17th February 1673 was the day on which the
“French Shakespeare”, Molière, died. Although he did not have the variety of
output that the English Shakespeare had, his influence on the drama of his
native land was every bit as great.
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was born in Paris in 1622. He became
an actor and adopted the name Molière as his stage name when aged about 22,
possibly to spare his father the shame of having an actor in the family.
He came to royal notice in 1658 when he performed one of his
own plays before King Louis XIV and this led eventually to his company of
players becoming “The King’s Troop”. By this time he was already writing,
directing and acting in plays, mainly comedies, that were proving to be highly
popular.
Although his personal preference was for tragedy, the demand
was for farce and comedy and this was where his talents seemed to lie. Among
his many “hits” were “Tartuffe” (1664), “Le Misanthrope” (1666), “Le Bourgeois
Gentilhomme” (1670) and “Le Malade Imaginaire” (1673).
It was during a performance of the last of these plays that Molière
was taken seriously ill just as the curtain was about to fall. Ironically, the
main character of the play, which Molière was playing, is a hypochondriac, but Molière’s
illness was real enough. He was rushed to his home from the theatre but died
within an hour from pulmonary tuberculosis – he had probably contracted it
during a spell in a debtor’s prison when he had been much younger and now it
had finally caught up with him at the age of 51.
Some of his plays had poked fun at the Church, and it took
the intervention of the King for him to be allowed a burial in consecrated
ground, which was in any case usually denied to members of the acting
profession. The Church authorities reluctantly gave way but insisted that the
funeral should take place at night so as not to attract attention.
© John Welford
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