She was born Léonne-Julie Bournonville in Brussels, Austrian Netherlands, on 12 December 1748,[1] as the child of the French actors Louis-Amable Bournonville and Jeanne Evrard, members of the theatre troupe of Charles-Simon Favart.
She accompanied her parents to Lyon in the troupe of Noverre in 1759-60 and debuted in La Ciaconne by Jean Dupré in Vienne in 1765.
She performed at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg under Gasparo Angiolini, and in Cassel in 1772–81.
On 8 February that same year, she married Claude Alix de la Faye, the French dentist of the queen - in contrast with many other contemporary female dancers who married men with a different profession to their own, she continued to be active in her profession after her marriage.
She had been doing this for years anyway, training students to perform pantomime ballet in a similar way to that of Anne Marie Milan Desguillons, who taught students to perform children's plays, and de la Fay duly continued as an instructor after her retirement.