Her name when she was born was Jeanne-Louise Dumont. Her father was a successful sculptor. She was very young when she started to learn the piano. Her teacher had been a pupil of Muzio Clementi. Soon she was having piano lessons with famous teachers such as Ignaz Moscheles and Johann Nepomuk Hummel. She loved composing, so her parents let her study composition with Anton Reicha at the Paris Conservatoire. At that time women were not allowed to go to composition classes at the Conservatoire, so she probably had her lessons privately. She met a flautist (flute player) called Aristide Farrenc. He was ten years older than she was. They often performed together and they married in 1821. She stopped her studies and travelled with her husband around France giving concerts. He soon grew tired of the concert life and decided to open a publishing house in Paris, which was called Éditions Farrenc. It became one of France’s most important music publishers for nearly 40 years.