Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known as Molière, baptized on January 15, 1622 and died on February 17, 1673, was a French playwright and actor.
Considered the "boss" of the Comédie-Française, he is still its most performed author. Ruthless for the pedantry of false scholars, the lies of ignorant doctors, the pretension of the wealthy bourgeois, Molière loves the youth he wants to free from absurd constraints. Very far from the rigors of devotion or asceticism, his role as a moralist ends where he defined it:"I don't know if it isn't better to work to rectify and soften the passions of men than to want to cut them off entirely"[2], and his goal was first of all to "make honest people laugh"[3]. He therefore made his own this motto which appeared on Italian trestles from the 1620s in France, on the subject of comedy:Castigat ridendo mores - She corrects morals through laughter.
The youth of Molière
Son of Jean Poquelin, a wealthy merchant-upholsterer established rue Saint-Honoré in Paris, Jean Poquelin was baptized on January 15, 1622 in the parish of Saint-Eustache, probably born the same day or the day before[4]. Two years later, the child, following the birth of a younger brother also baptized Jean, will be called Jean Baptiste.
His mother, Marie Cressé, died in 1632 when he was only ten years old, his father remarried Catherine Fleurette, another daughter of an upholsterer, with whom he would have five children. From 1633 to 1639 he was a student at the Collège de Clermont (current Lycée Louis-le-Grand) run by Jesuits, one of the most exclusive establishments in the capital. Jean-Baptiste did excellent studies there (Latin, mathematics, physics, philosophy, but also fencing and dance).
Thanks to his two grandfathers, he was able to attend theatrical performances at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, but also those of improvisations on canvas by the Italians, or the comic farces of Gaultier-Garguille or Guillot-Gorju. According to some sources, he would have had as a classmate the Prince of Conti, who would become one of his protectors.
On December 18, 1637, he took the oath of royal upholsterer, thus taking over his father's charge from Louis XIII. We do not know if Molière exercises his new profession or not, the fact remains that in 1640 he meets a family of actors, the Béjarts and he falls in love with Madeleine, protected by the Duke of Modena. The same year, he meets Tiberio Fiorelli, the famous Scaramouche, and perhaps takes lessons from him.
It is believed that in 1641 he followed the teaching of Gassendi, epicurean philosopher and master of libertines, who taught at La Mothe Le Vayer, Cyrano de Bergerac, Chapelle and d'Assoucy.
In 1642, he took his law degree at the University of Orléans and returned to Paris where he registered at the bar for six months, then he replaced his father who wanted to leave him his charge and took a dim view of his frequentation of the Béjarts, and followed the court of Louis XIII to Narbonne.
In January 1643, Jean-Baptiste renounced his father's responsibility, which cut him off. Madeleine Béjart gives birth to a little girl, Armande, whom the Duke of Modena recognizes as being his. On June 13, the deed of foundation of the Illustre Théâtre, under the direction of Madeleine Béjart, is signed.
Difficult beginnings
In 1644, the troupe played in the provinces. In July they are back in Paris and Jean-Baptiste has become "Molière" and director of the troupe. On the choice of this stage name, Grimarest, his first biographer, writes:"he never wanted to tell the reason, even to his best friends". The troop plays the Jeu de Paume des Metayers and suffers a bitter failure.
The troupe went bankrupt in 1645 and Molière was imprisoned at the Châtelet for a few days, then his father paid the debts of the troupe to get him out and, as soon as he was freed, the troupe left for the provinces to join another directed by the actor Dufresne, in the service of the Duke of Épernon, governor of Guyenne. Between January 1646 and March 1657, the troupe played in Nantes, Albi, Toulouse, Carcassonne, Poitiers, Vienne, Narbonne, Agen, Pézenas, Grenoble, Lyon, Montpellier, Dijon, Avignon, Bordeaux, Béziers, Rouen. In 1653, the troupe entered the service of the Prince of Conti, brother of the great Condé and new governor of Guyenne. But this one ends up yielding to the religious pressures of the moment and carries out a conversion. The theater then becomes for him synonymous with perdition and he drives out of his house the troop which then passes to the service of the governor of Normandy.
Molière renounced his tragic pretensions:he was a great comic star and became a troupe leader again in 1650. He composed farces on the Italian model, with a single canvas. He created the character of Mascarille in his first real plays:L'Étourdi (Lyon, 1655), Le Dépit amour (Béziers, 1656). In 1658 he met the aging Corneille and played in Rouen.
