ABSTRACT
To Marie Madeleine Jodin, recently released from prison and having performed in a few private theatricals at most, the opportunity to travel to Warsaw and to feature as a leading lady in a troupe engaged to play before the Polish court must have been an extraordinary transition. This young woman who had just emerged from the most degrading of prisons was not only to perform before the Polish king, she was to attend court balls and find herself the object of royal admiration. The warnings Diderot would repeatedly send her about not letting fame or admiration go to her head may have been a necessary corrective, but not to have felt a little excitement and even not to have revelled in a certain amount of vanity would have been inhuman.
