Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
however, she was compared to a Greek statue in the gossip of the maid who had assisted
her in her bath. As a child she was studious and became interested in mathematics and
the sciences. In these disciplines she was encouraged by one of her father's many intel-
lectual friends. She was described as of a “passionate nature,” never lacking for romantic
attachments, and at the age of nineteen she married Florent Claude Chastellet, a soldier and
an aristocrat becoming the Marquise de Châtelet. The couple inherited the estate of Cirey,
and Émilie de Châtelet had three children by the Marquis who was, however, frequently
absent on military duty. The Marquise lived an extravagant social life in Paris, separately
from her husband and surrounding herself with many men. It was both their intellectual
stature and their love that mattered most to the Marquise; one lover was Maupertuis, who
was her mathematics tutor. Émilie first met Voltaire when he was a house guest of her
father. She met him again when he had just returned from England. Voltaire displaced
Maupertuis, who however continued to teach Émilie mathematics and contentedly worked
with Voltaire. Voltaire was eventually displaced in his turn by Clairaut, but the happy
ménage was united in its opinion of the truth of Newton's world view.
At a later time in history Émilie may have become a member of the Academy of Sciences
but as a woman this was not then possible. The less formal places for scientific discussions
were the cafés of Paris, and although women were also not allowed in cafés, Émilie decided
in 1734 that she wanted to go into the Café Gradot. This Paris café was most famous as a
meeting place of mathematicians, astronomers and scientists, including Maupertuis. To
enter she dressed as a man to parody the discriminatory rule, and she joined Maupertuis'
table, who cheered and ordered her a cup of coffee. The proprietors pretended not to notice
they were serving a woman - Émilie attended the scientific meetings at the Café Gradot
regularly, fashionably dressed in man's clothes.
In 1734 Voltaire was forced to hide to escape a warrant for his arrest and went to live with
Émilie at Cirey. Her husband was complacent at the arrangement, permitting Voltaire not
only to sleep with his wife but also to spend money improving the house, building a gal-
lery with a very fine collection of scientific instruments and a large library. With
Maupertuis and Clairaut, and later with the Swiss mathematician, Samuel König, Émilie
and Voltaire worked on topics about Newton, philosophy and mathematics, both sepa-
rately and collaborating together. Émilie translated the
Principia
into French, adding
explanations to help the reader, some of which were based on discussions with her by
Clairaut, and Voltaire wrote the preface. A dispute with König over his allegations that
one of her topics on Leibnitz was merely a rehash of what he had taught her ended their
friendship and association.
In the spring of 1748, Émilie took another lover, Jean François de Saint-Lambert, a poet.
While giving birth to his child in 1749, she died.
Maupertuis concluded that the debate about the shape of the Earth could only be
convincingly resolved by measurements made nearer the equator and the pole and
therefore overseas expeditions were necessary. In his campaigns in support of
Newtonian theory, Maupertuis had the support of Voltaire, who portrayed him
against the established French Academicians like Galileo against the Inquisition.
This must have made Voltaire's betrayal of Maupertuis in later life (see text box)
harder to bear.
The Academy had already accepted a suggestion by Charles-Marie La
Condamine in 1733 (repeated a year later by Louis Godin) that it should organize
a major expedition to the equator to measure the scale of the Earth there. In doing
so the Academy had acknowledged that there were no accessible lands south of
Paris near to the equator that were suitable for a surveying expedition because the
Paris Meridian passes south into Africa through the Sahara desert and into the
