It would be rash to assume that these records of 1598 and 1604 represent all the visits of English actors to France during the Elizabethan period; and it is not improbable that a search in the municipal archives of Picardy and Normandy, as thorough as that which has been carried out for Germany, might yield notable results. Some general evidence that tours in France did take place can be cited. John Green, dedicating his version of Nobody and Somebody to the Archduke Maximilian about 1608, says that he had been in that country.[1] His, indeed, so far as dates go, might have been the company of 1604. And France, no less than Germany, is referred to as scoured by the English comedians about 1613.[2]
- [Footnote: H. Ternaux in Revue Françoise et Étrangère, i. 78, for statements that the
head of the English at Fontainebleau was Ganassa, who in Spain had had a mixed company of English, Italians, and Spanish, and on 11 Jan. 1583 had a share in the receipts of a troupe of English volteadores. I have not been able to see the work of M. Ternaux, who does not inspire confidence by calling Ganassa Juan instead of Alberto. There seems to be nothing to connect Ganassa with the volteadores of 1583, except the fact that the Corral de la Pacheca where they played was leased to him for nine or ten years in 1574 (Rennert, 29), and they may therefore have paid him rent. His troupe in 1581-2, as given by Rennert, 479, consisted entirely of Italians, with two Spanish musicians. He is said to have been in Spain in 1603 (Pellicer, i. 57, 72; Rennert, 30), but there is nothing to show that, if so, he went on to France. But Héroard tells us that there was a Spanish rope-dancer at Fontainebleau in 1604, and a very obscure passage in his diary suggests that this Spaniard was really an Irishman. Irish marauders (voleurs) were then giving trouble in Paris, which led Louis to say 'Ce voleur qui voloit sur la corde étoit Irlandois?' and Héroard comments, 'Il étoit vrai; il accommoda le mot de voleur à l'autre signification, il l'avoit vu voler à Fontainebleau' (Journal, i. 90, 126).]
