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Child Actors on the Paris Stage in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

F. W. J. Hemmings
F. W. J. Hemmings
Affiliation:
F. W. J. Hemmings isEmeritus Professor of French, University of Leicester.
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Extract

Sicut infantes audi nos. This motto, which Nicolas Médard Audinot caused to be emblazoned on the proscenium curtain of his theatre on the Promenades des Remparts (the future Boulevard du Temple), tells us in the first place that, however primitive the shows he put on, he was bent from the start in attracting a rather more cultivated clientèle than the artisan families and small traders who are supposed to have made up the staple of his audience. Only men of some education could have been expected to appreciate the pun (audi nos = Audinot). And only such men could have interpreted the legend, which we may render, a little prolixly perhaps, as: Give us a hearing, remembering we are children. There is the additional point that the Latin word infans meant originally ‘one not yet capable of speech’.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , Spring 1987 , pp. 9 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1987

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References

Notes

1. See Faucheur, Théodore, Histoire du Boulevard du Temple depuis son origine jusqu'à sa démolition (Paris: Dentu, 1863), p. 19.Google Scholar

2. As early as 1688 a certain demoiselle Villiers had opened a theatre in Paris with a company of child actors called Les Petits Comédiens Français. The real Comediens Francais, alert even then for any infringement of their monopoly, denounced her to Louis XIV who promptly had the enterprise closed down.

3. d'Alméras, Henri & d'Estrée, Paul, Les Théâtres libertins au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Daragon, 1905), pp. 340–1.Google Scholar

4. See Pougin, Arthur, Acteurs et actrices d'autrefois: histoire anecdotique des théâtres à Paris depuis trois cents ans (Paris: Juven, 1896), p. 72Google Scholar; and Laplace, Rosalyne, ‘Des théâtres d'enfants au XVIIIe siècle’, Revue d'Histoire du Théatre, vol. XXXII (1980), pp. 25–8.Google Scholar

5. Quoted in Péricaud, Louis, Théâtre des Petits Comédiens de S.A.S. Monseigneur le Comte de Beaujolais (Paris: Jorel, 1909), p. 5.Google Scholar

6. Ibid., pp. 37, 41–2.

7. According to the figures given by Binns, Amanda, ‘Popular theatre and politics in the French Revolution’, Theatre Quarterly, no. 16 (1974–1975), P. 21.Google Scholar

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9. Quoted in Beaulieu, Henri, Les Théâtres du Boulevard du Crime (Paris: Daragon, 1905), pp. 114–15.Google Scholar

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17. Gautier, , Histoire de l'art dramatique en France depuis vingt-cinq ans (Paris: Hetzel, 1858–1859), vol. vi, p. 219.Google Scholarde Vaucanson, Jacques (1709–1782)Google Scholar was celebrated for his ingenuity in constructing automata, of which perhaps the best remembered was the mechanical asp he devised for Marmontel's Cléopâtre; by applying slight pressure, the actress could cause it to rear its head and hiss very audibly before apparently plunging its fangs into her bosom.

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24. Lemonnier, Alphonse, Les Mille et un souvenirs d'un homme de théâtre (Paris: Librairie Molière, 1902), p. 173Google Scholar; the anecdote originally appeared in an article in Le Nain jaune, 14 11 1863.Google Scholar

25. Hervey, , op. cit., p. 103.Google Scholar

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27. Lecomte, L. Henry, Virginie Déjazet d'après ses papiers et sa correspondance (Paris: Librairie Illustrée, n.d.), p. 4.Google Scholar