1. A general treatment of the subject of the spectator on the stage in French theatre can be found in the following works: Despois, Eugène, Le Théâtre français sous Louis XIV (Paris: Hachette, 1874)Google Scholar; Jullien, Adolphe, Les Spectateurs sur le théâtre (Paris: Detaille, 1875)Google Scholar; Bapst, Germain, Essai sur l'histoire du théâtre, la mise en scène, le décor, le costume, l'architecture, l'éclairage, l'hygiène (Paris: Lahure, 1893)Google Scholar; Deierkauf-Holsboer, Wilma, Histoire de la mise en scène dans le théâtre français de 1600 à 1657 (Paris: Droz, 1933)Google Scholar; Lough, John, Paris Theatre Audiences in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London: Oxford University Press, 1957)Google Scholar; Lagrave, Henri, Le Théâtre et le public à Paris de 1715 à 1750 (Paris: Klincksieck, 1972)Google Scholar; and Peyronnet, Pierre, La Mise en scène au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Nizet, 1974).Google Scholar Information regarding the number of spectators permitted on the stage by Molière is offered by the so-called Registre d'Hubert for 1672–3, admirably edited and annotated by Chevalley, Sylvie, Revue d'Histoire du Théâtre, 1973, nos 1 and 2.Google Scholar

2. Make way for the mailman! (This translation, and all the others in this article, are mine.)

3. The Childéric anecdote appears in the Dictionnaire portatif historique et littéraire des théâtres (Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1970, reprint of a 1763 edition), pp. 106–7. Sources for the other two anecdotes are, respectively, Lemazurier, Pierre-David, Galérie historique des acteurs du Théâtre Français, depuis 1600 jusqu'à nos jours (Paris, Chaumont, 1810), II, 195–6Google Scholar, and Bonnassies, Jules, La Comédie Française, histoire administrative, (1658–1757), (Paris: Didier, 1874), pp. 331–2.Google Scholar

4. According to Bapst, , p. 373Google Scholar, neither the Guénégaud, nor the Hôtel de Bourgogne, nor the Marais Theatre had balustrades ‘au milieu du grand siècle’. This opinion is borne out by a number of contemporaneous illustrations, most notably the 1666 series of Le Pautre engravings depicting scenes from Brécourt's Noce de village (Bibliothèque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes, Ed 42a).

5. An engraving serving as frontispiece to the first edition of Boursault, 's Les Fables d'Esope very clearly depicts this configuration of benches (Paris: T. Girard, 1690).Google Scholar Analysis of appropriate figures in the unpublished registers of the Guénégaud Theatre for 1673–86 suggests that that theatre had a similar arrangement. (My article on that subject will appear in a future issue of the Revue d'Histoire du Théâtre.)

6. The 1686 performance in question was that of Alcibiade on February 10. On several other occasions the Comédie Française sold nearly as many stage tickets. However, it is my theory, based on evidence in the Guénégaud registers, that 12 stage boxes, probably holding 96 people, usually accounted for most of the stage ticket sales. (This theory is set forth in detail in the article mentioned in the preceding note.) Unfortunately, after 1686 the Comédie Française changed the format of its registers and no longer recorded specific information about the sale of these tickets.

7. The first three documents all bear April, 1689 dates and are in the collectíon of the Minutier Central des Notaires de Paris (call number VI, 589). They will be published as part of an article on the balustrade to appear in the Revue d'Histoire du Théâtre. The La Grange material consists of two pages from a special account book in which the actor kept track of expenditures for the new theatre. Its title page bears the inscription ‘Depenses de l'Etablissement par Monsieur de la Grange’, and it covers the period from 20 June 1687 to 17 Nov. 1691. Held by the Archives of the Comédie Française (carton 171), the account book's existence was kindly indicated to me by Mme Sylvie Chevalley who, in conjunction with Mme Madeleine Jurgens, is preparing an annotated edition of it.

8. The frontispiece to the 1690 edition of Les Fables d'Esope has already been referred to. The elevation appears in Blondel, Jacques-François, Architecture françoise, II (Paris: C. A. Jombert, 1754), livre III, plate 164.Google Scholar

9. The actual length of the installed balustrade as revealed by the iron-worker's receipt (4.25 toises or 8.28 metres on each side of the stage), taken in conjunction with the Esope engraving, suggests this arrangement. A detailed discussion will appear in the balustrade article mentioned in an earlier note.

