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Applause for the Wrong Reasons: The Use of Applications for Political Purposes in Paris Theatres, 1780–1830

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

F. W. J. Hemmings
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Extract

John Moore, the Glasgow physician and friend of Tobias Smollett, after attending a few performances at the Théâtre-Fran¸ais during a visit to the French capital in 1779, commented as follows on the surprisingly subversive behaviour of the Parisian parterre at that date: ‘By the emphatic applause they bestow on particular passages of the pieces represented at the theatre, they convey to the monarch the sentiments of the nation respecting the measures of his government.’ Moore gives no precise instances, but it is clear what he is referring to, and there were plenty of other contemporary observers to testify to the growing habit of making applications, and using this method to express opposition to certain government policies which, in the prevalent atmosphere of political repression, it might have been dangerous to contest too openly anywhere else. The theatre auditorium was the ideal place for voicing anonymous criticism with impunity. The guard in the theatre, entrusted with the task of preserving law and order, was powerless to prevent the parterre applying a maxim or simple phrase spoken from the stage to some matter of burning political import, and showing, by their vociferous applause, where exactly their sympathies lay.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1989 , pp. 256 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1989

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References

Notes

1. Moore, , A View of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland and Germany (London: Strahan & Cadell, 3rd revised ed., 1780), I, 90.Google Scholar

2. Favart, C. S., Mémoires et correspondance littéraires, dramatiques et anecdotiques (Paris: Collin, 1808), II, 55.Google Scholar

3. XVII, 205. The writer may have been quoting from memory; in the text as it was published in Collé's Théâtre de société (act I, se. 6) Henri exclaims: ‘Je tombe de mon haut. (Prenant la main du duc de Sully.) Ah! Monsieur de Rosny! comme ils m'ont trompé! les cruelles gens!’

4. Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique (Paris: Buisson, 1912–1913), 2e partie, V, 298–9.Google Scholar

5. ‘Ce que craignait la censure avant tout’, as a recent historian of the period has written, ‘c'était les réactions d'un public extrêmement sensible, intelligent, toujours prompt à saisir la moindre allusion, et à en voir parfois dans des textes dépourvus de toute malice’ (Larthomas, P., Le Théâtre en France au XVIIIe siècle, Paris: P.U.F., 1980, p. 105).Google Scholar

6. Paris Theatre Audiences in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, London: Oxford U.P., 1957, pp. 219–20Google Scholar. Lough quotes in support the opinion of several contemporary witnesses: Sébastien Mercier, Grimod de la Reynière, Restif de la Bretonne.

7. Vertraute Briefe aus Paris geschrieben in den Jahren 1802 und 1803 (Hamburg: Hoffmann, 1804), II, 291. My translation.Google Scholar

8. de Ferrières, C. E., Correspondance inédite, ed Carré, H. (Paris: Armand Colin, 1932), p. 269Google Scholar. In later performances the word ‘rois’ was discreetly changed to ‘lois’.

9. et Martainville, Etienne, Histoire du Théâtre-Français, depuis le commencement de la Révolution jusqu' à la réunion générale (Paris: Barba, 1802), I, 196–7.Google Scholar

10. Pujoulx, J. B., Paris à la fin du XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Mathé, 1801), p. 241.Google Scholar

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12. Mémoires de Madame de Chastenay, 1771–1815, p.p. Roserot, Alphonse (Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1896–1897), II, 45.Google Scholar

13. Shortly after the foundation of the First Republic, all mention of royalty in pre-Revolutionary tragedies was carefully expunged, so that Racine's couplet

Détestables flatteurs, présent le plus funeste

Que puisse faire aux rois la colère céleste

was emended so that the second line ran:

Que puisse faire, hélas! la colère céleste.

Whereupon a wit suggested, as an alternative modification:

Détestables flatteurs, présent le plus funeste

Que… mais lisez Racine et vous saurez le reste.

(Quoted in , E. & de Goncourt, J., Histoire de la société française sous la Révolution, nouvelle édition (Paris: Fasquelle, 1914), p. 310).Google Scholar

14. Viz., the Théâtre-Français, the Théâtre Feydeau (Opéra-Comique), and the Théâtre de l'Impératrice (Odéon).

15. Lettres de Madame de Rémusat, 1804–1815, publiées par son petit-fils Paul de Rémusat (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1881), II, 398–401.Google Scholar

16. Maurice, Charles, Epaves (Paris, 1865), p. 83Google Scholar. Cf. also Copin, Alfred, Etudes dramatiques: Taima et l'Empire (Paris: L. Frizine, 1887), p. 256.Google Scholar

17. Mémoires secrets (London: John Adamson, 1763–1789), XVIII, 104–5.Google Scholar

18. Halévy, Ludovic, Notes et souvenirs (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1889), pp. 125–6.Google Scholar

19. Mémoires de Paul de Kock écrits par lui-même (Paris: Dentu, 1873), pp. 150–2.Google Scholar

20. These were the words used in the Convention to justify the ban; see d'Estrée, Paul, Le Théâtre sous la Terreur (Paris: Emile-Paul, 1913), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

21. Hallays-Dabot, V., Histoire de la censure théâtrale en France (Paris: Dentu, 1862), p. 259.Google Scholar

22. Boufié, Désiré-Marie, Mes souvenirs, 1800–1880 (Paris: Dentu, 1880), pp. 60–5.Google Scholar

23. See my ‘La Claque: une institution contestée’, Revue d'histoire du théâtre, XXXVIII (1986), 293–309.Google Scholar

24. As one instance among many, one could cite Félix Pyat's Cédric le Norvégien, produced at the Odéon in February 1842, where it gave rise to constant audience interventions. A police report dated 3 March complained that the drama ‘abondait en allusions politiques […] avidement saisies par le parterre turbulent du théâtre’ (quoted by Krakovitch, Odile, Hugo censuré. La liberté au théâtre au XIXe siècle (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1985), p. 93).Google Scholar