During the same period a number of French and Italian astronomers had female collaborators in their own families. Celsus, the celebrated professor of Upsala, and a pupil of the son of Gottfried Kirch, had been accorded a most cordial reception, while passing through Paris on his way to Bologna, by De L'Isle who had a sister who was devoted to astronomy. On his arrival in Italy he found that his new master, the director of the observatory at Bologna, had two sisters, Teresa and Maddalena, both of great learning, who, like their brother, were engaged in the study of the heavens and collaborated with him in the preparation of the Ephemeris of Bologna. This caused Celsus, in a letter to Kirch, to declare "I begin to believe that it is the destiny of all the astronomers whom I have had the honor of becoming acquainted with during my journey to have learned sisters. I have also a sister, although not a very learned one. To preserve the harmony, we must make an astronomer of her."[139]
The Polish astronomer, Hevilius, who had an observatory at Dantzig, is noted for having made the most accurate observations that had been known before the adaptation of the telescope to astronomical instruments. He is also noted for his Prodromus Astronomiæ, a catalogue of 1,888 stars; for his Selenographia, containing accurate descriptions and drawings of the moon in her different phases and librations, and for his Machina Cœlestis, which contained the results of forty years of observations and labor. Much of his success and eminence, however, was due to his intelligent and devoted wife, Elizabeth, who, during twenty-seven years, was a zealous collaborator and should share the credit usually given to her husband. It was she who, after his death, edited and published their joint work, the Prodromus Astronomiæ.
Among the women most distinguished in the eighteenth century for astronomical pursuits was the Marquise du Châtelet, who was likewise famous for her knowledge of mathematics. It was she who accomplished the difficult task of translating Newton's Principia into French. "This translation," writes Voltaire, "which the most learned men of France should have made and which the others should study, was undertaken by a woman and completed to the astonishment and glory of her country."[140]
France was at this time devoted to the doctrines of Descartes and to his theory of elementary vortices; and Voltaire, who had been deeply impressed by the admirable simplicity of Newton's theory of universal attraction as a means of explaining the seemingly complex motions of the heavenly bodies, resolved to make his countrymen acquainted with the teachings of the great English geometer and, at the same time, dethrone Descartes in the French Academy. It was, indeed, a huge undertaking; but, thanks to the ability which Mme. du Châtelet displayed in translating and elucidating Newton's immortal masterpiece, he lived to see his dream realized.
How proud Mme. du Châtelet's countrywomen must have been of her! How they must have rejoiced in her success and acclaimed her as the intellectual glory of her sex! How they must have pointed to her work as a triumphant refutation of the age-old belief in woman's incapacity for mathematics and all abstract science! How they must have been elated to find one of their number successfully executing a task which would have taxed the powers of the most eminent mathematicians of France! How they must have associated her truly notable performance with similar achievements of Hypatia and Maria Gaetana Agnesi and discerned in it concrete evidence of the falsity of all those imputations of mental inferiority which had been fostered by "man's huge egotism and woman's carefully coddled superstition." How they must have been encouraged by her achievement and spurred on to emulate her by similar contributions to the advancement of science!
That is what we think now; but the light and frivolous women who constituted the leaders of society in Mme. du Châtelet's day, and who were devoured by envy and jealousy of one who was so much their superior in intellect were not so minded. Far from sympathizing with her work, they proved to be her most virulent critics and most pronounced enemies. Neither Molière nor Boileau could have heaped more ridicule on the pedantic women of their time than was meted out to the translator of the Principia by certain noble dames of provincial châteaux or by distinguished habituées of prominent Parisian salons.
Thus the petulant ennuyée, Mme. de Staël, in a letter to her friend, Mme. du Deffand, writing of Mme. du Châtelet, who was then her guest at Sceaux, tells us that "she is now passing in review her principles. This is a task she performs every year, else they might, perhaps, make their escape and run to such a distance that she would never be able to recover any of them. I verily believe that they are in durance vile while in her possession, as they were certainly not born with her. She does well to keep a strict watch over them."[141]
And, in her turn, Mme. du Deffand, who was wont to pose as the intimate friend of Mme. du Châtelet, did not hesitate to write and circulate a pen portrait of this friend—and that after the unhappy woman was in her grave—which for bitter reviling and brutal villification has probably never been equalled. A witty Frenchman observed of this portrait that it reminded him of an observation once made by a medical acquaintance of his concerning one of his patients: "'My friend fell ill; I attended him. He died; I dissected him.'"[142]