He Should Go to the Théâtre François: Paris, the Theater, and Maria Edgeworth’s Ormond

Abstract

The night he arrives in Paris, the protagonist of Maria Edgeworth’s Ormond (1817) attends a tragedy at the Théâtre François in order to develop his urban literacy. There is a slight historical problem with Ormond’s intention to attend the Théâtre Français: during the time at which the novel is set, the Comédie Française was housed not in the Théâtre Français but in the Théâtre des Tuileries. What this means for Ormond is that Edgeworth and Harry Ormond should have attended two very different theaters. This chapter argues that Edgeworth’s representation of the French theater and Parisian space more broadly enacts the urban and literary project of Denis Diderot’s and Nicolas Cochin’s idealized community, re-situating Edgeworth’s novel within a new continental intellectual and urban environment.