Breastfeeding and Scientific Motherhood: The Case of Marie-Jeanne Roland - Project MUSE
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Breastfeeding and Scientific Motherhood: The Case of
Marie-Jeanne Roland
Annie K. Smart
Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, Volume 39, Number 1, Spring 2020,
pp. 13-38 (Article)
Published by The University of Tulsa
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/tsw.2020.0020
For additional information about this article
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/757261
[ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ]Breastfeeding and Scientific Motherhood:
The Case of Marie-Jeanne Roland
Annie K. Smart
Saint Louis University
ABSTRACT: This essay examines how the French revolutionary and writer Marie-
Jeanne Roland (1754-1793) represented her experiences of breastfeeding and motherhood.
It focuses on the letters that she wrote to her husband, Jean-Marie Roland (1734-1793),
to tease out a model of what the article terms “scientific motherhood”—that is, the method
of close observation, objective description, and experimentation that Marie-Jeanne applied
to her own maternal experience. Previous studies have highlighted the ways in which she
appropriated the ideal of domestic motherhood popularized by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(1712-1778). By bringing to the fore the Rolands’ engagement with Enlightenment sci-
ence, the article shows that Marie-Jeanne also appropriated scientific discourse. The letters
reveal a woman who used a scientific approach to represent the challenges of maternal
breastfeeding, a woman who leveraged both her experience and her ability to analyze that
experience to gain control over decisions regarding her own body and the health of her
baby. This study claims that science and domestic motherhood not only coexisted in the
Roland home but that one discourse affected the other.
The life and writings of Marie-Jeanne Roland (1754-1793) provide a
rich resource for scholars interested in memoirs, the French Revolution,
gender identity, and the construction of the self through the acts of read-
ing and writing.1 The host of a revolutionary salon and the purported
muse of the Girondins, Roland fiercely opposed Jacobin leaders such as
Georges Danton and Maximilien Robespierre. She was arrested on 1 June
1793 in the wake of the 31 May Jacobin coup and the subsequent arrest
of most of the Girondin leaders. After months in prison, she was executed
on 8 November 1793. Roland left behind a voluminous correspondence
and an unfinished memoir, Mémoires particuliers (Private Memoirs), supple-
mented by Notices historiques (Historical Memoirs), brief commentaries on
Revolutionary events and figures; these memoirs were first published post-
humously in 1795 under the title Appel à l’impartiale postérité (An appeal to
impartial posterity).2
Roland’s life and writings also provide a rich source of opposing view-
points, particularly with regard to her complex relationship to the writings
of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It is well known that Roland was a devoted
reader of Rousseau and dearly loved his epistolary novel Julie ou la nouvelle
Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Spring 2020), pp. 13-38. © University of Tulsa, 2020.
All rights to reproduction in any form are reserved.Héloïse (1761; Julie, or the New Heloise). After the birth of her daughter (and only child) Eudora on 4 October 1781, Roland conscientiously followed Rousseau’s call in Emile ou de l’éducation (1762; Emile, or On Education, 1763) for “une bonne mère qui sait penser” (a good mother who knows how to think) to breastfeed her baby.3 Much ink has been spilled on Rousseau’s influence on Roland and her struggle to reconcile, on the one hand, a desire to participate in the political life of the First Republic and, on the other, as Sandrine Bergès puts it in her study “A Republican Housewife: Marie-Jeanne Phlipon Roland on Women’s Political Role,” “a deeply held belief that women’s role in a republic is confined to the domestic realm.”4 In her memoirs, Roland asserts that she never meddled in political affairs, but she also affirms that she personally wrote many of her husband’s official letters while he served as Interior Minister.5 By contrast, the early years of her marriage and motherhood