The embellishments of the Louvre were still not completed, before the queen decided not to reside in it. She began to recall, rather tardily it would seem, all the lugubrious memories of her past life connected with the palace; and she established herself in the magnificent Palais Royal—originally the Palais Cardinal.
In all those festivities, Ninon took prominent part. Ever philosophical, she thus consoled herself for the prolonged absence of the Duc d’Enghien, an absence which had, moreover, not intensified the sentiments of adoration she at first conceived for him. It was but Ninon’s way. She had begun to see small defects in the case-armour of the perfection of her Mars. Her acquaintance with the dead languages supplied her with the Latin proverb, “vir pilosus, aut libidinum aut fortis.” “Now Esau was a hairy man,” and the Duc d’Enghien was also vir pilosus, and Ninon taxed him with being a greater warrior than an ardent wooer, and the passion cooled rapidly; but the friendship and mutual liking ever remained.
Ninon employed Poquelin, upholsterer to the king, in the furnishing of her elegant suite of apartments. His shop was in the rue St Honoré, and there was born his son, Jean Baptiste, an intelligent, rather delicate-looking little boy, whom he duly educated and trained for his own trade. Young Jean Baptiste, however, fairly submissive and obedient, was also very fond of reading and writing, the only two acquirements his father thought necessary for assisting the chair and table-making the boy’s future was destined for. Fortunately he had a very kind grandfather who loved the drama, and sometimes he would take little Jean Baptiste with him to see the performances at The Hôtel Bourgogne. Poquelin père looked with distrust on these excursions, thinking that he saw in the lad, as undoubtedly he did, growing aversion to the upholstery vocation, and a fast developing passion for tragedy and comedy—comedy very markedly—and the boy’s delight in study and books generally, created a disturbance in the good upholsterer’s mind, which culminated in distress, when it became certain beyond all question, that young Jean’s liking was as small for cabinet-making as it was unconquerable for literature. He was at that time about fourteen years old, and he carried about with him a small comedy he had composed called l’Amour Médecin, which Ninon one day, when he came to assist his father at her house, detected, rolled up under his arm. Won by her kind smiles, young Poquelin was induced to allow her to look at it, and she, no mean critic, saw such promise in it, that she showed it to Corneille—who was then staying with her, pending the representation of The Cid. Corneille warmly seconded her estimate of the boy’s promise of unusual dramatic gifts; and after great demur, Poquelin yielded to the good grandfather’s persuasions to send him to college. Several helping hands, Ninon among them, contributed to the necessary funds for this new career, and Jean Baptiste became a pupil of the Jesuits at Clermont. There he studied for five years, in the same class with Armand de Bourbon, Prince de Conti, the youngest brother of Madame de Longueville, who promised Ninon the special protection and friendship of Armand, and of the college preceptors, a promise that was ever faithfully held by; and the celebrated teacher Gassendi took him under his special care, with two other gifted lads confided to him.
At the end of the five years, Jean Baptiste was forced to resume his old occupation, on account of his father’s increasing infirmities. But it was not for long. Richelieu’s love of letters, and of the drama especially, brought him knowledge of young Poquelin’s talent, and made the difficult way of literature easier for him; for the theatre was beginning to flourish. There was no regular company of actors in Paris until the coming of Corneille. Only a few of the “rogue and vagabond” wearers of the sock and buskin came and went, selling their plays, when they could find buyers, for some ten crowns apiece. The comedies of Corneille caused the establishment of a dramatic troupe in the city, and then it was that young Poquelin, leaving the upholstery to the dogs, established a small company of young men—“stage-struck” as the mockers were pleased to say, in this instance guided however by the sterling judgment of Jean Baptiste, truly dramatically gifted, in the Faubourg St Germain. They called it the Illustrious Theatre—(l’Illustre Théâtre). So through the years of the ignoble strife of the Fronde, when times were arid for real literary talent, Poquelin acted and composed little comedies, mainly for the provinces. Travelling with his company to Languedoc, where the Prince de Conti happened to be staying on his estates, Poquelin produced before him several of his pieces, afterwards finding their world-wide renown, l’Étourdi, le Dépit Amoureux, and others. The Prince de Conti introduced him to Monsieur, the only brother of Louis XIV.; and in a short time there came a day of days when the command of their Majesties reached the actor-manager, to give a representation in the chamber of the Guards in the old Louvre. After the performance of this long five-act piece, Poquelin—who had followed the custom of the actors of his time, had taken another name, and selected Molière—stepped to the front, and begged His Majesty’s permission to play a short one-act piece. It was le Docteur Amoureux. This is possibly the origin of the custom, still so frequently observed, of the “Curtain-raiser.”
POQUELIN DE MOLIERE
Coypel pinc.
Ficquet Sculp.