Partner Henriette Simonnot de Ponty
Queer Places:
Château des Hauts, Sentier du Cèdre, 45380 La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin, Francia
Père Lachaise Cemetery, 16 Rue du Repos, 75020 Paris, Francia
Françoise
Marie Antoinette Saucerotte, called Mlle Raucourt (3 March 1756 – 15 January
1815) was a French actress. She was born in Nancy as the daughter of an actor,
who took her to Spain. There she played in tragedy at the age of twelve. By
1770 she was back in France at Rouen, and her success as Euphmie in Belloy's
Gaston et Bayard caused her to be called to the Comédie Française,
where, in 1772, she made her debut as Dido. She played all the classical
tragedy parts to crowded houses, until the scandals of her private life and
her extravagance ended her popularity.
Her beauty and talent had made her famous, but her not so secret love
affairs with other women made her notorious. She was known to have had
numerous affairs with both men and women, preferring the latter. One
on-again-off-again lover was opera soprano
Sophie Arnould.
Famous or not, in her time this could have a negative effect on a career, and
a popular scandalous pamphlet claimed that she led a secret society of
lesbians in Paris called the Sect of Anandrynes[2][3]
Part
of the ensuing three years she was in prison for debt, but some of the time
she spent in the capitals of northern Europe, followed everywhere by scandal.
Under protection of the queen she reappeared at the Théâtre Français in 1779,
and renewed her success in Paris, as Cleopatra, and all her former roles. At
the outbreak of the Revolution she was imprisoned for six months with other
royalist members of the Comédie Française, and she did not reappear upon that
stage until the close of 1793, and then only for a short time. In prison she
met her last partner, Henriette Simonnot-Ponty, with whom she lived until
death.[4]
She deserted, with a dozen of the best actors in the company, to found a rival
colony, but a summons from the Directory brought her back in 1797. Napoleon
gave her a pension, and in 1806 she was commissioned to organize and direct a
company that was to tour Italy, where, especially in Milan, she was
enthusiastically received. She returned to Paris a few months before her death
on 15 January 1815. Her funeral was the occasion of a riot. The clergy of her
parish having refused to receive the body, the crowd broke in the church
doors, and were only restrained from further violence by the arrival of an
almoner sent posthaste by Louis XVIII. She is buried at the Père Lachaise
Cemetery, in Paris.
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