Guignol is a Marionnette French born with Lyon towards 1808.

Its creator Laurent Mourguet belonged to these many Canuts which, put at unemployment by the Revolution, had been reconverted as a stallholder, then in puller of teeth. To attract the customers and to cover the cries of its patients, he amused crowd with his puppets. Having exhausted the Italian repertory (Punchinello), it passed about 1805 to Gnafron, shoe-maker liking the bottle and strong in mouth, before creating Guignol about 1808.

On an impromptu textual basis according to the mood of the marionnettist and the topicality of the day, the spectacle fulfilled a function of gazette, being drawn up while smiling against the injustices which the people of modest means undergo. Puppet was thus corrosive before becoming, in Paris, a spectacle for the children.

Puppet is a symbol of the Lyons traditions and in the parts, one finds Lyons expressions which tend to disappear.

The main characters of the theater of Puppet are:

• the Silk worker Puppet,
• Gnafron, friend of Puppet considered to be amateur of Beaujolais wine
• Madelon: the woman of Puppet,
• Toinon: the woman of Gnafron,
• the gendarme Flageolet,
• Cassandre (owner)
• Mister the Baillif (judge)

The origin of the name of Puppet is discussed. Three principal assumptions were formulated:

- the old expression: it is guignolant for very funny;

- A silk worker named Jean Puppet, having ancestors come from a town of Lombardy: Chignolo ;

- the reference under a comedy in vogue: Nitouche and Guignolet .

The repertory of Puppet was transcribed in many works. But it is especially thanks to Onofrio, magistrate in Lyon, that he reached us. This last published in 1865 then in 1889, two volumes of traditional texts. Curiously, the censure of Napoleon III, by forcing the troops to subject their texts, also allowed the conservation of this oral inheritance.

In 1911 several authors had fun to write parodies of operas or dramas for Guignol. This experiment, particularly picturesque, does not seem to have had continuations.

Other puppets

See also: the Puppets

The term Guignol essaimé out of the region of Lion. It indicates either a puppet, or a person who has fun and amuses the others. Let us quote:

• the Puppets of information is a satirical emission of puppets of the French television channel Canal+.
• In the marine with veil , a puppet indicates a device to stiffen the Mât (or part of this one). It is composed of a rigid triangle perpendicular to the mast, on which come to be pressed two tended cables which ensure rigidity.