Marguerite Béguin, stage name Mademoiselle de Villiers (fl. 1627–1670), was a French stage actress. Scott, Virginia (2010). '' Women on the stage in early modern France : 1540-1750''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . She was the aunt of the actor Francoise Petit, Mlle Beauchamps. She married actor Claude Deschamps; it is unknown when, but she was his second spouse and it must have been after 1624, when he married his first wife Francoise Olivier. She is first mentioned in 1627. She was engaged in the troupe of Mondory in the

Théâtre du Marais The Théâtre du Marais has been the name of several theatres and theatrical troupes in Paris, France. The original and most famous theatre of the name operated in the 17th century. The name was briefly revived for a revolutionary theatre in 1791 ...

in 1629, and then at the

Hôtel de Bourgogne (theatre) Hôtel de Bourgogne was a theatre, built in 1548 for the first authorized theatre troupe in Paris, the Confrérie de la Passion. It was located on the rue Mauconseil (now the rue Étienne Marcel in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris), on a site tha ...

Pierre Corneille Pierre Corneille (; 6 June 1606 – 1 October 1684) was a French tragedian. He is generally considered one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine. As a young man, he earned the valuable patronag ...

wrote plays for the theatre, and all but one contained two female roles, the “premiere” and “heroine” role. Between 1629 and 1634, only two actresses were employed by the theatre and able to play these roles, Mlle Le Noir (Isabelle or Elizabeth Mestivier) and Mlle de Villiers (Marguerite Béguin), it has often been assumed that he wrote the plays with them in mind. They performed a range of genres, tragicomedy, pastoral as well as comedy. However, it is seldom documented which of them played which part in the plays. In 1637, she did play the premiere-role of Chimene in ''Le Cid''. The contemporary chronicler Tallemant noted that she had an affair with

Henry II, Duke of Guise Henry II de Lorraine, 5th Duke of Guise (4 April 1614, in Paris – 2 June 1664, in Paris) was a French aristocrat and archbishop, the second son of Charles, Duke of Guise and Henriette Catherine de Joyeuse. Life At the age of fifteen, he became ...

, archbishop of Rheims, who wore yellow silk stockings under his soutane because she liked the color yellow. Later, Tallemant describes her in the 1650s as "not too beautiful", and "an excellent person in her profession" and implicates she was the equal to Mondory. She retired in 1660.

References

16th-century births 17th-century deaths 17th-century French actresses French stage actresses Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown {{France-actor-stub