His first step in this direction was to appear in the small role of Proculus in Voltaire's Brutus, with a toga and short Roman haircut, much to the surprise of an audience accustomed to 18th century costume on stage, regardless of whether it suited the part played.

Talma possessed the physical gifts to enable him to excel, a striking appearance and a voice of beauty and power, which he gradually trained to perfection.

The actor was an intimate friend of Napoleon, who delighted in his society - they knew each other even when the latter was an obscure officer in the French Army - and even, on his return from Elba, forgave him for performing before Louis XVIII.

It was in Chenier's anti-monarchical Charles IX, produced on 4 November 1789, that a prophetic couplet on the destruction of the Bastille made the house burst into a salvo of applause, led by Mirabeau.

Talma made his last appearance on 11 June 1826 as Charles VI in Delaville's tragedy, and he died in Paris on 19 October of that year.