are generally character- ized, in the words of Gita May, as a “retreat into domesticity,” a time when Roland fully embraced the ideal of the domestic mother devoted to breast- feeding her baby and to overseeing household duties.6 The choice of the word “retreat” is telling; it marks the home space as a place of refuge from the turmoil of the public sphere. It is time to re-examine Roland’s “retreat into domesticity.” As Siân Reynolds argues in Marriage and Revolution: Monsieur and Madame Roland (2012), during these years, the Rolands formed a partnership; they shared writing, publishing, and parenting duties.7 In this essay I focus on how another discourse permeated their home and influenced Roland’s represen- tation of her maternal experience: scientific discourse.8 Although Roland’s devotion to Rousseau and involvement in political activities have been well-documented, her engagement with science has received little critical attention.9 My study shows that Roland took a scientific approach to her maternal experience, creating a model of what I call “scientific mother- hood.” By “scientific approach,” I take as my point of reference that sig- nature work of the Enlightenment, the Encyclopédie (1751-1772) of Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond d’Alembert. The Encyclopédie is predicated on the notion that science could establish facts through precise observations and experiments and that science should blend knowledge with the desire to improve society.10 In his encyclopedia article on natural history, Diderot presents the natural world as a “realm in which ‘accurate and complete descriptions,’ observation as the basis of comparison, and the effort nec- essary ‘to see the progress of nature in her productions,’ were to reign.”11 Close and detached observation—these “accurate and complete descrip- tions” of motherhood as a natural phenomenon—along with a Rousseauian discourse on the domestic mother characterize Roland’s representations of motherhood. 14 TSWL, 39.1, Spring 2020
Roland’s scientific motherhood is best seen in the letters she wrote dur-
ing her pregnancy and shortly after the birth of Eudora. These letters from
1781-1782 are most often cited to show that Roland had internalized a
Rousseauian ideal of domestic motherhood—that is, that women should
nurse their babies and devote themselves to the well-being of their children
and to domestic concerns of the home.12 Building on these previous stud-
ies, I claim that the Roland home was not only a domestic space but also a
space for scientific study. In particular, I argue that Roland appropriated sci-
entific discourse to frame her experiences of pregnancy and breastfeeding.
As we shall see, science and domestic motherhood did not just coex-
ist in the Roland home; one discourse affected the other. I contend that
Roland applied a method of close observation, objective description,
and experimentation to her own maternal experience—and that in so
doing, she created a voice of authority for herself. Roland’s letters sug-
gest that a scientifically enlightened mother holds as much authority as
medical experts. Moreover, though Roland framed her role in the home
in terms of domestic cares—managing the household and taking care of
Eudora—she also presented herself as working closely with her husband on
the Dictionnaire des Manufactures, Arts et Métiers (1784-1790; Dictionary
of manufactures, arts, and trades). After a close reading of the letters, I
briefly examine scientific motherhood in Roland’s unpublished essay “Avis
à ma fille, En âge et dans le cas de devenir mère” (Advice to my daughter
when she becomes a mother).13 Ultimately, I conclude, the letters help us
understand motherhood and the domestic sphere as dynamic concepts in
eighteenth-century France.
Before turning to the analysis, I first establish Roland’s scientific creden-
tials, so to speak. When it comes to male-female scientific “partnerships,”
the involvement of the female half—be it sister, wife, or daughter—is a
vexed issue. Women’s contributions remain invisible, as eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century scientific essays generally bear only a male signature.14
Since there are no scientific essays authored by Marie-Jeanne, we will
examine the Rolands’ scientific network to ascertain how she might have
gained a critical scientific eye.
