Comédie Française

The Comédie-Française wears a distinct, curved facade that hugs the corner of the Palais-Royal like a stone amphitheater. King Louis the Fourteenth founded this company in sixteen eighty, merging two competing troupes into one royal house. The actors here live under a rigid, centuries-old charter that gives them a vote on everything from the choice of plays to the distribution of profits. Molière remains the company’s patron saint, even though he died years before the troupe officially took this name.