ABSTRACT

When the French tragedienne Rachel Felix, better known as “Mademoiselle Rachel” visited the United States and Cuba for an eight-month series of performances in 1855 and 1856, her fame preceded her. In French theatres, and later across the whole of Europe, she had already celebrated triumphs for more than fifteen years as the actress whose remarkable performances had breathed new life into the classicist tragedies of Racine and Corneille, which had fallen out of favour in the heyday of Romanticism. Men’s behaviour towards their female travelling companions was an adaption to exceptional conditions of the usual gendered manners. Rachel’s travelling companions not only had to deal with the delicate, “anxious” nature of a female companion, they also needed to adapt to the fact that Rachel was their employer and also an artist. Rachel and her travelling companions utilised various comparisons when speaking about their journey to America.