1. Essarts, Des, Les Trois Théâtres de Paris (Paris: Lacombe, 1777), pp. 56–7.Google Scholar

‘actors and actresses who retire will in future be paid an annual pension of 1000 livres, whether they hold a whole share, a half share or even a quarter share’.

2. Quoted in Constant, Ch.-F., Code des théâtres à l'ausage des directeurs, des artistes etc. (Paris: Durand, 1876), p. 10.Google Scholar

‘every sociétaire who retires after twenty years' service will have the right to an annuity of 2000 francs payable by the government and to an equal sum from the Society’.

3. Brazier, Nicolas, Chroniques des petits théâtres de Paris, réimprimées [ … ] par Georges d'Heylli (Paris: Rouveyre & Blond, 1883), I, 304.Google Scholar

4. Claretie, Jules, Profils de théâtre (Paris: Fasquelle, 1904), p. 315.Google Scholar

‘The elderly actor who has outlived his hour of glory, tramping the streets of some provincial town in search of an elusive engagement, running over simultaneously in his mind his old parts and old memories and consoling himself for the present with the dusty wreaths he was crowned with in the past; the actor who has saved nothing during the years of his youth when the grasshoppers chirped; the actor whose hopes, ambitions and even triumphs have not led to anything, is perhaps of all beings in their declining years the most melancholy and the most pitiable: the purveyor of poetry fallen into utter destitution.’

5. Hervey, Charles, The Theatres of Paris (London: John Mitchell, 1846), p. 338.Google Scholar

6. ‘a very old woman, who starred in melodrama in past days and now was eking out a miserable existence hawking make-up to the actors. She did the rounds of the dressing-rooms carrying a small attaché-case which contained an assortment of rouge and eye-shadow; she also dispensed advice to young actors, recalling the habits of the famous players she had known and retailing endless anecdotes.’

7. Ginisty, Paul, La Vie d'un théâtre (Paris: Delagrave, 1906), pp. 200–2.Google Scholar

‘To paint his face was, for him, to relive the past. He took as much trouble over it as he used to when he was still permitted to tread the boards. And if anyone chaffed him gently about this comedy he was acting for his own satisfaction, he would reply with conviction: ‘It helps me to get the right intonation.”’

8. Lélion-Damiens, Lucien, Le Bréviaire des comédiens (Paris: Tresse, 1858), pp. 305–6.Google Scholar

‘with reference to the excitement of a performance and the intoxication it gives to even the most sober. Their obstinacy can be easily explained and as readily excused, when one considers the oblivion into which they fall as soon as they disappear from sight. After their farewell performance, they enter posterity. It is like an anticipated death and whatever freethinkers may say, there is nothing attractive in death.’

9. Febvre, Frédéric, Journal d'un comédien (Paris: Ollendorff, 1896), II, 173.Google Scholar

‘Is there anything sadder and more painful than the sight of an old man on stage? Every visible sign of fatigue in the actor causes the spectator a pang; he has no wish to have his pleasure spoiled by the thought that this elderly gentleman cavorting before him would be far better off in bed than on the boards.’

10. Daudet, Alphonse, Pages inédites de critique drama-tique (Paris; Librairie de France, 1930), p. 162.Google Scholar

‘old mariners in whom one observes a similar nostalgia for the sea, causing them to succumb unwisely to the temptation to return to it, even though their eye is no longer keen enough to detect signs of a squall nor their hand strong enough to grasp the tiller firmly.’

11. The incident was witnessed and related by, among others, Dumas père (Mes Mémoires, ed. Josserand, Pierre (Paris: Gallimard, 1954–1968), III, 134)Google Scholar; Janin, Jules (Histoire de la littérature dramatique (Paris, Michel Lévy, 1855–1888), II, 100)Google Scholar; and de Montchamp, Louis & Mosont, Charles, Les Reines de la rampe (Paris, Cournol, 1863), p. 194.Google Scholar Whether the wreath was intended in homage or not, it appears that Mile Mars herself took it as an outrage.

12. ‘Never had so noble a countenance produced so striking an effect. Pale and pensive, moving slowly under the weight of years, she stopped at last to lean on the back of the throne and slowly raised her splendid eyes, darkened by an unutterable melancholy, that of the god who is about to die. She gazed around her, above her, staring into the distance, with this veiled and sorrowful look. The audience caught its breath, sensing that she was contemplating the vanished years and was herself surprised, after so much glory that had faded, to find herself the sole survivor in this empty temple. And I could hear around me, as I had heard already forty years before, the same sigh: “How beautiful she is!”’

13. Laferrière, Adolphe, Mémoires (Paris: Dentu, 1876), I, 103–4.Google Scholar

‘In spite of this evening's triumph, you will see me leave the théâtre as forsaken and solitary as a queen returning to exile.’

14. Hugo, Victor, Souvenirs personnels, 1848–1851, ed. Guillemin, Henri (Paris: Gallimard, 1952), p. 222.Google Scholar

‘I am a tragedy queen as she is, I've whored it as she does now, and one day she'll be a poor old woman like me. No, I shan't write to her, I shan't beg charity of her, I shan't cool my heels waiting on the pleasure of that hussy. Has she forgotten how once she begged her bread? doesn't she see she will come to it again by and by? (…) There'll be some talented strumpet with youth on her side who'll walk all over her and she'll be flat on the floor, you'll see (…) I've had to let the pawnbrokers sell two diamond studs the Emperor presented me with; I act in suburban fleapits, at Saint-Marcel, at the Batignolles, I haven't even the 25 sous to pay my cab-fare home, but I'm damned if I'll write to Rachel, I'd sooner throw myself into the river and be done with it.’

