Paul Scarron - Life

Life

Scarron was the seventh child of Paul Scarron, a noble of the robe and member of the Parlement of Paris, and Gabrielle Goguet. Paul became an abbé when he was nineteen. He lived in Le Mans from 1632 to 1640, and in 1635 traveled to Rome with his patron, Charles de Beaumanoir, the bishop of Le Mans. Finding a patron in Marie de Hautefort, maîtresse-en-titre of Louis XIII, he became a well-known figure in literary and fashionable society.

In 1638, Scarron became crippled. One source (Laurent Angliviel de la Beaumelle, Memoires... de Mme de Maintenon) attributed Scarron's deformities to rheumatism contracted from spending time in a swamp. According to this story, Scarron, while residing at Le Mans, once tarred and feathered himself as a carnival freak and was obliged to hide in a swamp to escape the wrath of the townspeople. Another story has Scarron falling into an ice-water bath during the Carnival season. It seems more likely, seeing the connection with water, that he was crippled by polio.

Whatever the cause, Scarron began to suffer from miserable deformity and pain. His upper body became permanently twisted and his legs were paralyzed; he was obliged to use a wheelchair. He began to take copious amounts of opium to relieve his pain. Adding to his misfortunes, he became involved in a series of lawsuits with his stepmother over his father's property. He was also obliged to support his sisters financially.

Scarron returned to Paris in 1640. In 1643, he published Recueil de quelques vers burlesques ("A Collection of Some Burlesque Verses"), and the next year published Typhon ou la gigantomachie. At Le Mans he had conceived the idea of his Roman comique ("Comic Novel"), the first part of which was printed in 1651.

In 1645, his comedy Jodelet, ou le maître valet ("Jodelet, or the Valet as Master") -- the actor who played the leading role was also called Jodelet. Jodelet was the first of many French comedies about a servant who takes on the role of master, an idea that Scarron borrowed from the Spanish.

Scarron became employed by the bookseller Quinet and called his works his "marquisat de Quinet." He had also a pension from Nicolas Fouquet, and one from the queen. Scarron had initially dedicated Typhon to Mazarin, who was not impressed with the work; Scarron then changed it to a burlesque on Mazarin. In 1651 he expressed his allegiance to the Fronde by writing a violent anti-Mazarin pamphlet, and lost his pensions due to this.

In his early years, Scarron was something of a libertine. In 1649 a penniless lady of good family, Céleste Palaiseau, kept his house in the Rue d'Enfer, and tried to reform the habits of Scarron and his circle. But in 1652, sixteen years after he had become almost entirely paralysed, he married the impoverished but beautiful Françoise d'Aubigné, afterwards famous as Madame de Maintenon, second wife of Louis XIV. He died in Paris on the 6th of October 1660.