[6] Réjane had ambitions to go on the stage, and, having obtained a reluctant consent from her mother, she successfully applied to François-Joseph Regnier, a distinguished actor and teacher, for admission to his class at the Paris Conservatoire.

The critic Francisque Sarcey held that she deserved the premier prix, but "A first prize carries with it the right of entrance into the Comédie-Française, and the jury did not think Mademoiselle Réjane, with her little wide-awake face, suited to the vast frame of the House of Molière".

A reviewer commented, "She has the arch and sprightly air of a Parisian grisette, a flexible voice of an agreeable tone, and perfect self-possession – qualities more than sufficient to succeed on the stage".

[n 3] The Athenaeum applauded "a display of vivacity and espièglerie quite exceptional on the part of Mdlle Réjane", and The Morning Post found her "infinitely diverting".

[16][n 5] Over the next ten years Réjane appeared at six or more Paris theatres, in an exceptionally wide variety of plays, from new works by Edmond Gondinet (Clara Soleil, 1885), Meilhac (Les demoiselles Clochart, 1886, and Ma cousine, 1890), Victorien Sardou (Marquise, 1889) and Edmond Haraucourt (Shylock, 1889), to revivals of classics by Beaumarchais (Le mariage de Figaro, 1889), Dumas (La Demi-Monde, 1890) and Aristophanes (Lysistrata, 1892).

[2] She continually showed the range of her abilities as an actress: in 1887 in Allô-Allô she played a scene grappling with the difficulties of the new-fangled telephone, which, Meunier recalled, was so funny "that from the gallery to the stalls the theatre was one roar of laughter and applause".

In October 1893 she created the role with which she was most closely associated during the rest of her career: Catherine, the outspoken washerwoman-duchess in Sardou and Moreau's historical comedy-drama Madame Sans-Gêne.

[23] Another reviewer wrote: Six months later Réjane played Nora in the French premiere of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House ("Une maison de poupée").

[25][n 7] Les annales du théâtre et de la musique recorded, "Nora's role is overwhelming; Mademoiselle Réjane took the opportunity of one of the greatest successes of her career.

She was able to highlight the very complex character of the role, and with a rare simplicity of means she demonstrated in the famous tarantella scene an admirable dramatic power.

[29] Her reviews then had been good, but her return in June 1894 in Madame Sans-Gêne prompted superlatives from the critics and drew full houses, even with the counter-attraction of a Bernhardt season at Daly's Theatre.

[31] In February 1895 Réjane opened at Abbey's Theatre in New York for a season comprising Madame Sans-Gêne, Divorçons, Sapho, Ma cousine and A Doll's House.

[34][35] Madame Sans-Gêne was once again an immense success, and Sir Henry Irving negotiated the rights to stage an English version, which he produced at the Lyceum Theatre with Ellen Terry in Réjane's role two years later.

[n 10] Réjane eventually relented and agreed to return to the US, but not until 1904, by which time she had been seen by audiences in Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Austria, Romania, Italy, Spain and Portugal.

In 1906 the writer Arnold Bennett, then resident in Paris, wrote: At the Théâtre Réjane its proprietor appeared in twenty new plays and revivals by playwrights ranging from the grandiose Catulle Mendès[38] to the chic Sacha Guitry[39] between 1906 and 1910[n 11] – "none of them, perhaps, a new Sans-Gêne or Marquise", according to her biographer Forrest Izzard, "but each serving to keep in vigorous use one of the rarest talents of the time".

[3] She was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, an event celebrated in February 1920 by a luncheon at the Théâtre de Paris, presided over by President-elect Paul Deschanel.