French family of puppeteers. The Levergeois family included three generations of puppet players. It was one of the fairground dynasties that travelled the provinces from the 19th century and was the last puppet troupe to exist in France until the 1930s. First, Madame Levergeois – daughter of the Polichinelle player, Borgniet – created the Théâtre du Petit Poucet (Tomb Thumb Theatre) in which two of her sons, Adolphe and Louis, and her daughter Victorine participated. The repertoire consisted primarily of adaptations of the tales of Charles Perrault, a version of La Tentation de saint Antoine (The Temptation of Saint Anthony), as well as music hall numbers influenced by the style of Thomas Holden.

Adolphe died in 1913, and the theatre headed by Louis was totally destroyed in 1915, during World War I. Their sister, Victorine – by then the wife of the animal trainer Roussel – took over the family repertoire, and founded the Théâtre des Lilliputiens for which she trained her daughter who became an excellent puppeteer. Wife of Samuel Dulaar, Levergeois’ granddaughter continued to present shows in the town fairs of Normandy until the 1930s.

(See France.)