Madame d’Arconville, moraliste et chimiste au siècle des Lumiѐres: études et textes inédits ed. by Marc André Bernier and Marie-Laure Girou Swiderski (review)

The contributors to this collection highlight the remarkable literary and scientific legacy of Marie Geneviѐve Charlotte Thiroux d’Arconville (1720–1805). Her works include autobiographical texts, scientific treatises, biographies, essays in the moralist tradition, translations, novels, and writings on education, the passions, old age, philosophy, and vanity, among others.

In the introduction to this two-part collection, Marc André Bernier and Marie-Laure Girou Swiderski focus on d’Arconville’s autobiographical, scientific, and moralist texts. In addition to works published anonymously or attributed to her, the editors introduce “tout un corpus formé de manuscrits écrits aprѐs la Révolution, restés inédits et, jusqu’à ce jour […] oubliés et ignorés” (6). Based on newly-obtained manuscripts of her twelve-volume Pensées, réflexions et anecdotes (1801–1805), the editors demonstrate that d’Arconville’s accomplishments are informed by childhood experiences, personal and professional relationships, and outstanding analytical skills. They present “une premiѐre édition” of her major autobiographical texts―“Histoire de mon enfance” and “Sur moi”―“in dialogue” with the preface to her best-known scientific work, Essai pour server à l’histoire de la putréfaction, including extensive critical commentary and analysis (10). Reconciling l’amour-propre with utilitarianism, scientific progress, and humanitarian goals, d’Arconville replaces “une représentation statique de l’ordre de la nature” with the concept of nature as dynamic (25).

Part I, “la moraliste,” introduces d’Arconville’s autobiographical texts―“Histoire de mon enfance” and “Sur moi” from her Pensées. Marie-Laure Girou Swiderski’s essay on the Pensées explores d’Arconville’s need to write, with no intent to publish, despite failing health and eyesight. “Écrire pour soi” becomes her raison d’être, an opportunity for free expression, unhindered by criticism (102). These texts, Swiderski argues, constitute “un monument” to an erudite woman devoted to sharing knowledge and improving life (110).

Marc André Bernier’s essay explores the relationship between reason, “l’amour-propre,” and d’Arconville’s desire for self-knowledge. He asserts that her texts attempt to reconcile the moralist tradition with the eighteenth-century’s emphasis on style and “le goȗt de la légèreté et de l’ironie,” thus blending knowledge with imagination and pleasure (114; 118).

Julie Candler Hayes discusses marriage, rarely of interest to traditional moralists. Framed by the eighteenth-century’s concept of the “mariage sentimental,” she compares d’Arconville’s views with those of female moralists such as “la marquise de Lambert, Madeleine de Puisieux, and ‘Mme de Verzure’” (124). Marriage and loss of freedom are themes in portions of d’Arconville’s De l’amitié, in “Sur le marriage” in Pensées, and in texts written between 1800 and 1804 (127). Hayes demonstrates that for d’Arconville, marriage is “une réalité morale et existentielle,” regarded as problematic by many women (134).

Selections from d’Arconville’s best-known scientific text, Essai pour servir à l’histoire de la putréfaction (1766), introduce Part II―“la chimiste.” The Essai reveals her commitment to experimentation, traces the history of putrefaction, and records d’Arconville’s work with antiseptics, including results and analysis. In her essay, Elisabeth Bardez discusses the historical context of this text, and d’Arconville’s contributions to the development of chemistry as a scientific discipline. She argues that this work, her translation of Peter Shaw’s Chemical lectures (Leçons de chimie), including a “Discours préliminaire”, and her promotion of the usefulness of chemistry, earned d’Arconville a rightful place in the history of this field (165–66; 182).

Margaret Carlyle focuses on d’Arconville’s translations of Peter Shaw’s Chemical Lectures (Leçons de chimie) and Alexander Monro’s Anatomy of the Human Bones (Trait...