Just as there was never a “Greek miracle”, there was never a “Molière miracle”.

Nowadays, historians of Antiquity refute the official theory forced upon them in the mid-19^th century. In future times, historians of literature will refute the similarly enforced theory that Molière was an "author of universal genius".

A national myth has been built around Molière, a beautiful story to pander to the audience which, like all good audiences, believes everything it is told. But as soon as we begin to study biographies of the Comedian, the shadows creep in and we discover that a large number of liberties have been taken with historical fact.

Yet this multitude of unintelligible or strange facts concerning Molière – and likewise, Corneille – which often go unmentioned or are distorted, are suddenly perfectly understandable when their careers are linked, after being held as far apart from one another as possible until the present time.  

Based as they are on perfectly relevant research (both official and independent), the explanations developed on the corneille-moliere.org website and in the upcoming book “Molière, Bouffon du Roi et prête-nom de Corneille” reveal Pierre Corneille and Molière as more complex, astonishing and fascinating characters – one might say, more living ones – than their official icons would have us believe. 

Although the format, interpretations and postulates of our theory are entirely original, its principles owe much to the intuition of the poet and scholar Pierre Louÿs (1870-1925). In October 1919, this intuition led to the publication of seven articles in the newspaper Le Temps and the magazine Comœdia. At that time - and indeed, at the present time – it was deemed unacceptable. But it was merely revolutionary in the etymological sense of this word: a return to the source of the affair.

The theory we are defending can be summed up as follows :

Molière, who throughout his life claimed to be a comic, actor, company master and theatre director, was first and foremost the King’s Jester. As such, he did not write a single play of the ones he signed (or rather, did not sign since this was not the literary custom of the time). The thirty-three recorded works of his theatre were :

Pierre Corneille began his career in 1635 as the collaborator of Cardinal de Richelieu and his right-hand man, the immensely wealthy Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin. As the inventor of tragedy and comedy of manners, he had become the greatest author of his century according to his contemporaries. However, by 1652 they all saw him as a “finished” man.

In 1658, by associating with Molière and his company who aspired to creating the third most important theatre in Paris, Corneille gained five major advantages :

1) By favouring Molière’s career, he was able to indulge his penchant for the comedy of manners with which he had begun his career before his renown as an author of tragedy prevented him from further expression in this vein.

2) Since he no longer lived in fear of the wrath of the Church and the Sorbonne – nor of humiliation on the part of the Powers-that-be – by writing under the name of Molière, he was able to get his own back on all the clans who had made him pay such a high price for his independence since Le Cid (1637) and even more so, Polyeucte (1642) : the learned, devout, and worldly and the précieuses who criticised his tragedies.

3) Siding with Molière, the King’s Jester, meant not only being in the vicinity of His Majesty but also working for him. What is known as the King’s Service. Under the protection of Louis XIV, Les Fâcheux stigmatises certain courtesans ; L’Impromptu de Versailles ridicules the arrogant “petty marquesses” ; Tartuffe and Dom Juan denounces the over-zealous and devout ; Les Précieuses ridicules and Les Femmes savantes try to muzzle feminine emancipation and the précieuses’ claims to equality which had always annoyed the King (until he met Madame de Maintenon) ; Amphitryon and La Princesse d’Elide endorse his royal adultery, etc.

4) To be with Molière is to be near to the women he loved during the second part of his life : first, the Marquise du Parc, but also Mlle Marotte, a very young “hired” actress in Molière’s company, followed by the pretty Armande Béjart for whom he felt “superlative esteem” as recorded by the journalist Robinet, Corneille’s friend. It was for her that he wrote his tragedy, Pulchérie.

5) Finally, an essential element in understanding the prolonged existence of the association is that as soon as Molière makes his fortune and becomes the Palais Royal administrator, Pierre Corneille is the author he most often produces, creating and performing 9 of his plays. Officially, Pierre Corneille is supposed to have written four plays for Molière (and his charming wife) : Attila, Tite et Bérénice, Psyché, Pulchérie (for this last production, the ailing Molière withdrew). For each of these plays, even those which were not successful, he received the grand sum of 2,000 Pounds, i.e. three times more than any other famous author and quite logically, he earned far more for each comedy which triumphed under the name of Molière. In this way, throughout the period of their collaboration, Corneille was able to live without begging (which was not the case before his collaboration with the Jester and following the Jester’s death) and secure the future of his six children, in particular his two eldest sons who had embarked on a ruinous military career. And this, in spite of receiving no salary from the Forestry and Water Administration since 1651 and only receiving his royal pension here and there.

