Madame Montansier

Marguerite Brunet, known by her stage name of Mademoiselle Montansier (19 December 1730, in Bayonne – 13 July 1820, in Paris), was a French actress and theatre director.

At 14 she fled from the Ursuline convent in Bordeaux, she was there engaged by an acting troupe and — in love with a handsome young actor — embarked for America. She then became the mistress of Burson, Intendant of Martinique, establishing her own dress shop in Saint-Domingue. On her return to Paris, she installed herself in the house of an aunt by marriage, Mme Montansier, a dress-seller from whom she took her stage name. She opened a gaming house on the rue Saint-Honoré, frequented by the gilded youth of Paris and allowing her to enter high society.

Having obtained through her liaison with the marquis de Saint-Contest the leadership of a small theatre on rue Satory in Versailles, she turned her attention to queen Marie-Antoinette and through her in 1775 gained the exclusive rights to balls and shows at the Palace of Versailles, followed in 1779 by rights over the theatres in Fontainebleau, Saint-Cloud, Marly, Compiègne, Rouen, Caen, Orléans, Nantes and Le Havre. Backed by such supporters, she built her first theatre at Versailles - at first called "Théâtre de la rue des Réservoirs", but soon renamed "Théâtre Montansier" - which she opened on 18 November 1777 in the presence of Louis XVI and his queen.

Profiting from the French Revolution, she set herself up in Paris in the company of her lover, Honoré Bourdon (stage name "de Neuville"), and took possession of the Théâtre des Beaujolais under the arcades of the Palais-Royal. After major restoration works, she re-opened it on 12 April 1790 with Les Epoux Mécontents, a four-act opera by Dubuisson and Storace. Renamed "Théâtre Montansier", then "Théâtre du Péristyle du Jardin Egalité", then "Théâtre de la Montagne", then "Variétés-Montansier" and finally simply "Variétés", she led it until 1806. Still holding the rights from the former court at the Tuileries, she successfully put on Italian operas in French translations, attracting the envy of the Académie Royale de Musique, exiled to the Porte Saint-Martin.

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