Bitter Comedy: The Life Of Molière

By Miklós Rónaszegi

Molière, the world-famous classic dramatist, lived, played and wrote three hundred years ago. Son of the court tapestry-maker to Louis XIV of France, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin became an actor, and then, taking the stage-name Molière, himself brought to the stage all the weakness and gaucheness that the tumultuous age set before him every day as France developed a middle class. He depicted the social climber in Les Fâcheux, turned his murderous humour on the hypocrite in Tartuffe, disparaged the money-worshipping bourgeois in L’Avare… And the list might go on and on of his creations, plays which for three hundred years have given audiences so much pleasure and entertainment – and still do today. Bitter Comedy, Miklós Rónaszegi’s vie romancée, presents a lucid account of the life and times of the universally-acclaimed dramatist and of the genesis of his works.

www.ronaszegimiklos.com

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Apr 9, 2024
• ISBN: 9798990279919

Book preview

Act One

The Youthful Years

Jean-Baptiste, son of the tapissier, was certainly a great ass when his father enrolled him as a pupil of the Collège de Clermont.

The boy was in his fourteenth year[1] and had suddenly shot up, and although there was, as our story opens, no strictly age-related curriculum in schools, nevertheless he felt ill at ease surrounded by a horde of schoolboys younger than himself, some by two or three years, some by as many as seven. He was a head taller than his classmates and must have been repeating sourly to himself some student jingle like ‘Big donkey, big fool, still has to go to school’, because such, and many more of the kind, were definitely in vogue. They have been ever since there have been schoolboys in the world, and along with kicks and cat-calls will continue to be.

Had he a taste for studying, or did he take his place on the bench simply at his father’s behest? Four hundred years later it’s hard to say. What is certain is that if he was then beginning his studies, he duly completed them after five years of serious and intensive effort, which was no small achievement when we consider that he was already by then a fully trained man, a qualified tapissier.

He was the articled and registered deputy of his father Jean Poquelin, master tapissier to the court.

But we haven’t yet come to the completion of his schooling. First of all we see our hero only at the outset, as he crosses the threshold of the Jesuit college for the first time. He was embarrassed, and in his confusion perhaps even his hands were shaking.

Jean-Baptiste discreetly opened the door to the big vaulted classroom, in which a white-haired Father was making his pupils read out the famous words of Horace.

Favete linguis… buzzed the motley gathering, but suddenly every word was broken off as inquisitive, enquiring eyes turned towards the door.

The sudden silence that fell took Jean-Baptiste aback. He cringed, his large, troubled eyes flickered anxiously as he swept off his hat and bowed low.

And all of a sudden a laugh broke the great silence. Not just a laugh either, but something between a snort and a jeer…

At once a blast of unpleasant laughter ran through the room.

The boys pointed their fingers are the newcomer. They made faces, squinted, and simulated donkey’s ears. Their crowing, howling jeers went on and on!

Silentium! shouted the Father.

It was as if that laughter struck Jean-Baptiste in the chest. His face flushed and a veil came over his eyes. He’d been ready to be received as a stranger, that he, like any other new pupil, would have to undergo some kind of ‘initiation’, but he hadn’t been counting on this.

He was almost fourteen. At that age a man doesn’t take being laughed at lightly.

And it seemed that they were all conspiring against him. In his first desperate rage he wanted to run from the room. Scarcely, however, had he turned on his heel than he struck his head on the heavy oak door.

The laughter had been dying down, but broke out in new waves, and the whole class was a single sneering, gesticulating, colourful mass.

The Father brought Jean back. He laid a kindly arm over his shoulders, as one that would help in the difficult moment of introduction.

But the devil was not yet asleep. As the door swung shut it trapped the edge of his cassock, and as he moved it tore with a loud sound of rending.

Now the class was in uproar. Jean-Baptiste, the eldest of the many children, wept audibly. The boys rocked in their places with laughter and all semblance of order was lost as young Conti too deigned to leave his special place, distinguished with gilded lattice-work, and join with his humbler companions in making fun of the newly arrived big, gangling boy.

