MARIE-ANNE PIERRETTE
PAULZE-LAVOISIER,
COMTESSE DE RUMFORD
(1758-1836)
A BEACON EMERGING
FROM THE SHADOWS
(translated by Allan Masri)
I know what I was, I
know what I am,
I want what I
should, I do what I can.
-Bouscal, La Mort de
Cleomene
The history of the
sciences presents, more than any other discipline, a constellation of
portraits of great people whose character, intelligence, works, and
influence inspire admiration. Behind these well-known figures,
however, other beings, ignored by nearly all the conoscenti,
patiently wait to be placed in the spotlight. In the 18th
century, many wives performed this modest role, kept themselves in
the shadow of their husbands, guided their careers, encouraged almost
anonymously the development of the sciences, began the inevitable
movement toward women’s emancipation, and without fanfare
contributed to the progress of the human spirit and the happiness of
the human race. Others, less shy, brightened history with their
courage and exceptional strength of character. Although little known
to the historians of science, Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze belongs to
this last category of women, glowing in their midst, a beacon
emerging from the shadows.
The daughter of
Jacques Paulze de Chastenolles (1719-1794) and Claudine Thoynet (d.
1761), Marie-Anne was born at Montbrisson (Loire) on 20 January 1958.
She had three brothers. Her father, a well-known parliamentary judge
and manager of the French East India Company, was the general manager
of the Ferme Generale, a private company entrusted by the king with
collecting, for a compensation, indirect taxes: the gabelle (salt
tax), taxes on tobacco, licensing rights, and the aides (taxes on
alcohol). His function as tax collector brought him very substantial
revenues. For her part, her mother, married to Jacques Paulze in
1752, was the niece of Abbé
Joseph-Marie Terray (1715-1778), one of the most powerful ministers
of the day. Thanks to family connections, Marie-Anne should have
enjoyed an easy and happy life. But she lost her mother when she was
only three. Her father decided she should be educated in a convent,
where she could receive the classical education typical of a young
woman of the haute bourgeoisie. It was there that she forged her
character, becoming interested especially in the sciences and
drawing, maturing more rapidly than children pampered by their
parents. At the age of twelve, she was already an accomplished young
lady, sure of herself, with a lively intelligence and blossoming and
filled with talents. At the receptions that the Paulze family
organized regularly, she sparkled through her wit and her charm, and
she attracted numerous admirers.
In 1770, the
baroness of la Garde decided that her brother, the count of Amerval,
should remarry. Penniless, 50 years old, this person had nothing that
might attract a young and intelligent girl who happened to be heiress
of an enviable fortune. Marie-Anne resisted this marriage as best she
could. Taking advantage of the influence of Abbé
Terray, the Baroness threatened Jacques Paulze with the loss of his
lucrative position at the heart of the Ferme Générale
if the union was not accomplished. Outraged by the exxpress
intentions of the Baroness, Paulze disapproved of this union and,
moreover, did not wish to allow his daughter to suffer such an
imposition; he therefore decided to marry her quickly to a brilliant
young man who was much more compatible, Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier
(1743-1794), who regularly attended his salon, and who had often
played music with Marie-Anne and conversed with her about geology,
chemistry, and astronomy.
The two young
people, who had already liked each other for some time, readily
assented to the plan. The betrothal took place in November, 1771, the
marriage contract was signed on December 4, 1771, and the marriage
took place on the 16th. Resigned to his defeat, Abbe Terray performed
the marriage in his private chapel, with himself and his brother
acting as witnesses. Two hundred guests from among the most
illustrious in France attended the banquet. The couple established
their residence in rue Neuve-des-Bons-Enfants, near the Palais-Royal,
in a house that the father of the groom had bought when his declining
health had necessitated the sale of his office as Solicitor General
of Parlement.
