Béjart, Armande

▪ French actress

in full  Armande-Grésinde-Claire-Élisabeth Béjart 

born 1642?, Paris

died Nov. 30, 1700, Paris

      French actress, member of the Béjart family, and wife of the playwright Molière.

      The exact date and place of Armande's birth has long generated controversy, for although documents show her to be Madeleine Béjart (Béjart, Madeleine)'s sister, contemporary gossip had it that she was Madeleine's daughter. The Béjart troupe had been merged into Molière's Illustre-Théâtre company some years before Armande joined it at Lyon in 1653. Nine years later Armande, then 19, and Molière, 40, were married. The marriage was unhappy: her flirtations made him jealous; they became the subject of hostile pamphlets. Armande and Molière separated after the birth of a daughter in 1665, meeting only at the theatre until 1671, when they were reconciled. She made her debut in 1663 as Élise in her husband's Critique de l'école des femmes (School for Wives) and as herself in L'Impromptu de Versailles. After the birth of a son in 1664, she returned to the stage in the spring of that year and began her long list of important Molière roles: Célimène (really her own portrait) in Le Misanthrope and Angélique in Le Malade imaginaire (1674; The Imaginary Invalid); she also created the parts of Elmire in Tartuffe and Lucile in Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670; The Bourgeois Gentleman).

      After Molière's death in 1673, Armande, determined to keep her husband's company together, leased the Théâtre Guénégaud, Paris. By royal ordinance the remainder of Molière's troupe combined with the players from the failing Théâtre du Marais (Marais Theatre). Keeping the name Troupe du Roi (“King's Company”), which had been bestowed on Molière's company in 1665, the new combination at first had many problems, but in 1679 it secured the services of Marie Champmeslé (Champmeslé, Marie), one of the leading tragediennes of her time, and absorbed the company of the Théâtre de l'Hôtel de Bourgogne (Hôtel de Bourgogne, Théâtre de l') in Paris. The entire company subsequently became the Comédie-Française, the national theatre of France. In 1677 Armande married Isaac-François Guérin d'Estriché, a leading actor of the Théâtre du Marais, who later headed the Comédie-Française. She retired in 1694.

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