Maison de Pierre Corneille à Petit-Couronne

About

The Musée Pierre-Corneille is a museum dedicated to the writer Pierre Corneille, located in Petit-Couronne, near Rouen. Typical Norman manor with its wooden panels and slate core, it served as a "house of the fields" for the playwright.

History: The manor house, "a masure thus bastia of a manager house, barn, estable and bountiful," was bought by Pierre Corneille's father on 7 June 1608 with the vast lands (24 ha of meadows, ploughs, wood-taillis) that depend on it. Serving as a "house of the fields" (term to designate a secondary residence at the time), the manor was reportedly discovered by Pierre Corneille's father "special master of the Waters and Forests of the bailliage of Rouen" during an investigation in the forest of La Londe-Rouvray and would have allowed to keep the children away from the city (especially from Pierre's weak and stupid child) and its epidemics but it is not: it is a purchase to pay the mortgages of an uncle on this property. The playwright's father mistakenly thought that the rental of the land would also provide each of his seven children with a comfortable rent. The writer inherited it in March 1639 and his eldest son sold it in 1686....