MOLIÈRE - [GRIMAREST, Jean-Léonor LE GALLOIS... - Lot 21 - Les ventes Damien Voglaire SRL

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MOLIÈRE - [GRIMAREST, Jean-Léonor LE GALLOIS... - Lot 21 - Les ventes Damien Voglaire SRL
MOLIÈRE - [GRIMAREST, Jean-Léonor LE GALLOIS sieur de]. The Life of M. de Molière. Paris, Jacques Le Febvre, 1705, in-12, portrait, [8]-314-[14] pp. (traces of old binding). Bound with: Adition [sic] à la vie de Monsieur de Molière, contenant une réponse à la critique que l'on en a faite. Paris, Jacques Le Febvre and Pierre Ribou, 1706, in-12, [4]-67-[1] p. Together a volume bound in full brown calf, spine ribbed and decorated (headbands faded, front cover split). Jean-Léonor Le Gallois, sieur de Grimarest (1659-1713), was a French polygrapher of the late reign of Louis XIV. A mathematician and theorist of fortifications, a military historian and a master of language, his name remains attached to that of Molière, of whom he was, thirty-two years after his death, the first true biographer. La Vie de M. de Molière is presented as the first biography of Molière, with the ambition "to make him known as he was" and to dispel "an infinite number of false stories" that were being told about him. The biographer is aware that he is working for posterity, since Moliere's plays, "performed in so many theatres, translated into so many languages, will be admired for as many centuries as the stage lasts" (p. 2). He claims to have conducted a real investigation and consulted many people. He spoke especially with the actor Michel Baron, to whom he owes many details and anecdotes that he witnessed. He also mentions Jean Racine and Esprit Madeleine Poquelin, the only survivor of Molière and Armande Béjart's four children. In his biography of Molière published in 2018, Georges Forestier begins by reminding us that all the historical research of the 19th and 20th century Molièreists has called into question almost all of Grimarest's assertions, starting with the date of Molière's birth, his birthplace and even the name of his grandfather, whom he claims took him to the theatre as a child. G. Forestier thus offers a biography which, for the first time, dispenses with any discussion of Grimarest's assertions, and concentrates exclusively on examining the original documents in our possession, to the exclusion of all the anecdotes invented by Grimarest and his successors.
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