She sought to champion ancient literature and used her great capabilities in Latin and Greek for this purpose as well as for her own financial support, producing a series of editions and translations from which she earned her living.

[1] She was the dedicatee of Gilles Ménage's Historia mulierum philosopharum, whose characterisation of her and of Anna Maria van Schurman was used to provide leading examples in treatises arguing for female education across the following centuries.

She spent the rest of her childhood in Saumur, a town in the Loire region of France, and was taught both Latin and ancient Greek by her father, Tanneguy Le Fèvre.

In 1683, she married one of her father's students, André Dacier (also engaged in classical studies and translations albeit his work is considered by encyclopedia editors to be far inferior to hers).

[9] The Iliad, which made Homer known for the first time to many French men of letters (including Antoine Houdar de la Motte) gave rise to a famous literary controversy.

"[10] La Motte carried on the discussion with light gaiety and badinage, and had the happiness of seeing his views supported by the abbé Jean Terrasson, who in 1715 produced two volumes titled Dissertation critique sur L'Iliade ("Critical essay on The Iliad"), in which he maintained that science and philosophy, and especially the science and philosophy of René Descartes, had so developed the human mind that the poets of the eighteenth century were immeasurably superior to those of ancient Greece.