Marie-Madeleine Guimard
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Marie-Madeleine Guimard (October 10, 1743 — 4 May 1816) was a French ballerina who dominated the Parisian stage during the reign of Louis XVI. 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 Collé's Partie de chasse de Henri IV which was prohibited in public[1], most of the Proverbes of Carmontelle (Louis Carrogis, 1717-1806), and similar licentious performances were given to the delight of high society.
In 1766, in defiance of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Paris, she opened a gorgeous house in the Chaussée d'Antin designed by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux in the latest neoclassical taste, decorated with paintings by Fragonard, and with a theatre seating five hundred spectators. In this Temple of Terpsichore, as she named it, the wildest orgies took place, according to her detractors. 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-Étienne Despreaux (1748-1820), dancer, song-writer and playwright.
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- ^ A performance of it inaugurated Mme du Barry's Pavillon de Louveciennes, however.
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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
