Théâtre de la foire

Later, marionette manipulators, tightrope walkers and animal trainers so delighted the fair-going public that in 1643, Paul Scarron dedicated a poem on the subject to the Duke of Orléans.

Among the most famous artists of the Saint-Germain fair were: marionette manipulators Jean and François Datelin (better known by the name Brioché), Jean-Baptiste Archambault, Jérôme, Arthur and Nicolas Féron; dancers Charles and Pierre Alard, Moritz von der Beek (aka Maurice), Alexandre Bertrand and Louis Nivelon; actors Louis Gauthier de Saint-Edme, Jean-Baptiste Constantini, Catherine von der Beek, Étienne Baron, Charles Dolet, Antoine Francassani, Jean-Baptiste Hamoche, Dominique Biancolelli, Francisque, and many others for whom Alain-René Lesage, Louis Fuzelier and Jacques-Philippe d'Orneval wrote numerous plays.

In 1661 it moved to a nearby enclosure on the north side of the Rue de Saint Laurent, across from and a bit west of the Church of Saint-Laurent.

[4] The new location was just east of the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis, across from the Abbaye des frères de Saint-Lazare (as the leper colony was now known).

Although the fairground was demolished in the early 19th century, its former site is located directly southwest of the entrance to today's Gare de l'Est.

The alternation in the timing of the fairs allowed the public to follow their favorite shows and permitted the evolution of a kind of theatrical "soap opera", where a play which began at Saint-Germain was continued at Saint-Laurent.

The Comédie-Française tried every means to preserve its privileges and, after many trials conducted before the Châtelet and the Parlement of Paris, it achieved the outright prohibition of performances with dialogue.

Seeing themselves prohibited from using any dialogue onstage, the actors began in 1707 to only play their parts in the form of monologues, or to talk to a mute, to an interlocutor placed in the wings, or even to an animal.

It was now the turn of the Académie Royale de Musique to tell the competition that it was the unique holder of the right to sing, dance and accompany plays with music in France.

The strategic ally of the Opera, the Comédie-Française took the opportunity to deal a fatal blow in 1719: it obtained the removal of all fair shows, with the exception of marionnettes and tightrope walking.