15. Hugo, Victor, Journal de ce que j'apprends chaque jour, ed. Robert, René fournet et Guy (Paris: Flammarion, 1965), p. 86.Google Scholar

‘She is acting God knows where, at Toulouse, at Carpen-tras, in barns, to earn her living. Like me, she has been reduced to dragging her poor old carcass over badly planed boards, on a stage lit by four tallow candles, with a company of strolling players straight from the hulks or who deserve to be there! Oh, M. Hugo, you have your health, you don't care, but we are poor wretched creatures.’

16. Cf. Dumas, Alexandre, ‘La dernière année de Marie Dorval’, in Les Marts vont vite (Paris: Michel Lévy, 1861), II, 243–94.Google Scholar

17. Vizentini, Albert, Derrière la toile: foyers, coulisses et comédiens (Paris: Achille Faure, 1868), p. 250.Google Scholar

‘He stoops, his hair is white, his gaze, no longer sardonic, has gained in depth, in his brow one reads melancholy instead of pleasure, and his voice that once rang out so imperiously is a mere feeble echo of past battles.’

18. ‘you could hardly hear a word and the unhappy man, conscious of his loss of power in this respect, made painful efforts to speak that were sometimes quite horrible; his genius showed only now and again when, by an astonishing gesture, an inspired piece of dumb show, this actor suffering the torments of the damned could still reach his moments of sublimity.’

19. Coppée, François, Souvenirs d'un Parisien (Paris, Lemerre, 1910), pp. 48–9.Google Scholar

20. Statistics given in Astruc, Joseph, Le Droit privé du théâtre (Macon, Protat, 1897), pp. 249–52.Google Scholar

21. Péricaud, Louis, Le ThéâTre des Funambules (Paris: Sapin, 1897), p. 492.Google Scholar

‘One night, having exhausted all possible means of staying alive, he passed away quietly, having given up all hope, in a foul den in the slums of Belleville, rotting away and devoured by vermin such as can only be engendered by the utmost extremes of want and the complete collapse of the individuality.’

22. See Fournel, Victor, Curiosités théâtrales (Paris: Gamier, 1878), p. 237.Google Scholar

23. Monselet, Charles, Petits mémoires littéraires (Paris: Charpentier, 1885), pp. 134–5.Google Scholar

‘Those who were there have retained a painful impression of the occasion which will not easily fade. What they saw, coming on from the wings, was a distraught, stammering figure; but, such affectations having always been one of his means of provoking laughter, no one was greatly surprised. Gil-Pérès played the first scenes mechanically, like an automaton or a sleepwalker. Then suddenly, in the middle of the play, he stopped, stared at the audience, opened his mouth, but uttered not a word. He carried his hand to his forehead and took a few stumbling steps. This time, it was impossible to suppose a deliberately grotesque effect. The complete disorder of the poor fellow's mental faculties was only too obvious. He was incapable of continuing, unable to do anything but wring his hands and exclaim in a heart-rending voice: “I can't, I can't!” The curtain was immediately lowered, to the stupefaction of the audience; but they could still hear, to their horror, behind the curtain, Gil-Pérès's repeated and anguished cry as he was dragged away: “I can't? I can't!”’

24. Monselet, Charles, Mes souvenirs littéraires (Paris: Librairie Illustrée, 1888), pp. 172–3.Google Scholar

25. Investigations of the records of eight important hospitals in Paris between 1795 and 1855 show that 35 male employees of théâtres were admitted over this period, compared to only seven female ones: see Boulle, Lydie, ‘Des artisans du spectacle de la première moitié du XIXe siècle hospitalisés dans les grands hôpitaux parisiens’, pp. 524–34 in ThéâTres et spectacles hier et aujourd'hui. Epoque moderne et contemporaine (Paris: Editions du CTHS 1991).Google Scholar

26. Cf. Keim, Albert, Le Demi-siècle, souvenirs de la vie littéraire etpolitique 1876–1946 (Paris: Albin-Michel, 1950), pp. 173–4.Google Scholar

27. Letter quoted in Lecomte, L.-Henry, Virginie Déjazet d'après ses papiers et sa correspondance (Paris: Librairie Illustrée, n.d.J, p. 67.Google Scholar

‘And to say that at 73, hard at work since 1868, I look like ending up with nothing at all! If it is true that God cares for us, dear friend, I must be very guilty for him to abandon me in this way.’

28. On the last years of Mlle Flore, see de Manne, E. D. & Ménétrier, C., Galerie historique des acteurs français (…) des scènes secondaires (Lyon: Scheuring, 1877), p. 164Google Scholar: of Mézeray, see de Manne, E. D., Galerie historique des comédiens de la troupe de Talma (Lyon: Scheuring, 1866), p. 152Google Scholar; of Augustine Brohan, see Gaulot, Paul, Les Trois Brohan (Paris: Alcan, 1930), pp. 83–6Google Scholar; of Mme Thénard, see Prost, J. C. Alfred, Famille d'artistes: les Thénard (Paris: Leroux, 1900), pp. 110–11.Google Scholar

29. Héros, Eugène, Le ThéâTre anecdotique (Paris: Jorel, 1912–1913), I, 67Google Scholar: from the article entitled ‘Les Casernes artistiques’, dated 31 05 1911.Google Scholar

‘They are excusable, for nature never intended them to live together; talented or not, they are artists, and therefore independent; they are the house-sparrows of the dramatic art and cannot live caged up. The shade of spreading boughs, the running water—they would exchange all that for the benches on the terrace of the Café de Suede or the Cafe de l'Ambigu.’