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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 104.: MLLE LEONTINE FAY [1] EXAMINER, 15 MAY, 1831, P. 310 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXII - Newspaper Writings December 1822 - July 1831 Part I

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Subject Area: Political Theory
Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

104.: MLLE LEONTINE FAY [1] EXAMINER, 15 MAY, 1831, P. 310 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXII - Newspaper Writings December 1822 - July 1831 Part I [1822]

Edition used:

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXII - Newspaper Writings December 1822 - July 1831 Part I, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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104.

MLLE LEONTINE FAY [1]

EXAMINER, 15 MAY, 1831, P. 310

This, Mill’s first artistic notice, perhaps not by chance on a French actress, was followed in the next Examiner by a fuller account (see No. 106) of the talents of Jeanne Louise Baron (called Léontine) Fay (1810-76), who had begun with children’s roles. Her London repertoire included some sixteen plays in thirteen appearances, with Mlle Fay playing in two or even three of the playlets each evening, including three performances each of Yelva, ou L’orpheline russe; Louise, ou La réparation; Valérie, ou La jeune aveugle; Le Quaker et la danseuse, and Une faute. She was engaged in London by Pierre François Laporte (1799-1841), actor and theatrical entrepreneur, who managed the King’s Theatre in the Haymarket, 1828-31 and 1833-41, bringing there such Italian operas as La sonnambula, I puritani, and Norma. The article, headed “French Theatre, Haymarket,” appears in the “Theatrical Examiner.” It is described in Mill’s bibliography as “A paragraph on Mlle Léontine Fay, in the Examiner of 15th May 1831” (MacMinn, p. 16), and listed (“Paragraph on Madlle Léontine Fay”) and enclosed in square brackets in the Somerville College set.

m. laporte, whose French company is usually as miserable a travestie of the French stage as his company at the Opera-house frequently is of an Italian Lyric theatre, has made atonement for all past faults by engaging (alas! only for ten nights) Mademoiselle Léontine Fay; an actress, to see whom, would be of itself a sufficient motive, were there no other, for journeying to Paris. In all these scenes from domestic life, whether of tragic or of comic interest, which are the reigning character, and the peculiar charm of the French stage, this lady is pre-eminent. We shall speak of her at greater length in our next paper; meanwhile, we can only entreat our readers, who are capable of understanding a theatrical performance in the French language, to see her, and admire for themselves.