MARIE MADELEINE

See also:

• MARIE MADELEINE GUIMARD (1743-1816)

GUIMARD (1743-1816)  , French dancer, was born in Paris on the loth of October 1743 . For twenty-five years she was the star of the Paris Opera . She made herself even more famous by her love affairs, especially by her long liaison with the prince de Soubise . She bought a magnificent house at Pantin, and built a private theatre connected with it, where Colle's Partie de chasse de Henri IV which was prohibited in public, and most of the Proverbes of Carmontelle (Louis Carrogis, 1717-1806), and similar licentious performances were given to the delight of high society . In 1772, in defiance of the 696 archbishop of Paris, she opened a gorgeous house with a theatre seating five hundred spectators in the Chaussee d'Antin . In this Temple of Terpsichore, as she named it, the wildest orgies took place . In 1786 she was compelled to get rid of the property, and it was disposed of by lottery for her benefit for the sum of 300,000 francs . Soon after her retirement in 1789 she married Jean Etienne Despreaux (1748-1820), dancer, song-writer and playwright .