Felix Pyat, a French author, born in Vierzon, department of Cher, Oct. 4, 1810. He studied law in Paris, and was admitted to the bar in 1831, but devoted himself entirely to literature and politics. He contributed to several journals, furnished Jules Janin with one of the most striking chapters of his Barnave, and was connected as feuilletoniste with the Siècle, and afterward for several years as political editor with the National. His first play, composed in conjunction with Thèodore Burette, Une révolution d'autrefois, was brought out at the Odéon, March 1, 1832, but was suppressed at once on account of its bold political allusions. Une conjuration d'autrefois, printed in 1833 in the Revue des Deux Mondes, and Arabella, in which, under assumed names, he branded the supposed accomplices in the death of the duke of Bourbon, were of a similar political character. In conjunction with Luchet, he produced in 1834 Le brigand et le philosophe, and in 1835 Ango. Politics now engaged his attention for about six years. In 1841 his Deux serruriers had an extraordinary run; and his Cedric le Norvégien (1842), Diogène (1846), and Le chif-fonnier (1847), his last play, were also successful.

In 1844, for a violent pamphlet, Marie Joseph Chénier et le prince des critiques, against his former friend Jules Janin, he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. He left the National for the more revolutionary Réforme, and on the proclamation of the republic in 1848 sided with the socialists. Elected to the constituent assembly, he became one of its secretaries, and voted with the party of the mountain. After his reelection in 1849, he signed Ledru-Rollin's "Appeal to Arms," June 13, accompanied him to the conservatoire des arts et métiers, and making his escape first took refuge in Switzerland, and then removed to Belgium, where he occasionally wrote political pamphlets, became connected with the "European revolutionary committee," and wrote an apology for the attempt to assassinate Napoleon III. He refused to profit by the amnesty granted by the emperor in 1859; but after that of 1869 he returned to France. In the same year, however, he was again forced to conceal himself on account of prosecutions brought against him for articles in the Rappel. At first he remained in hiding in Paris, but after the plebiscitum of May, 1870, more vigorous measures were taken against him, and he escaped to London. He was found guilty of taking part in various revolutionary conspiracies, and although safe from arrest was sentenced in contumaciam to five years' imprisonment and a heavy fine.

On the fall of the empire Pyat returned to Paris, and during the German siege edited the Combat and the Vengeur. After the surrender he was elected to the national assembly from one of the city districts; but he appeared only once at the debates. On the outbreak of the insurrection of the commune (March 18, 1871), he was chosen a member of the communal body by the tenth Paris arrondissement. Here his course, throughout the insurrection, was very arbitrary. Most of the acts of violence were supported by him, and he was chiefly instrumental in the suppression of many of the Paris journals for articles which he deemed hostile to the commune's rule. He was successively a member of the first executive committee of the commune, of several special commissions, and of the committee of public safety, under whose rule the last acts of the communists were perpetrated. On the capture of Paris by the Versailles troops he made his escape, and has since lived chiefly in London. Here, in June, 1874, after the artist Courbet had been condemned to pay the cost of reërecting the column Vendôme, Pyat published a protest, assuming himself all responsibility for the decree under which the column was destroyed.