What years did Moliere live?
Paris in the 17th century
In 1661, Moliere moved his company into the theater built by Cardinal Richelieu at the Palais-Royal. After the death of Moliere in 1673, the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully expelled Moliere's actors from the theater and used it for performances of operas. Chased from their home, the actors of Moliere moved to a different theater, called La Couteillle, on the modern rue Jacques-Callot, where they merged with their old rivals, the company of the Hôtel de Bourgogne. In 1680, the new company was officially chartered by the King as the "Comédiens de Roi", which became known as the Comédie-Française. In 1689, they were forced to depart because of complaints that the actors were a bad influence on the neighboring noble students of the Collège des Quatre-Nations. They moved further south on the left bank to the modern rue de l'Ancienne-Comédie, where they remained until 1770, before moving back to their present home at the Palais-Royal between 1786 and 1790.
18th-century French literature
The great French playwrights of the 17th century, Molière, Racine and Corneille, continued to exert a great influence on the Comédie-Française, but new life was brought into French theater by the tragedies of Voltaire, which introduced modern themes while keeping the classical forms of the alexandrine, as in the play "Zaïre" in 1732, and "The Fanaticism of Mohamet" in 1741, both of which enjoyed great success. Nonetheless, royal censorship was still active in the theater under King Louis XV and Louis XVI, and, despite his popularity, Beaumarchais had great difficulty getting his play "The Marriage of Figaro" staged in Paris, because of its political message.