.
On ne meurt qu’une fois; et c’est pour si longtemps!
We die only once, and for such a long time!
Molière, Le Dépit Amoureux , 1656, Act V, sc. iii
Molière. Jean-Baptiste Poquelin if you want to get technical. 1622 to 1673. French playwright, actor, the guy who invented modern comedy and pissed off everyone who mattered while doing it.
He wrote satire. Sharp, vicious, brilliant. Went after the Church, the aristocracy, the hypocrisy of French society. Tartuffe, about a religious con man, got him in so much shit with the Catholic Church they banned it. Twice. He kept rewriting it, kept pushing. Louis XIV loved him, which was the only reason he didn’t end up in prison.
Actor too. Ran his own theater company. Performed in his own plays, which back then was considered low-class. Actors were barely above prostitutes in the social hierarchy.
February 17th, 1673. He’s on stage performing The Imaginary Invalid. Playing a hypochondriac. The irony is so thick you could choke on it. He collapses during the fourth performance. They get him home. He dies that night. Coughing up blood.
Here’s the thing: because he was an actor, and because he died without renouncing the profession, the Church refused to bury him in sacred ground. His widow had to beg the king to intervene. Finally, they let him be buried. At night. In secret. In an area of the cemetery reserved for unbaptized infants.
The guy who made France laugh. Buried like a criminal.
Later they moved him here. Gave him a proper grave.
Too little, too late.
Again. Always too late.
Shot on infrared film in Père Lachaise Cemetery. Signed Limited Edition 17” x11” print of 10; stamped on verso. Professional black & white printing on Hahnemühle fibre-based Matt paper.