The beginning of glory
Molière returned to Paris in 1658, he played tennis in the Marais. Protected by Monsieur, the king's brother, he then played for Louis XIV a tragedy by Corneille, Nicomède, which was boring, and a farce, which was a triumph, The Doctor in Love. Molière has great comic talent:his voice and facial expressions trigger hilarity. Molière's troupe soon enjoys an unrivaled reputation in comedy, and the king installs it at the Petit-Bourbon, where it plays alternately with the Italian troupe of Scaramouche.
In 1659 the troupe lost Joseph Béjart and the Du Parcs left it for the Marais troupe. We hire the young actors La Grange and Du Croisy.
On November 18, it is the resounding success of Precious Ridiculous, where Molière in the role of Ascarille gives the reply to Jodelet, a famous actor hired for the occasion, and the favor of the king. The Petit-Bourbon theater was then destroyed for the construction of the colonnade of the Louvre, which resulted in three months of unemployment for the troupe. The king installed Molière in 1660 at the Palais-Royal, where Molière performed Sganarelle ou le Cocu imaginaire. He is crowned by Baudeau de Somaize (author of the Grand Dictionnaire des Précieuses) “first joker in France”. He loses his younger brother, which makes him the sole heir to the office of his father with whom he has reconciled.
Molière shares, in 1661, the theater of the Palais-Royal with the troupe of Domenico Biancolelli, known as Arlequin. It presents Dom Garcie de Navarre which is a failure and The School for Husbands which triumphs. The same year, Molière moved in opposite the Palais-Royal. On August 17, he created Les Fâcheux, his first comedy-ballet, at the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, for Fouquet who received the king.
In 1662, Molière married Armande Béjart, twenty years his junior, with whom he had a son Louis, whose king was godfather, baptized on February 24, 1664 and died at eight and a half months, a daughter Esprit-Madeleine, baptized on August 4 1665, and another son Pierre, baptized on October 1, 1672 and died the following month. The year of his marriage, he tackles an unusual subject at the time:the status of women. The School for Women is a triumph where Armande Béjart plays the role of Agnès. In 1663, because of the devotees who considered Molière a libertine and L'École des femmes as an obscene and irreligious play, but also because Molière was the first actor to have received a direct pension from the king, he was attacked in his life. private:it is insinuated that he married his own daughter. On June 1, he replies with La Critique de l'école des femmes and, on October 18, he plays L'Impromptu de Versailles before the king, which also gives enlightening details on the functioning of a theater troupe in the 17th century. .
On January 29, 1664, Molière presented The Forced Marriage at the Louvre, where the king dances, dressed as an Egyptian. He was then appointed head of court entertainment and, from May 8 to 13, he presided over the Pleasures of the Enchanted Island, an entertainment presented at Versailles in honor of the king's new mistress, Mlle de La Vallière. He gave La Princesse d'Élide, which mixed text, music and dance, and used sophisticated machines and a first version in three acts of Tartuffe which, under pressure from devotees, Louis XIV was forced to ban. for five years. This episode has remained famous under the name of "cabal of the devotees". That same year, Molière's troupe performed La Thébaïde, Racine's first play.
In 1665, only fifteen performances of the now famous Dom Juan were performed. The troupe, supported by the king, became the Troupe du Roy and received a pension of 6,000 pounds per year, which is not much when you know that the recipe for a successful performance is around 1,800. books.
On September 15, 1665, Molière gave L'Amour Médecin and on November 27, ill with a "flux" which was probably tuberculosis, Molière was removed from the stage for two months. On December 4, the troupe plays Alexandre le Grand by Racine who, disappointed by the performance, betrays Molière and entrusts his play to the Hôtel de Bourgogne.
The latest works
In 1666, Molière and Armande separated. On June 4 Molière gives The Misanthrope and on August 6, The Doctor in spite of him. On November 27, he had a serious relapse which only allowed him to return to the stage in June 1667. During this year he trained the young Baron, aged fourteen, in the art of acting. He then tried to play Tartuffe again under a different title, L'Imposteur, but the play was banned the next day. He also gave Mélicerte, two acts of comedy which constituted the third entry in the Ballet des Muses commissioned by Louis XIV from the poet Benserade. The king dances there with Henrietta of England, daughter of Charles I of England and Henrietta of France.
