He went for a walk along the Seine in the hope of finding a little serenity before Boileau, La Fontaine and Chapelle came to share his supper in Auteuil.
Molière rented a house there when he separated from Armande, whose coquetry with all the blond people and especially the coldness towards him had ended up making their life together unbearable.
Auteuil has become his refuge.
But don't talk to him about thebaid!
It warms him up!
Because of Racine, that snake he warmed to his heart and who paid him all sorts of compliments, before betraying him!
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In 1664, the troupe of the Palais-Royal staged its Thébaïde, although Molière had no illusions about the reception that the tragedy would receive from the public.
The following year, despite the failure, Molière consented to play a new play by Racine,
Alexandre
.
And this time the spectators were no longer so glum, but a few days after the first performance, Molière, amazed, was to discover that Racine had also entrusted his tragedy to the Hôtel de Bourgogne.
The felon!
Fate seems to be on Jean-Baptiste since the ban on playing
Tartuffe
.
Not only did he have to resign himself to removing
Dom Juan
from the poster, but
Le Misanthrope
, on which Molière counted to rectify the accounts of the theater, did not have the good fortune to please the audience.
In desperation, Molière decided on a bang.
Renaming his
Hypocrite
as
Imposteur
, he gave a performance of it on 5 August.
Ah!
you should have seen the public jostling at the entrance to the Palais-Royal!
There were even a few fights.
And what applause when the curtain fell!
But the next morning, an usher from parliament came to tell the troops that there would be no other performance of Panulphe.
In the absence of the king, who was on campaign in Flanders, President de Lamoignon formally forbade it.
Boileau, who knew him well and held him in esteem, managed in vain to arrange an interview with Guillaume de Lamoignon for Molière, the latter received him very civilly but he remained on his positions: the theater is not the place where we can discuss matters of religion.
What to answer?
Molière, who nevertheless has a loose tongue, remained silent.
And today, it is the Archbishop of Paris who deals him the coup de grace.
He threatens with excommunication not only anyone who attends a performance of the comedy, but even those who dare to hear it read.
Molière slowly goes up to the house at Auteuil, holding his chest.
Ah, that accursed fluxion!
She has been torturing him for nearly two years.
Sometimes he thinks he's got rid of it, but the bouts of coughing come back and a fever grips him.
M. de Mauvillain, his doctor, recommends rest and a milk diet.
Mauvillain is an estimable man, but what do the doctors know?
Purge.
Bleed.
And spouting formulas which, to be said in Latin, remain no less without effect on the evil from which one suffers.
Abandon the scene?
This dear Boileau never ceases to adjure Molière to devote himself only to his work.
It was published by Gabriel Quinet in the spring of 1666, shortly after Molière's troupe had become that of the king with an annual pension of six thousand pounds.
Molière is not an ingrate.
He measures all that he owes to Louis XIV and he never fails to be grateful to him for it.
He has just sent his two actors, La Grange and La Thorillière, to Lille, where His Majesty is, with a petition in the hope that the King will arbitrate his dispute with the Archbishop of Paris.
But there are hardly any illusions.
Did not Louis XIV tell him several times that the time for
Le Tartuffe
was not yet ripe?
In front of the house in Auteuil, Molière sees his daughter hopping next to La Forêt, his faithful servant.
Esprit-Madeleine is an angel, such a sweet and cuddly child!
His coming into the world soothed the pain he had had at losing little Louis just a few months after his birth.
When she throws herself into his arms, Molière forgets his "
black sorrow
".
He perches it on his shoulders as Louis Cressé did with him.
She laughs, claps her hands, pulls her father's ears and Molière, as if by magic, regains faith in life.
The cover of
Figaro Hors-Série
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Moliere!
CCO Paris/Carnavalet Museum
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Moliere!
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