The laughter was welcome, the boys were having a good day, but even merriment can prove tiring. By degrees the classroom settled down and there was no laughter even when the Poquelin boy mispronounced something as he stammered and lisped at certain sounds. Now they merely smirked at him, made all sorts of faces, stuck out their tongues, gave him secret prods, and imitated him as he sat hunched and silent on his bench.

Hey, whispered his neighbour, you’re a comical character. You’d make a good Tabarin.

Shut your trap! You’re a disgusting lot of snotty-nosed brats! Hear what I say?

In the other’s eyes was a glint of malice.

Does that include the Prince? Eh?

Yes, if you must know! And if you all go on being cheeky…

Hoho! That includes the Prince! Hoho!

His neighbour was a boy of ten, a cheerful sort with a round head, who had found a cause for more giggling. He too fell silent at the Father’s thunderous Silentium!, and by the time that the lesson was over the Poquelin boy had only to fend off the attacks of the wildest in the College garden with a few well-aimed blows.

Are you a day boy as well? asked his cheerful young neighbour. So am I. Let’s go together.

Yes, let’s.

My name’s Chapelle. Look, I’ve got some money! If you like we can go towards the bridge.

I live down that way.

We might get a drink at the stalls. Look, I’ve got money!

They set off. They strolled past the grand palaces of Paris, wandered down its narrow alleys.

Jean was still feeling quite upset.

Why did you all laugh at me?

Why? Why, do you ask? Well, because the Prince did. Ho ho, he’s a snotty-nosed little kid!

It was the year 1630.

King Louis XIII was still on the throne. A bored king with a Spanish beard.

And the great Cardinal Richelieu reigned on his behalf.

In those days Paris was the capital of the world. The wonder of the world, as our compatriot Márton Szepsi Csombor wrote about that time, having been there.[2] At this time too splendid, gleaming buildings were being erected. Even then its wonderful churches aroused admiration. The Seine and its bridges even then were the subjects of song and verse. It was also famous for its high schools, famous too for the fact that its people looked on the king as almost a god. The greatest gentry, aristocrats, resplendent counts and dukes buzzed around like wasps around honey. All power and wealth belonged to the king.

When the king’s coach rumbled through the streets everyone knelt to it. Even when it was empty.

But most of the time the colourfully dressed motley crowd was knee-deep in mud, as Paris was on the whole a sea of mud. Puddles shone below gleaming palace walls, alleys and squares were muddy, as was the entire Seine-bank…[3]

Truculent armed men and militias walked the streets, their swords rattling, truly regretful that the time of anarchy was coming to an end; after many years of work Cardinal Richelieu had broken the power of the ‘little kings’, and it was no longer lawful to fight regular battles anywhere in France. [4]

In addition to mud and truculent soldiery, Paris also had its gallows and its prisons. The stake too blazed frequently, unchecked superstition and magicians abounded, and miracle-working doctors, priests and tricksters drove the people mad, some from market hustings, some from the pulpit and some at the bedside of the sick.

But people that came to Paris to admire paid no heed to that. Such spectacles could be found the world over at the time. This city was celebrated rather on account of the Louvre, the Pont Neuf bridge, the Sorbonne… to name but a few of the wonders really worth seeing there.

Parisians too loved Paris. The numberless folk that circulated there seemed to be seeing it for the first time. The daily round might take a maid or a servant by the same route, but as they went they would find a thousand new things to marvel at. Perhaps even the beggar on the bank of the Seine was happy that it was in Paris rather than in Lyon or Rouen that he extended his leprous palm. Or perhaps he was happiest of all because if he wished he could actually see the king, and if he wished, the king would touch his head and leprous face with his most regal hand…[5]

Oh, how fortunate the beggars of Paris were! More fortunate, perhaps even than its craftsmen and nobles. It cost them nothing to meet the king and be healed by the grace of God.

