The journalist, pamphleteer, singer and playwright Alphonse Martainville was also the director and sole editor of the Journal des rieurs, ou le Démocrite français (The Journal of those who laugh, or the French Democritus, 1794-1795). An anti-Jacobin Muscadin, he rose to fame after the fall of Robespierre, during the Thermidorian Reaction, as he travelled from one Parisian theatre to the next to destroy busts of Marat.

Martainville is mostly known for the two “comical melodrama-fééries” which he wrote with Louis-François Ribié—Le Pied de mouton (The Sheep’s Foot, 1806) and La Queue du diable (The Devil’s Tail, 1808). Both works met with great success and were performed again many times throughout the 19th century.

He also published a scatological work, Merdiana, ou Manuel des chieurs ([A wordplay on “merde”, the word for “shit” in French], or Handbook for people who are pains in the arse [literally, chieur means someone who shits]). Martainville was an ultra-royalist, who founded the journal Le Drapeau blanc (The white Flag) in 1818. His views were so extreme that he was brought to justice several times during the Bourbon Restoration; eventually, he quit politics.