Let’s start with what’s incontestably true: Molière was a stone-cold baddie. More than a hundred years before the French Revolution, his riotous, scathing satires dared to speak truth to some of the most absolute power in the world. He walked the tightrope of the Sun King’s favor while pulling the Rococo rug out from under hypocrisy, stupidity, sanctimony, and greed. In barely two decades he wrote 35 plays and performed in almost 100. He acted right up to the last minute, hemorrhaging onstage during a performance of The Imaginary Invalid in 1673 and dying a few hours later.
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