The anonymous testimony

“As a Lyonnais who knew Mourguet and who often heard his good jokes, I will indicate here the origin of the Guignol theater.

I was still a child when around eighteen hundred and seventeen or eight, my grandmother took me to an enclosure in Les Brotteaux which contained several amusements. We paid two cents for entry, for this price, adults and children enjoyed all kinds of delights. Among other entertainments there was a small theater mounted on four poles, surrounded by painted canvases and connected by a crosspiece at the top. On this primitive pediment was painted a no less naive lyre, crossed by two flageolets.

This theater belonged to Sieur Mourguet who called it his castelet. Hidden behind the canvases, he moved wrist puppets above his head, the main character of which was the two-humped punch. To this classic actor, he had added a kind of accomplice, whose role was similar to the one played now under the name of Gniafron, Guignol’s friend. This last character did not take long to appear on the scene, and to take an active part in the puns and the beatings.

Father Mourguet used to give his puppets names related to their physiognomy or their condition.

The name Gniaffron comes from this character’s profession which is that of cobbler and which in Lyon is called gniaffre or gniaffron. As proof, one of Mourguet’s usual scenes depicted Gniaffron resoling an old shoe. Suddenly several relatives and friends arrived from the countryside, whom Gniaffron celebrated as best he could, in a great outburst of heart and to treat his people with the most hospitable kindness, Gniaffron tore off his cobbler’s apron (his « besanne ») and cut it into a hundred pieces and called his wife. Here, he said to him, cook this in the pan with two sous of Thiouville tallow, it will make double the amount to delight these foreigners who are not from here.

As a token of gratitude, the guests sang a verse in which it was said that of all the gniaffrons (save makers) of rue Bourg Chavin, the most amiable was without a doubt their cousin Gniaffron.

To fill the role of Guignol, Father Mourguet chose a doll with grotesque features and whose eyes looked askance, one larger and more open than the other. This figure had one eye, he called it Guigne-oeil. By corruption they made it Guignol.

The Brotteaux enclosure was closed during the winters, Father Mourguet brought his comic verve to a theater called the crèche, in rue Noire. It was he who created and popularized the very funny role of Father Coquard. He was only employed at this theater where he played with rod puppets. Wrist puppets, like Punch and so many other things, were starting to go out of fashion. The theater was transported to rue Ferrandière; Mourguet followed him there and was employed there for a few more years. He still played during the summer in the establishments that followed one another in Les Brotteaux, such as the roller coasters or the French coasters, but he did not succeed.

Later the crèche at the Joly theater was created on rue Sainte Marie des terreaux by Sieur Joly, who was a painter and who had played on rue Ferrandière with Mourguet. This artist had married the granddaughter of the founder of the crèches, rue Noire and rue Ferrandière, whose name was Brunette. Mademoiselle Joly had a very pretty voice; little pieces were written for her which she recited very well, and verses which she sang to delight. Its success was so great that it led to the downfall of primitive crèches.

This theatrical catastrophe reduced poor Father Mourguet to the necessity of operating his little castle, in winter and summer, outside of Lyon where, moreover, his genre was not appreciated by the ungrateful public. He transported his trestles to the vogues around Lyon, and the Mourguet woman collected from the spectators in the open air. Punchinelle was still the main character, but Guignol was already claiming his future triumphs by supplanting his friend Gniaffron in the supporting roles. Father Mourguet thus obtained a reputation in the suburbs of Lyon which was increased by his son. A little later, after the abdication of his father overwhelmed by old age, young Mourguet left the shuttle for good for wrist puppetry and launched into a dramatic career.

In the beginning, he did not have the verve, the roundness of his father’s playing, but he surpassed him in subtleties, in allusions, in puns. The father improvised everything; the son was studying; it was formed above all by drawing inspiration from ideas collected in the small newspapers of the time that the freedom of the Press had given rise to. It was he who first understood, through an intuition of acrobat genius, the true spirit of Guignol and who gave this role the importance it has had since. The castle had been established under shelters more convenient than the cap of the sky and its success in Vienne, at Rive de Gier, at Givors, at Saint Etienne and especially at Saint Chamond was so great that it decided the two Mourguets to return to their thankless homeland.

This time they settled in a cellar on the door of which were inscribed the words: Café du Caveau; later Mourguet’s successors replaced this brand with that of Café Guignol, which can still be seen near Place de Célestins. »