Editing Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier

{{short description|French chemist and artist}}
[[File:Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze.jpg|thumb|right|Detail of portrait of Marie-Anne Paulze with husband [[Antoine Lavoisier]] by [[Jacques-Louis David|David]]]]
'''Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze Lavoisier''', later '''[[Imperial Count|Countess]] von Rumford''', (20 January 1758 in [[Montbrison, Loire]], [[France]] – 10 February 1836) was a French chemist and noblewoman.<ref name=Oakes>{{cite book|last=Oakes|first=Elizabeth H.|title=Encyclopedia of world scientists|year=2001|publisher=Facts on File|location=New York, NY|isbn=9780816041305|pages=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofwo00oake/page/429 429–430]|url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofwo00oake/page/429}}</ref> Madame Lavoisier's first husband was the chemist and nobleman [[Antoine Lavoisier]]. She acted as his laboratory companion,  using her linguistic skills to write up his work and bring it to an international audience.<ref name=Oakes /> She also played a pivotal role in the translation of several scientific works, and was instrumental to the standardization of the [[scientific method]]. 

==Biography==

Her father, Jacques Paulze, worked primarily as a parliamentary lawyer and financier.  Most of his income came from running the [[Ferme Générale]] (the General Farm) which was a private [[consortium]] of [[financiers]] who paid the French monarchy for the privilege of collecting certain taxes.  Her mother, Claudine Thoynet Paulze, died in 1761, leaving behind Marie-Anne, then aged 3, and two other sons.  After her mother's death Paulze was placed in a [[convent]] where she received her formal education.<ref name=Oakes /> She was for a time a pupil of the artist, [[Jacques-Louis David]].<ref>{{cite web|title= Madame Lavoisier's Translation of Oxygen|author=Ball, Philip|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0007qdv|publisher=www.bbc.co.uk|date=2023-04-04|accessdate=2023-04-04}}</ref>
At the age of thirteen, Paulze received a [[marriage]] proposal from the 50-year-old Count d'Amerval.<ref name=Bell>{{cite book|last=Bell|first=Madison Smartt|title=Lavoisier in the year one: the birth of new science in an age of revolution|year=2005|publisher=W. W. Norton|location=New York|isbn=9780393051551|page=[https://archive.org/details/lavoisierinyearo00madi/page/13 13]|edition=1st|url=https://archive.org/details/lavoisierinyearo00madi/page/13}}</ref>   Jacques Paulze tried to object to the union, but received threats about losing his job with the Ferme Générale.  To indirectly thwart the marriage, Jacques Paulze made an offer to one of his colleagues to ask for his daughter's hand instead. This colleague was [[Antoine Lavoisier]], a French nobleman and [[scientist]]. Lavoisier accepted the proposition, and he and Marie-Anne were married on 16 December 1771. Lavoisier was about 28, while Marie-Anne was about 13.<ref name=Oakes />

[[Image:David - Portrait of Monsieur Lavoisier and His Wife.jpg|thumb|right|200px|''[[Portrait of M. and Mme Lavoisier]]'' by [[Jacques-Louis David]], 1788 ([[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], [[Manhattan]], [[New York City]])]]Lavoisier continued to work for the Ferme-Générale but in 1775 was appointed [[gunpowder]] administrator, leading the couple to settle down at the Arsenal in Paris.<ref name=Oakes />   Here, Lavoisier's interest in chemistry blossomed after having previously trained at the chemical laboratory of [[Guillaume François Rouelle]], and, with the financial security provided by both his and Paulze's family, as well as his various titles and other business ventures, he was able to construct a state-of-the-art [[chemistry]] laboratory.  Paulze soon became interested in his scientific nazi research and began to participate in her husband's laboratory work actively.

As her interest developed, she received formal training in the field from [[Jean Baptiste Michel Bucquet]] and Philippe Gingembre, both of whom were Lavoisier's colleagues at the time.  The Lavoisiers spent most of their time together in the laboratory, working as a team conducting research on many fronts.  She also assisted him by translating documents about chemistry from English to French. In fact, the majority of the research effort put forth in the laboratory was actually a joint effort between Paulze and her husband, with Paulze mainly playing the role of laboratory assistant.