Mlle Du Parc left Molière for the second time for the Hôtel de Bourgogne and created Andromaque there on November 22, Racine's first triumph.
In 1668 are successively represented Amphitryon on January 13, George Dandin in July and L'Avare in September. Molière's health was very poor and rumors of his death were already circulating in Paris.
The ban on representing the Tartuffe was lifted in 1669. On February 25, the piece was a considerable success with a receipt of 2,860 pounds. The same year, he lost his father and created with the collaboration of Lully comedies-ballets:The Magnificent Lovers, Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.
In 1670 appeared Elomire hypochondrium, an insulting play written by Le Boulanger de Chalussay, in which Molière (of whom Elomire is the anagram) is ridiculed in a particularly acid way.
In 1671 Molière gave Psyché, Les Fourberies de Scapin, La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas and Les Femmes savantes.
In 1672 dies Madeleine Béjart who had never ceased to be of great importance for Molière. He reconciles with Armande and Lully intrigues with the king to obtain exclusive rights to the creation of the ballets.
In 1673 Molière had well and truly lost favor with Louis XIV and his Imaginary Invalid was not performed at court.
The death of Molière
Seized by convulsions during the fourth performance of Le Malade imaginaire, Molière expired a few hours later from a pulmonary congestion, on February 17, 1673, at home and not while performing this piece - as tradition dictates -, without having recanted. the profession of actor, considered immoral by the Church.
In the register he keeps scrupulously, La Grange writes today:
"That same day after the Comedy at 10 o'clock in the evening, Monsieur de Molière died in his house in the Rue de Richelieu, having played the role of the said imaginary patient, very inconvenienced by a fluctuating cold on his chest which caused him a great cough so that in the great efforts he made to spit he broke a vein in his body and did not live half an hour or three quarters of an hour since the said ruptured vein. His body is buried in St Joseph, ayde of the parish of St Eustache. There is a grave raised a foot above the ground.”
Thirty-two years later, Grimarest, the first biographer of Molière, details the circumstances of his death, without however having attended (he was 15 when Molière died):
“The actors kept the lights on[5], and the curtain up, precisely at four o'clock. Molière represented with great difficulty; and half of the spectators perceived that in pronouncing Juro, in the ceremony of the Imaginary Invalid, he took a convulsion. Having noticed himself that it had been noticed, he made an effort, and hid by a forced laugh what had just happened to him. When the play was over he took his dressing-gown, and went into Baron's box, and asked him what they said of his play. Mr. Baron replied that his works always had a happy success when examined closely, and that the more they were represented, the more they were appreciated. "But," he added, "you seem worse to me than before." "That's true", replied Molière, "I have a cold that kills me". Baron, after touching her hands, which he found icy, put them in her muff to warm them; he sent for his bearers to carry him promptly to his house; and he did not leave his chair, for fear that some accident should happen to him at the Palais Royal in the rue de Richelieu, where he was staying [...]. A moment later he took an extremely strong cough, and after spitting he asked for a light. Baron, having seen the blood he had just shed, cried out in fear. "Don't be terrified," Molière told him, "you have seen me achieve much more. However,” he added, “go tell my wife she’s coming up.” He remained assisted by two religious sisters, those who usually come to Paris to beg during Lent, and to whom he gave hospitality. They gave him at this last moment of his life all the edifying help that one could expect from their charity, and he displayed all the sentiments of a good Christian, and all the resignation he owed to the will of the Lord. . Finally he died in the arms of these two good sisters; the blood that came out of his mouth in abundance choked him. So when his wife and Baron came back up, they found him dead. I thought I had to go into the details of Molière's death, to disabuse the public of several stories that were made on this occasion.
“As soon as Molière was dead, Baron went to Saint Germain to inform the King; His Majesty was touched by it, and deigned to testify [...]. Everyone knows the difficulties we had in burying Molière, like a Catholic Christian; and how it was obtained in consideration of his merit and the righteousness of his feelings, of which information was made, that he was buried at Saint Joseph. The day he was buried, an incredible crowd of people gathered in front of his door [...]. The convoy was made quietly in the light of nearly a hundred torches, on Tuesday twenty-first of February”.
In 1817, his remains were transferred to the Père-Lachaise cemetery at the same time as that of La Fontaine.
