Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil (Dangerous Liaisons)

Marquise de Merteuil (Glenn Close) is the main antagonist of the novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, and its 1988 film adaptation. She is a married noblewoman who seeks revenge against her lover, who left her to marry 15 year old Cecile de Volanges. 
To that end, she hatches a plan with the equally amoral Vicomte de Valmont; he will seduce Cecile and ruin her reputation, thus punishing the Marquise's former lover and destroying her competition.
==BIOGRAPHY==
She and Valmont, a notorious womanizer, were once lovers. She enlists Valmont to sleep with Cecile, and he agrees, on two conditions: the marquise must sleep with him as well, and arrange for him to sleep with her house guest, the chaste Madame de Tourvel. When de Tourvel rebuffs his advances, Valmont rapes Cecile. 
She naively confides in the Marquise, who manipulates her further by advising her to accept Valmont as a lover in order to take what she can get from a society that hates women. Cecile takes her advice and becomes Valmont's lover, even though she is in love with her music teacher, Danceny. The Marquise furthers her scheme by seducing Danceny, as well.
Eventually, Valmont seduces Madame de Tourvel - and, much to his own surprise, develops genuine feelings for her. Angry and jealous, the Marquise refuses to honor her end of the deal. Meanwhile, Cecile tells Valmont that she is pregnant with his child, but soon has a miscarriage. When Madame de Tourvel learns what has happened, she rejects Valmont and flees to a monastery, where she falls deathly ill. 
When Danceny learns that Valmont and Cecile were lovers, he challenges him to a duel and mortally wounds him. With his dying breath, Valmont pledges his love to Madame de Tourvel, who is herself dying, and gives Danceny his correspondence with the Marquise, revealing her plot. The Marquise is humiliated and ostracized by her former friends in high society, forcing her to flee Paris in disgrace.
== Trivia==
*Glenn Close appeared as Alex Forrest in the 1987 film Fatal Attraction.
*Glenn Close appeared as Cruella de Vil in the 1996 film, "101 Dalmatians" and again in the 2000 sequel "102 Dalmatians".
*"Dangerous Liaisons" is based on the French novel "Les Liaisons dangereuses" which was written by Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos (1741 – 1803). The first published in 1782 (Seven years before the French Revolution).
*The original book was written as a series of letters between the Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont.
*The movie Cruel Intentions (1999) is also based on "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" and follows the original story very closely.
*Actress Swoosie Kurtz appears in both "Dangerous Liaisons" (1988) and "Cruel Intentions" (1999). In both movies she is the mother of a daughter seduced and deflowered by the Valmont character.
== GALLERY==
Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil.jpg|Marquise de Merteuil gives her young friend some bad advice.
Marquise de Merteuil is drinking tea.jpg|The Marquise de Merteuil likes her sexual revenge served hot like her tea.
Marquise de Merteuil is dressed by her handmaidens..jpg|The Marquise de Merteuil is sewn into her cloth each morning by her handmaids.
Uma Thurman Cécile de Volanges Dangerous Liaisons.jpg|Cécile de Volanges whom the Marquise wished deflowered.
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