Laurent Mourguet (1769-1844)
Discover the life of Laurent Mourguet, creator of Guignol and genius puppeteer…
Laurent Mourguet was born in Lyon on March 3, 1769 in the Saint Nizier district and was baptized in his parish church the same day.
From a family of canuts, he grew up in the family workshop where he learned the trade that he would practice until the age of 26. This will be his only qualification.
In 1788, he married Jeanne Esterelle with whom he had 10 children (from 1790 to 1809). They first lived on rue Saint George where the family workshop was located.
1789 is the revolution. Laurent Mourguet is 20 years old and famine is rife in the streets of Lyon. The family workshop is experiencing difficulties because orders are becoming rarer.
In 1795 he moved to 2 place Boucherie Saint Paul where his 3rd child was born. It was there that he decided at the age of 26 to become a fairground merchant to provide for the needs of his growing family.
Laurent Mourguet obviously has a sense of business. He adapted his sales to the needs of consumers until 1797 when he became a « dentist ». He heals, he fills, he pulls out your most painful teeth.
In 1798, with the aim of attracting crowds to his traveling dental practice, Laurent Mourguet used a puppet show whose main hero was Polichinelle. It was a revelation for him, so he abandoned dentistry and quickly became a full-time puppeteer.
In 1804 Laurent Mourguet at 35 years old. He set up his castelet (small removable theater) in the gardens of Petit Tivoli (brotteaux district, corner of Cours Franklin-Roosevelt and Avenue de Saxe) and joined forces with Father Thomas, an itinerant violinist and singer whom he met 5 years earlier at the fairs.
Father Thomas’ role is of course to attract spectators with his music, but also to interact with Laurent Mourguet’s puppets. The exchanges between the characters are lively, the vocabulary is intended to be popular and the stories told are like Farce. Success was immediate, but our two friends got confused and their first association only lasted one season.
At the end of 1804 and certainly in order to save his show, Laurent Mourguet replaced Father Thomas with a puppet who resembled him in every way; this was the birth of Gnafron.
Laurent Mourguet then moved his castelet to the Jardin Chinois, near the current Place Maréchal Lyautey in the 6th arrondissement of Lyon, while Father Thomas continued to play his music across the street, in the Jardins du Petit Tivoli.
At the end of the 1805 season and taking into account the growing success of his puppets, Laurent Mourguet decided to build his first permanent theater on the ground floor of his place of residence (2 place Saint Paul, Saint Paul district in Lyon) There we play shadow puppets, very fashionable in the 19th century; Polichinelle and Gnafron then perform the 2nd part of the show.
And guess who is back in Laurent Mourguet’s team? Father Thomas of course!
The year is 1808 and Laurent Mourguet is then 39 years old. Over time, he realizes that the public is starting to tire of Polichinelle and that he must reinvent his puppet shows.
Laurent Mourguet is a simple man, of a rather jovial nature who shines with his improvising talents. He now wants to move towards comedy, towards a popular theater that resembles him, towards characters in which the public can recognize themselves, towards situation comedy, towards light intrigues whose outcome is always happy… Laughter and good morals must be on the program.
It was therefore in 1808 that he created the puppet of Guignol, a Gone (child from Lyon) who resembles him, a resourceful man with a big heart.
Laurent Mourguet plays Guignol, Father Thomas plays Gnafron and Polichinelle is definitely put in the closet. Guignol and Gnafron become the best friends in the world and are quickly joined by the puppets of Madelon (wife of Guignol), Toinon (wife of Gnafron), Cadet (the village idiot)…
The Lyon Guignol Theater was born.
Around 1820 Laurent Mourguet was joined by his son (Etienne) then by his daughter (Rose Pierrette) and her husband (Claude-Louis-François Josserand) with whom he gave shows around Lyon.
In 1826, our young troupe opened the « café du caveau » on Place des Célestins which quickly became Guignol’s first permanent café-theater.
Around 1839, assured of his succession, Laurent Mourguet retired and moved to Vienna where he continued to give Guignol shows.
He died at his home on December 30, 1844 and leaves behind Guignol, Gnafron, Madelon, Toinon, the judge, the gendarme and many other characters who continue to bring happiness to our Gones.
First Guignol Café-theater
Know more…
Guignol is an orphan. Jean-Guy Mourguet, last descendant of Laurent Mourguet left us on October 11, 2012. Several generations of puppeteers followed one another until the extinction of a Lyon dynasty to which we owe the Théâtre de Guignol Lyonnais.
Jean-Guy Mourguet also took an active part in this family adventure by directing the Guignol municipal theater in Vieux Lyon.
A resident of the town of Brindas (69), Jean-Guy Mourguet also participated in the creation of the Guignol de Brindas museum-theater to which he bequeathed his personal collection of puppets.
He will thus have contributed to perpetuating this tradition so dear to the inhabitants of Lyon. It will also have allowed us to find in him a bit of the face of Laurent Mourguet. Thank you artist!