===French Revolution===
In 1793 Lavoisier, due to his prominent position in the Ferme-Générale, was branded a traitor during the [[Reign of Terror]] by French revolutionaries. Paulze's father, another prominent Ferme-Générale member, was arrested on similar grounds.  On 28 November 1793 Lavoisier surrendered to revolutionaries and was imprisoned at [[Port-Royal Abbey, Paris|Port Libre]]. Throughout his imprisonment, Paulze visited Lavoisier regularly and fought for his release.  She presented his case before {{interlanguage link|André Dupin de Beaumont|fr}}, who was Lavoisier's accuser and a former member of the Ferme-Générale.  She told of her husband's accomplishments as a scientist and his importance to the nation of France.  Despite her efforts, Lavoisier was tried, convicted of treason, and executed on 8 May 1794 in Paris, at the age of 50. Jacques Paulze was also executed on the same day.<ref name=Oakes />

After her husband's death, Paulze became bitter. She was bankrupt following the new government's confiscation of her money and property (which were eventually returned). In addition, the new government seized all of Lavoisier's notebooks and laboratory equipment. Despite these obstacles, Marie-Anne organized the publication of Lavoisier's final memoirs, ''Mémoires de Chimie'', a compilation of his papers and those of his colleagues demonstrating the principles of the new chemistry. The first volume contained work on heat and the formation of liquids, while the second dealt with the ideas of combustion, air, [[calcination]] of metals, the action of acids, and the composition of water. In the original copy, Paulze wrote the preface and attacked revolutionaries and Lavoisier's contemporaries, whom she believed to be responsible for his death. This preface, however, was not included in the final publication.  Nevertheless, her efforts secured her husband's legacy in the field of chemistry.{{citation needed|date=February 2012}}

===Later life===
[[File:Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count von Rumford by Moritz Kellerhoven.jpg|thumb|150px|Sir [[Benjamin Thompson]] [[Fellow of the Royal Society|FRS]], Count of Rumford, by [[Moritz Kellerhoven|Kellerhoven]]]]
Paulze remarried [[Benjamin Thompson]] in 1804, following a four-year courtship and engagement; she was his second wife. Thompson was born in [[Colonial Massachusetts]] in 1753 and was a veteran, as a loyalist, of the [[American Revolutionary War]]. In his youth, before becoming a merchant and soldier, he had attended lectures by [[John Winthrop (educator)|Winthrop]] at [[Harvard University|Harvard]]. In 1785, he travelled to [[Bavaria]] to become ''[[aide-de-camp]]'' to the [[Prince-elector]], [[Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria|Charles Theodore]]. There he reorganised the army and established workhouses for the poor. He also created the ''[[Englischer Garten]]'' in [[Munich]] in 1789, all the while continuing his scientific experiments. In 1791 he was elevated to [[Count of the Holy Roman Empire]], taking the title of [[Imperial Count|Reichsgraf]] von Rumford, after the town of [[Concord, New Hampshire|Rumford]] in [[New Hampshire]], where he was first married.<ref>{{cite book | author= Bouton, Nathaniel|author-link=Nathaniel Bouton| title=The History of Concord: From Its First Grant in 1725 to the Organization of the City Government in 1853| url= https://archive.org/details/historyconcordf01boutgoog| location=Concord | publisher=Benning W. Sanford | year=1857 }}</ref> By the time he had met the widowed Anne-Marie Lavoisier, he had become one of the most well-known physicists at the time. However, the marriage between the two was difficult and short-lived; they separated after three years.<ref name=Haines>{{cite book|last=Haines|first=Catharine M.C.|title=International Women in Science a Biographical Dictionary to 1950.|year=2002|publisher=ABC-CLIO|location=Santa Barbara|isbn=9781576075593|pages=167–168}}</ref> Paulze insisted throughout her life that she retain her first husband's last name, demonstrating her undying devotion to him. Rumford had moved to Paris where he continued his work until his death in 1814. He was buried at [[Auteuil, Paris]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Memoir of Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, with Notices of his Daughter |author=George E. Ellis |publisher=Macmillan and Company |location=London |year=1875 |page=43}}</ref>

Marie died very suddenly in her home in Paris on 10 February 1836, at the age of 78.<ref name=Oakes /> She is buried in the cemetery of [[Pere-Lachaise]] in Paris.

