Molière, in order to please his patron, Monsieur (Monsieur being the honorific for the king's brother Philippe I, Duke of Orléans), who is so enthralled with entertainment and art that he is soon excluded from state affairs, in 1661 writes and plays Dom Garcie de Navarre ou Le Prince jaloux (The Jealous Prince), a heroic comedy derived from a work of Cicognini's.

Two other comedies of the same year are the successful L'École des maris (The School for Husbands) and Les Fâcheux, subtitled Comédie faite pour les divertissements du Roi (a comedy for the King's amusements) because it is performed for the first time during a series of parties that Nicolas Fouquet gives in August at Vaux in honor of Louis, who is already set upon his destruction (his disgrace had on May 4 been secretly decided upon).

These entertainments, a fête rivaled in magnificence by only one or two in French history, lead Jean-Baptiste Colbert to demand the arrest of Fouquet for wasting public money.