The maître d’hôtel Rapinet (Polichenelle) offers to take Madame Flanchet and her daughter Margot, whom he wants to marry, to the fair. But Rudepogne reminds them that Margot is promised to his nephew Jacquot. He sends Jacquot, who threatens Rapinet and quarrels with Margot. Since it is already too late to go to the fair, Rapinet asks two Savoyards to perform curiosité shows for them. At the end of the play, the characters dance with “small Savoyard women”.

Rod and string marionette

Not specified

Carolet Denis

France

Paris

Printed

Curiosity

Lantern

Fairground Theatre

Rivalry in love

Unfaithfulness

Comical

L'Assemblée des poissardes, Soleinne collection, BnF

French

Polichinelle maître d'hôtel

Merchant (woman)

Polichinelle

Savoyard

Savoyard (woman)

Ballet

Argument

Comedy of language

Metadiscourse on puppet theatre

L'Assemblée des poissardes

The Meeting of the fishwives

After Polichinelle’s greeting to the public, the play starts with the entry of Aveugle (Blindman), who begs for money. Aveugle accidentally hits Polichinelle with his cane; the two of them quarrel and Polichinelle knocks Aveugle unconscious. La Femme de l’Aveugle (Blindman’s Wife) is furious; she attacks Polichinelle and bites his nose. He knocks her unconscious as well and throws them both out of the hand-puppet booth. Commissaire (Superintendent) arrives and wants to take Polichinelle in. He asks Chat (Cat) for help, but the cat scratches him. Commissaire makes Chat believe that the gallows are destined for someone else. Pretending not to know how to slide his head through the slipknot, Polichinelle asks Commissaire to show him how to do it and takes advantage of the opportunity to hang him. He leaves, carrying Chat under his arm.

Glove-puppet

Trained animal

Beggary

Clumsiness

Cruelty

Cunning

Trap

Disobedience

Cheekiness

Farcical

écrit sous sa dictée aux Champs-Élysées

Blind

Wife

Police Superintendant

Song

Address to the public

Blind character

Fight

Blow-with-a-stick

Character thrown out of the scene

Fight with an animal

Hanging scene

Drame du Polichinelle français

Drama of the French Polichinelle

Polichinelle enters and, with a stick, hits the director of a tavern who came to greet him. They fight and Polichinelle kills him. La Femme du Cabaretier (the tavern-keeper’s wife) asks Polichinelle where her husband is. He beats her as well, and she takes her husband’s corpse to the tavern. Le Commissaire (Superintendent) comes to get Polichinelle to throw him in prison, but Polichinelle beats him and runs away. Le Gendarme (Constable) also wants to arrest him. Polichinelle beats him as well, but other Gendarmes arrive and manage to get hold of him. Polichinelle is imprisoned. Le Bourreau (Executioner) wants to hang him, but Polichinelle pretends that he cannot put his head in the slipknot. He asks the Bourreau to show him how to do it, and hangs him in his stead. Le Diable (Devil) comes to take Polichinelle to Hell. They both fight, but the Diable wins and takes Polichinelle off the stage with him.

Young audiences

Attack

Wickedness

Punishment

Cabaret owner

Innkeeper

Constable

Executioner

Devil

Death on stage

Apparition of the Devil

Cassandre is supposed to fight a duel with a sergeant, but he decides to pay Guignol to go in his place. The sergeant, meanwhile, has lost the card Cassandre gave him, so he cannot remember the location of the duel or the name of his opponent. Guignol then goes to see him and challenges him to a duel. During the confrontation, Guignol pretends to be killed. But when the sergeant returns to the room, Guignol jumps out and stabs him in the back. A fight breaks out, interrupted by two 'gendarmes' (policemen). Guignol then accuses the sergeant of trying to kill him and the latter is arrested.

Josserand père Louis

Lyon

Manuscript

Duel

Neighbourhood

Money

Father-daughter relationship

Theatre

Gallantries

Lesson

Deception

Fighting

Police (French gendarmerie)

Jail

Le Duel

Guignol

Sergeant

Father

Monologue

Brawl

Duel scene

Situation comedy

Fake death

Final song

Music

Le Duel du soldat

he Soldier's Duel

Gnafron and Guignol find themselves in a forest, with nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat. They decide to lie down under a tree. While they sleep, Péterman waits for his midnight rendezvous with Satan to sign a pact. An imp appears and tells him where to find the treasure Péterman is looking for. But there is one condition: the treasure can only be touched by someone who is unaware of its value. Péterman notices Guignol and Gnafron and invites them to his home. Some time later, he offers them a chance to go and “work in the United States”. They both accept without hesitation. During their journey, they have several adventures and end up being swallowed by two large fish, which spit them out near the entrance to the mermaids' cave. There, they meet a tench and a carp who want to marry the two strangers. Later, Guignol and Gnafron see the tench and the carp in the form of two young fairies. Péterman arrives in turn, but the fairies turn him into a monster because he wanted to sell his soul to the devil. Guignol and Gnafron then marry the fairies and become kings of the sea.

