In 1793, the Convention decided to control what was seen on stage. The play was based on an epistolary novel written by English writer Samuel Richardson in 1740. For example, you note that Salle Richelieu could only put on comedies, so there would be no further risk of seditious political comment. However, one rule that patrons were supposed to observe involved theatre boxes that were let. As the coats had in reality not been put on, but only thrown over the shoulders, so in less than five minutes they were again thrown off. When the 1700s began, Paris was divided into twenty quarters and there were no dwelling numbers on any houses. Nobles at court balls were expected to move with a grace that reflected their superiority over common people. Théâtre Comédie-Française late 18th century. A sedan with wheels, known in Paris as a brouette, is pulled through the streets in the same way as a rickshaw in the east today. Paris Gamblers: Gaming in 18th-Century France Players of backgammon, bridge, and bingo might feel a keen camaraderie with the prosperous Parisians of the 1700s whose sumptuous world is brought to life in the exhibition Paris: Life & Luxury. Although many decried it as an eyesore on the city's horizon when it … For example, one person noted that “he passed three numbers 42 in Rue Saint-Denis before he came to the 42 that he wanted.”[4]. Blucher’s forces arrived in the end to give the British the victory against Napoleon. After further scrutiny by the censor the piece was played in September of 1783 to an audience that included members of the Royal Family, and although the censor still refused to license it as a public performance, the king personally authorized its production. Its new career was a short one. She faced more problems when Napoleon’s decree of 1806 ordered her company to leave the Théâtre du Palais-Royal to make room for a company at the Théâtre-Français. After much clamour, the desire was apparently complied with, and the performance resumed. La Belle Assemblée remarked on it in 1806: “The Theatres at Paris are lighted by means of a large circular chandelier, suspended from the ceiling; and illuminated by double, or triple circle of patent lamps. It also failed. As there was no rhyme or reason related to dwelling numbers between sections, the Parisian numbering scheme seemed strange to visitors. It was “shut up” and its managements appropriately dealt with according to the law. Under Talma, the Republicans established a new theatre named “Théâtre de la République” located at today’s present site. The Paris police tolerates Kreenfelt’s work in the night that is peered at suspiciously by the Parisians; Kreenfelt will continue it until the end of the Ancien Régime using the numbers in his almanac.”[2]. As dwelling numbers became more common a new problem appeared. Instead there are about 140 theatres or venues that offer entertainment ranging from stage productions and historical reconstructions to musicals and much more. While not in English, this video gives a hint of what it might be like in that bubble, walking through a part of Paris in the 1700s. Music and dancing was certainly different—in Paris during the late 1700s the waltz was considered crude and vulgar, but it was the epitome of elegance in mid-1800s Vienna—especially compared to the Charleston in 1920s Chicago or the Twist in mid-1960s Detroit. Ten years later, when the French Revolution began, there was no clear scheme as to how to assign dwelling numbers. Ancien Regime Paris was the epicentre of European style. Bondholders in both France and in the Netherlands ended up receiving new bonds worth 1/3 of the value of the pre-revolutionary bonds imposing large losses on bondholders. Reconstruction of the theater in 1808 was designed by Jean Chalgrin, the same architect of the Arc de Triomphe, and it was then officially called the Théâtre de l’Impératrice, but everyone continued to call it the Odéon, which burned in 1818. * *My thanks to author Lauren Willig, whose Facebook post I stole it from. November 22 – The Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) type pinnace founders en route to Basra from Bombay during a storm. It then opened at the Odéon on 27 April 1784 under the title of La Folle Journée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro. Audiences consequently fall insensibly into their proper stations. Courtesy of Wikipedia. The public, therefore, having the choice, will naturally prefer the particular species of performance best adapted to their taste and understanding. Another method to get around Paris without getting lost involved its famous street lanterns. It was placed in the garden of the former Hôtel de Condé and originally intended to house the Comédie Française, but they preferred to stay at the Théâtre-Français in the Palais Royal. There was also a rule about gentleman wearing coats. Moreover, there are still productions performing Beaumarchais’ famous La Folle Journée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro that was so popular when it first opened in 1784. To make his street directory more efficient, Kreenfelt needs a system of homes addressing; at first he uses the numbers of the street lamps, but finally he has the idea to introduce numbering by himself. It