Clémentine Portier-Kaltenbach 4:45 p.m., January 19, 2022
In the 18th and 19th centuries, tightrope walking, or the art of walking on a rope stretched above the ground, was very popular.
Marguerite-Antoinette Lalanne (1786-1866), better known by the pseudonym of “Madame Saqui”, is thus one of the most famous string dancers of the First Empire.
In 1815, while the Russian troops of Tsar Alexander I (1777-1825) occupied Paris, Captain Piotr Moussine-Pushkin fell in love with the capital's star tightrope walker.
From this idyll was born, a year later, a little girl whom Madame Saqui gave up raising.
The child grew up with her father, in Russia and became the mistress of Tsar Nicolas 1st (1796-1855)...