Robert Macaire is a fictional character, an unscrupulous swindler, who appears in a number of French plays, films, and other works of art. In French culture he represents an archetypal villain. He was principally the creation of an actor, Frédérick Lemaître, who took the stock figure of "a ragged tramp, a common thief with tattered frock coat patched pants" and transformed him during his performances into "the dapper confidence man, the financial schemer, the juggler of joint-stock companies" that could serve to lampoon financial speculation and government corruption.
Playwright Benjamin Antier, with two collaborators Saint-Amand and Polyanthe, created the character Robert Macaire in the play l'Auberge des Adrets, a serious-minded melodrama. After the work's failure at its 1823 premiere, Frédérick Lemaître played the role as a comic figure instead. Violating all the conventions of its genre, it became a comic success and ran for a hundred performances. The transformation violated social standards that demanded crime be treated with seriousness and expected criminals to be punished appropriately.