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_. [Illustration: MILLET. THE BINDERS.] 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.