could be unstable and dangerous. It made sense and it brought order to Paris. Then came a warning from the Committee of Public Safety. For instance, none of them require a gentleman to wear a suit coat. During the heat of the battle, one of the enemy, after having discharged a tremendous artillery of oaths at the audience, followed it up by a parley, which in the English language set them all completely at defiance. I must say.. that the Parisian theatres operated using a code of laws seems overdoing it, doesn’t it? Today, the Hotel d’ Angleterre, found in the Saint-Germain-des-Pres district, offers a lavish yet intimate setting that still transports visitors back to the late 1700s. Unique histories from the 18th and 19th centuries, Excerpt of a BBC interview with Geri on May 1, 2017, Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), View 18thcand19thc’s profile on Instagram, View 117631667933120811735’s profile on Google+, Marie Antoinette’s Confidante: The Rise and Fall of the Princesse de Lamballe, Napoleon’s Downfall: Madame Récamier and Her Battle With the Emperor, Jane Austen’s Cousin: The Outlandish Contess De Feuillide, The Beecher-Tilton Scandal of 1875: A Shocking Event, Being a Jane Austen Sibling: Her Brothers and Sister, Tompkins Square Park Riot of 1874: The Workingmen’s Fight, Ferris Wheel: The 1800s Invention and Its Inventor, Children of Marie Antoinette: A Brief History of Each. As the video shows, Paris of 1739 was quite different from the capital city today. Scene from the Théâtre du Vaudeville in 1830. They are what make Paris so distinctive: the grand, wide boulevards that march in straight lines through the city, lined with bustling cafés and tempting patisseries. At the local level, a dwelling on a street was easy to find as dwellings often had a plaque attached, although sometimes there might be several dwellings with the same name. On September 24, 1700, The Post Boy reported the recent disappearance of a female servant: “Sharlot Bragg, Servant to Mr. John Woodruff, Peter-street, Westminster, aged about 22 years… [who] wears a brown Stuff Manto [wool mantua] lined with printed Callicoe flowered red, and a dark Damask Pettycoat [sic]…has absented herself from her Master much longer than Leave given…” Its founders were Pierre-Antoine-Augustin de Piis (dramatist and man of letters) and Pierre-Yves Barré (a vaudeville performer and songwriter). So, dwelling names continued to function as the primary way for people to obtain directions or find locations, and this method was used into the 1700s. However, despite his love for the theatre, Napoleon saw it as a political tool that he could wield and therefore decided to limit the number of theatres with a decree that was passed on 8 June 1806  limiting Parisian theatres to twelve. Whether alcohol was involved is unclear, but the alleged event happened on 8 August 1802 at the opera and was reported as follows: “The theatre being very full, and the weather uncommonly hot, two gentlemen in the centre boxes were of a sudden observed to be sitting without coats! Four of these were considered grand theatres and four secondary theatres. Because Gobelins could work only on orders from the court, another factory was sanctioned in 1664 at the northern French city of Beauvais to supply the nobility, bourgeoisie, and foreigners. Following the frequency lists are the names separated by roll, and sorted alphabetically. It depicts the slum-like conditions suffered by the poor -petty bourgeoisie and proletariat- of Paris. The play was interdicted on the 24th of August, withdrawn, Pamela made a commoner throughout the play, and replaced on the 2nd of September. Théâtre Comédie-Française: It began as a state theatre with its own troupe of actors and was founded on 8 August 1680 by Louis XIV when he issued a decree merging the only two Parisian acting troupes into one. c’est une crime!’ Confusion followed, the man was ejected. In 1662, Louis XIV had founded a royal factory in the Paris suburb of Gobelins to create the furnishings, mirrors, and tapestries for Versailles and his other palaces. Of course Napoleon saw it as a political tool that he could wield; he treated everything as a tool he could use! Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe: This theatre was built between 1779 and 1782 and inaugurated by Marie-Antoinette on 9 April 1782. Among the theatres that remained opened after Napoleon’s decrees are five worth mentioning. After the revolution, all the Parisian theatres also operated using a “code of laws.” These rules were visibly displayed and used to maintain orde, but aoparently that did not always happen as noted by the riots mentioned above. Theatre attendees in the 18th century. The play’s amazing popularity in France was also the reason its author Beaumarchais found himself confined at St. Lazare in an apartment called des Eveques. His friends could visit him, and he could go out but only with the permission of M. Le Noir and only with a guard from the inspector of the Police. I am guessing that the number of theatres was reduced and their repertoires were limited so that he could maintain close control of the theatrical world. This was too much; by order of the National Convention … the actors and the author were thrown into prison, and the Comédie-Française, for the first time in its history, was closed.”