The following are the important milestones of their association :

Unfortunately, the Comedian is too mediocre a tragedian to remain the poet's mouthpiece for long. But with the huge success of the 1659-1660 season, Les Précieuses ridicules, and Les Fâcheux (1661), Molière becomes Corneille’s proxy, as was common practice in the theatre in those days. In 1661, Louis XIV gives the Palais Royal theatre to Molière who has become the King’s Jester. Since Molière cannot do without him, Pierre Corneille settles in Paris with his brother Thomas in 1662, even though up until then he has always refused to leave Rouen. This sees the beginning, with L’Ecole des Femmes (1662), of a commercial strategy which some see as a “Clash” in theatre circles and animosity between Molière and Corneille where in fact, there is only an excellent financial operation organized by the strategist Pierre Corneille, to the mutual benefit of the two principal Parisian theatres : the Palais-Royal and the Hôtel de Bourgogne, whose directors, Molière and Floridor, are his friends.

Trained at the Table de marbre guild school specialized in the comedy of manners, Corneille writes satire after satire for France’s "leading comic" (Somaize). As a sign of their great friendship, Molière creates or perfoms eleven plays officially by Pierre Corneille and his younger brother Thomas at the Palais-Royal and together, they produce the great hit of 1671 : Psyché.

Heirs of the Enfants-sans-souci (the Halles de Paris comedians’ guild), Molière and his company working in a collective theatre mode, quite naturally specialise in social satire just like their mentor Corneille whose whole work reflects the political preoccupations of his era.

Because Molière has Louis XIV’s benediction as King’s Jester (and “Entertainments” manager), the Corneille-Molière association is to remain a permanent secret (like all matters pertaining to the King’s service). Molière becomes renowned nation-wide and pursues the same fol du Roi career as his predecessors (from Triboulet to Engoulvent). All twenty-six characteristics of the King's Jester we have inventoried can be applied to Molière :

1- The King’s jester is always a commoner.

2- The King’s jester is unattractive.

3- The King’s jester entertains his master with farces and ballets; he enjoys going on stage and performing before the public. 

4- The King’s jester defends, favours or illustrates his Master’s policy and provides the link between him and the people.

5- The King’s jester has favourite targets.

6- The King’s jester always remains close to his Master.

7- Since Philippe V’s reign, the King’s jester belongs to the King’s household.

8- The King’s jester annoys his Master’s intimates with his impertinence. 

9- The King’s jester uses what he overhears in his Master's entourage to his advantage.

10- Thanks to his strategic position, the King’s jester earns a lot of money and manages his fortune extremely well (not such a fool).

11- The King’s jester never opposes his Master.

12- The King’s jester is never his Master’s only jester and must surpass his competitors. 

13- All the King’s jesters dress in green and yellow which are considered their colours.

14- The King’s jester behaves strangely and practises paradoxical logic.

15- The King’s jester is very preoccupied with his dress and especially his shoes.

16- The King’s jester eats and drinks excessively, has unbridled sexual drive and his companions are like him.

17- Kings are the godfathers of their jesters’ firstborn.

19- Thanks to his sacrosanct status, the King’s jester can get away with anything and his function places him beyond all moral order; he is a “miscreant” i.e. an unbeliever.

19- The King’s jester sparks off as much enthusiasm on the part of commoners as he does hate from the elite who feel wronged by the King’s injustice in favouring his protégé.

20- The King’s jester is at the heart of pageantry, festivities and jesting, of Innocents’ Day, Epiphany, Shrove Tuesday, mid-Lent, April Fools’ Day, May Day, Christmas etc.

21- Writing is not one of the King’s jester’s duties. However, a number and variety of works are published under his name.

22- The King’s jester is not interested in what is published under his name.

23- The King’s jester leads a “simultaneous and double life, one real, the other legendary” (Maurice Lever, Le Sceptre et la marotte, 1983, pg. 120).

24- Other people's witticisms and anecdotes are attributed to the King’s jester.

25- In his lifetime, the King’s jester becomes identified with a “character”, in particular from one of his plays.

26- When the King’s jester dies, both injurious and sycophantic lampoons abound, as do journeys into the beyond.

