Charlotte Desmares


Christine Antoinette Charlotte Desmares 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.

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 as well as comedy ones. She retired in 1721.
'', 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.