Antoine-Laurent
Lavoisier was born August 26, 1743, in Paris. He was the son of
Emilie Punctis (d. 23 March 1746). He belonged to a rich and
influential family. He attended classes at College Mazarin (or
College des Quatre-Nations, now Institut de France) where the faculty
of the sciences enjoyed an exalted reputation. His professor of
mathematics and astronomy was Abbe de La Caille; he also followed the
botany course of Bernard de Jussieu, and that of the academician
Jean-Etienne Guettard in geology and mineralogie, and of Rouelle in
Chemistry. When he was 18, he abandoned his secondary studies. On the
advice of his father, he began studying law and earned his licence
three years later (1764). He could have started a practice, but
continued to study botany, mineralogy, meteorology, and medicine. He
was eager to learn everything. He loved mathematics, natural
sciences, strictly controlled experiments. He analysed criticized,
and compared theories concurrently. He also loved the tangible and
experiments having positive results.
At the age of 21, he
started research that were submitted to the Academy of Science. At
the age of 23, he presented his work on the analysis of gypsum and
plaster of Paris, and, in a contest, a paper on “the best way to
illuminate the streets of a large city at night,” a work which
earned him a gold medal from the Academy of Sciences. At 24, he
accompanied Guettard in a trip to the East of France, to prepare an
inventory of the mineral resources of the kingdom. In 1768, he was 25
years old; he purchased a half-share in the Ferme Generale and became
assistant to the general manager of the ferme, Baudon. At the same
time, having received the support of Jussieu, Lelande, and Macquer,
he applied for the post of assistant-chemist at the Academy after the
death of Theodore Baron; he became a full-fledged member at the age
of 29. when he married, a year later, Marie-Anne, he already had
impressive successes to his credit and his career was among the most
promising.
Antoine had also
lost his mother when he was three years old and found himself in his
infancy, in the same position as his young wife. He had been raised
by his aunt, Constance Punctis. Both Marie-Anne and Antoine belonged
to families with many childless relatives.The couple was likewise
childless. Perhaps this circumstance explains the exclusive devotion
that they mutually shared during the twenty-three years of their
happy union. They were never the object of scandalous rumors in the
Gazette, however anxious it was for such stories. It was above all
their common passion for science that bound them together forever,
even after the death of the scientist in 1794.
Marie-Anne quickly
became an indispensable assistant for her husband, in a role that far
surpassed that of a mere devoted spouse. The pair arose at 5 o’clock
and worked in the laboratory from 6 to 9 and from 7 to 9 in the
evening. The afternoon was reserved for business of the Ferme
Generale and numerous administrative tasks of Antoine, such as
preparing powder; twice during the week, Marie-Anne held a salon,
entertaining the most illustrious scientists of the epoch from France
and other countries: Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), Pierre Samuel
Dupont de Nemours (1739-1817), sir Charles Blagden (1748-1820), the
English author Arthur Young, Gouverneur Morris, etc.During the course
of these dinners, Marie-Anne sparkled by her wit, her grace, and her
wisdom. After a visit that he made to Lavoisier in October 1787,
Arthur Young wrote: “Madame Lavoisier, a person full of animation,
of science and knowledge, had prepared an English breakfast with tea
and coffee, but the best part of that breakfast, was, without
contradiction, her conversation, either on the essay on phlogiston by
Monsieur Kirwan that she was in the process of translating from the
English, or on other subjects that an intelligent woman working in
the laboratory of her husband knows how to make interesting”.
In the evening,
Antoine conducted experiments, often in the company of his guests
while Marie-Anne drew or took notes touching the experiments
undertaken by her husband. Her writings often appeared in the
registers of the laboratory, mixed with those of Antoine and his
collaborators. We know by her correspondence that Marie-Anne
accompanied Antoine on his numerous journeys. Beginning in 1772, she
took notes in notebooks on their travels, describing at each halte
the temperature and pressure on the thermometers and barometers
carried in their baggage ; she also described remarks on the terrain,
the crops, the work of the men and everything of interest to
Lavoisier.
In 1775, the
scientist was named director of Powder and Salpeter. The couple
decamped to the Arsenal and Antoine set up his laboratory in it: it
was there that he carried out most of his important experiments.