As two of the King’s jester’s functions are to represent the spirit of his time and to play the “Master’s” go-between with his people, Molière draws the attention of all social classes, is idolised by commoners and loathed by the elite. There are numerous anecdotes concerning him ; people write critically of him ; he becomes the bugbear of a powerful but discreet bigots’ brotherhood : the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement. As the King’s jester is taboo, the official Gazette never mentions Molière’s name. No author ever considers writing about him; and of course nobody even contemplates syudying “his” theatre since everybody at the time knows that this is a collective venture. The Church refuses him Christian burial whereas this was not the case with reputedly licentious and libertine comics like Scaramouche or Raymond Poisson. The Church’s attitude is understandable : it cannot bless the remains of he who, in his capacity of King’s jester, is socially a “demon made flesh” (abbé Roullé) and warrants burning at the stake. Having become the equivalent of the primeval scapegoat, Molière dies on the stage –  or near enough – as if on purpose. Such are a few examples of the consequences of his King’s jester status.

During the fifteen years of his Parisian career, Molière is to lead an extraordinarily busy life. At one and the same time, he is :

1) King’s jester and permanent organiser of the Court’s Entertainment (theatre, ballets and festivals, pageantry, mascarades, parties...).

2) Valet de Chambre and “very assiduous” courtesan (La Grange).

3) King’s upholsterer, or decorator, for all royal ceremonies and journeys.

4) Director of the Palais-Royal, the most lucrative theatre in Paris.

5) Prolific company leader and director.

6) Star who performs the leading roles.

These six activities alone are so demanding that common sense deems it impossible to add to them thousands of hand-written pages, thousands of hours of correction, thousands of hours of reading – for thanks to his numerous occasional collaborators and the preponderant participation of the very learned Corneille, one has the impression that Molière has read, understood and retained everything and masters several languages in addition to a very wide-ranging vocabulary which is often specific to a given corporation. The inventory carried out after his death shows that Molière’s library contained less than two hundred works at a time when even the most modest bourgeois, the most unexceptional of authors, would possess one or several thousands.

Louis XIV, gradually escaping the domination of the Queen mother, orders from his Jester entertainments denouncing the scrounging marquesses, the prudish intellectuals who annoy him, the devout who undermine his authority and curb his liberty under the aegis of the Société du Sant-Sacrement. And so, thanks to Molière, Corneille is to work according to the King’s desires : in particular, Les Fâcheux (1661), L’Impromptu de Versailles (1663) Tartuffe (1664), Amphitryon (1668), Les Femmes savantes (1672), give him the opportunity to recover the verve and spontaneity of his first years. 

The equilibrium in Pierre Corneille and Molière’s relationship is established as follows : in exchange for the satirical comedies which bring him fame and fortune, the Comedian ensures his mentor’s financial independence and the peace of mind he has always sought. He enables him to retain his constantly threatened dignity (proof of this : as soon as Molière dies, his company’s actors refuse to play Corneille’s works). The two men are to become so intimately linked that after his associate’s death, the poet ceases to write for good and extends his friendship to Molière’s widow and his favourite pupil Baron (for whom, as tradition would have it, he is supposed to have written L’homme à bonne fortune). 

Molière, trained in the commedia dell’arte tradition and a disciple of the Italian Scaramouche, always made farces of plays which Corneille rewrote for him based on Italian, Spanish or French productions : L’Etourdi (Parisian version, 1658), Le Dépit amoureux (Parisian version, 1658), Les Précieuses ridicules (Parisian version, 1659), Mélicerte (1666)…

Likewise, the Comedian made farces out of works in which Corneille was more actively engaged : L’Ecole des Maris (1661), Les Fâcheux (1661), L’Ecole des Femmes (1662), Dom Juan (1665), Le Misanthrope (1666), Tartuffe (1667), Amphitryon (1668), Les Femmes savantes (1672)…

The only plays among those Corneille offered his associate which were to escape Molière’s transformation into farce were Dom Garcie de Navarre (created in 1661 immediately after the Palais-Royal inauguration when Molière imagined he could triuimph as Corneille’s mouthpiece) and the ballet tragedy Psyché (1671) written for the King and his Court assembled in great pomp and which was the crowning glory of the associates’ career together.

