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Theatre · Madeleine · 8e arrondissement

Théâtre des Mathurins

The buildingStill standing
Getting inHours or admission
What's there nowStill the same

Still operating as a theatre on the rue des Mathurins.

Where Colette made her public stage debut in 1906, the first step of the music-hall career that won her independence from Willy.

Address
36 rue des Mathurins, 75008 Paris
Years
1897–present
IllustrationThe Théâtre des Mathurins auditorium in colour, seats and gilded balconies toward the stage

The house today, a small theatre near the Gare Saint-Lazare.

Editorial illustration

The place, briefly

Colette first appeared before a paying Paris audience at the Théâtre des Mathurins, in February 1906. She played a faun in Le Désir, la Chimère et l'Amour, a mimed drama, in performances that ran from the 6th to the 25th. She was thirty-three, still married to the writer Willy, who had published the Claudine novels under his own name, and the stage was how she began to earn a living and a public identity of her own.

The engagement launched a run of pantomime and music-hall work across 1906 and 1907 — the Olympia, the Théâtre Marigny, the Moulin Rouge — that made her, for a few years, a professional performer as much as a writer. The theatre opened in 1897 and still operates on the rue des Mathurins in the 8th arrondissement.

Key facts

Address
36 rue des Mathurins, 8th arrondissement
Opened
1897
Colette's connection
Her public stage debut, February 1906, as a faun in Le Désir, la Chimère et l'Amour
Today
Still operating as a theatre

In images

The auditorium of the Théâtre des Mathurins, where Colette made her public stage debut in 1906.Editorial illustration
The house today, a small theatre near the Gare Saint-Lazare.Editorial illustration

Timeline

  1. 1897

    The Théâtre des Mathurins opens.

  2. 1906

    Colette makes her public stage debut here, 6–25 February, in a mimed role.

  3. 1906–1907

    A run of music-hall engagements follows at the Olympia, the Marigny and the Moulin Rouge.

On the map

Writers who knew this place

Illustrated portrait of Colette

Colette

French · The French novelist who wrote the Claudine books under Willy’s name, earned her independence on the music-hall stage, and made women’s private lives a serious literary subject.

Performed here · 1906

Colette's public stage debut: she played a faun in the mimed drama Le Désir, la Chimère et l'Amour, 6–25 February 1906.

— Société des amis de Colette — Chronology

Illustrated portrait of Albert Camus

Albert Camus

French Algerian · French Algerian novelist, essayist, journalist and playwright who used the absurd and revolt to ask how people should live without false consolation.

Frequented by · 1956

Camus adapted Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun for the Théâtre des Mathurins in 1956 — one of several Paris theatres he worked in as an adapter and director as well as a novelist.

— Une balade sur les traces d'Albert Camus à Paris

Within walking distance

The Théâtre Michel entrance in colour on rue des Mathurins, with current playbills

Theatre · Madeleine

Théâtre Michel

Where the stage version of Chéri premiered in 1921, and where Colette herself played Léa at its hundredth performance.

Visit the place
Students walking past the sunlit neoclassical façade of Lycée Condorcet

School · Chaussée-d'Antin (9th), by Saint-Lazare

Lycée Condorcet

One of the oldest and most prestigious lycées in Paris, by the Gare Saint-Lazare. Marcel Proust was a pupil here, and it is where his first writing was done — in small magazines produced with schoolfriends.

Visit the place
Colour photorealistic view of 4 rue Lavoisier beneath a bright blue sky

Apartment · Madeleine (8th)

4 rue Lavoisier

The studio Édouard Manet kept from around 1856 to 1859, in the first years after he left Thomas Couture's teaching and began working on his own.

Visit the place
Bright color view of the pale stone apartment building at 102 boulevard Haussmann

Apartment · Madeleine (8th)

102 boulevard Haussmann

The flat where Marcel Proust wrote most of In Search of Lost Time, in a bedroom he had lined with cork to keep the noise of the boulevard out. He moved in on 27 December 1906, after his parents' deaths, and stayed thirteen years. The room itself is now reassembled at the Musée Carnavalet.

Visit the place
References

References

The sources below include histories, archival materials, scholarly research, and official records that informed this page. They document Théâtre des Mathurins, the people connected to it, and its place in Paris.

  1. 1Société des amis de Colette — Chronology

    Website
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Théâtre des Mathurins page.

    View source

  2. 2Historique — Théâtre des Mathurins

    Website
    Théâtre des Mathurins, Paris
    Used for

    The theatre's own history of the house: the hall rebuilt in 1897-1898 and inaugurated under Marguerite Deval, and its successive directors.

    View source

  1. 3OpenStreetMap

    Map data
    Used for

    Map data used to verify addresses, geographic coordinates, and the placement associated with Théâtre des Mathurins.

    View source

  2. 4Colette sur scène

    Website
    Société des amis de Colette
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Théâtre des Mathurins page.

    View source
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Why these sources are here

These references provide the documented foundation for this page's history and context. Claim-level citations remain attached to the specific claims they support.

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