Lavoisier had no
gift for languages. Marie-Anne asked her brother, Balthazar Paulze,
for lessons in Latin. She also learned English and Italian and so was
able to translate the works of Priestley, Cavendish, Henry, and other
European chemists. She also commenced studies in chemistry with
Jean-Baptiste Bucquet and Philippe Gingembre, colleagues of her
husband. In 1788, her translation of the Essay on Phlogiston
of the Irish chemist Richard Kirwan (Essay on Phlogiston, London,
1787), permitted Lavoisier, assisted by Guyton de Morveau, Laplace,
Monge, Berthollet and Fourcroy, to refute each of the arguments in
the Essay and to publish his Elementary Treatise on Chemistry
in 1789. Marie-Anne translated as well, in 1790, Strength of Acids
and the Proportion of Ingredients in Neutral Salts, by Kirwan,
and published her translation in the Annals of Chemistry. The first
French edition of Kirwan gave her no credit, her name not even being
mentioned. However, the marginal notes added by Marie-Anne prove that
she has all the qualifications of an excellent translator as well as
a knowledge of chemistry sufficient to comment intelligently on the
work of a specialist such as Kirwan.
A talented
illustrator, she drew her self-portrait at the beginning of their
marriage. In this drawing, she appears rather slight of build, with
very fine blue eyes, a small mouth, a slightly turned up nose, clear
skin, and chestnut hair. In the course of the 1780s, she improved her
skill under the tutelage of Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), who
presented the couple, in December 1788, with the celebrated portrait
of the married pair that today is on display at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York City. A portrait that she painted of
Benjamin Franklin, which the subject mentioned in an unusual
thank-you note, dated 23 October 1788: “Those who have viewed this
painting have declared that it has great merit and is worthy of
consideration; but what makes it particularly precious to me is the
hand that held the brush”.
The pictorial output
of Marie-Anne demonstrates definitively that the arts and the
sciences are inextricably linked and that it is important to
understand this fact. The thirteen engravings on copper modestly
signed, “Paulze Sculptis” that illustrated the Treatise of
Elementary Chemistry, were made by her hand, as were all the
sketches that preceded the final proof. Each design exists in at
least four different versions, with various details and corrections
made.
Marie-Anne first
drew the instruments freehand, then filled in the outlines with
watercolors. She recopied this mixture on graph paper to match the
dimensions of the copper negatives. It is probable that she herself
had drawn the fine grid of her tracing paper. This design was copied
onto wax paper, then, with a stylus, onto the copper plate. The
letters were added by hand to the negative. The final proof of the
negative included the word “good”, followed by her signature. In
some of these illustrations, she engraved at least two scenes taken
from life in the laboratory of the Arsenal, showing the experiments
that Lavoisier performed on respiration in company with Pierre Simon
de Laplace and Armand Seguin. In these two scenes, “The man at
work” and “The man at rest”-- “astonishing foretelling the
actual experiments of measuring work in the real situation of the
workroom” --, Marie-Anne depicted herself, in the background, as a
secretary recording notes in the laboratory registers.
The frequent
receptions that the couple organized attracted numerous admirers to
Marie-Anne. One of them, P. S. Dupont de Nemours, sent her,
beginning in 1781. numerous letters where he declared tender feeling
to her. It was still probables that Marie-Anne had no relationship
with him, neither before nor after Antoine’s execution.
Antoine and his
father-in-law, Jacques Paulze, were arrested November 28, 1793, with
twenty-six other members of the Ferme General. They were judged and
executed on 8 May 1794. The third head to fall was that of Paulze.
Antoine followed him immediately under the guillotine ; he was 51
years old.
The condamnation and
execution of her father and her husband on the same day was for
Marie-Anne an extraordinary shock that changed her forever. Stunned,
she protested vociferously against their arrest ; then, in a virulent
pamphlet, signed by many widows and children of the condemned, she
denounced Antoine Dupin (1758-1820), the member of the Convention
responsible for executions.