Science and Enlightened Domesticity in the Roland Home
Marie-Jeanne Phlipon married Jean-Marie Roland de la Platrière (1734-
1793) on 4 February 1780. She was twenty-five years old, the only daughter
of a Parisian engraver; he was forty-five, a propertied gentleman from an
old but impoverished Beaujolais family. The youngest of five sons, Jean-
Marie had decided against joining religious orders and chose instead to
enter into an administrative career as an industrial inspector. He was a self-
made man, and his interest in the sciences greatly helped him advance in
15his career; not only did he study mathematics, chemistry, and natural his- tory, but he also researched techniques for weaving, dying, and bleaching wool and cotton. As May remarks, by the time he married Marie-Jeanne, he had the reputation of a reformer: “In these early stages of the industrial revolution, it was enlightened men like Roland who laid the groundwork for French economic growth which would reach its fruition in the nine- teenth century.”15 In addition to his work as an inspector, in 1780 he was in the throes of publishing a book of commentaries on his travels.16 He had already published technical papers on the processing of wool and cotton. Prior to her marriage, Marie-Jeanne had read important works in natural history, mathematics, and physics. In her memoirs, she mentions that in her teens, she had enjoyed reading Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon’s magisterial Histoire naturelle (1749-1804; Natural History) and the abbé Jean-Antoine Nollet’s Leçons de physique expérimentale (1743; Lectures in Experimental Philosophy, 1748).17 In eighteenth-century France, it was not unusual for women to show interest in science—botany was seen as a more wholesome pastime than gambling, for example—although, as Karen Offen remarks in The Woman Question in France, 1400-1870 (2017), women were encouraged to consume scientific knowledge but not to produce it.18 As Londa Schiebinger has argued so cogently, the structure of eighteenth-cen- tury science and many of the questions scientists were asking were inher- ently gendered; there was considerable debate in Enlightenment France as to whether women were biologically capable of reasoning.19 The Rolands were unusual in that from the start of their marriage, they formed a partnership when producing scientific knowledge (and, later, when raising Eudora). During the first year of their marriage, Jean-Marie signed a contract with the French publisher Charles-Joseph Panckoucke, who had launched an initiative to create an Encyclopédie méthodique (1782-1832; Methodical Encyclopedia) to update and reorganize Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie.20 Jean-Marie’s contribution would be the three-volume Dictionnaire des Manufactures, Arts et Métiers. Marie-Jeanne participated in this publication by editing, writing to printers, fielding sub- missions from contributors, and meeting with Panckoucke. Yet in Mémoires particuliers, she downplays her engagement with scientific inquiry. She notes only that Jean-Marie “me fit son copiste et son correcteur d’épreuves; j’en remplissais la tâche avec une humilité dont je ne puis m’empêcher de rire, lorsque je me la rappelle” (made me his copyist and corrector of proofs [of the Dictionnaire]; I fulfilled this duty with a humility that now makes me laugh, when I remember it).21 She remarks of the first year of marriage, spent in Paris, “Je suivis alors un cours d’histoire naturelle et un cours de botanique; c’était l’unique et laborieuse récréation de mes occupations de secrétaire et de ménagère” (p. 188; At that time I took courses in natu- ral history and botany; it was the sole and laborious recreation from my 16 TSWL, 39.1, Spring 2020
occupations as secretary and housewife). One senses a frustration with the
duties of a secretary and housewife.
Marie-Jeanne’s correspondence tells a different story and shows a woman
eagerly involved in reading technical papers and developing a sense of
judgment on scientific matters.22 Throughout her pregnancy and after the
birth of Eudora, Marie-Jeanne was surrounded by scientific texts and jour-
nals and frequently refers to them in her letters. For example, in a letter
dated 25 July 1781, she mentions reading “deux journaux de Physique et
d’Economie” (two journals of physics and economy) that she thinks will
be useful for the Dictionnaire des Manufactures, Arts et Métiers.23 In this
letter, she also gives details on various contributions to the Dictionnaire
des Manufactures, Arts et Métiers and mentions that she and a contributor
went over samples of aquatic plants and developed lists of and scholarly
works about plants (1:48). Jean-Marie surrounded himself with likeminded
spirits—other self-made men, interested in how the study of the natural
world could improve current social systems and working conditions. When
Marie-Jeanne married Jean-Marie, she was catapulted into a world where
science mattered and was indeed a prominent topic of discussion. In a letter
to her friend Sophie Cannet, written only four months after her marriage,
she mentions that the couple had received a visit from the noted astrono-
mer Jérôme Lalande (1732-1807).24 It is likely that Marie-Jeanne devel-
oped an interest in science from the network to which she now belonged.
