Madame Adelaide Bonfamille

Madame Adelaide Bonfamille is a major character in Disney's 1970 animated feature film The Aristocats. A retired opera musician, she is the wealthy, elderly owner of Duchess and her kittens.
==Background==
Madame Bonfamille, often simply called Madame, is an elderly, wealthy woman, who apparently was a famous opera singer at one point (she said that she once played the title character of George Bizet's Carmen, and was even seen dancing to the aria "Habanera"). At the time of the film, however, she had no living relatives, thus she doted on her cats. Her other friends included her lawyer, Georges Hautecourt, and her former butler, Edgar. Despite her old age, Madame Bonfamille has a sophisticated appearance.
===Personality===
Madame is a polite socialite who is very kind and generous and at times vain (though not distastefully so). She loves her cats dearly, telling them that they are the greatest treasure she could own and is unaware of Edgar's evil schemes. Her main downfall is that she's too trusting of others (not knowing Edgar's evil scheme).
===Physical appearance===
Madame has long, silvery-white hair, usually worn up in a Gibson Girl-style bun (except when she is sleeping, where it extends down to below her shoulders, though she wears a night bonnet while asleep), having an elderly appearance, and wears a violet-red Edwardian Era dress. She wears a long lavender nightgown when she is sleeping, including a purple bonnet and a pink dressing gown.
==Appearances==
===The Aristocats===
At the beginning of the film, she is seen in her carriage, driven by Edgar, with her cats. Upon returning home, it is revealed that she is expecting her lawyer and longtime friend Georges Hautecourt to come to handle some business matters. After he arrives, she tells Georges that she wants to make out her will. She notes that she has no living relatives, only her cats, and Edgar, which Georges interprets to mean that she is leaving her extensive fortune to Edgar. Madame corrects him, revealing her plan to leave the fortune to Duchess and the kittens. Edgar is to care for the cats until their death when he will inherit the vast wealth himself. Unknown to Georges and Madame, Edgar has overheard her intentions through the pipes. Fearful that he will be dead before he can inherit, he kidnaps the cats and drops them off in the French countryside. Madame learns of their disappearance after waking up in the middle of that stormy night appearing to have a nightmare about them. She goes to check the cats' bed, only to a flash of lightning from outside reveal that it is empty. She is noticeably horrified, saddened, and worried by the cats' sudden disappearance, but does not know that Edgar was the one who got rid of them.
Much later, Madame thinks she has heard the kittens and rushes to check the door, bringing Edgar with her. Unknown to her, Edgar has heard the kittens earlier and had trapped them in an old oven until he could get rid of them again. When the cats don't appear, Madame sorrowfully returns to her house, and Edgar resumes his scheme. However, the cats are rescued from Edgar by their new friend, Thomas O'Malley, and they send Edgar away by shoving him into a trunk headed for Timbuktu. Then, the cats all return safely to the Madame's house.
At the end of the film, it is revealed that Madame has adopted O'Malley, citing the need for a man around the house. While taking a portrait of the cats, she laments that Edgar left. She is unaware of the real reason for Edgar's disappearance, ironically thinking that he wouldn't have left had he known about the will. Per her instructions, Georges removes Edgar from the will, and replaces him with O'Malley. Madame begins a foundation that opens up her home for the alley cats of Paris, which is revealed to already include the cats' new friends Scat Cat and his gang of Alley Cats.
===House of Mouse===
Madame Bonfamille appears as a small cameo with Georges Hautecourt in the House of Mouse series.
==Disney Parks==
Madame Bonfamille was the namesake of the Bonfamille's Cafe restaurant that once existed at Disney's Port Orleans Resort. Early kids menus took the form of a coloring and activity booklet telling a story of Madame Bonfamille and her cats visiting Port Orleans and befriending a sea serpent through the use of music. The Sea Serpent would be named "Scales", as in "Scales and Arpeggios", and served as the icon for the resort's pools, though Imagineers would come up with their own backstory for the creature.
==Trivia==
*The name "Bonfamille" is derived from the French phrase for "good family" ("bon" being the masculine word for "good" and "famille" meaning "family", though "famille" is feminine, so the right way would have been "bonne famille").
*Madame Adelaide mentions Marie's name and Toulouse's name both just once, but she never mentions Berlioz's name. She mostly just refers to all three of them as her kittens.
*Adelaide bears a striking resemblance to Lady Tremaine (who has her own cat on whom she dotes), though Adelaide is a morally good and benevolent character.
*While welcoming Thomas into the family, Adelaide expresses a hope that he and Duchess will have kittens together and make their family a little bigger.
*Adelaide apparently never discovered why her cats disappeared, Edgar's true intentions, or why he left.
==Gallery==
===Screenshots===
Paris 1910.jpg
Aristocats-disneyscreencaps com-23.jpg
Aristocats-disneyscreencaps.com-113.jpg
Aristocats-disneyscreencaps.com-38.jpg
Aristocats-disneyscreencaps.com-128.jpg
Aristocats-disneyscreencaps com-148.jpg
Aristocats-disneyscreencaps com-350.jpg
Aristocats-disneyscreencaps com-491.jpg
Aristocats-disneyscreencaps.com-573.jpg
Aristocats-disneyscreencaps.com-2793.jpg|"They're gone!"
MAB1.jpg
MAB2.jpg
Madame Adelaide Bonfamille in her mansion.jpg
madameduchess.jpg
===Miscellaneous===
AristocatsMadamePhonograph.jpg|Madame Bonfamille and her beloved cats listening to records
MadameBonfamilleKA.jpg|Madame Bonfamille by Ken Anderson
Georges Hautecourt 7.jpeg
February5th.png|Madame Adelaide Bonfamille's page in Disneystrology
PA - Story Board Art 01.jpg|Madame Adelaide as she would have appeared in Princess Academy
True Original Aristocats Theatrical Poster.jpg
DuchessandMadameAdelaideBonfamilleConceptArt.jpg
Disney's The Aristocats 2 - Madame Adelaide Bonfamille - Model Sheet.jpg|A colored model sheet of Madame Adelaide for the canceled sequel, The Aristocats II.
==References==
es:Adelaida Bonfamille
fr:Adélaïde de Bonnefamille
ja:ボンファミーユ夫人
pt-br:Madame Adelaide Bonfamille
Category:Females
Category:Disney characters
Category:Characters
Category:The Aristocats characters
Category:Heroines
Category:French characters
Category:Adults
Category:Animated characters
Category:Elderly characters
Category:Nobility
Category:House of Mouse characters
Category:Characters in the Disney animated features canon
Category:TV Animation characters