Marguerite Josephine Georges, mademoiselle, a French actress, born at Bayeux, Feb. 23, 1787, died at Passy, Jan. 12, 1867. She was a daughter of an actress and of a military tailor, Wemmer (long erroneously called Weymer). Some juvenile performances of hers at Amiens attracted the notice of the actress Raucourt, by whose influence she was brought to Paris and educated. Her imposing beauty and powerful acting produced a great sensation at her first appearance in 1802 as Clytemnestra; but as she desired to shine also in less austere characters, in which Mile. Duchesnois excelled, a contest arose which subsequently resulted in her clandestine departure for Vienna, and soon afterward for Russia. The emperor Alexander I. became so infatuated with her that he would not consent to her returning to France, and in 1808 she played before him and Napoleon in Dresden and at Erfurt. Napoleon, one of her warmest admirers, and Hortense, one of her earliest patronesses, procured her read-mission at the Theatre Francais in 1813, and the payment of her salary from the time of her entrance in 1803. Here Talma imparted great finish to her style; but in 1816 she again broke her engagement.

Excepting occasional performances in England and Germany and the French provinces, she was subsequently connected with the Odeon and the Porte St. Martin theatres from 1821 to 1847, sustaining her reputation as a most impassioned and majestic tragedian. She gave farewell performances in 1849, and despite increasing stoutness she appeared once more in 1855. She was most admired as Semiramis, Merope, Dido, Agrippina, Lucrezia Borgia, Mary Tudor, and Catharine de' Medici. She received costly presents from emperors and princes, and from a host of other admirers and lovers; vet on re-tiring from the stage her poverty impelled her to become a teacher at the conservatory.