Given the Rolands’ circle of friends, the early years were probably filled
with discussions of natural history rather than politics, especially since
during the Enlightenment, scientific enterprise and the study of the natural
world were considered a gateway to improving society.25
Several of the Rolands’ lifelong friends, often presented in secondary
literature in terms of their political or personal connections to the Rolands,
were members of their scientific circle well before they were members of
their revolutionary salon. One of the couple’s first friends in Paris was
François-Xavier Lanthenas (1754-1799), who was in medical school at
that time. They met Louis-Augustin-Guillaume Bosc d’Antic (1759-1828)
at the courses described as “laborious recreation.” (The recreation was
perhaps “laborious” because it was work-related; Jean-Marie needed to
learn more about plants and dye for his Dictionnaire des Manufactures, Arts
et Métiers.) The courses Marie-Jeanne mentions in her Mémoires particuli-
ers were in fact public lectures given at the Jardin du Roi (now the Jardin
des Plantes) by Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu (1748-1836) and natural his-
tory demonstrations by Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton (1716-1799)—two
of France’s most prominent naturalists.26 By the time the Rolands were
attending the public lectures, the Jardin du Roi had become a center for the
study of natural history. The Rolands also made the acquaintance of André
17Thouin (1747-1824), the noted botanist and later chief horticulturist at the Jardin du Roi. The Rolands were rubbing shoulders with some of France’s—indeed the world’s—premier naturalists. Bosc, often presented primarily as Marie- Jeanne’s admirer or as the keeper of her Mémoires particuliers, doubtless had a great influence on her interest in natural history. In Marriage and Revolution, Reynolds notes, “Marie-Jeanne became, like Bosc, a keen ‘herborizer’ (specimen collector)” (p. 70). Bosc, who had an administra- tive position in the postal system in the early 1780s, was no mere hob- byist. He was devoted to botany and knew personally luminaries such as Buffon, Daubenton, Thouin, and Jussieu. In his study Linné et la France (1780-1850) (1993; Linnaeus and France), Pascal Duris comments that due to Bosc’s influence, the botanical part of the Encyclopédie méthodique was reorganized according to the sexual system.27 Bosc co-founded the first Linnaean society in Paris in December 1787. Later, after the Paris Linnaean society was dissolved, Bosc co-founded the Société d’histoire naturelle (Natural history society), of which Jean-Marie was a member.28 When she married Jean-Marie, Marie-Jeanne entered into a circle of scientific exchange, a circle that supported the study of natural history and an empirical method of analysis—deductions made from close observation and experimentation. To see the ways in which both science and Rousseau influenced Marie-Jeanne’s representation of her maternal experience, we must turn to her correspondence, for in Mémoires particuliers, Marie-Jeanne devotes only a few sentences to becoming a mother. However, it is striking that in these sentences she chooses to combine motherhood and scientific activity: “Nous passâmes quatre années à Amiens; j’y fus mère et nourrice, sans cesser de partager le travail de mon mari, qui s’était chargé d’une partie considérable de la nouvelle encyclopédie” (p. 188; We spent four years in Amiens, where I became a mother and wet-nurse, while sharing in the work of my husband, who had taken on a considerable portion of the new Encyclopédie). Since the memoirs bring to the fore Marie-Jeanne’s private life and reflections—including sexual abuse at the hands of her father’s apprentice—we might expect her to expand on her experience as “mother and wet-nurse.” Instead, the paragraph elaborates on her study of botany: “Nous ne quittions le cabinet que pour des promenades hors de la ville; je fis un herbier des plantes de la Picardie, et l’étude de la botanique aquatique donna lieu à l’Art du tourbier” (p. 188; We would leave the study only to go on walks outside the city; I made an herbarium of the plants of Picardy, and the study of aquatic botany led to The Art of the Peat Bog).29 In the Mémoires particuliers, Marie-Jeanne portrays herself as a mother, writer, and woman of science, but the letters present a more detailed account of early motherhood, one in which Marie-Jeanne closely observes her body as a material object. 18 TSWL, 39.1, Spring 2020
