In 1860 French circus performer and trapeze artist extraordinaire
Jules Léotard published an unusually small volume entitled
Mémoires de Léotard. This work promoted Léotard's achievements. A member of both the Cirque Napoléon and the
Cirque d’Hiver, Léotard first made a flying somersault between two swinging bars at the Cirque Napoléon on 12 November 1859, perfecting the flying trapeze. His achievements inspired the 1867 song "
The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze," sung by
George Leybourne.
Léotard also invented the one-piece skin tight gym wear that carries his name, but the name was not applied to the costume until about 1880.
Leotard's small volume contains a particularly remarkable, rather surrealistic satirical lithograph showing Léotard on the flying trapeze by
Jean Émile Durandeau.