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Enlightened Women at Work: The Case of Marie-Anne Paulze-Lavoisier (1770s–1790s)

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Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe

Abstract

Scholars of the Enlightenment have shown that the concept of labour was deeply influenced by eighteenth-century representations of gender difference. The labour of the mind, for instance, was mostly seen as a manly activity, especially within French polite society. Women who belonged to the upper class were allowed to engage in cognitive practices such as conversations, writing, reading, and drawing. While doing so, however, they had to conform to a complex set of social and cultural conventions. This chapter explores the topic from a different angle by dealing with the case of Marie-Anne Paulze-Lavoisier (1758–1836), a woman of the French haute bourgeoisie and also the wife and scientific associate of the chemist and tax farmer Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743–1794). It focuses on her work in her husband’s laboratory. This was a particular kind of work, requiring not only intellectual effort but also some practical expertise. How was this work described by the Lavoisiers? And to what extent did Paulze-Lavoisier, by showing herself as a “woman at work,” challenge gender norms of the time? By seeking answers to these questions, the chapter will also highlight some of the tensions surrounding the notions of “work” and “leisure” in Enlightenment scientific cultures.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    M. Beretta, Imaging a Career in Science. The Iconography of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (Canton, MA: Science History Publications, 2001), Chap. 2.

  2. 2.

    This point was first noticed in M. Vidal, “David Among the Moderns: Art, Science and the Lavoisiers,” Journal of the History of Ideas 56 (1995), 592–623 and then taken up by several scholars. See for instance Beretta, Imaging a Career in Science, Chap. 2 and M. Roberts, Sentimental Savants. Philosophical Families in Enlightenment France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), Chap. 2.

  3. 3.

    D. Pullins, D. Marathon and S. A. Centeno, “The Lavoisiers by David: Technical Findings on Portraiture on at the Brink of Revolution,” The Burlington Magazine (September 2021), 2–13.

  4. 4.

    Vidal, “David Among the Moderns,” 620.

  5. 5.

    Among a quite rich literature, the role of “assistant” played by Paulze-Lavoisier is stressed in the works by Keiko Kawashima and especially Émilie du Châtelet et Marie Anne Lavoisier. Science et genre au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2013). On the problem of the in/visibility of historical actors in early modern scientific cultures, the article by S. Shapin, “The Invisible Technician,” American Scientist 77 (1989), 554–63 has been extremely influential; on women as “invisible assistants,” the main reference is probably still L. Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science (Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press, 1991).

  6. 6.

    On Paulze-Lavoisier’s approach to authorship, which includes some striking evidence of her desire to be represented as an author in her own right, see my Scrivere e sperimentare: Marie-Anne Paulze-Lavoisier, segretaria della “nuova chimica” 1771–1836), (Rome: Viella, 2022), Chap. 4.

  7. 7.

    This side of Paulze-Lavoisier’s persona has been examined in Roberts, Sentimental Savants, Chap. 2, as part of a broader research on the image of the married scholar in Enlightenment cultures.

  8. 8.

    “[…] quand reviens tu? Le latin a besoin que tu sois ici; [viens] t’ennuyer à me faire décliner et conjuguer pour me faire plaisir et me rendre digne de mon mary et de tes soins pour répondre à [un savant] il faut sçavoir le latin et on commence à s’entendre.” Paulze-Lavoisier to Balthazar Paulze, 20 August 1777, in Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, Correspondence (hereafter LC), 3, 605 (when not differently indicated, the translations are mine). On Latin as a problem for elite young girls, D. Goodman, “L’Ortographe des Dames: Gender and Language in the Old Regime,” in Women, Gender and Enlightenment, eds. B. Taylor and S. Knott (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 195–223.

  9. 9.

    “Les choses aimables que vous me dites à ce sujet seraient bien faites pour me donner de l’amour propre si je n’avais toujours à mes cotés plus habiles que moi et auprès de qui je suis bien petite fille.” Paulze-Lavoisier to Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, 2 January 1789, in LC, 6, 1–2.” It is worth noting that Paulze-Lavoisier was actually much younger than Lavoisier, whom she married—following her father’s decision—at the age of 14. This biographical detail has been discussed in Kawashima, Émilie du Châtelet and Marie Anne Lavoisier, especially 251–53.

