CHAMPMESLE, MARIE French actress, was born in Rouen and made her first appearance on the stage at Rouen with Charles Chevillet (1645-1701), who called himself sieur de Champmesle, and they were married in 1666. By 1669 they were playing in Paris at the Theatre du Marais. The next year, as Hermione in Racine's Andromaque, she had a great success at the Hotel de Bourgogne. Her intimacy with Racine dates from then. Some of his finest tragedies were written for her, but her repertoire was not confined to them, and many an indifferent play—like Thomas Corpeille's Ariane and Comte d'Essex—owed its success to "her natural manner of acting and her pathetic rendering of the hapless heroine." Phedre was the climax of her triumphs, and when she and her husband deserted the Hotel de Bourgogne (see BEJART ad fin.), it was selected to open the Comedie Francaise on Aug. 26, 1680. There, with Mme. Guerin as the leading comedy actress, she played the great tragic love parts for more than 3o years, dying on May 15, 1698. La Fontaine dedicated to her his novel Belphegor, and Boileau immortalized her in verse.
Her brother, the actor NICOLAS DESMARES (c. 1650-1714), began as a member of a subsidized company at Copenhagen. After 1685 he played peasant parts with great success at the Comedie Francaise. His daughter, to whom Christian V. and his queen stood sponsors, CHRISTINE ANTOINETTE CHARLOTTE DES