André-Marie Chenier (1762-1794) was a victim of the French Revolution. Born in Constantinople of a Greek mother and a French father in the diplomatic service, he early felt the influence of classical antiquity though he was educated in France. Chénier was widely travelled and active in politics. Arrested in France on a false suspicion of animosity to the new regime, he was imprisoned at St. Lazare and later guillotined. His complete works were not published until 1819, but the poem La Jeune Captive was published in 1796 by a friend to whom Chénier entrusted it. It was inspired by Aimée Franquetot de Coigny (b. 1769), the recently divorced wife of a nobleman. Arrested ten days before Chénier, she was his companion in prison for four months, but she was released two months after his death and later remarried.

• "André-Marie Chenier." Representative French Poetry. Ed. Victor E. Graham. 2nd edn. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965. 29-31.
• Chenier, André-Marie. Oeuvres complètes. Paris: Gallimard, 1950.