Poor wretches.

You too, you streets of Paris. Hardly fifty years had passed since the most dreadful massacre in the history of the world, the renowned St Bartholomew’s Night, took place in you, and you were full of wailing, screaming fugitives as the boots of those pursuing the Huguenots thundered along you.

Since then peace had not come. Day after day armed men clashed out of revenge or in the interests of groups small and large. How often did a street echo with the sound of a brawl in some inn, how often did it ring to the blades of duellers (although duelling was prohibited), and there was never any telling whether blood was flowing for the smile of a pretty girl or for the sake of some nobleman. He who then remained on the scene of these frequent scuffles and had neither servant nor trusty friend to quickly remove his corpse was dealt with by the city itself; he was exposed to the public view for a day in the little house by the city gate. After that he would hang head downward on the gibbet for a day, and after that, having thus expiated the crime of duelling and every earthly sin, would be buried decently and with honour…

The markets of St Germain, however, were much more to the taste of the people of Paris than was the sight of hanged corpses. There too nightmarish and horrible sights aplenty were to be seen. Quack doctors offered their wonders for sale, clowns slapped one another, a crowd of bagpipers and flautists made music, contortionists so twisted their limbs that any torturer could have learnt from them…

Among it all amazingly lovely ladies, bewigged, their faces painted, seated in gleaming coaches, looked on the crowd from behind wide fans that hid everything but the ravishing gleam of their eyes. In the crowds, noblemen in vivid clothes of velvet and silk rode about on fine horses. Their dress was a mass of ribbons, lace, and clasps of flowers. Strips of lace hung even to their knees.

The Parisians loved Paris.

But in Paris most of all, perhaps, they loved Tabarin. The principal, most splendid attraction.

By this time, however, only the memory of Tabarin was alive. The humble stall no longer stood at the corner of the Place Dauphine, and Mondor the quack, Tabarin’s one and only fellow performer, had vanished too. In his place new Tabarins belted forth cheap jokes on the stages of countless stalls in every square in Paris. His young imitators perpetuated the memory of Tabarin the clown.

Tabarin, the clown…

Do you remember him? Jean asked little Chapelle as they reached Place Dauphine.

Yes, he had a great big funny hat. It made him look like a prince. And the funniest thing was the way he put it on, then took it off, then put it on again… He was rather like you, when you came into the class, ho ho!

Chapelle jumped aside, but Jean wasn’t in a fighting mood now. He laughed himself, though in the depths of his heart there remained a trace of bitterness.

You’re stupid, he said. The funny thing about Tabarin wasn’t his hat, it was he himself. The most amusing thing of all was that with just that hat he could become anything. King, prince, beggar, man or woman, rich or poor, and always in such a way that people laughed themselves to death. You were still young when I knew all his jokes off by heart.

Chapelle was astonished, but as they strolled on Jean suddenly gave an account of one of the jokes:

Pay attention! Mondor appeared in front of the crowd and began to praise his ointments and all sorts of medicines to the heavens. And Tabarin crept out from behind the curtain so that everybody laughed at him. He looked to the left, then to the right, and was so awestruck that he didn’t know which was to go, then he took his hat off, then put it back on, crumpled it up and put it down and straightened the feathers on it. He behaved just like a man from the country who was so respectful that he didn’t know where to put himself. Then he plucked up courage and tapped Mondor on the shoulder. You should have seen the way they argued and pulled faces for quite a while. Finally Tabarin groaned out Master, in a tremulous voice, Master, the other day somebody said that he’d give a hundred thalers if he could be one-eyed. What sort of man would say a thing like that? At that Mondor frowned, scratched his head, and announced One that’s not in his right mind, my dear chap. Not in his right mind. As everybody knows, sight is the most important property of the human body. The Creator has compressed all that is wonderful into that organ. Let’s just consider the two nerves that lead from the brain to the eye. The thick one controls movement, the thin one conveys vision. Let’s go on to examine the crystal in the middle of the eye and the film like a spider’s web that covers it…"