Thanks to Psyché, which also required the participation of the musician Jean-Baptiste Lully and his front-man Philippe Quinault, we have official information about the Corneille-Molière collaboration. Since Molière and Lully had quarrelled in the interval, the names of Quinault and Corneille were mentioned. For the first and last time, Pierre Corneille left the shadows of anonymity, to the great annoyance of those irritated by the very idea of any kind of collaboration.

A unique occurrence in French literature which has remained unexplained up until now, is the fact that Molière left :

What some term "the Molière mystery" is easily explained by our theory : son and grandson of tradesmen on both the maternal and paternal sides, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was destined since childhood to follow in the steps of his upholsterer father and so did not receive a clerk's specific intellectual education, fact which is moreover born out by his first biographer Grimarest and by Voltaire. This did not prevent Jean-Baptiste Poquelin from becoming what he undoubtedly was : a comic, described as such by all who knew him.

However, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, alias Molière, always knew how to attract the right collaborators. In the provinces :

In Paris and in addition to Madeleine Béjart :

And probably also :

Like all his King's jester predecessors, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was thus able to keep up pretences and turn the pseudonym “Molière” into a financially highly-successful brand name in show business.  

The theory of a Corneille-Molière association leads us into the wings of the Palais-Royal where careerists are milling around, such as Edme Boursault, Donneau de Visé, Adrien Subligny or Jean Racine (who probably wrote Les Plaideurs for Molière before quarrelling with him). If we look one by one at the observations of frequently baffled specialists, we discover that Molière and his partners made a creative principle out of the systematic plunder of the Italian, Spanish and French repertoires, a conclusion also reached by the Molière specialist Claude Bourqui after five hundred pages dedicated to Molière plagiarism.

His exclusive practice of “piecing together” different scenes made Molière the precursor of Dumas père who’s Corneille, we might say, was called Auguste Maquet. 

Following Louis XIV’s sudden and complete change in both attitude and policy around 1673 – date of Molière’s death – which consisted in wiping out his pagan and licentious past and becoming a “very-Christian-and-religious-King”, all the intellectuals close to the Court, beginning with Boileau, turned coat. Molière’s scandalous career and negative image were censored and very quickly transformed into something compatible with the “politically correct” of an era which had become extremely pious. By some kind of fateful irony with unmeasureable consequences, he who had been the King’s jester first becomes a persona non grata whom one is advised to forget and whose plays are to be ignored, before undergoing a metamorphosis and becoming a legendary figure thanks to four envangelists, namely La Grange (1682), Grimarest (1705), La Martinière (1725), La Serre (1734) who all copy each other. And with Voltaire (Corneille’s great enemy), his self-appointed propagandist, he was to become an authentic literary myth.

The gulf between historical fact and the myth has grown out of all proportion. Which explains why when the poet and scholar Pierre Louÿs announced in October 1919, like the child in the fable, that the “king is naked”, reaction on the part of scholars was so violent and not at all scientific.

Although it is more difficult to destroy a prejudice than an atom as Albert Einstein well knew, historical fact requires repositioning Pierre Corneille's work and Molière's career in the 17th century perspective – the only fitting perspective. It is only in this way that we can shed light on the fascinating story of their partnership.

But for the time being, the molierocentripetic dogma (where everything is centred on Molière) is unshakeable. The Corneille specialist André Le Gall thus defines the stakes: “Did Corneille write Molière’s works? [...] This is a really tricky question [...] Simply stating such a thing is the signal for taking up action stations for a very simple reason: such a hypothesis reduces to nothing all biographies of Corneille and Molière, all critics of both authors, all theatrical productions, all research, all hypotheses beginning with the present book... The question should not be asked. Therefore, it won’t be.” (Pierre Corneille en son temps et en son œuvre, 1997, pg. 470).

The starting point for our investigation was the evidence of a fundamental flaw common to all studies of Molière: any authority challenging the rest of his colleagues concerning this or that article or dogma has shown each time that general opinion is founded on absolutely nothing.

Everything that we are suggesting thus has its roots in research done by the greatest experts, from Couton to Taschereau, from Larroumet to Moland, from Despois to Mongrédien, from Bouquet to Marty-Laveau, not to mention Grimarest, Boileau and hundreds of others.

We have considered the beliefs of these specialists in the light of the 17^th century’s historical context and are careful not to censor or denigrate the positions and jugements of Molière’s contemporaries. For according to Molière specialists, his contemporaries who largely spoke ill of him were wrong about him. We Moderns, who know such things so much better than our predecessors, know that this attitude is highly detrimental to research. In support of this, if we accept these testimonies from widely different horizons, all the contradictions, the shadows and the problems inherent in the Molière dogma disappear.