Unjustly arrested on
24 June 1794, she was imprisoned. She revealed herself thus “full
of courage, audacious, sometimes daring and not afraid to hold her
head with composure”. After letters of protest that she sent in
August to the Bureau of Piques, to the Committee of Public Safety and
to the Committee of General Security, she was released on 17 August,
after 65 days of detention. Her arrest was probably due to the
correspondence found when her papers were seized along with her
family effects. Rendered helpless by the seizure of all her
belongings, she could do nothing but plead to her most faithful
servant for assistance.
At the end of
September, Marie-Anne left secretly to take refuge near
Lons-le-Saunier, in the Jura Mountains, where the modest community of
Moutonne hastily made its report: “35 years old; 5 feet, 1 inch
tall; hair and eyebrows black; eyes blue; nose well made; mouth small
and chin round.” She was not so much fleeing her situation as the
urgent, almost obsessive, advances of P. S. Dupont de Nemours, who
bitterly resented her repeated rejections. Meanwhile, the inventory
of Lavoisier’s property dragged on until the end of November.
In August 1795, she
was finally able to reclaim the estate of Freschines. Her goods, the
instruments, and the scientific notes of her husband, but not the
money, were returned to her in April 1796. The years that followed
this tragedy were not easy. She had to confront another ticklish
problem: P. S. Dupont, who had proposed in 1791 to create a printing
shop, had gotten a loan from Lavoisier, backed by a mortgage of
71,000 francs on the estate of the Duponts at Bois-des-Fosses. As he
himself had been ruined by the Revolution, P. S. Dupont was unable to
reimburse Marie-Anne. It wasn’t until 1805 that the problem was
resolved, primarily thanks to his son, Eleuthere Irenee Dupont de
Nemours (1771-1834) who had emigrated to the United States and opened
a very successful gunpowder factory there in 1802. At that time,
Marie-Anne asked P. S. Dupont to finance the publication of the first
two volumes of Memoirs of Chemistry by lavoisier. In the
vitriolic preface that she wrote for this edition, she denounced all
those who should have been able to help her husband and did not have
the courage to do so: Fourcroy, Guyton de Morveau, Monge, etc.
Ten years after her
husband’s execution, she dedicated to the inventor a veritable cult
where she revealed his masonic ideals: “A soul so just,” she
wrote in the preface ”with a talent so pure, with a genius so
elevated. It was in his conversations that the beauty of his
character could be assessed and the depth of his morale principles.
If some of the people those who attend these reunions would ever read
these memoirs, their memory could not be recalled without
emotion...If the laws which he was compelled to execute [in his
function as a magistrate] had been occasionally too harsh, his
efforts always tended to ameliorate them. One had to see him in the
midst of his renters, acting as justice of the peace to repair the
friendship of two neighbors, to reconcile a son with his father,
giving an example of all the patriarchal virtues, caring for the
sick, not only using of his own funds but also with visits, his own
attentions, and his urging them to have patience and hope”.
Between 1796 and
1800, Marie-Anne led a relatively withdrawn life. She had fewer
receptions, traveled widely in Italy, in Germany, and England. Every
return became the occasion for joyous reunions. She continued to hold
a salon in the image of former times, where people met together and
exchanged ideas freely. The character of Marie-Anne changed also,
insensibly. She became brusque, authoritarian, ill-tempered. After
1801, she could be seen surrounded by many suitors, when her social
life regained some of its former exuberance. Among these were, of
course, P. S. Dupont de Nemours, but also sir Charles Blagden, who
made discreet inquiries. Among the regular visitors to her salon
could be noticed Benjamin Thompson, Count of Rumford (1763-1814), a
famous physicist.
Born in Woburn
(Massachusetts), Thompson was self-taught. At the age of 18, he was
appointed as schoolmaster in Rumford (Massachusetts). He married a
wealthy 31-year old widow. He spied for the British during the
American Revolution. Exposed as a spy, he left America immediately in
1776, abandoning his wife and his young daughter, Sarah, and found
refuge in England, where he was ennobled. Received into society, he
met often with Maximilien, Elector of Bavaria, who appointed him to a
ministerial post at the court in Munich. His life then took another
orientation. In Bavaria, he cleverly used his technical knowledge to
propose very avant-garde social reforms. He organized the public
works, military and social reforms (notably a system of social
security) and the construction of lodgings for the poor ; he equipped
houses with modern kitchens and effective systems of heating and
light ; he invented new artillery pieces and new boats. He also
established public gardens at Munich, the Park of the People, which
still exists, and the English Garden.
