Versailles Ile-de-France France
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Molière's friendship with Jean-Baptiste Lully influences him towards writing his Le Mariage forcé and La Princesse d'Élide (subtitled as Comédie galante mêlée de musique et d'entrées de ballet), written for royal "divertissements" at Versailles.
Tartuffe, ou L'Imposteur is also performed at Versailles, in 1664, and creates the greatest scandal of Molière's artistic career.
Its depiction of the hypocrisy of the dominant classes is taken as an outrage and violently contested.
It also arouses the wrath of the Jansenists and the play is banned.
The king allegedly suggested that Molière suspend performances of Tartuffe; the author rapidly writes Don Juan ou le Festin de Pierre to replace it.
A strange work, derived from a work by Tirso de Molina and rendered in a prose that still seems modern today, it describes the story of an atheist who becomes a religious hypocrite and for this is punished by God.
Premiering on February 15, 1665, this work too is quickly suspended.
The king, demonstrating his protection once again, becomes the new official sponsor of Molière's troupe.
Molière presents L'Amour médecin (Love Doctor or Medical Love) with music by Lully.
Subtitles on this occasion report that the work had been given "par ordre du Roi" (by order of the king), and this work is received much more warmly than its predecessors.
Molière produces Le Misanthrope ou L'Atrabilaire amoureux (The Misanthrope) on June 4, 1666.
Today widely regarded as Molière's most refined masterpiece, the one with the highest moral content, it is little appreciated at its time.
It causes the "conversion" of Donneau de Visé, who becomes fond of his theater, but it is a commercial flop, forcing Molière to immediately write Le médecin malgré lui (The Doctor Despite Himself), a satire against the official sciences.
The Doctor Despite Himself is a success despite a moral treatise by the Prince of Condé, criticizing the theater in general and Molière's in particular.
In several of his plays, Molière depicts the physicians of his day as pompous individuals who speak (poor) Latin to impress others with false erudition, and know only clysters and bleedings as (ineffective) remedies.
The English, in an affair that is to become known as the "Buat Conspiracy," conspire in August 1666 to bring about an Orangist coup d'état, to overthrow the de Witt regime, end the war, and restore the stadtholderate.
The English have engaged, at a low level, Henri Buat, a French officer in the Dutch States Army and part of the retinue of the young Prince of Orange, the "Child of State".
However, in a moment of confusion, Buat, who handles English diplomatic correspondence with the knowledge and consent of de Witt, hands over the wrong letter to the Dutch pensionary, inadvertently exposing the plot and the main plotters.
One of them is Johan Kievit, the corrupt Rotterdam regent who is to play an ignominious role in in 1672 the murder of the de Witt brothers.
The affair, though farcical, serves to strengthen de Witt's hand appreciably against his Orangist opponents, enabling him to tighten his hold on the prince, among others, by removing from the Prince's entourage his beloved governor, his illegitimate uncle, Frederick Nassau de Zuylestein.
This apparently earns de Witt the enduring enmity of the impressionable boy.
The episode also for the moment put paid to attempts to appoint the Prince to the Raad van State.
Molière, after the Mélicerte (December 2, 1666) and the Pastorale comique (January 5, 1667), had tried again to perform a revised Tartuffe in 1667, this time with the name of Panulphe ou L'Imposteur.
As soon as the King leaves Paris for a tour, Lamoignon and the archbishop ban the play. (The King will finally impose respect for Tartuffe a few years later, after he gains more power over the clergy.)
Molière, now ill, writes less.
Le Sicilien ou L'Amour peintre is written for festivities at the castle of Saint-Germain.
Molière follows Le Sicilien ou L'Amour peintre in January 1668 with Amphitryon, obviously inspired by Plautus's version but with allusions to the King's love affairs.
Molière's George Dandin, ou Le mari confondu (The Confounded Husband) had been little appreciated when it premiered in January, but success returns with L'Avare (The Miser), a five-act satirical comedy now very well known.
The play premieres in September 1668 at the Palais Royal in a period when Molière's company is, on the one hand, under considerable establishment pressure to modify its output, but on the other hand, under the protection of Louis XIV himself.
Little is known about the original performance, although it is said that Molière himself played Harpagon, utilizing his by now chronic cough and gait to humorous effect.
First performed on October 14, 1670, it is claimed to be particularly directed against Colbert, the minister who had condemned his old patron Fouquet.