Jacques Autreau, a Forgotten Dramatist

Extract

When, in 1697, the actors of the Comédie Italienne announced their intention of producing Fatouville's La finta matrigna ou la belle-mère supposée, readily associated with La fausse prude, a novel published in Holland againt Mme de Maintenon, the machinery of the law-moved swiftly. On May 14th of that year M. d'Argenson, head of the police, closed the theater, thereby terminating the activities of the Italian troupe in the seventeenth century. For so long a time did Mme de Maintenon deprive the court of amusements that, as soon as the period of mourning for Louis XIV was ended, the regent Philippe d'Orléans hastened to re-establish in France the theater which had previously supplied an abundant source of entertainment. In 1716 he succeeded in bringing to Paris, under the leadership of Luigi Riccoboni, a troupe which began performances on May 18 at the Palais-Royal but removed on June 1 to the repaired and redecorated Hôtel de Bourgogne.