Molière was his close friend and it is rumored that much of the iconoclastic satire of his plays were inspired by Le Vayer's erudite and savage (if carefully hidden) criticism of religious hypocrisy - as expressed in the second version of his masterpiece "Tartuffe" (1667) — which (according to Robert McBride) La Mothe Le Vayer defended in a caustic and anonymous "Lettre sur la comédie de l'Imposteur" (1667) against the religious faction at Louis XIV's court. Michel Foucault used this work as an important material in his famous essay "Governmentality."