of successful comedies, alternating between the delicacy or purity of the idea and the vivacity of the form : Une Maîtresse anonyme, in 2 acts (1812) ; la Peau du lion, in 2 acts (1814) ; les Cœurs d’or, in 3 acts, with Prémaray

Jules-Martial Regnault de Prémaray

Jules-Martial Regnault de Prémaray was a French author. He was literary editor of la Patrie. He published several poems, dramas and vaudevilles.-Source:...

 (Gymnase

Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique

The theatre was rebuilt to plans by the architects Jacques Ignace Hittorff and Jean-François-Joseph Lecointe on the boulevard Saint-Martin, at the corner of rue de Bondy...

, 1854) ; les Jeunes gens, in 3 acts, free and independent adaptation of Terence

Terence

Publius Terentius Afer , better known in English as Terence, was a playwright of the Roman Republic, of North African descent. His comedies were performed for the first time around 170–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought Terence to Rome as a slave, educated him and later on,...

's Adelphoe

Adelphoe

Adelphoe is a play by Roman playwright Terence, adopted partly from plays by Menander and Diphilus. It explores the best form of child-rearing...

(Théâtre-Français

Comédie-Française

The Comédie-Française or Théâtre-Français is one of the few state theaters in France. It is the only state theater to have its own troupe of actors. It is located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris....

, 1855) ; le duc Job, in 4 acts, one of the most sustained successes of the Théâtre-Français (1859) ; la Loi du cœur (Théâtre-Français, 1862), etc.

Source

• Gustave Vapereau, Dictionnaire universel des littératures, Paris, Hachette, 1876, p. 1209