Clémentine Jouassain

Joassain was born in Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, near Limoges, the daughter of Léonard Jouassain and Marie Masrevery. Her father was a merchant.[1] She studied at the Conservatoire in Paris, a student of Joseph Isidore Samson.[2][3]

Jouassain debuted with the Comédie-Française in 1851,[4] and became a societaire in 1863. She was called "reine des duègnes" (Queen of the Duennas), because she almost always played supporting characters; she was not considered to have the face or physique for leading roles.[5] She was cast in plays by Jean Racine, Molière and Victor Hugo,[6] and was credited as creating dozens of roles.[3] In 1870, Joussain and three other actresses of the Comédie-Française, Madeleine Brohan, Marie Favart and Edile Riquier, announced that they were closing the theatre to open its space as "an ambulance" for treating French casualties during the Siege of Paris.[7] "Excellent above all in Molière and Marivaux, and interesting in everything," commented a London newspaper in 1879, "she is one of the most original, most useful, and most laborious members of the company."[8] She retired from the Comédie with a pension in 1887.[2][3]

Jouassain donated art to the Musée d'Orsay.[9]

In 1876, Joassain married a marine officer, Albert Edouard Olivier de Tournière, and became a baroness.[10] She was a widow when she died in Paris in 1902, aged 72 years,[5] after injuries sustained in a street accident with a bicycle.[2][10]

• An etched illustration of Jouassain, from an 1876 publication, in the collection of the British Museum
• A photograph of Jouassain, by Léon Crèmiere, in the collection of the Musée Carnavalet