Célimène et le Cardinal

Molière's The Misanthrope ends with Alceste, "an enemy of humankind," departing for "a secluded place / where one has the freedom to be a man of honor." He renounces Célimène, a coquettish young widow who cannot bring herself "to renounce the world before growing old." Thus the two lovers part.

Twenty years later, they meet again.

Célimène married a bourgeois man with whom she had four children. Alceste became a Cardinal, wielding considerable power, which he intends to use to impose his worldview on the woman he still loves. But Célimène is not about to submit…