Jouy, (Victor Joseph) �tienne (de) 1764-1846
French playwright, librettist and writer

He was born in Jouy-en-Josas, near Versailles, and until 1797 served as a soldier in India and at home. His stage works include a tragedy, Tippo-Sa�b (1813), and several comedies and vaudevilles. As a librettist at the Paris Op�ra, he collaborated with some of the most successful composers of the day. He contributed to the libretto for Rossini's Guillaume Tell (1829), and to the composer's revision of Mos� in Egitto as the grand opera Mo�se et Pharaon, ou Le Passage de la mer rouge (1827, 'Moses and Pharaoh, or The Crossing of the Red Sea'). Jouy thoroughly enjoyed the sensational and spectacular, as did the composer Gasparo Spontini, with whom he worked on Fernand Cortez (1809), an extravagant historical epic which includes in its effects a cavalry charge and the burning of the entire Spanish fleet.