10. The word théâtre in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was used in the same sense as the words scène or plateau today. Furetière's 1690 Dictionnaire universel thus shows théâtre signifying not only the room in which performances took place, or the troupe of actors, but ‘aussi … la Scene où representent les Acteurs’.

11. This transcription of règlements intérieurs passed in 1697 appears in Bonnassies, p. 125. (Translation: At the bottom of the little staircase, where the door leading to beneath the stage is located, a strong partition will be constructed to prevent the possibility of one's mounting by surprise to the green-rooms and to the stage via the little courtyard, as has happened several times, this abuse not being preventable except by this means.)

12. Bonnassies, , p. 122.Google Scholar (Translation: The usherette at the entrance to the stage will likewise not allow anyone to enter without a proper ticket, except for persons included in the Stage List, and will not allow any children of actors or supernumeraries to place themselves their either, under any pretext whatever.) The item concerning control of non-paying spectators appeared routinely in Comédie FrançAise by-laws. Installation of a cloison forte, however, was not proposed until 1697. It would be tempting to assume that the need for a special partition at the Comédie Française was related to additional traffic resulting from the ouster of the Comédie Italienne from Paris that same year. This, however, does not appear to have been the case: drafting of the 1697 by-laws was completed on 22 April (Bonnassies, , p. 110)Google Scholar, whereas the Comédie Italienne was not ordered into exile until 13 May.

13. The feuille d'assemblée from which this passage is taken is dated 20 Jan. 1698 and is in the collection of the Archives of the Comédie Française. It will be published in a future issue of the Revue d'Histoire du Théâtre. (Translation of the excerpt cited above: … in order to prevent the confusion of persons mingling on the stage with the actors who are performing the play, which obliterates all its beauty and causes the actors an inconvenience so great that it becomes impossible to perform the play in its perfection.)

14. Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, 138 450 t. 22, no. 46. (Translation: outside the enclosures of the balustrades placed [on the stage] to keep the spectators seated there, and separated from the actors.)

15. Barlow, Graham, ‘The Hôtel de Bourgogne According to Sir James Thornhill’, Théâtre Research International, I. no. 2 (1975), pp. 86–98.Google Scholar Plate II is a reproduction of the sketch in question. Mr. Barlow does not mention the balustrades in his article; however, when this interpretation of the sketch was pointed out to him in private correspondence, he agreed that a balustrade was indeed depicted.

16. Bibliothèque Nationale, Salle des Manuscrits, ff9236, p. 84. The letter is dated 28 Nov. (Translation: those who make noise or stand outside the enclosures of the balustrades … their names and titles.)

17. ibid. (Translation: It is absolutely necessary that no more stage tickets be distributed than there is capacity within the enclosures formed by the balustrades, for when these two enclosures are entirely filled, if more people arrive on the stage, it is necessary either to make them leave or to permit them to stand outside the enclosures.)

18. ibid. (Translation: it would be rather harsh, and even impossible, to make them leave by force, particularly when they are persons of quality … by saying at the door that the stage is full and that there are no more tickets, no one will have cause to complain.)

19. ibid., p. 83, letter dated 21 Dec.

20. Barbier, Edmond-Jean-François, Chronique de la Régence et du règne de Louis XV (1718–1763), or Journal de Barbier (Paris: Charpentier, 1857), VII, 163.Google Scholar (Translation: a large number of nobles and young men often went onto the stage without having a seat.)

21. Blondel, , II, 33.Google Scholar (Translation: No doubt the taste the French nation has developed for the theatre we are describing, because of the excellence of our dramas as well as the superiority of the actors, is the reason the Comédie Française got rid of their machines, that theatre having become much too small for the number of spectators; which fact subsequently led them to expand the number of seats with those benches placed on the stage.)

22. This arrangement is depicted quite clearly by the ‘Plan du premier étage’ in Blondel, II, plate 162.

23. The dimensions are given by Blondel, , II, 33.Google Scholar (Translation: reduced to 15 feet [4.875 metres, one pied having been equal to 0.325 metres] across the front, and to 11 [3.575 metres] at its opposite end.) The seating capacity of the stage has been calculated by Lagrave, , pp. 79–81.Google Scholar

24. Barbier, , VII, 161–2.Google Scholar (Translation: there was added, along the outside of the balustrade, yet another row of benches, and, besides that, there were another fifty persons standing, without seats, at the back of the stage, forming a circle.)