From the time Marie-Jeanne first openly writes of her pregnancy (in
a letter dated 13 February 1781, from Rouen), she adopts a scientific
approach, setting out to provide her husband with an objective account of
her experience. Her letters offer numerous health reports, noting her morn-
ing sickness, general fatigue, and diet.30 Scientific inquiry continued to play
an important role in the domestic sphere during Jean-Marie’s absence. The
letters also contain details on the Encyclopédie méthodique. The long 25 July
1781 letter, after the Rolands had moved to Amiens, starts with humorous
remarks on how the child is kicking in her stomach, but most of the letter
explains that she has answered various missives on her husband’s behalf and
is working on submissions. She presents herself not as a copyist but as an
equal partner in scientific inquiry, describing how she and their friend Deu
de Perthes (almost always referred to as “M. d’Eu” in her letters) worked
together organizing specimens of aquatic plants and stressing that she is
adding the work to “notre mémoire” (1:48; our monograph). In this letter,
she emphasizes that she is continuing to read journals on physics and econ-
omy. She praises her husband’s work, especially his “air scientifique dans
les discussions chimiques ou minéralogiques” (1:48; knowledgeable tone in
the discussions of chemistry or mineralogy). She mentions receiving a visi-
tor, the son-in-law of a friend (and also a friend of the noted mineralogist
Romé de l’Isle) to whom she showed their natural history cabinet (1:49).31
Although she tactfully writes that the visitor was disappointed that Jean-
Marie was not at home, she also portrays herself as someone more than
capable of entertaining an unknown guest on a variety of topics, including
a tour of the natural history collection.
Jean-Marie was in Amiens for Eudora’s birth, so there are no letters
recounting the birth experience. The correspondence resumes three weeks
later, after he returned to Paris on business. In the letters that follow,
Marie-Jeanne’s representation of her maternal experience goes through
several phases. During the first month of confinement, the letters privilege
a Rousseauian image of the happy nursing mother—albeit a Rousseauian
mother immersed in technical articles and scientific communiqués. Roland
suffered from severe constipation after childbirth, but she was generally
in high spirits. Medical and scientific discourses gain prominence in her
letters, especially after illness descended on the house. The letters convey
Roland’s skepticism towards the medical community and her faith in her
own powers to observe and diagnose, as first Eudora developed colic, and
then she herself contracted dysentery. Finally, as Marie-Jeanne recovered
from her illness, she lost her breast milk and could no longer nurse Eudora.
She was extremely reluctant to hand Eudora over to a wet-nurse. In her
efforts to find a way to continue nursing her baby, Marie-Jeanne showcased
her ability to observe and draw rational conclusions, as will be discussed
19below, thus placing herself in a position of authority over her own expe-
rience. By privileging scientific discourse in representing her maternal
experience, Marie-Jeanne wrote in a language her husband esteemed—a
language that she could manipulate and that lent her authority.
A Portrait of Rousseauean Domestic Motherhood
In the letters written during the first month after Eudora’s birth, Roland
portrays herself as a loving, caring mother who breastfeeds her child. Her
counterfoil is Madame d’Eu, an acquaintance who had also given birth
to a girl, whom she does not nurse.32 According to Roland, the birth of
a daughter had disappointed both Monsieur and Madame d’Eu, which
Roland found to be “grotesque.”33 On 15 November 1781, she visited them
and commented in a letter:
combien une nouvelle accouchée qu’on trouve seule, sans enfant, me paraît
bizarre! La pauvre enfant suçait ses doigts et buvait du lait de vache, dans une
chambre éloignée de sa mère, en attendant la mercenaire qui devait l’allaiter.
Le père était fort empressé de faire faire la cérémonie de baptême, pour expé-
dier au village cette petite créature. (1:53)
(how strange it is to see a new mother without her child! The poor child was
sucking her fingers and drinking cow’s milk, in a room far from her mother,
waiting for the wet-nurse to come feed her. The father was very eager to have
done with the baptism, so that the poor little creature could be sent off to
the village.)
