Marie Geneviève Charlotte Thiroux d'Arconville was a French author and chemist.
Background
Daughter of the rich tax-farmer André-Guillaume Darlus, Geneviève married Louis-Lazare Thiroux d'Arconville, counsel at the parlement of Paris (later president of the chambre des enquêtes, hence her honorific la presidente) when she was fourteen years old.
Career
At twenty-three years old Thiroux d'Arconville contracted smallpox, which scarred her for life. Thenceforth she shied away from public spectacle, embraced austere Jansenist morals and dedicated her life to study. Thiroux d'Arconville's interests included history, physics, chemistry, natural history and even medicine.
She took classes in anatomy at the Jardin du Roi where a few women were admitted. She wrote and translated works on diverse subjects but they were invariably published anonymously in her lifetime.