  10. 10.

    “Vous me faites beaucoup d’honneur, Monsieur, en faisant imprimer en toutes lettres mon nom à la tète de l’envoi de la pièce de[s] vers pour notre ami commun; mon nom va courir l’univers mon coeur et mon amour-propre sont flattés. Qui ne le serait pas de faire passer au successeur de Newton, de Clairaut les sentiments d’un successeur de Corneille et de Racine? Mais je me souviens de cette maxime d'un homme dont j’aime fort les ouvrages et cherche à suivre les préceptes que la meilleure femme du meilleur monde connu est celle dont on ne parle point. Il faut donc renoncer par cette circonstance, un moment, à l’explication de ce principe qui me tient fort au coeur. Il faut toute mon amitié pour l’objet et toute mon estime pour l’auteur des Druides, de Manco, de Virginie, etc., pour oublier un instant ce grand principe établi dans mon âme.” Paulze-Lavoisier to Leblanc de Guillet, 20 December 1781, in Annales de la Société d’agriculture, sciences, arts et commerce du Puy 25 (1862), 291–92. My emphasis.

  11. 11.

    See especially A. La Vopa, The Labor of the Mind. Intellect and Gender in Enlightenment Cultures (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017). A useful introduction to the topic can be found in J. C. Hayes, “Sex and Gender, Feeling and Thinking: Imaging Women as Intellectuals,” in The Cambridge Companion to the French Enlightenment, ed. D. Brewer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 90–104. As to scientific cultures, see the classic studies by Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex? and idem, Nature’s Body. Gender in the Making of Modern Science (New Brunswick: Routledge, 1993).

  12. 12.

    See especially the works by A. Vila, among others, her “Ambiguous Beings: Marginality, Melancholy, and the Femme Savante,” in Women, Gender and Enlightenment, eds. S. Knott and B. Taylor (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 53–69.

  13. 13.

    Roberts, Sentimental Savants. On modesty as a gender norm in scientific cultures, see M. Cavazza, “Between Modesty and Spectacle. Women and Science in Eighteenth-Century Italy,” in Italy’s Eighteenth Century. Gender and Culture in the Age of the Grand Tour, eds. P. Findlen et al. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), 275–302. It should be noted, however, that modesty was also considered a masculine value and an important feature of the “gentleman”: see for instance P. Carter, Men and the Emergence of Polite Society, Britain 1660–1800 (London: Routledge, 2014).

  14. 14.

    From a methodological point of view, crucial examples, also relevant to the present chapter, can be found in the works by Marta Cavazza (mostly focused on eighteenth-century Italy) and especially in her “Between Modesty and Spectacle.”

  15. 15.

    See Lieux de savoir, ed. C. Jacob, 2: Les mains de l’intellecte (Paris: Albin Michel, 2011). On the use of this notion in the history of science and knowledge, see also the three volumes of Histoire des sciences et des savoirs, ed. D. Pestre (Paris: Seuil, 2015).

  16. 16.

    Among the rich literature on note-taking practices, I cite here only works that are particularly relevant to my approach to the topic: J. Beltrán, “Ciencia amanuense: cultura manuscrita e historia natural en la Francia moderna (c. 1660–1830.)” Asclepio 71, no. 1 (2019), available at https://doi.org/10.3989/asclepio.2019.09, accessed on 15 June 2022; A. M. Blair, Too Much to Know. Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010; Note-taking in Early Modern Europe, eds. A. M. Blair and R. Yeo, special issue of Intellectual History Journal 20 (2010), no. 3;http://asclepio.revistas.csic.es/index.php/asclepio/article/view/814 M. -N. Bourguet, Le monde dans un carnet. Alexander von Humboldt en Italie (1805) (Paris: Éditions du Félin, 2017); Jacob, Les mains de l’intellecte.

  17. 17.

