His professional life began as a porcelain maker in Belle Époque, like many others in Limoges. However his intelligence, his industrious spirit, his sense of success separated him from this milieu and made him take a decisive turn: the manufacture of electrical equipment where the porcelain material remained.
Since the 1880s, France has been electrifying slowly, from cities to the countryside, and then more rapidly as it entered the 20th century. It is this favorable context that Frédéric Legrand was able to grasp while neither his culture nor his social origins predisposed him to it.