She rarely attended school, having to help her parents in the fields, but nevertheless asked the village priest to teach her writing, reading and arithmetic.

At the age of sixteen, she left her family to live with an aunt who ran a rope shop on Saint-Pholien Street in Liège; she often used peket to retain the male clientele.

At the age of 17, on 15 August 1896, she met her first lover, a man named Yann, at the Marian feasts in the Outremeuse district.

Marie then started to cheat on her husband more often, explaining in her trial that "it is not given to all women to resist the advances of men.

Marie then opened a sewing workshop in one of the rooms of the house, bringing in a growing number of customers.

In 1928, she met a lover to whom Marie became extremely and passionately devoted, Maximilien Houdy, who was twenty years younger.

However, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the dissoluting morals of Becker put an end to her business, whose bankruptcy was pronounced in 1934.