1. Lough, John, An Introduction to Eighteenth Century France, London, Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd., 1960, p. 160.Google Scholar

2. Bourges, Ernest, Quelques notes sur le theatre de la cour à Fontainebleau, Paris, Lechevalier, 1892, p. 20.Google Scholar

3. Performances at Fontainebleau during this time period were numerous. Molière gave several of his plays at Fontainebleau beginning in the first year of the reign. The ballet Les Saisons with music by Lully was premièred on 23 July 1661, as was his music for the entrées in Corneille's Oedipe two days earlier. In 1681, Nicandro e Fileno (Poemetto dramatico per Musica in three acts) by Paulo Lorenzani (1640–1713) was premièred at Fontainebleau. This work is important since it apparently was the only Italian opera produced in France between 1681 and 1729 and was presented in spite of the strong protests of Lully. The success of this work may have influenced Louis XIV to command the construction of the theatre for the following year.

4. Guilbert, M. L'Abbé Pierre, Déscription historique des château, bourg, et forest de Fontainebleau 2 vols. Paris, André Caileau, 1731, II, 52.Google Scholar A drawing by Orbay (c. 1680) gives some idea of the great fireplace in its original place. The drawing has been reproduced by Alfred Marie in his ‘La Salle du théâtre du Château de Fontainebleau’, Revue d'Histoire du Théâtre 3, iii, 1951, p. 237Google Scholar but in a very small size. It has also been reproduced by Albert Bray in his Le Château de Fontainebleau, Paris, F. Vincent, 1956, p. 18Google Scholar, where the reproduction is larger but lacks clarity.

The date of the fireplace has been disputed although most commentators agree on a starting date of 1597 and a completion date ranging from 1599 to 1601. After the fireplace was dismantled in 1725, the bas-relief of Henri IV on horseback that had gained such acclaim was put into storage until the mid-1830s when it was installed over a fireplace in the Chambre de St. Louis. Unfortunately, the fireplace is badly positioned in a dark corner of the room and the relief is too large for its new surroundings.

5. Herbert, Felix, Le Château de Fontainebleau, les appartements, les cours, le parc, les jardins, Paris, H. Champion, 1937, p. 220.Google Scholar

6. Pierre Dan, R. P. F., Le Trésor des merveilles de la maison royale de Fontainebleau, Paris, 1642, p. 139.Google Scholar

7. I am indebted to Mr. Richard Cleary for this photograph.

8. Marie, , op cit., p. 239.Google Scholar

9. I should like to acknowledge the kind assistance of Dr Alan Hughes in the calculation of these dimensions. The degree of accuracy of all the calculations in this article is necessarily dependent upon the level of accuracy of the surviving documentation of the theatre. Dimensions have been based on the toise equalling six French feet (6⅖English feet) or 1.949 m.

10. Several authors, including Charles Constant and Rudolphe Pfnor, give totally incorrect information concerning this point. Constant gives the date of the construction of the theatre as 1733 and ascribes the impetus to the selfish whims of Madame de Pompadour. Pfnor in his Guide artistique & historique au palais de Fontainebleau, Paris, André, Daly Fils & Cie., 1889, gives the correct date but again connects it to Madame de Pompadour, someone who the King had not yet met! It is clear that the order for the renovation of the old theatre came from the due de Bourbon as part of the wedding preparations.

11. Souchal, François, Les Slodtz: sculpteurs et décorateurs du Roi (1685–1764), Paris, Editions E. de Boccard, 1967, p. 464.Google Scholar Alfred Marie states that the decoration was by Robert de Cotte (1656–1734). The division of labour for this enterprise is somewhat unclear. It would certainly seem that the young Slodtz worked under the direction of Cotte initially on this project. While Slodtz provided the plans, the actual work was undertaken by another sculptor. Souchal (p. 608) suggests that this may have been one François-Antoine Vassé. Marie (p. 247), on the other hand makes the assumption that it was Jules de Goullon (d. 1733).

12. Dimier, Louis, Le Château de Fontainebleau, Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1949, p. 307.Google Scholar

13. Souchal, , op. cit., p. 608Google Scholar, states that the 1725 stage boxes were removed by the beginning of the 1753 voyage and that work had begun to construct the new boxes beside the orchestra.

14. Some of these plans have been reprinted by François Lesure in L'Opéra classique frarqais: XVII^e et XVIII^e siècles, Geneva, Editions Minkoff, , 1972, p. 19.Google Scholar

15. There exists in the Cabinet des Estampes ot the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, an engraving that is erroneously labelled as a section of the Louis XV theatre at Fontainebleau (B31634). This engraving could not possibly represent any version of the theatre at the chateau since the size and shape of the auditorium is quite wrong and the number of balconies exceeds even the projected number that Potain would have given the theatre in the aborted renovation of 1778. Marline de Rougemont identified this theatre as the Hôtel de Bourgogne in Quaderni di Teatro, III, 11 (02 1981), pp. 51–66Google Scholar: ‘Deux images d'un théâtre, ou l'image du Théâtre’. Unfortunately, this picture was reproduced in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 6th ed., s.v. ‘Paris, V, 2, Fontainebleau’.Google Scholar

