A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Bourgain, Therese
BOURGAIN, THERESE,
Engaged at the Théatre Français, in Paris, acted the parts of heroines in tragedy, and the young artless girls in comedy. She was a native of Paris. Palissot encouraged her, and the celebrated Dumesnli, then eighty years old, gave her instructions. "Pamela," (by F. de Neufchateau,) "Melanie," (by La Harpe,) and "Monime," (a character in "Mithridat," by Voltaire,) were her most successful parts in tragedy; but in comedy she was greater. She avoided the common fault of most actresses who wish to excel in both kinds, namely, the transferring of the tragic diction to that of comedy, which latter requires, in dialogue, an easy, free, and well-supported style. If she did not reach the accomplished Mile. Mars, her graceful vivacity, sufficiently aided by study and art, had peculiar charms. She acted also male parts, and her triumph in this kind was the "Page," in the "Marriage of Figaro." She was one of the members of the Théatre Français, whom Napoleon had selected to entertain the congress of kings at Erfurt; at the demand of Alexander the First, she went, 1809, to St. Petersburg, where she was much applauded as Eugenia; in Königsberg, she gave recitations before the late Queen Louisa of Prussia, who rewarded her liberally; and in the same year she returned to Paris, where justice has always been done to her eminent talents.