Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier

Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier was a French chemist and noblewoman, born in 1758, who later became Countess of Rumford through her second marriage. Married at thirteen to the chemist Antoine Lavoisier, she trained in chemistry with his colleagues and became his laboratory partner, translating English chemical works into French, keeping records and producing the illustrations of his experiments. After her husband was guillotined in 1794 during the Terror, she recovered his notebooks and organised the publication of his final memoirs, the Memoires de Chimie, which helped secure the legacy of the new chemistry. Her role shows how much of eighteenth century laboratory work depended on the skills of a partner who is rarely credited as a scientist in her own right.