Anne Françoise Elizabeth Lange
Encyclopedia
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
) was a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
actress of the Comédie-Française
Comédie-Française
The Comédie-Française or Théâtre-Français is one of the few state theaters in France. It is the only state theater to have its own troupe of actors. It is located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris....
and a 'Merveilleuse' of the French Directory
French Directory
The Directory was a body of five Directors that held executive power in France following the Convention and preceding the Consulate...
. Her stage name was Mademoiselle Lange.
Life
She was born in GenoaGenoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
, the daughter of Charles-Antoine Lange (or L'Ange) and Marie-Rose Pitrot, itinerant musicians and actors putting on shows right across Europe. She thus made her stage debut very young in child roles in her parents' companies. In 1776, the family was taken on at the theatre at Liège
Liège
Liège is a major city and municipality of Belgium located in the province of Liège, of which it is the economic capital, in Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium....
and, in 1784, they found themselves taken on at the theatre in Ghent
Ghent
Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...
. In 1787, Mlle Lange was taken on at the theatre at Tours
Tours
Tours is a city in central France, the capital of the Indre-et-Loire department.It is located on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines, the alleged perfection of its local spoken French, and for the...
in Marguerite Brunet's company.
On 2 October 1788, she made her official debut at the Comédie-Française
Comédie-Française
The Comédie-Française or Théâtre-Français is one of the few state theaters in France. It is the only state theater to have its own troupe of actors. It is located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris....
in the role of Lindane in L'Écossaise by Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
. She next played Lucinde in L'Oracle by Saint-Foix
Germain-François Poullain de Saint-Foix
Germain-François Poullain de Saint-Foix was a French writer and playwright.-Life:He served with the musketeers until he was 36, distinguishing himself at Guastalla in 1734. He then left the army and purchased a post as "maître des eaux et forêts" in Rennes...
. In 1791, the production of the anti-religious and anti-monarchical play Charles IX by Marie-Joseph Chénier divided the company of the Théâtre-Français, with Mlle Lange joining the "patriots" group under Talma
François-Joseph Talma
François Joseph Talma was a French actor.He was born in Paris. His father, a dentist, moved to London, gave him a good English education. He returned to Paris, where for a year and a half he practised dentistry...
, which set itself up at rue de Richelieu
Rue de Richelieu
Rue de Richelieu is a long street of Paris, starting in the south of the Ier arrondissement, ending in the IIe arrondissement. For the first half of the nineteenth century, before Baron Hausmann redefined Paris with grand boulevards, it was one of the most fashionable streets of Paris:The Rue de...
(the present home of the Comédie-Française
Comédie-Française
The Comédie-Française or Théâtre-Français is one of the few state theaters in France. It is the only state theater to have its own troupe of actors. It is located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris....
). However, thinking her talents were not being fully recognized there, she quickly moved to the "aristocrats" faction that had set itself up at the Théâtre du Faubourg Saint-Germain (renamed the Théâtre de la Nation, now known as the Théâtre de l'Odéon).
On 24 February 1793, she played Laure in Le Vieux Célibataire by Jean-François Collin d'Harleville, becoming a sociétaire
Sociétaires of the Comédie-Française
The sociétaires of the Comédie-Française are chosen from among the pensionnaires who have been in the company a year or more.They are decided upon in the course of a general assembly of the company's administrative committee, made up of 6 existing sociétaires, the senior sociétaire, and the general...
later that year. She had a triumph in the eponymous role in Paméla ou la Vertu récompensée (Pamela or Virtue Rewarded) by Nicolas-Louis François de Neufchâteau, setting a fashion for straw hats known as "à la Paméla", but the play's royalist overtones led to this theatre being shut down and the author and actors arrested by the Committee of Public Safety
Committee of Public Safety
The Committee of Public Safety , created in April 1793 by the National Convention and then restructured in July 1793, formed the de facto executive government in France during the Reign of Terror , a stage of the French Revolution...
. Mlle Lange was at first imprisoned in the prison de Sainte-Pélagie until, after a few months in captivity, she managed to arrange her transfer to the pension Belhomme
Pension Belhomme
-History:Around 1765, the joiner Jacques Belhomme took on the construction of a building for the son of a neighbouring aristocrat, who had been mad since birth. Seeing that running an asylum was more lucrative than joinery, he opened an asylum for lunatics, old people and whoever else rich...