    On Emilie du Châtelet, see R. Hagengruber, ed. Émilie du Châtelet between Leibniz and Netwon (London and New York: Springer, 2012) and its bibliography. On Marie-Génévieve Thiroux d’Arconville, see P. Bret and B. van Tiggelen, eds. Madame d’Arconville. Une femme de lettres et de sciences au siècle des Lumières (Paris: Hermann, 2011). On women’s access to publishing in the eighteenth-century, see S. Knott and B. Taylor, eds. Women, Gender, and Enlightenment, (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) and its bibliography. On the French context, see E. C. Goldsmith and D. Goodman, eds. Going Public. Women and Publishing in Early Modern France (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995).

  18. 18.

    On the material and practical turn in the history of science and intellectual history (with a focus on Enlightenment), see among others A. Craciun and S. Schaffer, eds. The Material Cultures of Enlightenment (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).

  19. 19.

    É. Grimaux, Lavoisier: 1743–1794, d’après sa correspondance, ses manuscrits, ses papiers de famille et d’autres documents inédits (Paris: Alcan, 1888). Since then, many other biographies have been published, most of which have integrated this image: see for instance J.-P. Poirier, Lavoisier. Chemist, Biologist, Economist (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996).

  20. 20.

    Poirier, Lavoisier, especially Chap. 10.

  21. 21.

    “Lavoisier sacriffia tous les jours quelques momens aux nouvelles affaires dont il était chargé. Les sciences eurent toujours une grand part de sa journée. [U]n jour tout entier dans chaque semaine était consacré aux expériences; c'était disait Lavoisier son jour de bonheur, quelques amis éclairés, quelques jeunes gens fiers d’être admis à l’honneur de coopérer à ses expériences se réunissaient dès le matin, dans le laboratoire; c’était là que l’on déjeunait, que l’on dissertait, que l’on travaillait, que l’on faisait des expériences, que naissait cette belle théorie qui a immortalisé son auteur.” Paulze-Lavoisier, cit. in C. C. Gillispie, “Notice biographique de Lavoisier par Madame Lavoisier,” Revue d’histoire des sciences et de leurs applications 9 (1956), 52–61, at 57.

  22. 22.

    I have explored Paulze-Lavoisier’s efforts to construct Lavoisier’s memory in Scrivere e sperimentare, Chap. 5.

  23. 23.

    Two fundamental studies on sociability in Parisian salons are A. Lilti, Le monde des salons. Sociabilité et mondanité à Paris au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Fayard, 2005) and D. Goodman, The Republic of Letters. A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment (Cornell: Cornell University Press, 1994), although they differ on several crucial points.

  24. 24.

    This emerges clearly, for instance, in Paulze-Lavoisier’s inventaires après-décès, transcribed in full in the annex of my Scrittura, sociabilità e strategie di persuasione: Marie-Anne Paulze-Lavoisier, secrétaire(1758–1836), PhD. diss., Università di Bologna/École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2021.

  25. 25.

    Kroch Library, Cornell University, Ithaca-NY, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, #4712 Lavoisier Collection, Box 29e, “Two fortune telling games in wooden boxes.”.

  26. 26.

    See especially Y. Durand, Les fermiers généraux au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Presses Universaites de France, 1971).

  27. 27.

    On the Lavoisiers’ laboratories, see especially M. Beretta and P. Brenni, The Arsenal of Eighteenth-Century Chemistry. The Laboratories of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (Leiden: Brill, 2022).

  28. 28.

    This point emerges clearly from the Lavoisiers’ correspondence but also, in different ways, from their laboratory notebooks.

  29. 29.

    J. Priestley, The Doctrine of Phlogiston Established and that of the Composition of Water Refuted (Northumberland: by Andrew Kennedy, 1803), 116.

  30. 30.

    On these experiments and their reception within the Parisian context, see C. Lehman, “What Is the True Nature of Diamond?” Nuncius 31 (2016), 361–407.

  31. 31.

    The wrapped specimens are today preserved in the Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris, n. inventaire 20,185–0000. As to the written reports of the experiments, they can be found in Archives de l’Académie des Sciences, Paris, Fonds Lavoisier, Registre de laboratoire n. 6, ff. 151r–192r.

  32. 32.

