The Salle de la rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain-des-Prés was the theatre of the Comédie-Française from 1689 to 1770.[1] It was built to the designs of the French architect François d'Orbay on the site of a former indoor tennis court (jeu de paume), located at 14 rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain-des-Prés, now 14 rue de l'Ancienne Comédie, across from the Café Procope in the 6th arrondissement of Paris.[2]
Since 1680 the Comédie-Française had been performing in their first theatre, the Hôtel Guénégaud, but because of its proximity to the newly constructed Collège des Quatre-Nations, the company was asked by the school's leaders to move further away to minimise the bad influence of the actors on the students of the college.[1] By an act of 8 March 1688 the actors purchased the Jeu de Paume de l'Étoile on the rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain-des-Prés. They also acquired two adjacent buildings at 17–19 rue des Mauvais-Garçons (now rue Grégoire-de-Tours).[2]
Unlike for most French theatres of the period, the architect François d'Orbay did not convert the tennis court into a theatre,[3] rather the existing building was demolished and a new building was erected on the site.[4] The total cost of the new theatre was 198,433 livres, about one third of which (62,614 livres) was for the purchase of the land and the existing structures.[5]
The theatre was inaugurated on 18 April 1689. Its design is known from documents found at the Archives Nationales and the archives of the Comédie-Française, and from architectural plans published by Jean Mariette after the originals and reproduced by Jacques-François Blondel in his Architecture françoise of 1752.[6] The plans were also re-engraved and published in 1772 in Diderot's Encyclopédie.[1] [7]
D'Orbay fit the theatre into a constricted site that was an irregular quadrilateral with oblique frontage on the rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain-des-Prés. He fit the stage service areas into the ancillary buildings on the irregular terrain to the south.[6]
The façade of cut stone is shown in an engraving from Blondel's book and in the original plans conserved in the archives of the Comédie-Française. It consisted of 7 bays of 3 storeys and an attic with a mansard roof. On the ground floor, in the outer two bays on each side were four doors opening to the interior. The central three bays, topped with a triangular pediment and flanked with rusticated pilasters, formed a grand avant-corps.[8] A high relief sculpture of the goddess Minerva by Étienne Le Hongre decorated the tympanum (interior of the pediment). Le Hongre's sculpture survives, mounted in a similar location on the façade of the current building and declared a monument historique on 29 March 1928.[9] Below the pediment were the Arms of France sculpted in low relief, and below that, at the level of the main floor, a decorative medallion inscribed with the words "Hotel des Comédiens ordinaires du Roy entretenus par Sa Majesté M.D.C.LXXXVIII [Home of the regular Actors of the King supported by His Majesty 1688]".[10] An iron balcony ran along the entire facade, and on the ground floor in the outer bays of the avant-corps were two ticket windows.[8]
By 1770 the theatre had become too cramped. The last performance was on 31 March 1770, and the company moved to provisional quarters at the Théâtre des Tuileries.[2]