La Tribune et la Scène. Les débats parlementaires sur le théâtre en France au XIXe siècle (1789-1914)

摘要

There is a real “theatre civilization” in France in the 19th century. This thesis analyses thewhole of parliamentary debates about this ‘’theatre civilization’’ between 1789 and 1914 based on alarge corpus of sources, including especially the budgetary debates, petitions, questions andinterpellations, and bills. The first part questions the parliamentary contribution to the State theatricalpolicies through three levers of action. The “privilege system” goes against the liberal logic of thetheatre industry between 1807 and 1864. The grant given by the State to the theatres goes from thecivil list to the State budget in 1820 : this sovereignty transfer undermines the very principle of grant,by making it subject to the whims of parliamentary debates in an entirely new way. Censorshipconstitutes the great third lever of action on theatres that the state retains until 1905 : the analysis ofthe arguments aimed at justifying or fighting censorship brings out a not so obvious correlationbetween the expressed beliefs and the political culture of Parliament members. The second part showshow the participation of Parliament members in the State theatre policies can be considered as anindicator of the political life in the 19th century. The dive into the heart of parliamentary action, incommittee, at the tribune or outside the parliament opens into a typology of Parliaments membersintervening about theatres. The theatrical matter is next considered in the mirror of parlementarismwhile the political instrumentation of debates about theatre is underlined through the many internaldigressions which affect them. Finally, the third part gets down to understanding the aesthetic andsocial concerns of the Parliament members in the 19th century towards the theatre life consideredunder a triple view point of repertory, authors and artists, thus suggesting a parliamentary history oftaste.