[2]. Because there was no consistency related to dwelling numbers, one person decided to take things into his own hands and handled the situation in the following way: “In 1779, in Paris, houses (or, more exactly, the main doors) are numbered … on the initiative of Marin Kreenfelt de Storcks, editor of the Almanach de Paris. However, it was initially accepted for production by the Comédie Française in 1781. It was made stranger by the fact that the same street sometimes ran through several different sections. Théâtre des Variétés published in 1829. Vaudeville would go on to became extremely popular in the United States and Canada in the early 1880s, but the idea of it changed radically from its French antecedent. Supposedly, they were also considered the “idol of Parisians,” but at the time, there were not more than about twenty theatres that … Throughout the middle part of the 18th Century, France's delicate economic balance was beginning to falter. Courtesy of Bibliothèque nationale de France. Its popularity also resulted in it being translated into English by Thomas Holcroft, and under the title of The Follies of a Day – Or The Marriage of Figaro it was produced at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London in late 1784. This is a photograph of the Rue Champlain, taken in 1865 by Charles Marville. People found advantages to this new numbering scheme when it went into effect in the summer of 1805. In the mid-18th century, Paris became the center of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity known as the Age of Enlightenment. According to La Belle Assemblée, once when the coat rule was broken Parisians demanded the breach of decorum be immediately rectified. Their photos show us that the daily bustle of Paris life was much more colorful than we imagined, with storefronts painted bright red, or walls plastered with colorful photos. Readers who receive our blog via email might see a … I understand my email and name will be used only to communicate with me and will not be shared with 3rd parties. As a section included the farthest houses within its section, it meant that two houses next door to one another, but in different sections, might be numbered 1 and 1526. Paintings and drawings can give us an idea of what the cities of the past looked like, but they can’t give us the full picture of what it would be like to visit, say, Paris in the 1700s. Some features to be noted are the dirt roads (where almost all streets in Paris were paved) and … The decree imposed a common street numbering system for the whole city, and many of the streets returned to their former names and a new scheme for numbering dwellings began: “[E]ven numbers were placed on one side of the street [right] and odd numbers on the other side [left], both beginning at the eastern end of the streets that run parallel with the Seine, and at the river end of the streets going north and south.”[5]. Further, it can be deleted based on my request. The French army was roughly “outnumbered”, calling for Napoleon to retreat “to Paris on June 22. Today, all the theatres mentioned remain open in some form or another but the rules that patrons of the late 1700 and early 1800s observed are likely no longer in force. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Dancing at court was frequent and dancing well was necessary for a nobleman if he were to rise or maintain his status. The consequence was, the allies were victorious.”[12]. Between 26 and 32 rioters were arrested, imprisoned at La Force, and placed at the disposal of the Procureur du Roi. The names are divided by gender, and then listed by frequency. Each section then began to support a numbering scheme unto itself, and, in addition, each section disregarded any numbering scheme that existed in another section. Your browser does not support the audio element. [1] Martin, Benjamin Ellis, and Charlotte M. Martin. In 52 BC Julius Caesar's legions conquered the territory, founding the Roman city, Lutetia on the earlier settlement. "Fashion is to France what the gold mines of Peru are to Spain," concluded Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's minister in … This piece of well-directed satire roused the indignation of clerks of certain warehouses in Paris, who thought they could recognize their own characters in that of M. Calicot. The Paris stock exchange was closed on June 27, 1793 and all joint-stock companies were banned in France on August 24, 1793. These songs became popular, and from being first called Vaux-de-Vire, afterwards assumed the name of Vaudeville.”[7], The Théâtre du Vaudeville first opened on 12 January 1792 on rue de Chartres but is today known as the Gaumont Opéra cinema. But it was a bit surprising to see that he decided to limit the number of theatres via Imperial decrees in 1806 and 1807. Courtesy of Bibliothèque nationale de France. I was delighted to find I came in at the first of the “Devin du Village,” which was given as a prelude before “Oedipe à Colonne”… and the superb ballet of “Flore et Zéphire.” … The costume, the acting, and the machinery are all superior in splendour and arrangement to the opera of London.