(along with her cook, her valet and her lady's maid). There she was able to maintain a large household thanks to funds from the banker Montz, filling the street outside with those coming to visit her. She also bought a hôtel particulier
Hôtel particulier
In French contexts an hôtel particulier is an urban "private house" of a grand sort. Whereas an ordinary maison was built as part of a row, sharing party walls with the houses on either side and directly fronting on a street, an hôtel particulier was often free-standing, and by the 18th century it...
on rue Saint-Georges.
In the wake of a denunciation, Fouquier-Tinville opened an enquiry which led to the arrest of Jacques Belhomme
Jacques Belhomme
Jacques Belhomme was a personality of the French Revolution and the owner of the Pension Belhomme. He appears in the 1951 film Caroline chérie after the novel by Jacques Laurent.-Life:...
and the closure of the pension Belhomme. Mlle Lange returned to prison, but her friends in high places helped her to evade the guillotine. She was freed after 9th Thermidor and rejoined her fellow actors at the Théâtre Feydeau
Théâtre Feydeau
The Théâtre Feydeau, , a former Parisian theatre company, was founded in 1789 with the patronage of Monsieur, Comte de Provence , and was therefore initially named the Théâtre de Monsieur...
. She continued to live the high life under the Directory, having a liaison with lord Lieuthraud, supplier to the armies of the republic. He housed her at the hôtel de Salm
Palais de la Légion d'Honneur
The Palais de la Légion d'Honneur is the building on the west bank of the River Seine in Paris that houses the Musée national de la Légion d'Honneur et des Ordres de Chevalerie and is the seat of the Légion d'honneur, the highest order of chivalry of France...
, one of the houses he had acquired, and maintained her there on an allowance said to be 10,000 livres a day. She was also the mistress of a rich banker from Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, Hoppé, bearing him a daughter, Anne-Élisabeth Palmyre, who was recognized by her father in 1795. It is improbable, however, that she had an affair with Barras as is claimed in the libretto of the famous operetta by Charles Lecocq, La Fille de madame Angot
La fille de Madame Angot
La fille de Madame Angot is an opéra comique in three acts by Charles Lecocq. The French text was by Clairville, Paul Siraudin and Victor Koning.-Performance history:...
, in which Mlle Lange appears in a secondary role.
Her final lover was Michel-Jean Simons, a Belgian supplier to the French army, with whom she had a son in December 1797. Simons recognized their son and married Mlle Lange, making her Madame Simons and putting an end to her theatrical career (she reappeared only for a few performances in 1807). Ruined, Simons died in 1810 in his château de Bossey
Bogis-Bossey
Bogis-Bossey is a municipality in the district of Nyon in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.-Geography:Bogis-Bossey has an area, , of . Of this area, or 58.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 28.6% is forested...
in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. Widowed, she assumed a solitary life in obscurity and far from her admirers until her death.
Portraits
Danaë
In Greek mythology, Danaë was a daughter of King Acrisius of Argos and Eurydice of Argos. She was the mother of Perseus by Zeus. She was sometimes credited with founding the city of Ardea in Latium....
. The actress had not liked a first portrait that she had asked him to withdraw from the Paris Salon of 1799, and so Girodet avenged himself by sending it back to her torn and exhibiting the painting of her as Danae in its place at the Salon. It was painted in only a few days, and openly shows her as a prostitute; nude, she gathers gold pieces in a sheet and is accompanied by a turkey with peacock feathers (symbolizing her husband Simons) and a grotesque mask (with the features of her lover Leuthraud, and a gold piece stuck in its eye socket). This painting is now at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is a fine art museum located in the Whittier neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, on a campus that covers nearly 8 acres , formerly Morrison Park...
.
Other portraits of her include:
- Colson, Mademoiselle Lange as Sylvie in Collet's play "L'Île déserte", oil on canvas, 1793, Paris, Comédie-Française, exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1793.
- Lefebvre, Mme Simons, née Lange.