Province, Paris, World: Forging Spatial Relationships through Theatrical Performance in Nineteenth-Century French Spa Towns

Nineteenth-century French spa towns brought together visitors from across Europe in coastal or mountains towns often located in the far-flung regions of the nation. Besides the healing waters, entertainment was crucial to spa-goers’ experiences, and this chapter  explores how theatrical performances shaped the relationship between the regional and transnational cultivated in Breton and Pyrenean hot spots. To do so, I examine the depiction of spa performance in Eugène Scribe’s little-known play La Calomnie (1840), taking place in Brittany’s Dieppe, and set this representation alongside the real-life performing culture of south-western villes d’eaux Pau and Bagnères-de-Bigorre. Both Scribe’s piece and the work of cultural agents involved in the Pyrenean spa industry reveal the negotiation of an at-times difficult relationship between the foreign (encountered in theatrical repertoire, as well as in the spa’s visitors) and a sense of regional identity, a relationship that had the potential to destabilize the otherwise powerful contemporary influence of the French capital on the local culture scene.