Abstract
In September 1781, Jean Van Gulpen, printer in the city of Maastricht, brought out a small octavo volume, entitled Tableau du Spectacle Français ou Annales Théâtrales de la Ville de Mastrigt. Now a rarity, this historical view of the Maastricht stage was the work of the lawyer François Bernard (fl. 1788), a shadowy figure today only remembered – if remembered at all – as the author of a number of works on political and economic history, all published at Leyden in the 1780s. Bernard dedicated his Tableau to ‘Madame Clairville, Première Chanteuse de l'Opéra Français de la Ville de Mastrigt’ and preceded his two-hundred page account of the ‘Spectacle Français’ with a lengthy defense of the stage, in which he claimed due recognition for the acting profession and greater support for the players whose condition was ‘flétri par l'injustice des hommes’.
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