Charlotte Desmares

Christine Antoinette Charlotte Desmares (1682 – 12 September 1753) was a French female actor. She was known as la Desmares and also nicknamed Lolotte. She was the elder sister of the actor la Dangeville.

Engraving of Desmares by François-Bernard Lépicié after a painting by Charles Antoine Coypel.

Life

She was born in Copenhagen to the comic actors Nicolas Desmares and Anne d'Ennebault and trained under her aunt la Champmeslé. She made her stage début aged sixteen with the Comédie-Française company on 30 January 1699 in Oreste et Pylade by Lagrange-Chancel. In only three months she became so successful that she was accepted as a full member of the company to replace her aunt, who had left it in 1698. Like her aunt she played tragic roles (such as Hermione in Andromaque and Émilie in Cinna) as well as comedy ones (such as 'The Reader' in Le Légataire universel by Regnard and 'la Néréine' in Le Curieux impertinent by Destouches). She retired in 1721.

Actors of the Comédie-Française (also known as Coquettes qui pour voir), a painting of the 1710s by Jean-Antoine Watteau, was believed by some scholars to be a group portrait of the Comédie-Française company players, with the figure to the far left being a depiction of Desmares

She became mistress to Louis, Grand Dauphin then to Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, with whom she had a daughter in 1702, named Angélique de Froissy by her father and married off to count Henri François de Ségur. Desmares ended her life as the mistress of the Swiss banker Antoine Hogguer, who completed the hôtel de Villeroy for her in Paris in 1724. She also built herself the 'Folie Desmares' in Châtillon, which still survives. She died in Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1753.

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