Marie Dorval

Marie Dorval (6 January 1798, Lorient, Morbihan – 20 May 1849) was a French actress in the Romantic style. Early life and first marriage Marie Thomase Amélie Delauney was born on 6 January 1798 to Marie Bourdais, who was sixteen years old. Her father, Joseph-Charles Delaunay was an actor who happened upon a traveling acting company where he met Marie Boudais, the daughter of the troupe manager. He abandoned his daughter and died of yellow fever on 15 July 1802. Dorval's mother died on 18 February 1818. Dorval met Alain Dorval when she was fifteen years old, and he was thirty-six. The two were married in Vannes on 12 February 1814. Marie and her mother travelled parts of Brittany and France during the period from 1806 to 1810. By 1813, they joined the itinerant acting troupes run by Johann Ross in Paris, where the young Marie met Alain Dorval and married him in 1814. They had two children together, Marie-Louise-Désirée in 1814 and Catherine-Françoise-Sophie-Gabrielle in 1815. Dorval eventually left Marie and the children, and died a few years later in St. Petersburg.