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French actress

Elisabeth Félix (21 February 1821 – 3 January 1858), better known only as Mademoiselle Rachel or simply Rachel, was a French actress. She became a prominent figure in French society, and was the mistress of, among others, Napoleon III, Prince Napoléon, and Alexandre Colonna Walewski, the illegitimate son of Napoleon I. Efforts by newspapers to publish pictures of her on her deathbed led to the introduction of privacy rights into French law.

Rachel Félix was born as Elisa Rachel Félix on 28 February 1821, in Mumpf, Rheinfelden, Aargau, to a family of Jewish background. Her father, Jacob Félix, was a peddler and her mother, Esther Hayer, was a Bohemian dealer in second hand clothes. She had four sisters (Sophie Sarah, Rébecca, Mélanie Dinah, and Adelaïde "Lia") and one brother, Raphaël. Rachel was described as a very serious and committed student. She was admired for her intelligence, work ethic, diction, and ability to act. Auditioning in March 1838, she starred in Pierre Corneille's Horace at the Théâtre Français at the age of 17. During this time, she began a liaison with Louis Véron, the former director of the Paris Opera, which became the subject of much gossip. During this time, from 1838 to 1842, she lived in a third floor apartment in Paris's Galerie Véro Dodat. Her fame spread throughout Europe after success in London in 1841, and she was often associated with the works of Racine, Voltaire, and Corneille. She toured Brussels, Berlin, and St. Petersburg. Although French classical tragedy was no longer popular at the time Rachel entered the stage of Comédie Française, she remained true to her classical roots, arousing audiences with a craving for the tragic style of writers like Corneille, Racine and Molière. She created the title role in Eugène Scribe's Adrienne Lecouvreur. Her acting style was characterized by clear diction and economy of gesture; she evoked a high demand for classical tragedy to remain on the stage. This represented a major change from the exaggerated style of those days, as society was beginning to demand the highly emotional, realistic, instinctual acting styles of the Romantics. Félix completely rejected the Romantic Drama movement happening in nineteenth century France. She was best known for her portrayal of the title role in Phèdre.

Félix's health declined after a long tour of Russia. Her efforts to remain successful and the constant flux of her relationships had weakened her. She had shown symptoms of tuberculosis as early as 1841, Alexandre Antoine Colonne with count Walewski (illegitimate son of Napoleon I), and Gabriel Victor with Arthur Bertrand (son of Henri Gatien Bertrand). Upon her deathbed, she wrote many farewell letters to her sons, family members, lovers, colleagues and theatre connections at Comédie Française. She is buried in a mausoleum in the Jewish part of Père Lachaise Cemetery and Avenue Rachel in Paris was named after her. The English theatre critic James Agate published a biography of her in 1928, which echoes the anti Semitism of his day. The character "Vashti" in Charlotte Brontë's novel Villette was reportedly based on Félix, whom Brontë had seen perform in London. Rachel, a light tannish colour, primarily for face powder used in artificial light, is named after her. The Raschel lace making machine was also named after her.