Lurking on the fringes of the theatre industry, occasionally quiescent but never entirely dormant over the whole of the period considered here, testifying above all to the intense interest in the stage among all classes of society in every part of the country, amateur dramatics or private theatricals constituted an activity apart, with which the state rarely meddled except to keep a careful watch in case its devotees overstepped the legal limits it imposed on their activities. Since France was never, even under the First Empire, a totalitarian state as the word came to be understood in the mid-twentieth century, rehearsing and acting plays in private was always suffered to flourish unimpeded. In law, the line was normally drawn between theatres charging for admittance (these being regarded as public enterprises) and those that waived all payment and simply issued private invitations to interested parties who would provide the audience.

One function of the state which the private sector was able to sidestep at all times was its power to halt performances that the censorship had forbidden. A notable case in point was the production of Le Manage de Figaro at the private theatre belonging to the Due de Fronsac at a time when Beaumarchais was still fighting for permission to have his comedy produced on the public stage. The difficulties he had been encountering could be broadly described as political; the same was true of Collé's Partie de chasse de Henri IV, constantly proscribed by the censorship down to 1781, when at last the Comédie-Française was allowed to stage it.