Eugène Ritt

Businessman, skillful and ingenious merchant, he sold mechanical leeches and meat, practiced open outcry at the carreau des halles, one of the organizers of this butchery system.

[1] In 1856, he became an administrator, associated with Charles de Chilly, in the management, until 1862, of the Ambigu[2] where were successively represented Les Fugitifs, Les Beaux Messieurs de Bois-Doré, Fanfan-la-Tulipe, La Bouquetière des Innocents.

[2] In 1872, he decided to rebuild the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin which was burned down in 1871 during the Paris Commune[2] and in 1873.

Ritt took over, with Henri Larochelle, the rebuilt theatre of the Porte-Saint-Martin, for six years, during which they set up Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours [fr] by Adolphe d'Ennery and Jules Verne.

To understand the public's enthusiasm, it is enough to quote a letter from Victor Hugo to Ritt and Larochelle: "My excellent and dear directors, my whole household wants to review and repeat the Autour du Monde, this amazing success.

After his death in 1898, his widow, Rose Veller, adopted their young protégée, Charlotte Lesbros (1878-1965) who inherited Épinay-sous-Sénart's property, and married Jacques Froment-Meurice (1864-1947), nephew of playwright Paul Meurice.