Pauline Leroux

Born in Paris, she was the daughter of Louis-Bénigne-Marie Leroux, Commissioner of War, and Marguerite-Suzanne (née Lecocq).

Leroux was a pupil of Auguste Vestris and Jean-François Coulon and was a member of the Paris Opera Ballet from 1826 to 1837, then from 1840 to 1844 to replace foreign celebrities like Marie Taglioni and Fanny Elssler.

Leroux had her first success when she created the role of Marie in La tentation by Jean Coralli (1832), then in Filippo Taglioni's Leda, the Swiss Milkmaid (1832) and triumphed in Coralli's Le Diable Boiteux (1836), then as Uriel in The Devil in Love with Joseph Mazilier (1840).

She danced regularly in London between 1824 and 1833, appearing before a young Princess Victoria who painted watercolour portraits of Leroux as Fenella in Massaniello at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden (1832),[1] as she appeared in La Somnambule (1833) at the King's Theatre,[2] and as Effie in La Sylphide, again at the King's Theatre (1833).

Pauline Leroux died in 1891 in the 9th arrondissement of Paris and is buried in Montmartre Cemetery with her husband Pierre-Chéri Lafont.