This paper focuses on re-examining Paul Fort’s activities at the Théâtre d’Art he directed between 1890 and 1892, in the light of recent work on the history of performance, not so much in order to vindicate for him the status of a « pioneer » in the emergence of modern stage directing, as to fill out our understanding of theatrical life at the end of the 19th century, by trying to better discern the practices experimented with at that time. After having considered the variety of explicit or implicit definitions of « mise en scène » or stage directing that theatre programmes, press articles, and memoirs evoke, the author turns first to the vindication of a « dramaturgical » approach (in the contemporary meaning of the term, that is the analysis of texts whose goal is to guide performance), and then to the recognition asked for by the people in charge of the « ordonnance scénique » (stage organisation) – Paul Fort, Pierre Quillard, Paul-Napoléon Roinard, Adolphe Retté, Charles Morice, etc.