The Hôtel de Bourgogne in 1760: Some Previously Unpublished Drawings by Louis‐Alexandre Girault

For Donald Royand in memory of David Illingworth and Graham Barlow AbstractBuilt in 1548, the Hôtel de Bourgogne was in almost continuous use as a theatre for 235 years. We have, until now, had only an approximate idea of the internal layout of the auditorium and virtually no idea at all of the way in which the outbuildings were arranged. Recently, however, a series of architectural plans has come to light in the French National Archives. They date from 1760, which was when Papillon de La Ferté, who was in overall charge of the Royal Entertainments Department (les Menus‐Plaisirs), ordered that the auditorium be both extensively refurbished and made more attractive, in order to increase audiences and to rescue the Italian players from a financially parlous position. Louis‐Alexandre Girault, an architect attached to the Royal Entertainments, was put in charge of the work. The five plans and the longitudinal section which he has left us – and which are published and discussed here for the first time – allow us not only to visit the various different parts of the auditorium and stage, but also to have access to the public spaces, the actors' dressing rooms and their administrative offices, and even to go down into the store‐rooms below the auditorium and the stage.