Jean hadn’t realised that he was playing the roles of Tabarin and Mondor as he’d seen them do it, out loud, almost at the top of his voice. Chapelle’s mouth fell wide open as he listened – and several others too stopped, and in less than a minute a whole little crowd was listening to the well-known joke:

… and then the retina, the muscles that move the eyelids, and consider the magnificent art with which Nature has created this masterpiece of a organ, and we pronounce judgement: he’s an extraordinarily stupid man that desires the loss of this important organ of his. At which Tabarin would suddenly straighten up, thump Mondor on the back, and exclaim A blind man would like to be one-eyed, silly! Just you go round to the home for the blind and you’ll find plenty there who’d like to be one-eyed so as to see you being hanged.

Jean was startled when applause broke out around him. People were clapping and shouting enthusiastically:

Well done, my boy! It was just like seeing Tabarin again! Go on, give us another… You do him ever so well! Jean’s face flushed blood red. He hung his head and seized Chapelle’s arm.

Come on, he muttered and left at the double.

He stopped at the corner of the Rue St Honoré. He looked so sour and cross that Chapelle was quite alarmed.

You’re hurting me, let go! he shouted.

I’m not hurting you, you baby! Jean was fuming. But I’m sick and tired of Tabarin. It’s just as well the old clown didn’t see me.

How could he possibly! I’d heard he was dead.

Is he hell! He’s made a fortune and moved to Montreuil. Bought a house and land, and he’s living like his noble neighbours. He’s shown that his clowning has done more for him than boot-licking has for others. Chapelle shrugged. He didn’t know what Jean meant. He was sorry that they’d run away from the crowd.

My father’s got a book at home full of Tabarin’s jokes, but I’ve never read it… What about having a drink?

No, Jean shook his head irritably. I’m going home now.

The house of Jean Poquelin père, court tapissier, was in the Rue St Honoré. It was possibly the most beautiful and biggest of the clearly prosperous bourgeois houses in the whole street. Fresh paint, fresh plaster and shining windows made a show in the street, while inside costly furniture, heavy carpets and, naturally, that characteristic sign of prosperity, a sideboard laden with fine wines proved that the aristocratic customers of the tapissier from Beauvais paid well.

Poquelin had therefore made his pile. It was true, he had worked hard and truly was a master of his profession – but he had also married well, and had been able to increase his wealth with his wife’s dowry. Finally, he had crowned his years of endeavour by taking over (or rather, purchasing) from a kinsman the office and dignity of valet tapissier de la chambre du roi. That was no small matter. If aristocratic customers had been glad to come to him even before that, now they almost stormed his workshop. How should they not have done? The most wealthy guild in Paris was that of the tapissiers, and one of its privileges was that its eight members might be present in rotation at the king’s lever, his rising in the morning. It was their task to make and turn down the royal bed, smooth the sheets and adjust the great bed-curtains. Naturally, the court tapissier was also responsible for the care of the various wall-hangings and curtains in the royal palace; that was no small task when we consider that in the seventeenth century the walls of the rooms and halls were not yet painted but were covered with colourfully printed or woven textiles. The walls of the big, heavily ornate rooms were covered with these tapestries, either patterned or decorated with figures; making them was a separate craft at that time, indeed, a separate art, as the making and hanging of textiles showing vivid and mainly mythological scenes called for good taste and great knowledge; the craft also involved the making of the hangings of the great four-poster beds, and lastly the upholstering of the massive chairs and couches.

In brief, upholstery meant something quite different in those days. It carried greater responsibility – especially in the case of Master Poquelin, who, if he kept his eyes and ears open, must have learnt all sorts of thing about the life of the royal court. As such he was considered to have inside knowledge, and so his company was eagerly sought by those aristocratic idlers, scandalmongers, and rumour-spreaders who were only intent on hearing something about their opponents that were close to the king.

Master Poquelin himself was proud of his office.