    See for instance the slips glued to the paper in Registre de laboratoire n. 6, f. 176r: “Volez, tendres Zéphirs / Annoncez mes désirs” and ibid., f. R-06, f. 187r: “A vos tendres ardeurs / J’accorderai mon cœur.”.

  33. 33.

    “Je suis allé diner chès Lavoisier de l’Académie Française, il y avoit à diner M. le duc de La Rochefoucauld plusieurs savants et madame de Lavoisier qui est jolie et fort aimable, après le diné il est arrivé encore plusieurs savants pour assister à des expériences que M. de Lavoisier devait faire sur l’air déphlogistiqué qui produit sur un charbon un feu d’une force extraordinaire.” B. Faujas de Saint-Fond in G. Comparato, Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond, parcours d’un homme de science mondain au tournant des Lumières (1741–1819), PhD Diss., Université Grenoble Alpes, 2018, 2, 206. My emphasis.

  34. 34.

    “Madame de Lavoisier à servi de la meilleur grâce du monde de secrétaire pour écrire les résultats de ces belles expériences, avec un montre à seconde à la main pour compter les secondes. […] [L]’on à fait une multitude d’expérience très curieuses qui ont duré environ cinq quarts d’heures pendant le quel tems on n’a usé pour environ 30# d’air déphlogistiqué tiré du précipité rouge après les expériences chimiques qui ont présenté plusieurs phénomènes remarquables.” Cit. in ibid. My emphasis.

  35. 35.

    On Paulze-Lavoisier’s role in these experiments, see my “Note-taking and Self-promotion: Marie-Anne Paulze-Lavoisier as a secrétaire (1772–1792),” in Gendered Touch. Women, Men, and Knowledge Making in Early-Modern Europe, eds. F. Antonelli, A. Romano, and P. Savoia (Leiden: Brill, 2022), 220–44.

  36. 36.

    Bucquet’s course was in fact almost entirely recorded by Paulze-Lavoisier in the fifth volume of Lavoisier’s laboratory notebooks, which is titled “Produit d’un cours de M. Bucquet”: see Archives de l’Académie des Sciences, Paris, Registre de laboratoire n. 5. On the public invited by the Lavoisiers to attend this course, see my Scrivere e sperimentare, 132–139.

  37. 37.

    The first occurrence I have been able to find is in Archives de l’Académie des Sciences, Paris, Registre de laboratoire n. 13, f. 1r; other references can be found in LC, 5.

  38. 38.

    A.-L. Lavoisier, “Réflexions sur le phlogistique, pour servir de développement à la théorie de la combustion et de la calcination, publiée en 1777,” in Mémoires de l’Académie Royale des Sciences pour l’année 1785 (1786), 505–38.

  39. 39.

    I borrow the expression from C. E. Perrin, “The Triumph of the Antiphlogistians,” in The Analytic Spirit. Essays in the History of Science in Honor of Henry Guerlac, ed. H. Woolf (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1981), 40–63.

  40. 40.

    Essai sur le phlogistique, et sur la constitution des acides, traduit de l’anglois de M. Kirwan; avec des notes de M. M. De Morveau, Lavoisier, de la Place, Monge, Berthollet, et de Fourcroy (Paris: rue et Hôtel Serpente, 1788), v–xi. On this project, see K. Kawashima, “Madame Lavoisier et la traduction de l’Essay on Phlogiston de Kirwan,” Revue d’histoire des sciences 53 (2000), 235–63.

  41. 41.

    This point has already been made especially in Perrin, “The Triumph of the Antiphlogistians” and B. Bensaude-Vincent, Lavoisier. Mémoires d’une révolution (Paris: Flammarion, 1993), Chap. 10.

  42. 42.

    For some biographical information about Landriani, see M. Roda, “Landriani, Marsilio,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 63 (2004), 528–31. On Landriani’s travels as a spy, see S. Escobar, “I viaggi di informazione tecnico scientifica di Marsilio Landriani: un caso di spionaggio industriale,” in Economia, istituzioni, cultura, in Lombardia nell’età di Maria Teresa, eds. E. Rotelli et al., 2 vols. (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1982), 2, 533–42.

  43. 43.

    See the letters between Paulze-Lavoisier and de Saussure published in LC, 5.