As recompense for
his work, the Duke of Bavaria named him a Count of the Holy Roman
Empire, but Thomson chose for himself the name of the town whence he
had fled: Rumford (today Concord, capital of New Hampshire). The
Count of Rumford also won some renown by a discovery that overthrew
the Physics of the epoch : while working on a firing range, he
noticed that when a cannon that had just been bored was plunged into
a basin it made the water therein boil and even kept hot for awhile.
Proposing thus the foundation of the first law of thermodynamics, he
refuted the Aristotelian theory holding that heat, like the other
essences (earth, water, air, fire) could neither be created nor
destroyed. [The caloric theory was born].
In Scientific
circles, he was recognized as a talented physicist. He founded the
Royal Institute of Great Britain and also endowed a professorship at
Harvard University. The Royal Society and American Academy of Arts
and Sciences both named medals after him. Many institutions owe their
survival to his generosity.
In 1801, while he
was basking in his glory, he proposed marriage to Madame Lavoisier.
Legal complications prolonged their engagement. In 1804, Marie-Anne
left the apartment that she had occupied in the Boulevard de la
Madeleine since 1792, when she was required, with Antoine, to leave
the Arsenal. The marriage was performed at the Hotel de Ville in
Paris on 24 October 1805. The Rumford couple lived at 39, rue
d’Anjou-Saint-Honoré, property of Anne-Marie. During this time,
she received annually 6,000 livres (US$
2
million in 2010 dollars) in rents from her properties.
She also deposited 125,000 livres (US$ 40 million ) at 5% to an
account in the name of Rumford. This money was supposed to be paid to
the last survivor of the Rumford family -- Marie-Anne, the Count of
Rumford, or his daughter, Sarah. Maximilien of Bavaria approved the
marriage and added 4,000 florins (US$ 885,800) per year to the
pension of the Count. The marriage of Marie-Anne and Rumford was a
good deal for Rumford…
The new husband had
a difficult personality, rather different from that of Lavoisier.
Arrogant, irascible, unpredictable, egoistic, and condescending
toward women, he could also be very generous, altruistic, and
charming. For her part, Marie-Anne ws torn between her devotion to
the memory of Antoine (hadn’t she insisted on declaring her new
married name, written on the marriage contract, as “Marie-Anne
Lavoisier de Rumford”, a demand that strongly offended the Count?)
and her unspoken desire to “turn the page”. On the one hand, she
endeavored to publish “Memoirs of Chemistry”, but on the other
she left the estate of Freschines and her apartment in Rue de la
Madeleine--places that held memories of Antoine for her.
After January 1806,
The marriage showed signs of weakness. Marie-Anne realized that the
Count had married her primarily for her money. Alarmed by the
extravagance of Marie-Anne, Rumford forbade the admittance of guests
who came each week to her salon to talk about science and recall the
memory of the deceased Antoine--which did not fail to arouse the
jealousy of the Count. Marie-Anne responded by pouring boiling water
on the flowers which her husband cultivated with loving care in their
garden. Their frequent arguments now aroused public notoriety. The
couple separated in 1806 ; the divorce was finalized on 30 June 1809.
Rumford died in Paris on 21 August 1814 of a “nervous fever.” He
was 51 years old, just as Lavoisier was when he was executed.
After this
unfortunate experience, nothing further troubled the life of
Marie-Anne. She continued to entertain her friends. But nothing was
ever the same again. Later in life, her interests turned more toward
charity than science. Nevertheless, she had participated in one of
the greatest scientific accomplishments in history. Her husband’s
work succeeded in overturning the theory of chemistry that had been
accepted since it was propounded by Aristotle, 2500 years earlier.
The edifice of ignorance was certainly ready to fall, but Lavoisier
was there when it did. Marie-Anne Paulze was there as well.