A mother that lets her infant drink cow’s milk and turns her baby over
to a wet-nurse is precisely the kind of mother Rousseau inveighs against
in Emile, and in thinking it “strange . . . to see a new mother without her
child,” Roland echoes Rousseau’s disapproval.34 The physical separation
of mother and newborn—the baby is “in a room far from her mother”—
underscores the moral distance between the unhappy baby and the with-
held maternal breast. The father plays the active role in sending his child
“off to the village,” and underlying this depiction is, perhaps, a subtle judg-
ment that men should not interfere in the decision to breastfeed. Roland
finishes, “Tiens, mon ami, ce n’est pas ma faute; mais je les estime tous les
deux encore un peu moins depuis que j’ai été témoin de leur indifférence”
(1:53; Well, my friend, it isn’t my fault, but I admire them a little less, since
I have seen their indifference). Once again, Roland criticizes the father
as well as the mother—she admires “them” less, after having seen “their”
indifference.
While Roland criticized Monsieur and Madame d’Eu, social opinion did
not. Domestic motherhood may now seem a monolithic discourse, but in
eighteenth-century France, the lactating body was a contested site as evi-
denced by the sharp contrast in attitudes towards maternal breastfeeding.
20 TSWL, 39.1, Spring 2020In addition to reading works on botany, chemistry, and physics, Roland
was also interested in medicine.35 Her letters reference one breastfeeding
manual: Marie-Angélique Anel le Rebours’s often-reprinted Avis aux mères
qui veulent nourrir leurs enfants (Advice to mothers who want to nurse their
children), first published in 1767.36 (Roland refers to the author as “Mme
LeReboul.”) Although an in-depth examination of eighteenth-century
breastfeeding manuals is beyond the scope of this study, some brief refer-
ence points, particularly with regard to Avis aux mères qui veulent nourrir
leurs enfants, are necessary. Not much is known about Le Rebours (1731-
1821).37 She was a Paris midwife who had received little formal training.
However, she had experience and good observation skills. After she herself
lost an infant that she had sent out to a wet-nurse, she became a staunch
advocate of maternal breastfeeding. Her book, first published as a small,
pocket-sized volume, promoted nursing as easy, natural, and in the interests
of the mother and the public good. In the first part of her book, Le Rebours
offers practical advice, especially for new mothers.38 She presents her
advice as a series of observations, stripped of medical and technical terms,
and peppers her instructions with reassuring adverbs. Readers learn how
to encourage newborns to suckle (by putting warm milk on their nipples),
what to eat and drink to encourage the production of milk (bread, cooked
lettuce, beer, or lentil water), and the importance of fresh air (pp. 6, 9, 10,
25).
While works such as Rousseau’s Emile and Le Rebours’s Avis aux mères qui
veulent nourrir leurs enfants promoted maternal breastfeeding, the practice
was far from universal, and medical opinion was divided.39 Many doctors
feared that, along with her milk, the mother could transmit her passions
and vices to the baby; others believed that mothers who did not breastfeed
were in danger of being poisoned by the retained milk.40 In her analysis of
mostly male-authored child-care manuals, Nancy Senior argues that medi-
cal “specialists” portrayed the act of breastfeeding as incredibly complex,
thereby dissuading their female readers.41 Sending an infant to a wet-nurse
in the country was believed to be beneficial since country air was consid-
ered to be healthier for the infant than the air of the city. Moreover, social
convention dictated that gentlewomen hire a wet-nurse. If in her letter
Roland criticizes Madame d’Eu for not nursing her baby, she also implicitly
criticizes a society that does not give women authority over breastfeeding.
Madame d’Eu seems rather passive in this tableau. Monsieur d’Eu is the
one who actively banishes the infant from the home and maternal breast.42
In the letters following her visit to the d’Eus, Roland resolutely portrays
her devotion to maternal duty. Her next letter, dated 18 November 1781,
paints a full portrait of herself as a good mother—a portrait worthy of
Rousseau’s Julie de Wolmar.43 Roland first relays a domestic problem and
how she resolved it.44 She then gives her husband details on breastfeeding
21“l’enfant” (the child).45 While her image of the happy nursing mother is
familiar to readers of Rousseau, Roland provides more than just a touching
tableau. She also emphasizes her observations of how the infant reacted to
breastfeeding:
Tu trouveras ceci bien griffonné, je n’ai qu’une main de libre et je n’y regarde
que de côté, ma petite est sur mes genoux, où il faut la garder la moitié du jour.
