Madame Bellecour

Madame Bellecour (born Dec. 20, 1730, Lamballe, Fr.—died Aug. 5, 1799, Paris) was a French actress noted for her performances in works of Molière and Regnard.

The daughter of an aged artillery captain of noble ancestry, Rose-Perrine left home at the age of 13 and took up with an itinerant comedian called Beauménard. She decided to adopt both his name and his calling, and under his auspices she made her debut in 1743 at the Opéra-Comique of the fair at Saint-Germain. Beautiful and flirtatious she was immediately successful. She toured for several years with a variety of companies, entertained troops of the Marshal de Saxe—and, it is said, the Marshal himself—and had many amatory encounters. In 1749 she made her debut at the Comédie-Française, first appearing there as Dorine in Molière’s Tartuffe; her success was immediate. She excelled in the role of soubrette, becoming extremely popular. She retired from the public eye in 1756 and did not reappear until 1761, by which time she had married Bellecour. She resumed a highly successful career as Madame Bellecour, appearing to wide acclaim in soubrette parts in the plays of Molière and Jean-François Regnard. She retired again in 1790. The French Revolution terminated her pension, forcing her to attempt a final comeback. Her failure was pathetic, and she died in poverty.