In the 17^th century, two intellectual opponents challenged each other : The Guild and the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement. These two movements stemming from medieval times, which persisted right up to the French revolution while gradually losing influence, are systematically neglected by modern critics. And yet it is they who fundamentally explain Molière’s extraordinary destiny.

• The Guild. This author and actor corporation initiated and fostered on our soil the tradition of theatre, farce and satire of which Molière made such great use. Pierre Corneille came from the Table de marbre Guild (lawyer or magistrate authors’ theatre corporation), Molière from the Société des Enfants-sans-souci (Parisian theatre corporation comprising children from non-clerical families). In the 15^th and 16^th centuries these two branches were associated. Corneille and Molière reactivated this association by deciding to work together in 1658 to revive the Parisian predilection for satire which had been neglected for half a century.

• The Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement de l’Autel. Created in 1627, this layman’s order of Christian inspiration remained secret for a long time and directed 17^th century morals towards a more sincere Christianity, socially engaged and active, of which Port-Royal Jansenism was an example. With the support of the Queen mother, the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement fought against Louis XIV’s paganism and his exaggerated taste for farce and pageantry. From 1663 onwards, the order focused on doing away with Molière who had become the influential King’s jester and in doing so, gave rise to the circumstances in which Molière and Corneille were to give their best.

Although these two movements never solved their differences, neither was victorious. No doubt because attached as they were to medieval positions, they were condemned to disappear. It was a third movement born after 1640 which lastingly made its impression on the 17^th century : Preciosity. Like the Guild and the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement, Preciosity is disparaged by Molière specialists who only see it through the small end of the spyglass because this is how Molière portrays it. And yet it is this movement which will shape Louis XIV’s reign for posterity. For it is Preciosity’s social philosophy – and in particular its moralising of relationships between the sexes, its egalitarian claims, its modernising of written language and its influence on vocabulary – which transformed this century still under the influence of medieval superstitions and Renaissance exuberance into the “classical” century. Preciosity, more than any other cultural or political movement, unified France through language.

Although labelled “classics”, Corneille and Molière mainly represent the final blaze of former times. Separately at first and then together, they perpetuated and renovated the spirit of libertine clubs and the Guild and, as mandated by the young Louis XIV, strived for the emergence of a new school of thought later to be known as “bourgeois”.  

Conforming to dogma, studies of Molière conceal the true sociological influences of the 17^th century which were consecutively, but sometimes simultaneously : Gouliard epicurean circles ; the Guild and the Société des Enfants-sans-souci ; the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement ; Port-Royal and the Jansenists ; Richelieu and the Académie Française ; the King’s Service ; the « buffoon clan » (Molière, Lully, L’Angely) ; Mme de Rambouillet and the “preciosity” salons ; Louis XIV and Mme de Maintenon. It is these influential groups which prepared and maintained conditions which were favourable to the Corneille-Molière partnership, which was considered the final firework bouquet of the previous century.

Our theory is based on the methodological principle of never writing anything unconfirmed by the Comic’s contemporaries and the most learned 17^th century specialists and it provides an explanation of all the shady points regarding Molière’s and Corneille’s lives and work, in particular ninety biographical discrepancies usually ignored or dealt with in a few reassuring lines, and so, in the words of Molière specialist Claude Bourqui, “comfortably dealing with an unwelcome area of questions and research”.

This work is the result of much research. And yet Molière specialists will disparage it without even studying it since its conclusions state the exact antithsesis of their cult :

Beyond what they name “Molière’s glory”, we glimpse Louis XIV’s glory and Pierre Corneille’s discreet revenge.

Where they see a Human Rights advocate, we merely see the King's jester who had the right to do as he pleased.

Where they admire an inspired author, we unveil a proxy.

And where they applaud a “universal genius”, we reveal the Molière Company business venture.

In a nutshell, our theory can be summed up as follows :

 

Molière’s fortune and the posthumous literary imposture which the post-French revolution, the 3^rd Republic and University scholars have assigned to him, are based on the status, belonging to Molière alone, of King's jester and “Entertainements” manager, his discreet association with Pierre Corneille and the institutional customs specific to the 17^th century (the « buffoon clan », Société des Enfants-sans-souci, King’s service, proxy, a comedian’s appropriation of a play and acceptation of total responsibility for it, the vagueness of the notion “author”).

