Stage Door of Molière's Second Theatre in Paris.
What sort of plays were presented at this house we do not know, the only record that remains referring to the production of "Artaxerxes" by one Mignon. Whatever they played, neither the rough men of the quay and of Port Saint-Paul, nor the bourgeoisie of the Marais, nor the fine folk of Place Royale, crowded into the new theatre.
During this disastrous season, the troupe received royal commands to play at Fontainebleau before the King and court, and later, by invitation of the Duc de l'Éperon, at his splendid mansion in Rue de la Plâtrière—that mansion in which lived and died La Fontaine, half a century later. Neither these fashionable flights, nor the royal and noble patronage accorded to the troupe, could save it from failure and final bankruptcy. Molière, the responsible manager, was arrested for the theatre's poor little debt for candles and lights. He was locked up for a night or two in the dismal prison of the Grand Châtelet, once the fortress of Louis "le Gros," torn down only in 1802, on whose site now sparkles the fountain of Place du Châtelet. From this lock-up, having petitioned for release to M. d'Aubray, Civil Lieutenant of the town and father of the Marquise de Brinvilliers, Molière was released by the quickly tendered purse of Léonard Aubry, "Royal Paver and Street Sweeper," who, when filling in the Fossé-de-Nesle and laying out over it the present Rue Mazarine a year before, had made fast friends with the young actor. "For his good service in ransoming the said Poquelin," the entire troupe bound itself to make Aubry whole for his debt.
Now they cross the river again to their former Faubourg Saint-Germain, taking for their house the Jeu de Paume de la Croix-Blanche, outside the wall on the south side of the present Rue de Buci, between the carrefour at its eastern end and Rue Grégoire-de-Tours. Here they played, still playing against disaster, from the end of 1645 to the end of 1646, and then they fled from Paris, fairly beaten, and betook themselves to the southern provinces. We cannot follow their wanderings, nor record their ups and downs, during the twelve years of their absence. In the old play-bills we find the names of Béjart aîné and of his brother Louis, of their sisters Madeleine and Geneviève. Toward the end of their touring they added to the family, though not to the boards, Armande, who had been brought up in Languedoc, and who was claimed by them to be their very young sister, and by others to be the unacknowledged daughter of Madeleine.
Molière, the leader and manager of the troupe from the day they started, was then only twenty-five years of age, not yet owning or knowing his full powers. These he gained during that twelve years' hard schooling and rude apprenticeship, so that he came back to the capital, in 1658, master of his craft, with a load of literary luggage such as no French tourist has carried, before or since.
Under princely patronage, won in the provinces, his troupe appeared before Louis XIV., the Queen-Mother, and the entire court, on October 24, 1658, in a theatre improvised in the Salle des Gardes of the old Louvre, now known as the Salle des Caryatides. The pieces on that opening night were Corneille's "Nicomède" and the manager's "Le Docteur Amoureux." In November, the "troupe de Monsieur"—that title permitted by the King's brother—was given possession of the theatre in the palace of the Petit-Bourbon. It stood between the old Louvre, with which it was connected by a long gallery, and the Church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, and was torn down in 1660 to make place for the new colonnade that forms the present eastern face of the Louvre. The dainty Jardin de l'Infante covers the site of the stage, just at the corner of the Egyptian Gallery.
In this hall Molière's company played for two years, on alternate nights with the Italian comedians, presenting, along with old standard French pieces—for authors in vogue held aloof—his provincial successes, as well as new plays and ballets invented by him for the delectation of the Grand Monarque. From this time his remaining fifteen years of life were filled with work; his brain and his pen were relentlessly employed; honors and wealth came plentifully to him, happiness hardly at all.
While at this theatre Molière lived just around the corner on Quai de l'École, now Quai du Louvre, in a house that was torn away in 1854 for the widening of present Rue du Louvre. Many of the buildings left on the quay are of the date and appearance of this, his last bachelor home.