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This article aims at reminding and putting in perspective the project which Victor Hugo submitted in September 1849 to the State Council of the 2nd Republic when, entrusted with the proposal of a law governing theatres and expected since the February Revolution, he invited about thirty theatre personnalities to express their views on the debated issues: censorship and the system of privileges limiting the number of scenes. The analysis of all these views first allows to clarify the main dividing lines: preliminary censorship and, more than “industrial freedom”, the possibility of a state cultural policy easing the access to “great theatre(s)” to the populace. In this context, Hugo was part of a “democrat” minority group, and his call for a “magnificently subsidised” theatre meant to offer the greatest authors to the widest audience, had no chance to succeed. No more under the Republic than under the monarchy, when they spear-headed, behind the author of Hernani, the drama battle, were the Romantics ever able to transform the theatre of their era. Yet, when the time comes for a “national popular theatre” and in spite of the memory lapse which had meanwhile hindered his efforts, Hugo is born again in Jean Vilar’s pantheon.