  44. 44.

    Perrin, “The Triumph of Antiphlogistians,” 54.

  45. 45.

    Especially J. Golinski, “Precision Instruments and the Demonstrative Order of Proof in Lavoisier’s Chemistry,” Osiris 9 (1994), 30–47.

  46. 46.

    A. Young, Travels During the Years 1787, 1788, and 1789: Undertaken More Particularly with a View of Ascertaining the Cultivation, Wealth, Resources, and National Prosperity of the Kingdom of France (London: Bury St. Edmonds, 1792), 64.

  47. 47.

    E. Denton, Principes d’édition du journal de Sir James Hall, Ph.D. Diss., École Nationale de Chartes, 2003; G. Morris, A Diary of the French Revolution, ed. B. C. Davenport (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1939).

  48. 48.

    Archives de l’Académie des Sciences, Paris, Registres de laboratoire n. 13, ff. 1r–5r, “Expériences pour tenter la conversion du Chevalier Landriani.”.

  49. 49.

    “J’ai raconté à Mr Priestley l’ingenieuse plaisanterie de la loterie, de la lanterne magique et des bataillons de sulphites et des suphates, des carbones et des carbonates. Il en a beaucoup ri quoiqu’il pretend que toutes vos obligations soient aussi solides que les spectres magiques par lesquels vous les avez representées.” Landriani to Paulze-Lavoisier, 12 October 1788, pub. in LC, 5, 219–20.

  50. 50.

    Chemische Annalen 1 (1789), transl. in K. Hufbauer, The Formation of the German Chemical Community, 1720–1795 (Berkeley, Ca.: Univ. of California Press, 1982), 96.

  51. 51.

    On the importance of trust in scientific controversies, see the classics S. Shapin and S. Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air Pump. Hobbes, Boyle and the Experimental Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985) and S. Shapin, A Social History of Truth (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).

  52. 52.

    “Vous avez surement su les dangers que nous avons couru au siege de la Bastille, notre maison eut eté une des premieres renversée si le canon eut été tiré, heureusement nous en avons eté quittés pour la peur. Que seraitent devenus le laboratoire, et les experiences? Tout eut eté detruit […]. Depuis ce moment la chimie est abandonnée, les affaires publiques seules nous occupent, d’abord par necessité et pour pourvoir a sa propre sureté, ensuite par le grand interet quelle entrainent avec elles; on ne parle plus que de constitution, legislation, pouvoir executif, liberté individuelle, etc. etc.” Paulze-Lavoisier to Landriani, 1 October 1789, in LC, 6, 74.

  53. 53.

    Pullins et al.,“The Lavoisiers by David.”.

  54. 54.

    On this episode, see the biography J. -P. Poirier, La science et l’amour. Madame Lavoisier (Paris: Pygmalion, 2004), Chap. 13.

  55. 55.

    S. Van Damme, Paris, capitale philosophique. De la Fronde à la Revolution (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2005), especially part 2. On science and spectacle in the European context, see B. Bensaude-Vincent and C. Blondel, eds. Science and Spectacle in the European Enlightenment (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008).

  56. 56.

    La Vopa, The Labor of the Mind, 25. On the importance of sociability and manners in Enlightenment ideas of femininity, see also Knott and Taylor, Women, Gender and Enlightenment, especially the contributions by M. C. Moran, (“Between the Savage and the Civil: Dr John Gregory’s Natural History of Femininity,” 8–29) and S. Sebastiani (“Race, Women, and Progress in the Late Scottish Enlightenment,” 75–96).

  57. 57.

    Ibid., 21.

  58. 58.

    Ibid., especially Chap. 1 (21 for the quotation).

  59. 59.

    Ibid.

  60. 60.

    “J’imagine que vous êtes dejà depuis quelques jours de retour du voyage que vous projettiez avec Madame Lavoisier, et où vous n’aurez pas manqué de recueillir à votre ordinaire de bonnes observations redigées sur place par un secretaire aussi aimable qu’intelligent.” Guyton de Morveau to Lavoisier, 30 August 1788, in LC, 5, 206–207. My emphasis.

  61. 61.