Molière specialists systematically disparage the Guild, the Enfants-sans-souci, the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement and Preciosity. In the same way, the dogma they uphold compels them to ignore six features specific to Louis XIV’s century :

•  What we have labelled the “buffoon clan" (Molière, Lully and L’Angely).

• The profession of King’s jester which was Molière’s alone (All twenty-six characteristics of King’s jesters we have mentioned are found in Molière).

The King’s Service is based on secrecy and complies with one single rule : anything and everything goes from the moment His Majesty demands it.

The custom of a company director’s appropriation of a play which he buys and performs. 

The establishment of proxy usage which the combined tyranny of Power, the Church and the Sorbonne made compulsory.

17^th century hypocrisy which declared the “author” of a work to be the person who had the idea and drew up the outline and mere “collaborator” the person who writes or composes – thereby reducing him to mere ghostwriter status, inexistent as an author.

Politics are behind this hypocritical definition of “author” : only nobles can think, everyone else is a mere craftsman or labourer, with the result that “authors” are generally rich and powerful while their “secretaries” are always needy. In this way Pierre Corneille was a collaborator (in particular of Richelieu and undoubtedly of Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin) and Molière always an “author”, even of the play Psyché written essentially by Corneille.

Nowadays, we believe that an author is the one who gives birth to a text with his style, his intelligence and his soul. Anybody could imagine the theme and plot of the Cid, Horace or Tartuffe. The person capable of turning them into eternal works of art is the only true author.

The soul of the greatest plays attributed to Molière is Pierre Corneille. He was there at the beginning of Molière’s vocation (1643), he was present at the lightening start of his Parisian career (1658), and again at the moment of his greatest triumph (Psyché, 1671).

Pierre Corneille had all the virtues of the ideal collaborator :

1) he had been Cardinal Richelieu’s collaborator and his intendant’s,

2) he didn’t belong to any literary circles,

3) he wasn’t wordly,

4) he didn’t have enough income,

5) because of his family obligations, he always needed to earn extra income,

6) he was secretive and a mystifier,

7) he was a loyal friend,

8) he had fallen in love with the Marquess du Parc, star of Molière’s company,

9) he mastered comedy and satire perfectly,

10) he could write in any style,

11) he was an extremely fast writer,

12) he had a bone to pick with scholars since 1637 and with the devout and the Précieuses since 1642,

13) he was extremely rancorous and spiteful,

14) he never gave up,

15) he had a pronounced taste for tragicomedy (all the masterpieces signed by Molière are tragicomedies).

No other author in Molière’s circle, not even Chapelle of Boileau, had even three of these characteristics.

Their association lasted at least from 1658 (Parisian versions of L’Etourdi, Le Dépit amoureux) to 1672 (Les Femmes savantes), i.e. throughout Jean-Baptiste Poquelin’s Parisian career. During this period, Pierre Corneille’s creative rythmn remained constant and right until the end, he created both tragedies and comedies. From the very start of his career, he used to simultaneously write plays of completely contrasting nature: Clitandre and Mélite ; Le Cid and L’Illusion comique ; La Mort de Pompée and Le Menteur. In the Epître du Menteur (1644), Corneille is proud of this ambivalence : “It will be hard to believe that two plays of so different a style were written by the same hand during the same winter.” In the preface to Clitandre (1632), he already wrote about his other play, Mélite : “never will two more different plays in terms of invention and style be written by the same hand.”

In contemporary terms, we would say that Molière’s collective theatre is the blend of three characters – Madeleine Béjart, Pierre Corneille, Louis XIV – connected to the same interface : Jean-Baptiste Poquelin. One after the other and then together, these particularly demanding personalities made use of his flexibility, his endurance and his theatrical know-how.

In other words, surrounding the star Molière, there were :

Characters who are always discreetly in the wings of all great careers. But Molière specialists never see them in this way and negate their influence in favour of the Immaculate Conception doctrine of Molière’s genius.

It’s because these three exceptional characters came together in the person of a fourth one with an amazing capacity for adapting to circumstances that we Moderns are completely wrong in our appreciation of Molière’s personality. But stronger than all these arguments, there is an historical fact at the source of error in the academic exegesis concerning his theatre and career. This historical fact is the huge psychological change which Louis XIV went through in 1673. This was the year when Molière died and Mme de Maintenon began playing an essential role in the King’s personal life, in addition to the influence of Father Ferrier, his new confessor.