Quite a to-do… he would say in the first months. "What a crowd there is every time the king gets up! And every one a high-born person. Chevaliers and ladies of the highest rank."

With the office came an honorarium too. Three hundred livres a year. His wife, however, as is always the wifely way, was more pleased with that than was the recipient.

But she was not to be pleased for long. The pallid Marie Cressé had had weak lungs and died in 1632 at the early age of thirty-one.

Her widowed husband was left with four children, one of whom was Jean-Baptiste. His father put him to work at quite an early age, as he planned that his children would follow him in his craft and that he would bequeath the office of court tapissier directly to Jean.

The boy, however, showed little inclination and perhaps little talent for upholstery. He preferred to immerse himself in books or to loiter around the amusement stalls of St Germain, and, if he could, to get into performances at the near-by Hôtel de Bourgogne.

Nothing but comedians all the time! grumbled his father. You take after your grandfather. He lived and died for clowns, showmen, all kinds of godless wasters.

Jean shrugged. While his mother had been alive his grandfather had often called in from St Ouen to see them, and to take the children out for some fresh air, but usually he only took Jean with him, and all that was true about the fresh air was that it was on the way to the nearest pub, where grandfather Cressé downed a pot of beer before, with blossoming good humour, taking his oldest grandson towards the market area, where crowds, smells and dirt prevailed, but there was so much to see that compared favourably with any walks and fresh air.

Since then years had passed. Little Jean had become a big teenager, and now went to performances in the Hôtel de Bourgogne by himself.

I’d rather you had your mind on your work, his father grumbled on. I’m always having to put things right after you. If you become a poor craftsman I shan’t he able to make you my deputy at court. That’s not a thing to be sneezed at, you know. You’re not just a craftsman, a sort of tradesman, not just a well-to-do bourgeois, but a man of the court, and one day you’ll be able to rub shoulders with the aristocracy.

Jean said nothing. He shrugged, like any teenager being told off by his parent. Not out of disrespect, but because he was trying to overcome his confusion; his conscience troubled him, because he’d always been a hard-working and dutiful child, and hadn’t opposed his father even in his thoughts.

The marquis’ wife said I was a good boy, he countered. She even said how well I chose my words, just like a lawyer.

Yes, I know, father Poquelin nodded and stroked his son’s head. That generally meant that he wasn’t cross any longer, and furthermore it signified a sour speculation.

He’s a good boy, that’s true, he was thinking, "and a clever one, that’s for sure. He’s learnt the trade creditably, even if he hadn’t got the aptitude for it that I’d like. But where is it written that a tapissier’s son has to become a tapissier? And his son too an tapissier? The Poquelin family have been tapissiers for five generations now. The time has come for a Poquelin boy to choose something else. The Marchioness Rambouillet was sensible; he might actually become a lawyer…"

He’d been rather late in deciding on his eldest son’s education. It was just then that the great Richelieu was advocating the closure of educational institutions because he felt that the mania that drove the less well-off to put their children through school, thereby deterring them from trade and the profession of arms was no longer to be tolerated.

Nevertheless the tapissier took that decision. And it may be that when he was alone he peered at himself in the big Belgian mirror, and thought The Cardinal’s an old man and a wise one. He knows very well what he’s afraid of, that bourgeois like us will come into power. Well, let him! What’s bad for him can only be good for us. And I don’t mean to miss out.

But even if he didn’t quite conceptualise his decision in so many words, an idea of the sort persuaded him to enrol Jean among as a pupil at the Collège de Clermont.

And perhaps he was already dreaming wonderful dreams of what his son might become after finishing his education; a famous doctor or lawyer, or, one never knew, rendering his service to the king as a transporter of troops.

Jean, however, had scarcely left his new friend Chapelle and run straight home. Now all the bitterness of the day burst from him once more.

How happy he’d been that morning to be going to the Jesuit college, oh, how happy indeed!

He rushed through the shop door, ran through the lovely furniture, wall-hangings and