    “[Landriani] n’aura pu résister ni à la force de vos opinions ni à la séduction de vos charmes […].” De Saussure to Paulze-Lavoisier, 28/29 February 1788, in LC, 5, 139–41. My emphasis. On women and persuasion in the culture of honnêtété see La Vopa, The Labor of the Mind, esp. 147–48 and 189–90.

  62. 62.

    “Lorsque je compare la clarté et la noblesse de leurs argumens avec la confusion et la rage qui regnent dans les objections de M. K[irwan], je ne puis pas m’empecher de trouver que malgré la grâce et la précision avec lesquelles vous avés rendu son livre, l’honneur que vous lui avés fait, Madame, de le traduire est funeste à sa réputation en mettant au grand jour l’insigne foiblesse et même souvent la mauvaise fois de ses raisonnemens.” De Saussure to Paulze-Lavoisier, 7 November 1788, in LC, 5, 223. My emphasis.

  63. 63.

    “Je suis comblée de satisfation, que vous me le procuriez vous même aujourd’hui, recevez, Madame, ma sensible reconnaissance, et daignez faire agréer à Monsieur Lavoisier le sentiment d’estime profonde qu’il ne cesse de m’inspirer. Je serois très heureuse si ces Mms qui vous avez si bien aidé à enlever tout le phlogistique de Mr. Kirwan, trouvoient ici la part de reconnaissance qu’ils méritent, ils sont bien sures du succès de cette entreprise, parce que les graces accompagnent le sçavoir.” Claudine Picardet to Paulze-Lavoisier, s.d., Archives de l’Académie des Sciences, Paris, Fonds Lavoisier, Dossier 1243.1. My emphasis.

  64. 64.

    La Vopa, The Labor of the Mind.

  65. 65.

    Among the rich literature on this topic, see Marco Beretta, The Enlightenment of Matter. The Definition of Chemistry from Agricola to Lavoisier (Canton: Science History Publications, 1993), Chap. 5. For a critical discussion of the uses of the notion of the “scientific revolution,” see A. Romano, “Fabriquer l’histoire des sciences modernes. Réflexions sur une discipline à l’ère de la mondialisation,” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 70 (2015), 381–408 and idem, “Ce que l’histoire globale fait à la ‘révolution scientifique’, ou la fin d'un grand récit et ses multiples conséquences,” Rivista storica italiana 2 (2020), 542–48.

  66. 66.

    Lavoisier to Franklin, 2 February 1790, quoted in Beretta, The Enlightenment of Matter, 251. My emphasis.

  67. 67.

    On the Lavoisiers’ complex relationship with the French Revolution, see M. Beretta, “Chemists in the Storm: Lavoisier, Priestley, and the French Revolution,” Nuncius 8 (1993), 75–104.

  68. 68.

    See especially La Vopa, The Labor of the Mind and, from another perspective, Goodman, The Republic of Letters.

  69. 69.

    Vidal, “David Among the Moderns.” On Paulze-Lavoisier’s apprenticeship with David: M. Pinault Sørensen, “Madame Lavoisier, dessinatrice et peintre,” La Revue. Musée des Arts et Métiers 6 (1994), 23–25.

  70. 70.

    Young, Travels in France, 195.

  71. 71.

    I warmly thank Gábor Almási and Giorgio Lizzul for giving me the opportunity to push my research in new directions, for their careful and stimulating readings, and last but not least for the lovely days we spent together in Innsbruck after a year and a half of lockdown. I am also grateful to the other participants in the workshop and especially to Anthony La Vopa for his inspiring comments on earlier versions of this chapter. Finally, I wish to thank Ludovica Neri for her intelligent readings and friendly support while I was working on the first draft.

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  1. Institut Universitari d’Estudis de les Dones, Universitat de València, Valencia, Spain

    Francesca Antonelli

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    Gábor Almási

  2. Fondazione 1563, Turin, Italy

    Giorgio Lizzul

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Antonelli, F. (2023). Enlightened Women at Work: The Case of Marie-Anne Paulze-Lavoisier (1770s–1790s). In: Almási, G., Lizzul, G. (eds) Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38092-1_11

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