ABSTRACT
In early seventeenth-century France it was the strict and forceful governance of Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642) that led to the creation of an absolute monarchy. The Cardinal had a defining influence on French political and intellectual life; he founded the French Academy and organized the French political structure. Almost single-handedly Richelieu paved the way for the exorbitant throne of Louis XIV whose enormous court at the Louvre and in Versaille set the stage for an affected tone of the aristocracy, while the church remained Pietistic, dogmatic, and dominant. But French theater is also indebted to the Cardinal since he helped transform the Parisian stage from leading a dilettante and pitiful existence (as well as being a literary disaster) to being a rich, innovative, and talented artistic environment of which Molière is a glorious example.1
