When Marseille City Hall expels Pagnol from “My Mother’s Castle”

This article is taken from the Figaro Hors-Série “Pagnol”: discover the life and work of this multi-talented Provençal, playwright, filmmaker, writer… Who enchanted the world with his sunny gaze.

June 15, 2023, Le Figaro exclusively published information whose title sums up the improbable: “Pagnol dismissed from my mother’s castle!” On reflection, however, nothing is so surprising when we think back to the book in which the family of young Marcel was thrown out of the park of the imposing Provençal country house, which they used as a shortcut to the small holiday home of La Treille. Humiliated by the caretaker of the place, the mother, Augustine, would never dare look at the patrician residence again. But we are some one hundred and twenty years away from the unfortunate episode that has become a literary myth. And the Pagnol targeted is the narrator’s grandson: Nicolas Pagnol has been looking after Marcel Pagnol’s artistic work since 2004, as president of…