25. To the 140 places of the permanent benches, I have added 28 places for the extra benches (Lagrave calculates 14 places for the first bench inside the balustrade so I have assumed the same for the bench just outside the balustrade), and 50 standees, for a total of 218. When one adds the 108 seats in the stage boxes, as calculated by Lagrave, one arrives at a possible total of some 326 spectators behind the curtain of the Comédie Française!

26. Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, N.F. 35 380, t. 117, no. 65. (Translation: His Majesty.. likewise forbids, under the same penalty, persons of whatever standing or rank, from stopping in the wings that serve as entries to the stage of the Comédie, and [from standing] outside the enclosures of the balustrades placed there to keep spectators seated and separated from the actors, in order that the latter be able to give their performances with more decorum and to the greater satisfaction of the public.)

27. I have found ordinances referring specifically to the stage, as distinguished from ordinances having to do with general misconduct in theatres, for the following dates: 18 May 1716; 10 April 1720; 16 Nov. 1720; 24 Nov. 1722; 11 Jan. 1725; 22 June 1725; 17 Jan. 1726; 23 Jan. 1728; 20 July 1728; 7 Dec. 1728; 1 Feb. 1739; 20 Jan. 1741; 12 Jan. 1742; 15 Jan. 1742; 2 Feb. 1745; 10 April 1747; 7 May 1749; 25 April 1751; 29 Nov. 1757. These ordinances can be read variously at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Salle des Manuscrits (Fonds de la Mare, ff21625, pp. 243, 245, 247, 248, 249, 252, 254, 256, 258, 337) and at the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris (138 450: t. 22, no. 46; t. 33, no. 4; t. 73, no. 74 and N.F. 35 380; t. 115, no. 14; t. 117, no. 65; t. 136, no. 25; t. 170, no. 41; t. 174, no. 62; t. 172, no. 31).

28. Reiterated was the prohibition ‘à toutes personnes de s'arrêter dans les coulisses qui servent d'entrées aux théâtres des deux Comédies, et hors l'enceinte des balustrades qui y sont posées’. (Bibliothèque Historique, N.F. 35 380: t. 175, no. 176.)

29. The 1769 ordinance, dated 24 Dec, is reproduced in Des Essarts, Moyne, dit Nicolas-Toussaint le, Les trois théâtres de Paris, ou Abrégé historique de l'établissement de la Comédie Française, de la Comédie Italienne et de l'Opéra (Paris: Lacombe, 1777), pp. 150–1.Google Scholar It is always possible that a typographical error crept into the reproduction of the date of this ordinance. It is more likely, however, that royal printers, when directed to produce a new batch of theatre ordinances, merely pulled out an old bed of type, changed the date, and proceeded to reprint without rereading. This supposition is supported by the fact that although the Comédie Italienne was banned from Paris between 1697 and 1716, ordinances issued on 12 Feb. 1698, 11 Nov. 1699 and 11 April 1701 all refer to that troupe. (Bibliothèque Nationale, Réserve, G.F. 15(217) 1698, and Salle des Manuscrits, Fonds de la Mare, ff21625, pp. 241–2.)

30. Indeed, nostalgia for the old days was already being expressed as early as the mid-eighteenth century. Writing to Mme Riccoboni in 1758, Diderot laments: ‘Il y a quinze ans que nos théâtres étoient des lieux de tumulte. Les têtes les plus froides s'échauffoient en y entrant, et les hommes sensés y partageoient plus ou moins le transport des fous … Aujourd'hui, on arrive froids, on écoute froids, on sort froids, et je ne sçais où l'on va. Ces fusiliers insolens préposés à droite et à gauche pour tempérer les transports de mon admiration, de ma sensibilité et de ma joie, et qui font de nos théâtres des endroits plus tranquilles et plus décents que nos temples, me choquent singulièrement.’ (Correspondance. ed. Roth, Georges, II [Paris: Ed. de Minuit, 1956], pp. 92–3.)Google Scholar

31. A partial discussion of comparative revenues can be found in Lough, pp. 108–11.

32. The niceties of this transaction are explained by Berret, Paul, ‘Comment la scène du théâtre du XVllle siècle a élé débarrassée de la Présence des gentilshommes’, Revue d'Histoire Littéraire de la France, 1901, pp. 456–9.Google Scholar