Driven from the Petit-Bourbon by its hurried demolition in 1660, Molière was granted the use and the privileges of the Salle of the former Palais-Cardinal, partly gone to ruin and needing large expenditure to make it good. It had been arranged by Richelieu, just before his death, for the presentation of his "Mirame." For the great cardinal and great minister thought that he was a great dramatist too, and in his vanity saw himself the centre of the mimic stage, as he really was of the world-stage he managed. He is made by Bulwer to say, with historic truth: "Of my ministry I am not vain; but of my muse, I own it." His theatre in his residence—willed at his death to the King, and thenceforward known as the Palais-Royal—was therefore the only structure in Paris designed especially and solely for playhouse purposes. It stood on the western corner of Rues Saint-Honoré and de Valois, as a tablet there tells us. During the repairs Molière took his troupe to various châteaux about Paris, returning to open this theatre on January 20, 1661. This removal was the last he made, and this house was the scene of his most striking successes.
It is not out of place here to follow his troupe for a while after his death, and so complete our record of those early theatres. His widow, succeeding to the control of the company, was, within three months, compelled to give up the Cardinal's house to Lulli, the most popular musician of that day, and a scheming fellow withal. The unscrupulous Florentine induced the King to grant him this Salle des Spectacles for the production of his music. The opera held the house until fire destroyed it in 1763, when a new "Academy of Music" was constructed on the eastern corner of the same streets; this, also, was burned in 1781. Above the tablet recording these dates on this eastern-corner wall is a fine old sun-dial, such as is rarely seen in Paris, and seldom noticed now.
The widow Molière, being dispossessed, found a theatre in Rue Mazarine, just beyond her husband's first theatre, "in the Tennis-Court where hangs a Bottle for a Sign." For it had been the Jeu de Paume de la Bouteille, and now became the Théâtre Guénégaud, being exactly opposite the end of that street. Within the structure at No. 42 Rue Mazarine may be seen the heavy beams of the front portion of its fabric, where was the entrance for the public. The space behind, now used for a workshop, with huge pillars around its four sides, served for the audience, and the stage was built farther beyond. On the court of this house, and on the contiguous court of No. 43 Rue de Seine, stood a large building, whose first floor was taken by Madame Molière, and in its rear wall she cut a door to give access to her stage. The entrance for the performers was in the little Passage du Pont-Neuf, and under it there are remains of the foundations of the theatre. Here, in May, 1677, the widow took the name of Madame Guérin on her marriage with a comedian of her company. And we feel as little regret as she seems to have felt for her loss of an illustrious name. In the words of a derisive verse of the time:
"Elle avoit un mari d'esprit, qu'elle aimoit peu;
Elle prend un de chair, qu'elle aime davantage."
COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE 1680
This was the first theatre to present to the general public "lyric dramas set to music," brought first to France by Mazarin for his private stage in the small hall of the Palais-Royal, where they were presented as "Comédies en Musique, avec machines à la mode d'Italie." They bored everybody, the fashion for opera not yet being set. On October 21, 1680, by letters-patent from royalty, the troupe of the Théâtre Guénégaud was united to that of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and to the combined companies was granted the name of Comédie Française, the first assumption of that now time-honored title. The theatre became so successful that the Jansenists in the Collége Mazarin—the present Institute—made an uproar because they were annoyed by the traffic and the turmoil in the narrow street, and succeeded in driving away the playhouse in 1688. After a long search, the Comédie Française found new quarters in the Jeu de Paume de l'Étoile, built along the outer edge of the street made over the ditch of the wall, named Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain, now Rue de l'Ancienne-Comédie. At its present No. 14, set in the original front wall of the theatre, between the second and third stories, a tablet marks the site; above it is a bas-relief, showing a Minerva reclining on a slab. She traces on paper, with her right hand, that which is reflected in the mirror of Truth, held in her left hand. At the rear of the court stands the old fabric that held the stage. Since those boards were removed to other walls—the story shall be told in a later chapter—the building has had various usages. It now serves as a storehouse for wall-paper. During the Empire it was taken for his studio by the artist Antoine-Jean Gros, the successor of David and the forerunner of Géricault; so standing for the transition from the Classic to the Romantic school. It is not true that he killed himself in this studio. He went out from it, when maddened by the art critics, and drowned himself in the Seine in the summer of 1835.
It was a great bill with which the Comédie Française opened this house on the night of April 18, 1689, for it was made up of two masterpieces, Racine's "Phèdre" and Molière's "Le Médecin Malgré Lui." A vast and enthusiastic audience thronged, with joyous clatter, through narrow Rues Mazarine and Dauphine, coming from the river. The Café Procope, recently opened just opposite the theatre, was crowded after the performance, the drinkers of coffee not quite sure that they liked the new beverage. And so, at the top of their triumphs, we leave the players with whom we have vagabondized so long and so sympathetically.