Plays adapted by Dumas from his historical novels were mostly performed, and, although the theatre survived the 1848 Revolution, it suffered increasing financial difficulty and closed at the end of 1850.

[3][5] A company was formed on 24 March composed of Dumas, M. Védel (pseudonym of Alexandre Poulet, former director of the Comédie-Française[6]), the banker Auguste-Armand Bourgoin (son of a celebrated actress), M. Ardoin (principal proprietor of the Passage Jouffroy), and Hostein.

[4][7] The awkward site, wedged between two buildings at the front, and wide at the back on the rue des Fossés du Temple, "required great skill in adapting it to its new purpose.

Two facing caryatides, presenting in profile to the boulevard and representing the muses of Tragedy and Comedy, supported the flat architrave at the front of a semicircular entryway with four equally spaced Ionic columns delimiting the curvature of the inside doorway.

At the top of the two double-width flat pilasters bracketing the balcony were masks of Tragedy and Comedy, below which were engraved the names of six playwrights: on the left, Corneille, Racine, and Molière; and on the right, Shakspere (in 19th-century spelling), Schiller, and Lope de Vega.

The central group of figures in the cupola represented Poetry, leading Comedy by the hand, and Tragedy, each carrying their respective attributes, the comic mask and the poniard.

Below these to the right were Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Seneca, Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine, Voltaire, Schiller, Talma, Nourrit, Gluck, and Méhul, and to the left, Aristophanes, Menander, Plautus, Terence, Molière, Goethe, Lope de Vega, Cervantes, Regnard, Marivaux, Mlle Mars, Mozart, and Grétry.

A foyer, located on the floor above the vestibule, provided access to the exterior balcony and was "surprisingly warm" with tones of white-gold enhanced with the dark red of the velvet coverings of the divans and chairs, and light from elaborate chandeliers of a "fantastic and capricious design.

"What was desired, therefore, was a building so arranged that the élite of Parisian society might find every provision for their comfort without in any way trenching upon that of the ordinary public of the theatres of the Boulevard.

Three large balconies were flanked either side by Corinthian pavilions with two levels of stage boxes crowned with highly ornamented circular pediments.

[12] By this time Dumas had already departed on a trip to Spain, to attend the wedding of the Duke of Montpensier to the Queen of Spain's fourteen-year-old sister, Luisa Fernanda, on 10 October, and then to North Africa, to gather material for writing a travel book intended to advertise the newly acquired French colonies in that region (a project that had been initiated by the Minister of Education, Narcisse Achille de Salvandy).

[12] The opening, on 20 February 1847 with Dumas's play adapted from his novel La Reine Margot, was an eagerly awaited event, and the duke and his new bride were also expected to attend.