Tabarin

Tabarin was the street name assumed by the most famous of the Parisian street charlatans, Anthoine Girard (c. 1584 – August 16, 1633), who amused his audiences in the Place Dauphine by farcical dialogue with his brother Philippe (as Mondor), with whom he reaped a golden harvest by the sale of quack medicines for several years after 1618. Street theatre was popular theatre, on an improvised stage with a curtain backdrop, to the music of a hurdy-gurdy and a set of viols. More formal contemporary performances were confined to the royal court or to the Hotel de Bourgogne, overseen by the medieval guild that had the monopoly of theatrical performances in Paris.

A contemporary woodcut shows Tabarin in the dress of a clown, but with a gallant moustache and pointed beard, carrying a wooden sword, like his distant puppet descendant Mr. Punch, — which would trip him up— and wearing a soft grey felt hat capable of assuming countless amusing shapes in his deft fingers. ''Tabarin'' from French ''tabard'' denotes a short cloak of the kind the ''commedia dell'arte'' figure Scaramouche wears.

In more elaborate weekly performances others appeared, notably his wife. In these he based his bawdy jokes on the stock situations of ''commedia dell'arte'' troupes, which were amusing the French court at the time, brought up-to-date for Parisians by running banter of topical allusions and knowing local jokes, based on his original gifts for improvisation. The Girard brothers retired about 1628, purchased a ''seigneurie'' and lived out their retirement as country gentlemen near Orléans