Forest

Night

Sleep

Deal with the Devil

Treasure

Journey

Patriotism

Shipwreck

Encounter

Fairy

Wedding

Fantasy

Gnafron

Daughter

Domestic servant

Monster

Sailor

Fish

Page

Fisherman

Love

Skeleton

Demons dance

Thunderbolt

Chorus

Aside

Off-stage voice

Talking animal

Metamorphosis

Final wedding

Le Royaume des poissons

The Kingdom of Fish

The rentier Galmar is waiting for his guests to arrive for a social evening. However, his two overly chatty servants, Guignol and Jeannot, threaten to ruin everything. To get rid of them, he gives them the evening off, under the pretext of thanking them for their excellent service. The two servants then begin to plan a feast. Shortly afterwards, Gnafron talks to Fanchette, a laundress. She tells him that last week, Guignol invited her to dinner. The meal was delicious and everything was going well until Guignol left the restaurant on the pretext of going to buy tobacco... and never returned. Gnafron then shares a story of his own: Guignol once sold him his watch! Meanwhile, Guignol and Jeannot return from a restaurant. Fanchette gives him a package to carry. Guignol hears a child crying. Together with Jeannot, he discovers that there is a baby inside the package. They decide to leave it at their master's door. Their master discovers it and takes it. To get rid of Guignol, Galmar offers him a hundred francs. Guignol then promises to pay back all his debts to Gnafron and Fanchette.

Vuillerme-Dunand Victor-Napoléon

Dinner

Servant

Feast

Infant

Child abandonment

Revenge

Reconciliation

Debt

La Blanchisseuse; L'Enfant abandonné ; Le Poupon abandonné ; Les Mésaventures de Fanchette

Rentier

Laundress

Hidden character

Plot twist

La Parisienne

Parisian woman

Cassandre sends his servant Guignol to the notary to give him twenty thousand francs. Turlupiton secretly listens in on this conversation, then runs into Guignol and pretends to have a magic wand that can make anything disappear and reappear with the magic words: ‘Turlupiton one, Turlupiton two, Turlupiton three’. He offers to sell Guignol the wand for twenty thousand francs. Guignol accepts, but once he returns to his master Cassandre, he realises that Turlupiton has tricked him. He kills him with the wand and takes back the money.

Magic

Death

Bourgeois

Crook

Madelon

Turlupiton

Sylvia, a brothel keeper, freshens up in front of a mirror: she wants to take the place of her employees for the night. The pimp Dorante also decides to switch roles and to become the client of a prostitute. When seeing him, Sylvia invites him upstairs. They end up in a small room, both unaware of the other’s status. They begin their lewdness, and Sylvia is very creative. After experiencing mutual sexual pleasure, they realise that they have the same job. This increases their passion, and they think about opening a new brothel together.

Adults

Lemercier de Neuville Louis

Slang

Prostitution

Brothel

Erotisme

Erotic

Félicien Rops, frontispiece for Le Théâtre érotique de la rue de la Santé (1864).

Pimp

Aria

Misunderstanding

Scene of copulation

Les Jeux de l'amour et du bazar

The Games of Love and Mess

A marquis with a suggestive name (the Marquis de Coquencu, literally Marquis of Rooster-in-ass) exposes his run of bad luck to the audience: him and the Marquise (Marchioness) cannot conceive a child. He uses different tricks, such as stimulating drugs or increasingly bizarre sexual games to finally have an heir. However, the Marquise’s moods change from one extreme to the other; she beats the Marquis, and feigns a feeling of faintness to have an affair with the Domestique (Servant). In the second act, two new characters hide in the bushes to defecate, leading to numerous scatological jokes, most notably when the Marquise, pregnant, assures that she enjoys the smell of excrement to the point of asking the Marquis to bring them back to their place and cook them. The play ends with another domestic quarrel.

Rolland Amédée

Jean Duboys (Jean-Charles Du Boys)

Eroticism

Pornography

Licentiousness

Sexuality

Adultery

Scatology

Couple

Pregnancy

Le Théâtre érotique de la rue de la Santé (1866 edition). Anonymous illustration.

Toucher de la merde c’est signe d’argent

Erotic scene

Defecation on stage

Seduction scene

Signe d'argent

Sign of money

The Étudiant (Student), waiting for the Grisette (Working girl), reads her letter over and over again. When she arrives, their reunion is passionate, and the couple immediately embraces. Their lovemaking, full of noises and exclamations, catches the attention of the neighbour, Monsieur Prudhomme. Intrigued, he enters the scene and starts giving advice. Annoyed by the intrusion, the Étudiant fiercely asks him to stop bothering them, and passionately goes back to his intimate moment with the Grisette.