In 1665 the king appointed Molière valet du roi at a salary of a thousand livres, subsidised the company to the amount of seven thousand livres a year, and they were thenceforth known as the “Troupe du Roi.” Free from pecuniary anxiety, the great dramatist wrote his masterpieces, Le Misanthrope, Tartuffe, L’Avare, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, and Les Femmes Savantes.
In 1673, after Molière’s death, the Troupe du Roi joined the players of the Marais and rented the famous Théâtre Guénégaud in the old Tennis Court of La Bouteille which had been fitted up for the first performances of French opera in 1671-1672. The united companies played there until 1680, when the long-standing jealousy which had existed between the Troupe du Roi and the players of the Hôtel de Bourgogne was finally dissipated by the fusion of the two companies to form the Comédie Française. For nine years the famous Comédie used the Théâtre Guénégaud, whose site may be seen marked with an inscription at 42 Rue Mazarine. In 1689 the players were evicted from the Théâtre Guénégaud, owing to the machinations of the Jansenists at the Collége Mazarin, and rented the Tennis Court de l’Etoile near the Boulevard St. Germain, now No. 14 Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie, which they opened on 18th April 1689 by a performance of Phèdre and Le Médecin malgré lui. Here the Comédie Française remained until 1770. In 1781 they were playing at the Théâtre de la Nation (now Odéon.)[178] In 1787 a theatre was built in the Rue Richelieu for the Variétés Amusantes, or the Palais Variétés, where the new Théâtre Français[179] now stands, a little to the west of Richelieu’s theatre of the Palais Cardinal, whose site is indicated by an inscription at the corner of the Rues de Valois and St. Honoré.
Soon the passions evoked by the Revolutionary movement were felt on the boards, and the staid old Comédie Française was rent by rival factions. The performance of Chenier’s patriotic tragedy, Charles IX., on 4th November 1789, was made a political demonstration, and the pit acclaimed Talma with frantic applause as he created the rôle of Charles IX., and the days of St. Bartholomew were acted on the stage. The bishops tried to stop the performances, and priests refused absolution to those of their penitents who went to see them. The Royalists among the Comedians replied by playing a loyalist repertory, Cinna and Athalie, amid shouts from the pit for William Tell and the Death of Cæsar, and Molière’s famous house became an arena where political factions strove for mastery. Men went to the theatre armed as to a battle. Every couplet fired the passions of the audience, the boxes crying, “Vive le roi!” to be answered by the hoarse voices of the pit, “Vive la nation!” Shouts were raised for the busts of Voltaire and of Brutus: they were brought from the foyer and placed on the stage. The very kings of shreds and patches on the boards came to blows and the Roman toga concealed a poignard. For a time “idolatry” triumphed at the Nation, but Talma and the patriots at length won. A reconciliation was effected, and at a performance of the Taking of the Bastille, on 8th January 1791, Talma addressed the audience saying that they had composed their differences. Naudet, the Royalist champion, was recalcitrant, and amid furious shouts from the pit, “On your knees, citizen!” at length gave way, embraced Talma with ill-grace, and on the ensuing nights the Revolutionary repertory, The Conquest of Liberty, Rome Saved, and Brutus held the boards. The court took their revenge at the opera where the boxes called for the airs, “O Richard, O mon roi,” and “Règne sur un peuple fidèle,” while the king, queen and dauphin appeared in the box amid shouts of “Vive le roi!” On 13th January of the same year the restrictions on the opening of playhouses were revoked, and by November no less than seventy-eight theatres were registered on the books of the Hôtel de Ville. The Théâtre Français became the Théâtre de la Republique, and during the early months of ’93, when the fate of the monarchy hung in the balance, the most popular piece was Catherine, or The Farmer’s Fair Wife (La belle Fermière). Fénelon, a new tragedy, was often played, and on 6th February citizen Talma acted Othello for his benefit performance.
In the stormy year of 1830, when the July Revolution made an end for ever of the Bourbon cause in France, the Comédie Française was again a scene of fierce and bitter strife. Hernani, a drama in verse, had been accepted from the pen of Victor Hugo, the brilliant and exuberant master of a new Romantic school of poets, who had determined to emancipate themselves from the traditions, which had long since hardened into literary dogmas, of the Classical school of the siècle de Louis Quatorze. On the night of the first performance each side, Romanticists and Classicists, had packed the theatre with their partisans, and the air was charged with feeling. The curtain rose, but less than two lines were uttered before the pent-up passions of the audience burst forth:—
“Dona Josefa—‘Serait-ce déjà lui? C’est bien à l’escalier
Dérobé——’”