Elle tient le sein deux heures de suite en faisant de petits sommeils qu’elle
interrompt pour sucer. Si on l’ôte, elle pleure et mange ses poings. Je suis
obligée, dans une même séance, de la porter alternativement aux deux côtés,
parce qu’elle vient à bout de les épuiser, ou à peu près. (1:57)
(You will find this letter quite scribbled, I only have one hand free, and can
only glance at what I’m writing. My little girl is on my lap, where she must
stay half the day. She takes the breast two hours at a time, while taking little
naps, which she interrupts to suckle. If I remove the breast from her mouth,
she cries and gnaws on her fists. I am obliged, in one sitting, to alternate
breasts, because she comes close to emptying them.)
Roland depicts breastfeeding as a natural event, an echo of Le Rebours’s
injunction that “il est naturel de nourrir; si on savoit bien s’y prendre,
on réussiroit aisément” (p. 2; It is natural to breastfeed; if one knew how
to go about it, one would easily succeed). Roland’s observations bear out
her hypothesis that breastfeeding is a moral and medical good. Eudora
has a healthy appetite and almost depletes both breasts. Withholding the
maternal breast is unnatural and unhealthy for the baby, who “cries and
gnaws on her fists”—reminiscent perhaps of the d’Eu baby, who through
parental indifference is left to suck her fingers. Yet Roland is careful to
show her husband that, in addition to being a “mother and wet-nurse,” she
is still involved in their common scientific project. She mentions in the
15 November letter that she is reading but not working much, although
she hopes to send her husband “la petite botanique” (the little plant col-
lection) on which she and Monsieur d’Eu have been working (1:53). In
her 18 November letter, after portraying herself as the happy breastfeeding
mother, she mentions that she has written to the Académie de Lyon on
her husband’s behalf, asking that he be nominated as “associé” (associate)
and that she intends to petition the King of Prussia, requesting that her
husband be admitted to the Academy of Berlin (1:59).
As shown during her first month of motherhood, Roland clearly believed
that women should nurse and nurture their children and organize their
households. She presents breastfeeding as a medical necessity for healthy
babies and also as a joy; in her letter dated 20 November 1781, she notes,
Je n’ai presque plus de douleur en lui donnant à teter [sic], et, ce que je n’au-
rais pas cru, je sens de l’augmentation dans le plaisir de le faire; je la prends
toujours sur moi avec un tressaillement d’aise, en voyant son empressement
et son air de santé: c’est une fête pour nous deux.46
22 TSWL, 39.1, Spring 2020(I have almost no more pain in letting her suckle, and I feel a growing
pleasure in doing it, which I never would have believed. I take her up with
a shiver of joy when I see her eagerness and healthy air; it’s a feast for both
of us.)
When it comes to her own body and her own experience as a mother, she
paints a sentimental portrait but also highlights her powers to observe and
document. This model of “scientific motherhood” becomes more promi-
nent when illness descends on the house. Roland’s scientific motherhood
blends domestic cares and maternal sentiment with medical know-how and
a scientific approach.
Scientific Motherhood and Maternal Authority
Roland’s 20 November 1781 letter offers a good example of scientific
motherhood. She explains that Eudora had exhibited symptoms of colic
and that she had called in Dr. Ancelin. He found the baby’s hands to be
cold. This finding led to a discussion of the need for heat to combat cold
extremities, which in turn led to a more general discussion on the humors:
Nous avons disserté pendant une heure, ce qui n’est pas difficile, car on peut
faire des raisonnements à perte de vue sur les principes et les généralités; mais
appliquons à la pratique et traçons exactement ce qu’il faut faire. Ici mon
docteur s’est un peu brouillé. (1:67)
(We spent an hour in scholarly debate, which isn’t difficult, for one can rea-
son forever on principles and generalizations; but let’s apply them to real life,
and set out exactly what must be done. Here my doctor got a bit muddled.)
