Aldridge's troupe never performed in Paris. The arrangements that he purportedly had made with the theater at Porte-Saint-Martin simply did not materialize. This may have been because a new melodrama, Les nuits de la Seine by Marc Fournier, director of that theater, had opened there on June 12 with such success that Fornier had decided to extend its run through the rest of the summer and part of the fall. This must have been a great disappointment for Aldridge, for the theater at Porte-Saint-Martin, located at the site of the former Opera House, was reputed to be “le premier des théâtres de drame” in Paris and one of its largest, seating about two thousand spectators. It would have been a splendid place to launch his tour.

As an alternative, he chose to start his campaign at the smaller, younger Théâtre Royal des Galeries Saint-Hubert in Brussels, a playhouse known for light comedies, dramas, operas, and especially comic operas, both French and Italian. This theater also occasionally featured plays put on by local Flemish dramatic societies as well as performances by visiting French troupes, Italian singers, and Spanish dancers. Aldridge's company may have been the first to perform there in English.

One might ask why Aldridge chose Brussels as the starting point of his first Continental tour. The answer appears to be, as one of the Belgian newspapers speculated, that he “comes to be tested by a French public before venturing into Paris.” In addition, Aldridge may have felt a small connection to Belgium because King Leopold I had attended one of his performances many years before. On a Doncaster playbill dated March 1, 1841, “His Majesty Leopold I, King of Belgium” is listed among more than one hundred “distinguished Patrons” who had seen Aldridge perform earlier in Great Britain or Ireland.