A city, Molière, and a chair
Pézenas has worked hard to stake a claim on France’s famous playwright: Molière.
“Say hello to Jean-Baptiste!” joked my French husband as I headed out the door to Pézenas, Hérault, Occitanie.
“Ah bon? Molière wasn’t born in Pézenas? I was convinced he was…” said my crestfallen French husband as I broke the news to him upon my return.
Molière, né Jean-Baptiste Poquelin and considered France’s greatest playwright, was born in Paris in 1622 and died there in 1673.
But between 1650 and 1656, he and his Théâtre Illustre stayed and played a number of times in Pézenas, where he was supported and protected by Armand de Bourbon, the Prince of Conti.
Their tight relationship ended badly when the prince turned to strict Catholicism, calling the theater “an evil pleasure”1, and forcing Piscenois into more pious activities than watching rollicking stage shows.
That Molière’s company also performed in cities all over the south of France is beside the point today — at least in Pézenas, the self-proclaimed Cité de Molière.
Meeting up with Molière
Other than the hotel receptionist, Molière was the first person I ran into, but many more encounters were to come.
The playwright was something of a cult figure in his time, and still is in today’s Pézenas; one shop was selling “The Imaginary Oracle, inspired by Molière.”
I don’t know what this is, and I’m not sure I want to know, but it — or he? —“reveals itself like an oracle, linking mystery and pedagogy,” for only 39 euros.
The same image showed up above a cider bar:
These were my first Molièresque encounters in Pézenas, and they rather gave me the creeps.
But one easily finds more traditional reminders of the French dramatist’s presence.
In an early effort at crowdfunding, the city financed this grand statue in 1895.
The Office de Tourisme brochure told me where to find key sites Molièresques, such as the now privately-owned Hôtel d’Alfonce, where the troupe played and resided.
I was not on a Molière pilgrimage in Pézenas, but his presence is everywhere, including in modern-day establishments.
The brasserie looked a bit long in the tooth, leaving me to wonder if the Molière brand could be losing its luster.
The chair, the chair!
Legend has it that during Molière’s stays, he spent hours, if not weeks, sitting in a chair at a local barber’s, and that his observations of local Piscénois life, made from that very chair, inspired some of his famous characters.
The amount of inspiration generated while on the chair is not historically quantifiable, or even proven, but through years of oral tradition, le fauteuil de Molière took on primordial importance in the local collective imagination.
The barber left the much-revered chair to his heirs, who over the centuries cached it away in various countryside or Parisian residences. It made a brief appearance at the Parisian tricentennial of Molière’s birth in 1922, only to disappear into disturbing obscurity, especially for “local erudites” — sometimes referred to as “crazy” Molièristes”2 — who wanted that damn chair back in town where it belonged.
In 2003, the object of veneration resurfaced via a thrilling phone call to a member of Les Amis de Pézenas. Thorough investigations were made. The chair was in full possession of all its papers, and the family finally sold it to the city for the tidy sum of 100,000 euros.3
In 2009, le fauteuil de Molière finally took its rightful seat.
Sadly, sitting staring at the chair was an underwhelming experience in the city’s nearly unbelievably run-down, hodgepodge museum:
Perhaps this site has taken a back seat to other municipal projects.
A musical note
Pézenas was also the birthplace of the 20th-century French singer Boby Lapointe, whose complex, pun-filled lyrics are harder for me to understand than Molière’s texts— but then again, nobody made me study Boby Lapointe in college.
In an interesting transition, the barber’s shop dear to Molière has become L’A-Musée Boby Lapointe.
And there, the city’s famous sons now hang out together over a glass of wine.
I wonder if Les Amis de Pézenas, those crazy Molièristes who toiled so hard to recover the sacred chair, would approve?
All images copyright Betty Carlson, the author
Sources:
Les amis de Pézenas – Molière & Pézenas
Les amis de Pézenas - Le Fauteuil de Molière entra au Musée
Retour du fauteuil de Molière à Pézenas — Hérault Tribune, April 19 2007
1. Les Princes de Conti, Seigneurs de Pézenas, F.C. Mougel, 1971, p. 9
2. Les Tréteaux de Pézenas Molière — Josyane Savigneau, Le Monde, June 7th 1986
3. Retour du fauteuil de Molière à Pézenas — Hérault Tribune, April 19 2007
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It's great Betty that you cover so many aspects of how Molière was integrated into the town. I loved the story about the hunt for the legendary chair!