She married the well-known tragic actor François-Joseph Talma a few days before giving birth to twin sons.

She held an influential salon before and during the revolution and at the start of Napoleon's rise to power, and became a close friend of Benjamin Constant.

[6] Julie Carreau used the money from her protectors in real estate speculation in the Chaussée d'Antin district, with architects such as Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart and Claude Nicolas Ledoux, and made a small fortune.

He took several leading democratic actors with him, including Monvel (Jacques Marie Boutet), Rose Vestris and Amélie-Julie Candeille.

They had difficulty finding a priest who would perform the ceremony since Talma insisted on giving his profession as an actor, a sinful occupation, and therefore could not receive communion.

After several months the vicar of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette agreed to marry them as long as Talma registered as a bourgeois of Paris rather than an actor.

[3] François-Joseph Talma met the actress Charlotte Vanhove, wife of the orchestra musician Louis-Sébastien Olympe Petit.

[3] "Mlle Julie" was far from an ordinary courtesan, and her drawing room soon became a bureau d'esprit, a place of intellectual discussion.

"[8] Mirabeau died at Julie Talma's house on the Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin on 2 April 1791.

Here came Vergniaud, the eloquent chief of the ill-fated Gironde; Greuze, the painter; Roland, the stem and minatory minister, who spoke bitter words, composed by his wife, to the king; Lavoisier, the chemist, who is said to have begged that the axe might be stayed while he completed some experiments, and was told that the Republic had no lack of chemists.

"[10] A meeting at Julie Talma's home on 16 October 1792 had General Charles François Dumouriez, fresh from his victories in Belgium, as guest of honour.

[3] Under the Directory Julie Talma lived apart from her husband in a small townhouse she shared with her close friend Sophie de Condorcet.

[6] She welcomed men who were suspect to the Directory such as Alexandre Rousselin de Saint-Albin, Marie-Joseph Chénier, Dominique Joseph Garat, Pierre-Louis Ginguené and Claude Charles Fauriel.

[4] Julie Talma met Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) at the Rue Matignon, and they began a long exchange of letters.

[15] Harold Nicolson wrote of their relationship, "With gently sagacity she steered their affair into the calm lagoon of a devoted and outspoken friendship.

With Julie Talma's support, Constant took a bold public stance of opposing dictatorship and abuses of individual freedom.

[22] On 15 July 1804 Napoleon put on an elaborate ceremony with glittering costumes at the Church of the Invalides in which he personally awarded the first civilian Legion of Honour.

[24] Julie Talma maintained the rationalist views of the Age of Enlightenment throughout her life, and when dying refused to receive a priest for her last rites.