Molière, 6e arrondissement

42 rue Mazarine. The game or sport of paume was a kind of precursor to tennis, and there were over 200 such rooms in Paris in the sixteenth century. In the seventeenth century these rooms were hired out to itinerant theatre troupes. Molière was about twenty-one at the time he rented the room which stood here:

'ICI S'ÉLEVAIT

LE JEU DE PAUME

DES MESTAYERS

OÚ LA TROUPE DE MOLIÈRE

OUVRIT

EN DÉCEMBRE 1643

L'ILLUSTRE THÉÀTRE'