| Clémentine Jouassain | |
| Birth Name: | Catherine-Julie-Clémentine Jouassain |
| Birth Date: | 3 December 1829 |
| Birth Place: | Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat |
| Death Date: | 7 May 1902 |
| Death Place: | Paris |
| Occupation: | Actress |
Catherine-Julie-Clémentine Jouassain, baronne de Tournière (3 December 1829 – 7 May 1902) was a French actress, a societaire of the Comédie-Française.
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. She was cast in plays by Jean Racine, Molière and Victor Hugo,[5] and was credited as creating dozens of roles. 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.[6] "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."[7] She retired from the Comédie with a pension in 1887.
Jouassain donated art to the Musée d'Orsay.[8]
In 1876, Joassain married a marine officer, Albert Edouard Olivier de Tournière, and became a baroness.[9] She was a widow when she died in Paris in 1902, aged 72 years,[10] after injuries sustained in a street accident with a bicycle.