Stagestruck: The Business of Theater in Eighteenth-Century France and Its Colonies

3. The Extent and Limits of State Intervention

68 Chapter 3 The Extent and Limits of State Intervention In the summer of 1764, the naval commander in the port of Brest, the comte de Roquefeuil, wrote to Versailles with an unusual proposition. The wooden warehouse where acting companies performed in the city was badly decayed,and Roquefeuil proposed that the navy itself should construct a new playhouse to replace it.1 When this ramshackle building burned down just a few months later, the commander pressed hard for the opportunity to enhance cultural and social life in the city,particularly for the noble-dominated officer corps. No garrison, he argued, should be without a theater. Roquefeuil, who had several thousand sailors and naval officers under his command, maintained that theatrical entertainment was critical for maintaining discipline and morale among these men while in port. “In a city of such importance, where so many different groups find themselves gathered together, a theater is of no small use in steering clear of gambling and quarrels,” he argued, adding that “besides furnishing some education to young provincials who enter the navy, it also inspires less distaste among the officers to reside in the region.”2 Elsewhere, soldiers might enjoy performances in playhouses provided by entrepreneurs, joint-stock companies, or by the municipal government. In this remote city of about twenty-five thousand on the Breton coast, however, no other parties had come forward to make such an investment.3 Roquefeuil sought permission from the secretary of state for the navy for the military itself to endow THE EXTENT AND LIMITS OF STATE INTERVENTION 69 France’s most significant naval port with a public theater that could serve its needs.4 Roquefeuil’s arguments must have resonated within a French military command struggling with declining prestige following the disastrous Seven Years’War in addition to growing discipline problems now that tens of thousands of men had returned to domestic garrisons. Faced with these postwar challenges, the state consented to experiment with a new level of engagement in provincial cultural affairs. The king approved Roquefeuil’s request for a new theater in Brest,and agreed to provide both the land—a portion of the arsenal facing onto the parade grounds—and royal financing to construct the Théâtre de la Marine.5 The new theater,however,was not a gift from the crown. The loan was to be repaid over several years through subscriptions by hundreds of naval officers.6 When the new theater opened in late 1766, it was owned by the navy and operated under the personal authority and supervision of the naval commander. If the navy might at first appear an unlikely patron for the performing arts, the Théâtre de la Marine can in fact be seen as the culmination of the close relationship between France’s military and professional theater that dated back to the late seventeenth century. For decades, army commanders anxious to occupy, entertain, and even instruct their men took steps to promote theater in their vicinity. Already by the 1750s, officers as well as common soldiers constituted an important audience base and a key source of revenue for acting troupes in garrison cities. At the same time, military leaders and other royal agents in these cities pressed for greater prominence within new provincial playhouses and greater influence over what took place within them, to the displeasure of local ruling elites.7 Scholarship on eighteenthcentury urban history has traditionally emphasized the authority of the royal intendant in provincial city affairs, devoting relatively little attention to the influence weilded by France’s army and navy. Yet studies of Europe’s early modern “military revolution” have demonstrated the central role played by the rise of large-scale standing armies in the development and structure of the modern state and the relationship between the state and the people.8 In France,military historians note,the army constituted the single largest branch of the royal government,as well as the largest employer in the kingdom.9 For contemporaries living in cities where troops were garrisoned, the military was an imposing presence in public life. At the same time, the military vocation represented “the aristocratic preserve par excellence—a symbol of noble identity,” with nobles making up an estimated 95 percent of the officers’ corps.10 Commanders such as Roquefeuil used their prestige, as well as their ability to marshal financial resources and political support,to catalyze cultural 70 CHAPTER 3 change in garrisons and ports throughout France. Perhaps nowhere was this...