When he suddenly lost his Jester, Louis XIV seems to have left his childhood and his strong sexual impulses behind. In 1673, His Majesty loses interest in farce and licentiousness – and becomes abstemious.

In falling for Madame de Maintenon, Louis XIV grows up and sees the world through fervent Christian eyes.

According to François Bluche, “the change becomes apparent in 1670" (Louis XIV, 1986, pg. 256). The accounts of the Buildings administration show that Louis XIV progressively loses interest in Paris and dreams only of Versailles. An irreversible personality change comes over the King after 1670, called metanoia in Christian theology. There is no ballet for the 1671 carnival. He gives up performing on the stage and no longer dances before the Court. He begins to cancel his sensual and pagan past and increasingly personify the “very-Christian-very-religious King”. Boileau, the “Louis flatterer”, has to abandon Satires and turn to moral Epîtres to retain favour with his Master. Racine is converted in 1674. Guiding the monarch’s change of heart, or maybe even preparing him for it, Colbert takes over the Académie Française in order to control elections. In 1675 the Chambre Sublime is set up to attend to the very-Christian King’s image. Members are M. du Maine, the Duke de La Rochefoucauld, M. de Marsillac, Mme de Maintenon (who was still called Mme Scarron), Mme de La Fayette, Bossuet, Racine and Boileau. As a result of Louis XIV’s failing interest in comedy, the Marais theatre has to close down. And soon theatres in general run the risk of disappearance. This is an essential turning point in His Majesty’s reign and the triumph of “Christian rationalism”. In the words of the eminent Antoine Adam, "the confrérie du Saint-Sacrement could imagine that its agenda had become that of the Court of France”. » (Histoire de la littérature française au XVII^e siècle, 1997, Vol. 2, pg. 452).

As a result of this psychological change which metamorphosed Louis XIV, Molière is no longer mentioned at Versailles after 1674. Until this time, the King used to meet the Comedian several times a week but thereafter does not wish to be reminded of his past, nor of the antics of his former Buffoon. A veil is drawn over a licentious and somewhat immoral era.

The emergence of the “myth of Louis XIV’s reign” (Raymond Picard) brought about for political purposes gives rise in its wake to the advent of Molière’s. The King’s jester is to disappear and be replaced by the “exemplary individual”. In the words of the eminent Raymond Picard, “social perspectives are transformed with extraordinary speed” (La Carrière de Jean Racine, 1961, pg. 556). On the social ladder, everything moves up a rung. Writers cease to be writers and are given responsibilities – they become “respectable people”. Famous actors become authors. Taking a turn for political realism, Christian doctrine is headed by the Jesuits. While toning down Molière’s career and disregarding his task as the King’s jester, Boileau and La Fontaine are converted, Racine and Quinault diverted from the theatre. With the result that :

Fontanelle was the one to supply the Royal Prerogative necessary for Grimarest’s La Vie de Monsieur de Molière. The Régent des Lettres wants to avoid any damage to his uncle Pierre Corneille’s reputation and thereafter, he too is always reputedly a “good Christian”. Thus, the relationship between “the glory of France” and Molière is not mentioned in this biography (there is only one mention of the author of Psyché in Grimarest’s work). Supported by the Chancellor and the first president de Harlay, diligent sentinels of royal absolutism, Fontenelle gets the only-too-willing Grimarest to write an “authorized” biography. Grimarest strictly obeys his orders : “I had no intention of getting a bad reputation”, and thus chooses to write of Molière not as “Comic, but Author”. It was not difficult to do this since at that time, the company director who bought a play was designated “author”, as was anyone imagining the plot of a play while getting it written by someone else.

Grimarest’s prejudice is at the root of the historical misconception corrupting Molière studies. His hagiography, mentioning neither Corneille, nor Fouquet, nor Ninon de Leclos and saying nothing of homosexuality or licentious deeds, is to be the start of a surprising and lasting Golden Legend. Molière is no longer the “King's leading Jester" (Le Boulanger de Chalussay), “comic of the century” (Montfleury), “flesh-clad demon” (abbé Roullé) always in the headlines. His position as King’s Jester is deleted with a single stroke of a pen. No longer the historical Molière, he becomes the dogma personified.

