Madame Saqui

Marguerite-Antoinette Lalanne , known as Madame Saqui ( (26 February 1786 – 21 February 1866) was a French tightrope walker or "rope dancer" who had a long career performing in France and Britain.

Early life Marguerite-Antoinette Lalanne was born on 26 February 1786 in Agde, Hérault, in southern France. Her parents were Jean-Baptiste Lalanne and Hélène Masgomieri, both circus performers, her father under the name The Great Navarin and her mother La Vierge Noire. She had an older brother Laurent and a younger brother Baptiste. The children took their father's surname although their parents were not married at the time.

The family moved to Paris where her parents performed with the Grands Danseurs du Roi, a troupe of top quality actors, rope dancers, acrobats and artists specialising in farce, who operated under a royal title granted by King Louis XV. In 1789, the troupe took the more cautious name of Théâtre de la Gaîté et des Grands Danseurs following the start of the French Revolution. In 1791, the five year old Marguerite-Antoinette made her stage debut performing with her parents under the name 'la petite Basquaise'. Jean-Baptiste Lalanne's contract was cancelled soon after by Jean-Baptiste Nicolet, the troupe's leader after Lalanne had a bad fall which affected his ability to perform. Her parents were in the audience but had no idea she was performing and were initially horrified. They were quickly won over after her success and decided to create their own troupe, centred around the Lalanne mother and daughter, joined by other performers. and they married in Tours in 1805, Marguerite-Antoinette becoming Madame Saqui. In 1806, the couple moved to Paris.

The end of the Napoleonic Wars opened up Britain's borders for French performers. In April 1816 Madame Saqui performed at the Covent Garden Theatre, "descending a tightrope stretched at an incline over the auditorium". This made her famous in Britain and her performance was drawn by George Cruikshank in A Wonderfull (sic) Thing from Paris, or, Madame Sacchi Gratifying John Bull's Curiosity.

She was a popular performer with her act including running down an inclined tightrope, stretched from a mast to one of the main walkways, in a storm of exploding fireworks. She performed with her brother Laurent Lalanne, her sister in law and her husband Pierre, but Madame Saqui was the main attraction. Her initial costume of tights in her skin colour proved to be too shocking for the British public, so she took to wearing pantaloons under her spangled dress and a hat embellished with ostrich feathers. This started a fashion trend, with women wearing headresses "a la Saqui". Saqui later performed in Paris with Hengler's son Michael, a successful tightrope dancer. Saqui's family troupe were the headline act at the Prince Regent's birthday extravaganza on 12 August 1816. Saqui also performed at Astley's Amphitheatre, as its indoor space ensured against disappointment "in consequence of the badness of the [British] weather".

In December 1816, Madame Saqui purchased the Café d'Apollon at 52 boulevard du Temple in Paris, and renamed it the Spectacle des Acrobates de Madame Saqui. She owned it until 1832, with her younger brother Baptiste acting as the manager. A combination of his poor management, coupled with a cholera outbreak in 1832 which saw 20,000 people die in Paris led to the theatre's bankruptcy and Saqui's financial ruin.

Saqui continued to perform well into her seventies. She had been something of a celebrity for several decades. Her son Felix Lalanne also performed as a ropewalker and toured his act to Australia in the 1850s.

Saqui died in her home in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine on 21 February 1866. She was buried in the 40th division of Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Depictions in literature and art Marguerite Saqui's memorial in Père Lachaise CemeterySaqui is mentioned in the novel Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray as "Madame Saqui was about to mount skyward on a slack-rope ascending to the stars" as part of the entertainment at Vauxhall Gardens. Balzac mentions her in both Colonel Chabert and A Distinguished Provincial at Paris and Victor Hugo references her in Les Misérables.

Saqui was described in Tales of a Traveller by Washington Irving as "A woman who could dance the slack rope, and run up a cord from the stage to the gallery with fire-works all round her. She was seized on by the management with avidity; she was the saving of the great national theatre for the season. Nothing was talked of but Madame Saqui's fire-works and flame-colored pantaloons."

In 1853, when Georges-Eugène Haussmann began his renovation of Paris, commissioned by French Emperor Napoleon III, the satirical caricaturist Cham depicted Madame Saqui in a cartoon in Le Charivari magazine. She was drawn walking a high wire between the towers built to undertake the surveyors triangulation operation.

Images depicting Madam Saqui performing are held by the V&A, London Museum, National Galleries of Scotland, British Museum, Royal Collections Trust and the New York Public Library.

In 1907, the French journalist Paul Ginisty wrote her biography: Mémoires d'une danseuse de corde: Mme Saqui (1786–1866).

Saqui is the subject of a children's book, Madame Saqui: Revolutionary Rope Dancer. Written by Lisa Robinson and illustrated by Rebecca Green. Schwartz & Wade/Random, 2020.