Mademoiselle Montansier

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Marguerite Brunet, known by her stage name of Mademoiselle Montansier (19 December 1730, in Bayonne – 13 July 1820, in Paris), was a French actress and theatre director.

Background

At 14 she fled from the Ursuline convent in Bordeaux, she was there engaged by an acting troupe and — in love with a handsome young actor — embarked for America. She then became the mistress of Burson, Intendant of Martinique, establishing her own dress shop in Saint-Domingue. On her return to Paris, she installed herself in the house of an aunt by marriage, Mme Montansier, a dress-seller from whom she took her stage name. She opened a gaming house on the rue Saint-Honoré, frequented by the gilded youth of Paris and allowing her to enter high society.

Royal theatre director

Having obtained through her liaison with the marquis de Saint-Contest the leadership of a small theatre on rue Satory in Versailles, she turned her attention to queen

She married de Neuville on 5 September 1799 and then in 1801 set up a new troupe of Italian singers known as "Opéra-Buffa" (quickly nicknamed "Italiens"), at Théâtre Olympique on rue de la Victoire. Nevertheless, the regime change at this time was not favourable to her - the troupe was transferred to the salle Favart in 1802, then placed under the direction of Louis-Benoît Picard in 1804, and in 1803 - when Montansier was in prison several weeks for debt - de Neuville died.

Forced to leave the Palais-Royal by decree in 1806 (the neighbouring

She transferred her Variétés there and on 24 June 1807, the Tout-Paris assisted in the first production of the Panorama de Momus, a vaudeville by Marc-Antoine Désaugiers. She delegated the success - and the criticism - that this brought to the actor Mira Brunet and died peacefully on 13 July 1820 at 90 years old.

Legacy

A four-act comedy entitled La Montansier, with prologue, was put on in tribute to her in 1904 at the

Bibliography

• Patricia Bouchenot-Déchin, La Montansier, Perrin, 2007 (
  ISBN 978-2262026813
  )