On the strength of that piece, Molière received royal authorization to install his company at the theater of the Petit-Bourbon, near the Louvre in Paris. Although Molière continued to act, he soon discovered that his greatest talent lay in writing comedies and farces. His first comedy of manners, Les Precieuses ridicules (The Ridiculous Bluestockings) opened in November 1659 and made his fortune. A string of successes followed, including L’École des maris (The School for Husbands, 1661), L’École des femmes (The School for Wives, 1662), Le Tartuffe ou l’Hypocrite (Tartuffe, or the Hypocrite, 1664), and Le Misanthrope ou L’Atrabilaire amoureux (The Misanthrope, or The Irritable Lover, 1666). While darker in tone than some of Molière’s earlier comedies, The Misanthrope is often considered Molière’s masterpiece, satirizing not merely the uncompromising rigidity of the title figure but the shallowness and artificiality of Parisian high society.
The court of Louis XIV. During the sixteenth century, the fortunes of the French nobility had undergone a sharp decline. The influx of gold and silver from New World mines produced a monetary revolution throughout Europe. Prices rose sharply, sometimes by as much as 400 percent (Lough, p.
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