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Concept
Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier
Summary
Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze Lavoisier, later Countess von Rumford, (20 January 1758 in Montbrison, Loire, France – 10 February 1836) was a French chemist and noblewoman. Madame Lavoisier was firstly the wife of the chemist and nobleman Antoine Lavoisier, and acted as his laboratory companion and was able to write up and bring his work to an international audience through her linguistic skills. She played a pivotal role in the translation of several scientific works, and was instrumental to the standardization of the scientific method. She was later briefly married to the American-born British physicist, Sir Benjamin Thompson.
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. She was for a time a pupil of the artist, Jacques-Louis David.
At the age of thirteen, Paulze received a marriage proposal from the 50-year-old Count d'Amerval. 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.
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.
Official source
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