Boileau, the Comic’s collaborator was to write of the Vie de Monsieur de Molière (1705), the Molière specialists’ reference : “it is written by someone who knew nothing of Molière, he is completely wrong and is not even aware of the facts everyone knows.” (Letter to Brossette of 12 March 1706).

Events with lasting impact on society helped to alter historical facts which were no longer desirable :   

1) Post-French Revolution (1789-1814).

Because of the trade secrets surrounding plays signed by Molière (secrets inherent to his positions of Comedian proxy and King’s Jester, to the customs of the Société des Enfants-sans-souci which favour a collective style of theatre, to the King’s services’ requirements) and due to the new moral order installed in 1673 which entailed collective amnesia, it becomes all too easy to designate Molière ‘the people’s author” in the post-French Revolution period (Corneille and Racine are deemed too aristocratic and La Fontaine has not created ficticious characters capable of supporting propaganda). To the detriment of historical fact, Molière, the most royalist of courtesans, becomes the precursor of proud republicans. To the extent of re-writing his most serious plays (those written by Corneille).

2) The Restoration (1814-1830).

The liberal party’s victory against the congregation party metamorphoses Molière – the inescapable "author" of Tartuffe – into a divinity for the exclusive use of triumphant middle class liberals.

3) Romanticism (1830-1870).

Hot on the heels of revolutionary spirit, poets and dramatists transform into a hero he who had obeyed Louis XIV’s orders to an unprecedented extent. There is no end to writing about him, each writer constantly outdoing the previous one : a copious legend develops which the eminent Molière specialist, Gustave Michaut, is unable to exhaust even in three volumes. On stages everywhere, Molière thereafter becomes a character teaching the virtues of humanism and republican liberty. The rising middle classes, taking advantage of their supremacy, diligently used Molière to propagate “Molièrism” in 1863.

For Antoine Adam, “it would be difficult to explain certain expressions of admiration if one was unaware of how easily an orthodox mindset distorts taste and of the errors brought about by a certain form of critique, above all eager to prove its acquiescence.” (Histoire de la littérature française au XVII^e siècle, 1997, T. I, pg. 431).

4) The III^rd Republic (1870-1940).

The ruling class present Molière as the very personification of middle-class character (as created by the Le Molièriste magazine in 1879). With the help of new Sorbonne (1888) and the Secular state schools, the middle classes transform Molière into an icone, conveying this image with the help of fanciful engravings and works by famous painters and official sculptors. To match the Germans who have Goethe, he who had been "France's leading Comic" (Somaize) and the "jesters' Hero” (Valentin Conrart) is transformed to epitomise French intellect. To offset the Church, Molière becomes the paragon of anti-clerical expression. With Molière becoming the mandatory topic of all academic discourse, the middle classes invent the myth they need (cf. in particular the work of Louis Moland, Maurice Descotes, the American Ralph Albanese, the Englishman Edric Caldicott).   

According to the historian Philippe Beaussant, “it is always amazing to realize the cunning with which History manages to delete anything which goes against its preconceived ideas.” (Louis XIV artiste, 1999, pg. 18).

5) Modern period.

During the first half of the 20^th century, Molière is catapulted to a position of national glory and universal genius. He is then transformed into a heroic cinematographical legend. He becomes a subject for theses left, right and centre, a democratically correct intellectual banner. Thus, the University opposes the haughtiness of Corneille (deemed insufficiently republican) to the proximity of Molière, “theatre god” for the masses. 

We can thus summarize the different steps in the deification of Molière, carpenter’s, sorry, upholsterer’s son.

Concerning this deification, Molière specialist Gustave Michaut writes : “He is one of those in whom the French temperament recognised itself the most easily; and it loved him all the more for loving itself in him. This is why such admiration became rapidly intolerant. His worshipers could tolerate no suggestion of imperfection in their god.” (La Jeunesse de Molière, 1922, pg. 10). And he concludes : “If legend is preponderant in such little details of Molière’s biography, if it transforms and deforms even insignificant facts, what unimaginable havoc does it wreak when challenging more important facts in addition to his works?” (idem, pg. 21).

Following Pierre Louÿs’ discoveries, revealed in 1919, independent researchers are determined to reveal the speciousness of official theory. Decade after decade, thanks to their research the “Molière” literary myth is reduced to insignificance. The day will come when only a small fragment will remain, the historical fact : Molière was the King’s jester and Corneille's proxy.