Marguerite Du Londel

Jeanne-Pierre-Marie-Marguerite Morel, as married Du Londel, was French ballet dancer. She was active in Sweden 1755-1771 and at that time counted as the perhaps notable star in the ballet in Sweden. She was also mistress of king Adolf Frederick of Sweden.

Morel performed in Copenhagen when she was hired to the French Theatre in Sweden. At her debute in Sweden in 1755, Louisa Ulrika of Prussia compared her to Barbara Campanini. She was, after her marriage to Louis Du Londel in 1759, known as Madame Du Londel. She was appointed premier dancer and was with Louis Gallodier counted as the star of the ballet in the advertisements on the public performances at Bollhuset in Stockholm. She was also a singer and an actor and counted as one of the most notable members of the French Theatre, and as the lead female star with Marie Baptiste.

She was also the mistress of the king; she was not an official mistress, but it was known within the court. In a play when she had the line, "When I was young, I was the taste of a king", the audience laughed. The king made his son promise to give her a pension when he became king. When the French troupe was fired by Gustav III of Sweden in 1771, the Du Londel couple were the only ones granted a royal pension. In 1780, when some of the remaining French artists performed in the Swedish court, Gustav III said that the only thing preventing them from being a good theatre was the fact that the Du Londel couple was in Paris.

References

• Gidlunds förlag, "Ny svensk teaterhistoria. Teater före 1800."
• Anna Ivarsdotter Johnsson och Leif Jonsson, "Musiken i Sverige, Frihetstiden och Gustaviansk tid 1720-1810."
• Oscar Levertin, Teater och drama under Gustaf III, Albert Bonniers förlag, Stockholm, Fjärde Upplagan (1920).