==Contributions to chemistry==
[[Image:Lavoisier-humanexp2.PNG|thumb|280px|Madame Lavoisier while assisting her husband on his scientific research of human respiration; she is visible at the table on the far right. Etching by Mme Paulze Lavoisier.]]
Paulze accompanied Lavoisier in his lab during the day, making entries into his lab notebooks and sketching diagrams of his experimental designs. The training she had received from the painter [[Jacques-Louis David]] allowed her to accurately and precisely draw experimental apparatuses, which ultimately helped many of Lavoisier's contemporaries to understand his methods and results.<ref name=Haines />   Furthermore, she served as the editor of his reports.  Together, the Lavoisiers rebuilt the field of chemistry, which had its roots in alchemy and at the time was a convoluted science dominated by [[George Stahl]]’s theory of [[phlogiston]].

In the eighteenth century, the idea of [[phlogiston]] (a fire-like element which is gained or released during a material's combustion) was used to describe the apparent property changes that substances exhibited when burned.  Paulze, being a master in the English, Latin, and French language, was able to translate various works about phlogiston into French for her husband to read. Perhaps her most important translation was that of [[Richard Kirwan]]'s 'Essay on Phlogiston and the Constitution of Acids', which she both translated and critiqued, adding footnotes as she went along and pointing out errors in the chemistry made throughout the paper.<ref name="Lykknes">{{cite book|last1=Bret|first1=Patrice|title=Women in Their Element: Selected Women's Contributions To The Periodic System|last2=Kawashima|first2=Keiko|author2-link=Keiko Kawashima|date=2019|publisher=World Scientific|editor-last1=Lykknes|editor-first1=Annette|location=Singapore|chapter=Madame Lavoisier’s Diffusion and Defense of Oxygen Against Phlogiston: Her Translations of Richard Kirwan’s Essays|editor-last2=Van Tiggelen|editor-first2=Brigitte}}</ref><ref name=Haines />  Despite her contributions, she was not attributed as a translator in the original work but in later editions.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hoffmann|first=Roald|date=2002|title=Mme. Lavisier|journal=American Scientist|volume=90|pages=22–24|doi=10.1511/2002.13.3317|s2cid=257325249 }}</ref> She also translated works by [[Joseph Priestley]], [[Henry Cavendish]], and others for Lavoisier's personal use. This was an invaluable service to Lavoisier, who relied on Paulze's translation of foreign works to keep abreast of current developments in chemistry.  In the case of phlogiston, it was Paulze's translation that convinced him the idea was incorrect, ultimately leading to his studies of combustion and his discovery of oxygen gas.
[[File:Père-Lachaise - Division 13 - Lavoisier 09.jpg|thumb|left|150px|Grave of A-M Paulze Lavoisier at [[Père Lachaise Cemetery]], Paris]]
Paulze was also instrumental in the 1789 publication of Lavoisier's groundbreaking ''[[Traité Élémentaire de Chimie|Elementary Treatise on Chemistry]]'', which presented a unified view of chemistry as a field.  This work proved pivotal in the progression of chemistry, as it presented the idea of conservation of mass as well as a list of elements and a new system for chemical nomenclature.  Paulze contributed thirteen drawings that showed all the laboratory instrumentation and equipment used by the Lavoisiers in their experiments.  She also kept strict records of the procedures followed, lending validity to the findings Lavoisier published.

Before her death, Paulze was able to recover nearly all of Lavoisier's notebooks and chemical apparatuses, most of which survive in a collection at [[Cornell University]], the largest of its kind outside of Europe.<ref>{{cite web|title=Lavoisier|url=http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/collections/lavoisier.html|accessdate=14 August 2013}}</ref> The year she died, a book was published, showing that Marie-Anne had a rich [[theology|theological]] library with books which included versions of The Bible, [[St. Augustine]]'s ''Confessions'', [[Jacques Saurin]]'s ''Discours sur la Bible'', [[Pierre Nicole]]'s ''Essais de Morale'', [[Blaise Pascal]]'s ''[[Lettres provinciales]], ''[[Louis Bourdaloue]]'s ''Sermons'', [[Thomas à Kempis]]'s ''[[De Imitatione Christi]]'', etc.<ref>Marie-Anne-Pierrette Lavoisier. 1836. ''Catalogue de livres faisant partie de la bibliotheque de feu Madame. Lavoisier, comtesse de Rumford''. Chez Galliot, Libraire</ref>