Matters are not quite so clear in the case of an engraving found in the same location bearing the title ‘Représentation supposée du «Devin du Village», à Fontainebleau, en 1767. Dessin de P. A. Wille fils. ‘One's joy at finding an engraving showing the entire stage and much of the auditorium from the vantage point of the rear of the auditorium is quickly diminished by the anomalies found therein. Initially, this engraving does seem to represent the theatre at the château; however, closer examination shows the position of the orchestra pit to be too far forward in the auditorium, the playing stage to be too large as a result and the arrangement of the balconies to be slightly different from that found in Plate VI. A further complication is the set representating the interior of a humble cottage. No such set is required for Rousseau's opera and, even if it was, surely a more elaborate set than that of a painted backdrop and a few scattered props would have been used in any presentation given before the court. Could the artist responsible for this engraving have been working from memory at a later date? This possibility might explain some of these incongruous details. The other alternative is that, once again, the engraving has been incorrectly titled. This engraving has been reproduced by Gagnebin, Bernard in A la recontre de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Genève, Librairie de l'Université Georg & Cie. S.A., 1962, p. 34.Google Scholar

16. Guth, Paul, ‘Le Théâtre Napoléon III’, Connaissance des arts 34 (12 1954), 62–5.Google Scholar

17. Spectacles donnés à Fontainebleau pendant le séjour de leur Majestés, en l'année 1753, Paris, Ballard. 1753.Google Scholar

18. Anthony, James, French Baroque Music from Beaujcyeulx to Rameau rev. ed., New York, W. W. Norton & Co. Inc., 1978, p. 115.Google Scholar

19. Few exact accounts of the orchestra employed in 1753 are extant. One surviving source, found in the Archives Nationales (Menus-Plaisirs) and reprinted by Martial Teneo in the foreword to the edition of Les Surprises de l'Amour, gives us the copyist's bill for the orchestral parts for Rameau's 1753 Fontainebleau opera Les Sybarites (Euvres Complètes, XVII/ii, p. 175). If one accepts the convention of two players per part for strings and woodwinds, we arrive at a list of six violin I, six violin II, four oboes, two flutes, four bassoons, six 'cellos, one trumpet and one percussion.

20. The orchestral breakdown in this period is given by Carse, Adam in The Orchestra In The XVIIIth Century, Cambridge, W. Heffer & Sons Ltd., 1940, p. 25.Google Scholar Statistics on the chorus at this time are given by Maurice Emmanuel and Martial Teneo in the foreword to the edition of Rameau's Naïs (Œuvres Complètes, XVIII, p. cxvii).

21. Collé, Charles, Journal et memoires de Charles Collé sur les hommes de lettres 3 vols. Paris, 1868Google Scholar, reprint ed., Geneva Slatkine Reprints, 1967, 2: 375.

22. Collé, Charles, Daphnis et Églé, Paris, Ballard, 1753, p. 5.Google Scholar No attempt has been made to modernize the spellings used by Ballard in this article.

23. Ibid., p. 8.

24. Ibid., p. 112.

25. Ibid., pp. 11–12.

26. Ibid., p. 16.

27. This tally does not include the three menuets that are a part of the overture structure since, presumably, they were not danced.

28. François Souchal has reproduced representative examples of these drawings in Les Slodtz (see n. 11) plates 66 a–d, 67 a–b and 68 a. Of related interest is the reproduction of a scene design for Rameau's Dardanus, given at Fontainebleau in 1763. (Plate 71a).

29. de Cahusac, Louis, La Naissance d'Osiris, Paris, Ballard, 1754, p. 10.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., p. 8.

31. Ibid., p. 9.

32. François Souchal, op. cit. (Plate 65b) reproduces what appears to be a preliminary sketch for aspects of the temple but from which we get no idea of its placement on the stage.

33. Cahusac was a man of many talents. In addition to being a dancer, choreographer and a contributor to Diderot's Encyclopédie, he produced a history of the dance and numerous stage plays and libretti. Cahusac held strong views on the role of dance in opera and decried the typical ballets in opera which were only decorative and had no connections to the main thrust of the plot. He believed that ‘La parole n'est pas plus expressive que le geste.’ (La Danse ancienne et moderne, 3 vols., La Haye, Jean Neaulm, 1754, 3: 135.Google Scholar) Accordingly, Cahusac devised many of his ballets as Ballets figurés in which the dancers mime some action related to the movement of the plot. He also sought to make the action of each separate dance entrée related to that of the main action.

34. Wing of an arbour from Anacréon. Frame which is put behind the wing in the trellis is stood on a plank at the back painted green. The trellis mentioned above is reproduced by Souchal, op. cit., Plate 67d. Unfortunately, this design seemed to be misplaced when I visited the Bibliothèque de l'Opéra in 1979.

35. de Cahusac, Louis, Anacréon, Paris, Ballard, 1754, p. 16.Google Scholar

36. Since we know the dimensions of the theatre, it is possible to calculate the approximate dimensions of the backdrop for the Anacréon set as seen in Plate VIII. The area for the backdrop would have been approximately 5.8 m wide according to plans for the theatre. This would make the trees in the plate some 2.36 m high or just a little taller than the height of an average adult. Even the shortest of dancers would have appeared as giants if they performed close to the backdrop. An audience that could cope with the conventions of stage boxes, however, may have found this matter less troublesome than a modern audience might find.