9.9.13

Not true...


The above is what can be found on a building, close to « Les Halles ». It indicates that the present building stands on the premises where Molière was born in 1620. Actually, he was born in 1622 … and not here!

What obviously happened is that a tripe-seller once occupied the ground floor and someone made him believe that this was the place Molière was born. Of course it would make nice publicity and the tripe-seller invested in this nice piece of art to decorate the building.


Actually, Molière was born not far from here, in the crossing of Rue Sauval and Rue St. Honoré. Again, the actual building is the result of a reconstruction in the very beginning of the 19th century, but here you can find a more official plate on the front of present building and you can read that he was born here January 15, 1622. His father held a boutique selling tapestry, furniture... on the ground floor. Molière was baptized in the fairly nearby St. Eustache church.


In a previous post I talked about where he died in 1673…. and I also mentioned him in a post about Pézenas in the south of France where he performed.    

Here is a comparison of Paris today and what it looked like in the first half of the 18th century, when his birth house was still there. We can see where the correct and the false birth places were situated.




5 comments:

Alain said...

Il y a beaucoup de zones d'ombre dans la vie de Molière et ses biographes sont loin d'être tous d'accord. Certains vont même jusqu'à dire que ses pièces ont été écrites par Corneille.

Jeanie said...

I'm always fond of your journeys and when I learn something new (like today) all the more happy to visit -- again and again!

yoko said...

Thanks peter. Lots of research...

Studio at the Farm said...

That was an amusing post about the tripe-seller. Thank you, Peter. :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks Peter for all these interesting bits of history

Lucy