It’s the birthday of the great playwright Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, better known as Moliere, born in 1622 in Paris, France, and held to be one of the greatest geniuses of comedy in the western canon. His masterpieces include “Tartuffe; or, The Imposter,” “Don Juan; or, The Feast of Stone,” and “The Misanthrope.”

The young Moliere was supposed to follow in his father’s footsteps as a “furnisher of the royal household,” but instead decided to pursue a career in theatre. (I don’t know how Moliere’s father reacted to this news, but imagine that your teenager has just announced she’s going to become a famous YouTuber instead of going to college.) Moliere joined with others to form a troupe, went in and out of debtor’s prison a couple of times, and finally spent years playing in the provinces. He returned to Paris in 1658 with his own company and won the patronage of Louis XIV’s brother Philippe.

Moliere’s career was marked by constant struggles with competing Parisian theatres and with the Roman Catholic Church, which managed to ban “Tartuffe” for years and “Don Juan” for Moliere’s entire life. Nothing was sacred to Moliere (though he didn’t attack the monarchy that protected him, so I guess something was *sort* of sacred) and he was willing to scandalize audiences by exposing the hypocrisies of the aristocracy. Basically he worked like a dog his entire career, writing 31 of the 85 plays his company put on in 14 years, until he was, well, sick as a dog. (My apologies to dogs. I don’t know that dogs are any harder working or prone to greater sickness than anyone else. Okay, but dogs do work harder than cats. Everyone works harder than cats. I digress.)

On February 17, 1673, Moliere collapsed during a performance of “The Imaginary Invalid,” insisted on finishing out the play, collapsed again afterward, and died that night at the age of 51 without receiving last rites because two priests refused to come and a third was late. (Sigh.) In those days, actors (and YouTube stars) were not given burial in sacred ground, but his widow, Armande Bejart (who had acted in his company), got the king’s permission to have him buried over in the section reserved for unbaptized babies. His remains were upgraded to the museum of French monuments in 1792 and today are in Pere Lachaise Cemetery near Jean de la Fontaine’s remains, which I’m sure makes Moliere feel much better about the whole thing.

Have an appropriately thoughtful Martin Luther King Jr. Day and stay scrupulously honest to the data.