Benjamin Antier

Benjamin Antier, real name Benjamin Chevrillon, (21 March 1787 – 25 April 1870), was a 19th-century French playwright.

An author of melodramas and vaudevilles written in collaboration with other dramatists, he is mostly known for his drama L'Auberge des Adrets, premiered in 1823. The play featured the villain Robert Macaire, played on stage by Frédérick Lemaître, who, in 1835, wrote with Antier a second play called Robert Macaire. The character was then popularized by Daumier's caricatures to become, after James Rousseau's word in his Physiologie du Robert Macaire, "the embodiment of our positive, selfish, greedy, liar, boastful era... basically blagueuse. In 1945, L'Auberge des Adrets would be the basis of Marcel Carné's film, Children of Paradise, with Jean-Louis Barrault and Arletty.

Most of his plays were signed "Benjamin", as it was then customary for melodrama writers and actors to make them known by their first names. He was made chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1864.