Élisabeth Julienne Pommereul (5 July 1733 - 3 July 1782) was a French

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

who worked under the teachings of the French botanist Thouin and Swedish botanist

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

to study classifications and counts of grass types in the

Jardin du Roi The Jardin des Plantes (, ), also known as the Jardin des Plantes de Paris () when distinguished from other ''jardins des plantes'' in other cities, is the main botanical garden in France. Jardin des Plantes is the official name in the present da ...

Early life

Born in 1733, Élisabeth Julienne (Mme Dugage de Pommereul) came from the Breton nobility. Her father Guy-René Pommereul, Sieur Des Longrais, was a lawyer in the

Parlement of Rennes The Parlement of Rennes or Parlement of Brittany (, ) was one of the , a court of justice under the French , with its seat at Rennes. The last building to house the Parlement still stands and now houses the Rennes Court of Appeal, the natural succ ...

and

Seneschal The word ''seneschal'' () can have several different meanings, all of which reflect certain types of supervising or administering in a historic context. Most commonly, a seneschal was a senior position filled by a court appointment within a royal, ...

of Brie and Janzé. Her mother, Louise Thérèse Letort, lady of Navinal, came from the same background. Élisabeth Julienne was the cousin of François-René-Jean de Pommereul (1745-1823), division general during the revolutionary period and prefect under the

First Empire First Empire may refer to: *First British Empire, sometimes used to describe the British Empire between 1583 and 1783 *First Bulgarian Empire (680–1018) *First French Empire (1804–1814/1815) * First German Empire or "First Reich", sometimes use ...

. In 1755, she married François-Alexis Fresnel.

Professional career

Élisabeth was introduced to botany in the

Rennes Rennes (; ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Resnn''; ) is a city in the east of Brittany in Northwestern France at the confluence of the rivers Ille and Vilaine. Rennes is the prefecture of the Brittany (administrative region), Brittany Regions of F ...

region. In the 1770s, she lived in

Nantes Nantes (, ; ; or ; ) is a city in the Loire-Atlantique department of France on the Loire, from the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. The city is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, sixth largest in France, with a pop ...

, where she became acquainted with the family of

François Bonamy François Bonamy (10 May 1710 in Nantes – 5 January 1786 in Nantes) was a French botanist and physician. He was the grandfather of adventurer Paul de la Gironière (1797–1862). In 1735 he obtained his medical doctorate, and for nearly ...

, director of the Jardin royal des Plantes. A few years later, between 1775 and 1777, Pommereul lived in Paris and assiduously followed the botany courses of

Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (; 12 April 1748 – 17 September 1836) was a French botanist, notable as the first to publish a natural classification of flowering plants; much of his system remains in use today. His classification was based on an e ...

. In 1778,

André Thouin André Thouin (10 February 1747 – 24 October 1824) was a French botanist. Thouin studied botany under Bernard de Jussieu, and in 1793 attained the chair of horticulture at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris. He was a good ...

, head gardener at the

, called on her help to count and identify the grasses growing in the beds of the Jardin de l'Ecole de botany. It was at this time that she tried to develop a classification reconciling Tournefort's system with that of

. During the same period, she was approached by Thouin and Jussieu to compose a work on grasses. Thouin put her in touch with her network of correspondents: Carl von Linné the Younger,

Antoine Gouan Antoine Gouan (15 November 1733 – 1 September 1821) was a French naturalist who was a native of Montpellier. Gouan was a pioneer of Linnaean taxonomy in France. He began his studies in Toulouse, later returning to Montpellier, where he studied ...

, Pierre-André Pourret, and

Claude-Étienne Savary Claude-Étienne Savary (1750 in Vitré, Ille-et-Vilaine – 1788) was an orientalist, pioneer of Egyptology and translator of the Qur'an. Publications *1782–1783: ''Le Coran, traduit de l'arabe, accompagné de notes, et précédé d'un abrég� ...

. According to her relative Desgenettes, she lived alone in an attic in the King's Garden and devoted herself to her research projects. Witnesses to her botanical activity, three botanical specimens that she collected during her herbalism are still preserved in the collections of the National Herbarium of the National Museum of Natural History.

Awards and publication

On the announcement of the upcoming publication of Pommereul's work, Linnaeus the Younger congratulated her and named a plant in her honor, '' Pommereulla cornucopiae l. f.'' The plant thus named according to the Linnaean nomenclature was inserted into the Linnaean system. Dombey dedicated the ''Dugagesia margaritifera'' to her, but the plant had already been named by the Spanish botanists

Ruiz The Spanish surname Ruiz is a patronymic from the personal name Ruy, a short form of Rodrigo, meaning "son of Roderick". Roderick's roots can be traced back to the Visigoths, the Germanic tribe which ruled in the Iberian Peninsula between the 5th an ...

and Pavón. The Royal Academy of Medicine in Madrid, on the initiative of

Casimiro Gómez Ortega Casimiro Gómez de Ortega (4 March 1741, in Añover de Tajo, Spain – 30 August 1818, in Madrid, Spain) was a Spanish physician, and botanist who was the First Professor of the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid. Under Charles III of Spain Góme ...

, correspondent of the Royal Academy of Sciences since 1776, awarded her a diploma. In 1779, the publication of Élisabeth's work was anticipated. Some publications at the time praised her imminent work as evidence for the morality of educating women. The educator

Jean Verdier Jean Verdier, PSS (; 19 February 1864 – 9 April 1940) was a French Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Paris from 1929 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1929. Biography Jean Verdier was bor ...

also paid her a strong tribute in the article "botanique", in the ''Encyclopédie méthodique''.

Fortunée Briquet Marguerite-UrsuIe-Fortunée Briquet (16 June 1782 – 14 May 1815) was an early 19th-century French femme de lettres and Polygraph (author), polygraph., ''Histoires d'historiennes'', Université de Saint-Etienne, 2006, p.11. Biography Fortuné ...

assures us in 1804 that Pommereul is indeed the author of a botanical work. On the other hand,

Palisot de Beauvois Ambroise Marie François Joseph Palisot, Baron de Beauvois (27 July 1752, in Arras – 21 January 1820, in Paris) was a French naturalist and zoologist. Palisot collected insects in Oware, Benin, Saint Domingue, and the United States, from 17 ...

, dictated that the work was never published and that the manuscript appeared to be misplaced. It seems that illness prevented her from completing the planned work. Mme. Dugage's existence has long been ignored. The absence of a published work and her practice of botany in the direct entourage of Jussieu have until recently aroused indifference and disdain on the part of botanical historians.

Death

Mme. Dugage suffered from breast cancer, which she tried in vain to relieve by affixing magnetic metal plates. She took part in the magnetotherapy experiments of Father Le Noble, then sought the benefits of the climate of the south of France during the winter of 1781. Élisabeth died in

Forcalquier Forcalquier (; ) is a commune in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department in southeastern France. Forcalquier is located between the Lure Mountain( fr) and Luberon mountain ranges, about south of Sisteron and west of the Durance river. Dur ...

on 3 July 1782.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pommereul, Elisabeth Julienne 18th-century French botanists French women scientists 1733 births 1782 deaths 18th-century Breton people