With Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670), Jean-Baptiste Molière and Jean- Baptiste Lully created a masterwork of musical comedy. This was the ninth collaboration of their seven-year association, and Le Bourgeois gentilhomme became by far their most popular work - one that remained among Louis XIV's favourite entertainments throughout his life. This comédie-ballet, glowing with comic inspiration, proved 'les deux grands Baptistes' (as Mme de Sévigné called them) to be simply the best team of comic collaborators before Mozart and da Ponte. In fact, it was for Le Bourgeois gentilhomme that Molière coined the term comédie-ballet.

Le Bourgeois gentilhomme also marked a new direction in the genre of comédie-ballet. The early comédies-ballets were intended for court fêtes in which the King and his courtiers would participate as dancers in the intermèdes [musical interludes]. Louis XIV had performed a variety of colourful and exotic roles in these early works - including those of gypsy (Le Mariage forcé), peasant (La Pastorale comique) and Moor (Le Sicilien). But after the King's retirement from the stage with Les Amants magnifiques (where he was to portray Neptune in the first intermède, and Apollo in the last) the genre broke with tradition. Le Bourgeois gentilhomme was the first wholly professional comédie-ballet in which noble amateurs did not participate.

As with many of the earlier comédies-ballets, Louis XIV had a hand in selecting the subject matter. The visit of an envoy, Suleïman Aga, from November 1669 until May 1670 provided the comic inspiration for the central musical episode. This diplomat, charged with repairing diplomatic relations between France and the Ottoman Empire, proved a difficult personality.