She starred in some of the most famous French Plays of the 19the Century such as Cinna by Pierre Corneille, Athalie, Phèdre, Andromaque and Britannicus by Jean Racine and Le Passant by François Coppée.

Upon her death Pauline Savari said "Above all in love with the great heroines, in turn Camille, Phèdre, Hermione and Emilie, she did not lavish her admirable talent in numerous and fleeting creations; but if it had only the two roles of the passer-by, that touching inspiration of François Coppée, and of the enemy mothers, the master and powerful work of Catulle Mendès!

[4] She began her life in Paris by giving lessons in piano and then, as she had "The Voice", begins to sing, from 1857, in café-concerts, the "Bellowing" under the pseudonym Marie Lallier, songs "Specially composed for her talent, which she interpreted "with a certain tragic vigor".

[6] At the end of 1859, under his direction, she began as an actress at the small theater of the Tour d'Auvergne, in Don César de Bazan by Dumanoir and Dennery, where she played the role of Maritana .

She was superb, with that beautiful marble face, that thick black hair, heavily massaged on the neck, her already opulent breasts, her majestic waist and that deep voice to which her veiled tone gave something mysterious.

"She had, in front of the young and intelligent audience of this theater, a great beauty success, and her abrupt, rough, little measured talent, but of a personal, strange and communicative inspiration, produced a very lively effect".

[10] Marie Léonide maintains a friendly relationship with a young poet, François Coppée, who has just made his first play, a one-act verse comedy with two characters, entitled Le Passant.

She obtains from the direction of the Odeon that this piece be included in the repertoire and thus finds herself in the role of Silvia alongside Sarah Bernhardt who plays that of the troubadour Zanetto, January 14, 1869.

She performed "to its greatest advantage" in the role Emilia Cinna of Corneille :"She relaxed treble sides of her talent and she made the best efforts to break with some of its native traditions ".

[13] the July 20, 1870, After the declaration of war from France to Prussia, during a performance of the Lion lover of François Ponsard, the public demands, as he already did the day before, the 18th, to hear between two acts the orchestra playing La Marseillaise.

During the Paris Commune started in March 1871, it occurs in favor of this cause on April 30 for a morning at the Vaudeville theater, May 14 at the Tuileries, then the May 21st for a concert for the benefit of the wounded and the widows and orphans of the national guards killed, while the Versailles troops entered Paris.May 6, 1871, the government of the Commune organized a concert at the Tuileries, for the benefit of the widows and orphans of the Federates, and asked the Comédie-Française for the assistance of an artist to recite La Marseillaise.

Portrait by Félix Nadar, Supported by Georges Marye and Paul Bourget, Marie Léonide only makes rare appearances on the Parisian scene.

[16]"Above all in love with the great heroines, in turn Camille, Phèdre, Hermione and Emilie, she did not lavish her admirable talent in numerous and fleeting creations; but if it had only the two roles of the passer-by, that touching inspiration of François Coppée, and of the enemy mothers, the master and powerful work of Catulle Mendès, eh!

"- Pauline SavariIn 1890, aged 58, while reciting Victor Hugo's poem Le Cimetière d'Eylau, it was on stage that she was struck by paralysis; an entire side of his body is inert.