Molière

Molière (his real name was Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) died at the age of 51 in 1673. He did not die on stage, but a performance of “Le Malade Imaginaire” (The Imaginary Invalid) had to be interrupted as Molière collapsed (tuberculosis, hemorrhage). He was brought home and died a few hours later.

Actors were not well regarded by the Church those days and he was refused the last rites. The next problem was to get him buried. Finally, an exception was made and he got a grave in a part of a cemetery reserved for infants not yet baptized. Some 120 years later he was honoured with a transfer to the Museum of French Monuments (those days in the present Ecole des Beaux Arts, see previous post) and in 1817 he got a final grave at the then newly opened Père Lachaise cemetery (together with La Fontaine). This was also an act to promote this cemetery, considered to be too far away from the city centre.

The theatre where he made his last performance was called “Palais Royal”, being part of the palace, "Palais Royal". Most of Molière’s famous plays were performed here between 1662 and 1673. This theatre burnt down some hundred years later.

In the opposite corner of Palais Royal you can today find the national theatre, “Théâtre Français” or “Comédie Française”, from 1799.

There is another theatre in yet another corner of the present palace and gardens, which again has the name “Théâtre du Palais Royal”. Originally from 1790, rebuilt in 1830 and 1890, it’s a private – beautiful – theatre. (I have made a number of posts, here and here, on the palace and garden of Palais Royal.)

Coming back to Molière, his home, where he died, was quite close. The building is not there anymore but there is a plate on the wall of the present one… and more or less in front of it is a statue, erected in 1844, designed by Louis Visconti (who designed a number of buildings, fountains, statues in Paris … including the tomb of Napoléon I at the Invalides).

I wish you a nice weekend!