Little is known of the early life of Angelique, though she apparently grew up in French Martinique, and her mother practiced voodoo. Obviously, she passed her powers on to her daughter, but for some unknown reason, Angelique did not use them to make her life better. In the late 1700's she was reduced to working as a servant in the duPres household, as the personal maid to young Josette. Though Josette treated her as a cherished friend, Angelique was well aware of the differences in their stations, and resented Josette for it. She certainly was not loyal to her mistress, for when Josette left Martinique for France, Angelique wasted no time in seducing her suitor. Unsure that Josette would ever return, the unwitting Barnabas Collins fell into an affair with the desirable servant. But Josette did return, and Barnabas proposed. When Josette accepted, Angelique couldn't have been more delighted, under the assumption that he would be in her bed fairly often.
But she arrived in Collinsport to a cruel shock - now that Barnabas knew Josette loved him, he planned to be a faithful husband. Though she was still able to make him succumb to her sensuality, he insisted that their relationship would be only as friends. Angelique refused to accept that, swearing that he would be hers. Whether she was actually in love with him, or just wanted the position his love would bring her is unclear, but she set a plan in motion to stop the wedding.
Using her dark powers to make servant Ben Loomis her slave, Angelique cast a spell to make Josette and Barnabas' younger brother Jeremiah fall in love. Though they resisted at first, they were soon unable to resist her magic, and they eloped. But her plan to estrange Barnabas and Josette forever included Jeremiah's death, and she magically shot him with a lead ball during his duel with Barnabas. (It was nessecary as Barnabas' gun was unloaded.) Still under the influence of the love spell, Josette turned on Barnabas in hatred for killing her husband. Angelique must have assumed Barnabas would turn to her in his grief at losing Josette's love, but he cruelly told her that he would love no one else while Josette was still alive. Furious, Angelique declared he would be sorry for rejecting her.
Trying to remove Josette once and for all, Angelique summoned the ghost of Jeremiah from the grave and ordered him to throw his "bride" from Widow's Hill. But she hadn't counted on his nature overcoming her magic. Instead of destroying her, Jeremiah set her down at Barnabas' urging and jumped from the cliff himself, but not before he was able to warn Barnabas of Angelique's treachery. When Barnabas confronted her with evidence of her witchcraft, she denied it at first. But when he threatened to go to the authorities and have her hung, she tried to kill him and fell on her own dagger. Dying, she cursed Barnabas for eternity. With her death, Josette was freed from the love spell.
Angelique's body was buried in an unmarked grave by Barnabas and Ben, but not surprisingly, her spirit was a restless one. She wasted no time in fulfilling her curse, sending Barnabas an image of Josette that sucked the blood from his body. Hovering nearby, Angelique's spirit tormented the dying Barnabas that his hell would take whatever form she chose. She continued to torment him after his rose as a vampire, promising that everyone he loved would die. Amused by his request that she kill him, Angelique mockingly responded that she lived him too much to do that.
Even Josette's look-alike was not immune to her evil. The hapless Victoria Winters, having journeyed back from 1991, had been arrested and tried for the witchcraft that Angelique was responsible for. Though Ben tries to explain that Angelique was the witch, his testimony was thrown out when the woman he said he buried showed up in court. Angelique proceeded to testify against Vicki, then disappeared once out of sight.
But her true revenge was saved for Josette herself. Tormenting her with visions of Barnabas attacking women, she lured Josette to Widow's Hill. At the edge she sent a final image - what Barnabas would turn her into if she became a vampire. Josette, terrified of the mystic visions, threw herself off the cliff, with Barnabas powerless to save her.
Barnabas' mother, aunt, cousin and sister also fall victim to Angelique's curse on Barnabas. Probably learning that the Collins family would continue into the future, Angelique even tried to kill Daniel Collins, the last male descendant of the family in 1790, which would destroy the Collinses before they were born. Angelique's last act in 1790 was to assure the death of Victoria Winters. Causing evidence clearing Vicki to disappear and erasing the judge's memory of it, Angelique caused Vicki's hanging to go on as scheduled.
But Vicki's subsequent return to 1991 and Daniel's recovery alerted Angelique to the failure of her plans, but now she knew she would have another chance. Whether her spirit lay dormant for 200 years or she continued her evil elsewhere can only be speculated on, but in 1991 she returned to Collinwood, knowing her "lover" had been released from his imprisonment. Though the ghost of Barnabas' sister Sarah tried to warn the family of Angelique's return, the little girl was unable to stand up to Angelique's power. Sarah was banished before she was able to warn Barnabas and Julia of the witch's plan to kill Daniel. But she was able to send Victoria back in to 1790 to try to save him, exchanging her for the governess Phyllis Wicke.
Concerned that the ill Phyllis would die and trap Vicki in the past, the Collins family tried to contact Sarah to bring Vicki back to the present. That was all that Angelique needed. Using the connection to the spirit world they had opened to return to the real world, Angelique possessed the body of Julia Hoffman. She would have probably used Julia to kill Phyllis, keeping Vicki from returning to Barnabas, but a more immediate threat loomed. Joe Haskell had discovered Barnabas was the vampire. Knowing Barnabas' destruction would free him from the eternal torment she had planned for him, Angelique forced Julia to kill the hapless Joe as he stood poised to stake Barnabas in his coffin. But Willie Loomis walked in shortly after, and was able to render Julia unconscious, keeping Angelique from doing any more harm.
Realizing Julia was useless to her now that she had been discovered, Angelique took the next opportunity to change bodies - Maggie Evans' attempted exorcism of Julia. Fleeing the body of Dr. Hoffman, she possessed Maggie. Using the psychic, Angelique turned off the life support machines keeping Phyllis Wicke alive. Only Julia's quick action kept her breathing long enough for Vicki to return to the present. Maggie appeared to be free of Angelique's influence, but one would be safe in assuming that Barnabas and the Collins family had not heard the last of the beautiful, vengeful witch.
