Marguerite Morel

Marguerite Du Londel or Dulondel (Jeanne-Pierre-Marie–Marguerite Morel; La Rochelle, France, 1737–1804) was a French ballerina, actress and singer (soprano). She was active in the French theater in Sweden and at that time attracted great fame. She is also known for her relationship with king Adolf Frederick of Sweden.

Life

Marguerite Morel was born in La Rochelle in France. She was engaged with her mother and her two sisters in the French theater company of Jeanne Du Londel and Pierre de Laynay, which was active at the Danish royal court in 1748–53. When the French theater company was contracted to perform at the Swedish royal court in 1753, Marguerite Morel initially remained in Copenhagen with her mother and sisters, before they left for Sweden to rejoin the theater in 1755.

Sweden

The French Du Londel theater in Sweden performed for the Royal Swedish court in the palace theaters of Confidencen and Drottningholm Palace Theater during the summers, and for the public in the Bollhuset theater in Stockholm during the winters. It was a significant theater with about twenty members, patronized by the royal court and the aristocracy.

In 1759, Marguerite Morel married the actor and director of the theater, Louis Du Londel (1728–1793), and became henceforth known as Madame Du Londel or Madame Dulondel.

Marguerite Du Londel made her debut in the Du Londel French theater in a ballet before the royal court in August 1755. She was a success, and the queen of Sweden, Louisa Ulrika of Prussia, compared her to Barbara Campanini and Babette Cochois of the Prussian Ballet in Berlin.

Marguerite Du Londel was trained as a ballet dancer, actress and singer, which was not uncommon at the time. From 1759 onward, she participated as both an actress and a singer. It was noted in connection to this that she and her husband did not live together and in fact had different addresses until 1770 – while he lived with his mother, she was quartered in a room at the royal palace.

Later life

In 1771, the French Du Londel theater was dissolved by king Gustav III of Sweden after his succession to the throne. All of the members of the theater was fired without a pension, with the sole exception of Marguerite Du Londel and her husband, who were the only ones afforded a full pension by Gustav III, who referred to a promise he had given to his father.

The Du Londel couple returned to Sweden during the French Revolution in 1792, because they felt unsafe in France because of their royalist sympathies as well as Louis Du Londel's noble descent on his mother's side. The following year, Marguerite Du Londel was widowed, and the new regency government of Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden discontinued her pension. She lived on the charity of friends, particularly her god daughter, the celebrated actress Marie Louise Marcadet. When Marcadet left for France in 1795, she was in a difficult situation, but the following year, her daughter Marie Louise Dulondel (1776–1847) married her former colleague Louis Gallodier, and she was thereafter supported by her son-in-law until her death.