Letter from Mrs Lavoisier to the Ecole Polytechnique concerning her rights to keep her husband's scientific material.

Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze comes from the high bourgeoisie of the Ancien Régime. She was educated at the Visitation convent of Montbrison. At the age of 22 she married Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, escaping an arranged marriage with a 50-year-old man. She was an active collaborator in her husband's scientific work and translated into French various publications and drew all the plates illustrating his Traité élémentaire de chimie (1789). Her husband was guillotined in 1794 and she herself was arrested and then released. She then set about organizing the publication of her husband's works and recovering his property, some of which (a small part of his laboratory) had been donated to the Ecole Polytechnique.