La Grange and Armande, chased out of the Palais-Royal by Lully, who set up the Royal Academy of Music there, transport their troupe to rue Guénégaud where it merges with that of the Marais. In 1680, by decree of the king, it was to merge with the troupe of the Hôtel de Bourgogne:this was the birth of the future Comédie-Française.
Identity controversy
Pierre Louÿs, himself a lover of trickery (see the genesis of Bilitis), published in the review Comœdia on November 7, 1919 an article entitled Molière is a masterpiece of Corneille. By comparing Molière's Amphitryon and Corneille's Agesilaus, he suspects that Molière would have only lent his name to sign verses written by Corneille, and deduces from this that Molière may never have written the work. that we know him. The idea was taken up later by a few writers:Henry Poulaille in Corneille under the mask of Molière in 1957, the lawyers Hippolyte Wouters and Christine de Ville de Goyet in Molière or the imaginary author in 1990 (from which they draw a play:Le Destin de Pierre, created in 1997 in Brussels), Dominique Labbé in the Journal of Quantitative Linguistics, December 2001 issue, the novelist Frédéric Lenormand in L'Ami du genre humain in 1993, the playwright Pascal Bancou in L'Imposture comique, piece created in 2000 at the Théâtre de la Huchette, and finally Denis Boissier in L'Affaire Molière:la grande hoax littéraire, in 2004.
Some argue that an actor accustomed to playing light and comic roles could not become the author of deep and complex plays like Molière's last plays. But most of the time it is on the similarity of style, or even the lexical analysis, that the theories are based.
List of works by Molière
(in chronological order)
The Flying Doctor Farce in one act and in prose 1645
Jealousy of the smeared Farce in one act and in prose 1650
L’Étourdi ou les Contretemps Comedy in five acts and in verse 1655
Le Dépit in love Comedy in five acts and in verse December 16, 1656
The Doctor in love Comedy in one act and in prose October 24, 1658
The Precious Ridiculous Comedy in one act and in prose November 18, 1659
Sganarelle or the imaginary Cuckold Comedy in one act and in verse May 28, 1660
Dom Garcie de Navarre or the jealous Prince Heroic comedy in five acts and in verse February 4, 1661
The School for Husbands Comedy in three acts and in verse June 24, 1661
Les Fâcheux Comédie-ballet in three acts and in verse August 17, 1661
The School for Women Comedy in five acts and in verse December 26, 1662
The Jealousy of Gros-René April 15, 1663
The Critique of the Women's School of Comedy in one act and in prose June 1, 1663
L’Impromptu de Versailles Comedy in one act and in prose October 14, 1663
The Forced Marriage Comedy in one act and in prose January 29, 1664
Gros-René, grandchild April 27, 1664
La Princesse d'Élide Comédie galante in five acts, in verse[8] and in prose May 8, 1664
Tartuffe or the Imposter Comedy in five acts and in verse May 12, 1664
Dom Juan ou le Festin de pierre Comedy in five acts and in prose February 15, 1665
Love doctor Comedy in three acts and in prose September 15, 1665
The Misanthrope or the Atrabilaire in Love Comedy in five acts and in verse June 4, 1666
The Doctor in spite of himself Comedy in three acts and in prose August 6, 1666
Mélicerte Heroic pastoral comedy in two acts and in verse December 2, 1666
Comic Pastoral January 5, 1667
The Sicilian or Love Painter Comedy in one act and in prose February 14, 1667
Amphitryon Comedy in three acts and in verse January 13, 1668
George Dandin or the Confounded Husband Comedy in three acts and in prose July 18, 1668
The Miser or the School of Lies Comedy in five acts and in prose September 9, 1668
Monsieur de Pourceaugnac Comedy-ballet in three acts and in prose October 6, 1669
The Magnificent Lovers Comedy in five acts and in prose February 4, 1670
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme Comedy-ballet in five acts and in prose October 14, 1670
Psyché Tragedie-ballet in five acts and in verse January 17, 1671
Les Fourberies de Scapin Comedy in three acts and in prose May 24, 1671
The Countess of Escabagnas Comedy in one act and in prose December 2, 1671
Les Femmes savantes Comedy in five acts and in verse March 11, 1672
The Imaginary Invalid "Comedy mixed with music and dances" in three acts and in prose[11] February 10, 1673