Legouvé was always an advocate of physical training. He was long accounted one of the best shots in France, and although, from a conscientious objection, he never fought a duel, he made the art of fencing his lifelong hobby. After the death of Désiré Nisard in 1888, Legouvé became the "father" of the Académie française. He died in Paris in 1903. Works Adrienne Lecouvreur (1849) Soixante ans de souvenirs (1886–1887), translated as Sixty Years of Recollections (1893) by Albert D. Vandam References Attribution: External links 19th-century French dramatists and playwrights Members of the Académie Française 1807 births 1903 deaths Writers from Paris Grand Officiers of the Légion d'honneur Members of the Ligue de la patrie française 19th-century French male writers