== Artistic training and contributions ==
[[File:A.L. Lavoisier, Traite elementaire de chimie Wellcome L0031292.jpg|thumb|right|A Paulze Lavoisier illustration in [[Antoine Lavoisier|Lavoisier]]'s ''[[Traité Élémentaire de Chimie]]'', [[Wellcome Collection]]]]
Paulze began receiving artistic instruction from the painter Jacques-Louis David in later 1785 or early 1786. Not long after, probably sometime in 1787, David painted a full-length double portrait of Paulze and her husband, foregrounding the former. Paulze's artistic training enabled her not only to document and illustrate her husband's experiments and publications (she even depicted herself as a participant in two drawings of her husband's experiments) but also, for example, to paint a portrait of Benjamin Franklin, one of the many scientific thinkers that she hosted in her salons. Later Paulze's ties with David were severed due to the radical politics of the latter in the context of the French Revolution.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Women, Art and the Politics of Identity in Eighteenth-Century Europe|last=Vidal|first=Mary|publisher=Routledge|year=2003|editor-last=Hyde|editor-first=Melissa|editor-mask=Hyde, Melissa and Jennifer Milam|location=New York|pages=243–247|chapter=The 'Other Atelier': Jacques-Louis David's Female Students}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*[[Keiko Kawashima|Kawashima, Keiko]] "Paulze-Lavoisier, Marie-Anne-Pierrette", ''New Dictionnary of Scientific Biography'', Noretta Koertge ed., Detroit et al., Thomson & Gale, 8 vols, vol. 6, 2007: 44–45
*Bell, Madison Smartt. Lavoisier in the Year One. New York: Atlas Books, 2005.
*Borgias, Adriane P.  "Marie Anne Pierrette Paulze Lavoisier." Women in Chemistry and Physics, A Biobibliographic Sourcebook. Eds. Louise S. Grinstein, Rose K Rose, and [[Miriam Rafailovich|Miriam H. Rafailovich]]. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1993: 314–319.
*Crawford, Franklin.  "CU’s great treasure of science: Lavoisier collection is Mme. Lavoisier’s Achievement."  Cornell Chronicle [New York].  30 Jan. 2007.  12 Apr. 2007. 
*Eagle, Cassandra T. and Sloan, Jennifer.  "[https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs00897980249a Marie Anne Paulze Lavoisier: The Mother of Modern Chemistry.]"  The Chemical Educator 3.5 (1998): 1–18.  12 Apr. 2007 
*Hoffmann, R., "[http://www.roaldhoffmann.com/sites/all/files/mme_lavoisier.pdf Mme Lavoisier]", ''American Scientist'' '''90''' (Jan–Feb, 2002) pp.&nbsp;22–24. Bell, Madison Smartt. Lavoisier in the Year One. New York: Atlas Books, 2005.
*Rayner-Canham, Geoffrey and Marelene. "[https://books.google.com/books?id=S_NJ7AubQIcC&pg=PA17 Marie Anna Pierrette Paulze Lavoisier]."  Women in Chemistry. Massachusetts: American Chemical Society and Chemical Heritage Foundation, 1998: 17–22.

==External links==
{{Commons category|Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze}}
*{{cite episode|transcript-url=http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1673.htm|credits=John H. Lienhard|series=The Engines of Our Ingenuity|series-link=The Engines of Our Ingenuity|title=Marie Lavoisier|network=NPR|station=KUHF-FM Houston|airdate=2002|number=1673|transcript=No. 1673: MARIE LAVOISIER}} The transcript page includes Marie Lavoisier's engraving of a [[gazometer]], from ''[[Traité Élémentaire de Chimie]]''.
* [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b21000856/f1.item Fifteen engravings by Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, from ''Traité élémentaire de chimie''].
*https://web.archive.org/web/20160303223209/http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/14858405/944536095/name/%EE%80%80lavoisier%EE%80%81.pdf

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