Moliere Fountain - rather than a full fountain, and a monument to the great playwright. He stands at the corner of Molière and Richelieu, near the theater Comedie Francaise, in which comedian playing and for which he wrote, and in front of the house where he lived and died. Moliere became ill on stage during the performance "The Imaginary Invalid", in which he played Argan. From the Comedie Francaise was brought here, in the fortieth house down the street Richelieu, where he died a few hours later.

Fountain huge - six and a half meters wide and sixteen in height, the size of a house, the end of which he closes. We put it in 1844 at the insistence of Joseph Renier, a member of the partnership actors Comedie Francaise, where the place in a small area cleared. There's going to put a fountain with some allegorical figure, but Regnier wrote a letter to the prefect of the Seine with a proposal to perpetuate the memory of Moliere, raise funds for national subscription. So they did, and it was the first time in France that people gave money for a monument to a civilian. I designed the monument architect Louis Visconti (among his other famous projects - Napoleon's tomb and the fountain of Saint-Sulpice). Engraver Francois Augustin stake fulfilled medal on the opening of the fountain, a copy of which is stored in the Carnavalet Museum.

Monument came spectacular and elegant. The portico, under the imposing arch on four Corinthian columns, sits a bronze work of Moliere Bernard Gabriel Serra. Black statue of contrasts sharply with the white marble pedestal, both sides of which are female figures by sculptor Jean-Jacques Pradier. On the right hand of Moliere - Serious Comedy, on the left - Light Comedy; Both look at the playwright and are holding scrolls with a list of Moliere's plays. At the bottom of the pedestal - three mascarons in the form of lions' heads, from the mouths of water poured into a shallow and not immediately noticeable pool.

Moliere depicted sitting - is clearly at work, but perhaps there is also an allusion to the circumstances of the death, when he became ill on stage, he was just in a chair (which is still officially kept in the theater). He sits heavily, heavily, coat unbuttoned, his face thoughtfully. From the height of the fountain Moliere like looking at your house, and a memorial plaque on the wall.