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 19^th 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 18^th century, when his birth house was still there. We can see where the correct and the false birth places were situated.

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!