Roland points to the inconsistencies in Ancelin’s argument: “Le raisonne-
ment courait toujours aux grands mots, pour éviter l’embarras de donner
des règles sûres que je lui demandais, et j’ai conclu qu’il fallait aller mon
train” (1:67; The argument was still running to impressive, big words, to
avoid giving the sure rules I was asking him for, and I concluded I must con-
tinue my own way). It is possible that Roland’s skill in reasoning and argu-
mentation came from her earlier readings in philosophy and mathematics,
but her insistence on the practical application of theory bears witness to
her appropriation of Enlightenment scientific discourse. This juxtaposition
of Ancelin’s grand theories and Roland’s “sure rules” would certainly have
appealed to Jean-Marie; the Dictionnaire des Manufactures, Arts et Métiers is
predicated on the need for sure facts and practical applications. In contrast
to her own enlightened approach, Roland characterizes Ancelin’s medical
reasoning as mere rhetoric, using “big words” to convince. She resolves to
let herself be guided by the rational deductions she makes from her own
observations: “Tant que je verrai ma fille bien prendre, bien digérer, bien
profiter, je ne m’inquiéterai guère de l’entendre beaucoup péter, chose très
23permise à son âge” (1:67; So long as I see my daughter feed well, digest
well, with a healthy appetite, I won’t worry about hearing her fart so much,
a very permitted thing for her age). Roland gives a humorous portrait of
an informed mother in control, a woman who, unlike Ancelin, relies on
observable fact and not on an abstract theory of humors.
Although Roland was a devoted reader of Rousseau, in this letter to
her husband, she carries her point not by referring to Julie but rather by
showcasing the deductions she makes from close observations. She is able
to out-reason her doctor and reveal his bias for airy “principles and gener-
alizations.” Roland portrays herself as invested in an enlightened scientific
method. Thanks to her observations of the baby’s movements, she is able
to provide sounder advice—more “sure rules”—than a formally trained
medical expert.
The ability to appropriate scientific method and manipulate medical
discourse as a way of gaining leverage is clearly evidenced in Roland’s
depiction of her own illness. After Roland showed signs of fever and bouts
of colic, her friends brought in Dr. Legrand, a childbirth specialist trained
in Montpellier and in whom she had little confidence. Nor did she have
faith in the other doctors she consulted, Drs. Ancelin and d’Hervillez.47
Roland fell very ill, although she still had the energy to describe her symp-
toms with the efficiency of an attending nurse.48 After reading a long essay
in the Journal économique (Journal of agriculture and domestic economy),
Roland wrote on 26 December 1781 that she decided she had dysentery: “Je
suis savante en dysenterie depuis deux jours que j’ai lu sur ce sujet un long
mémoire dans le Journal économique” (I have become very knowledgeable
about dysentery since I read, two days ago, a long article on it in the Journal
économique).49 Once again, she uses scientific method to refute her doctors
and to establish herself as an authority over her own body:
Les avis cités de tant et de célèbres auteurs ne détruisent pas mon idée que la
médecine est un art purement conjectural. Les traitements de cette maladie
[la dysenterie] varient suivant les circonstances qui l’accompagnent et le
tempérament du malade. A celui-ci, saignée, vomitif et diète; à celui-là, les
bains, la nourriture, l’exercice; à d’autres, le vin ou les opiates, etc.; on paraît,
en général, devoir éviter les purgatifs irritants pour les intestins et finir par les
cordiaux, entre lesquels on préfère le vin. (1:85)
(The opinions cited of the many celebrated authors do not destroy my idea
that medicine is a purely conjectural art. The treatments of this illness [dysen-
tery] vary according to circumstance and to the temperament of the sufferer.
One doctor preaches letting blood, emetics, and diet; another, baths, food,
exercise; yet others, wine or opiates, etc.; it appears, in general, one should
avoid purges that irritate the intestines and finish with cordials, among which
wine is preferred.)
24 TSWL, 39.1, Spring 2020Roland reads and absorbs medical discourse, but she lends celebrated
(male) authors no universal authority; medicine is more a “conjectural art”
than a true science. Treatment is necessarily relative since it must depend
on the patient’s “temperament” and “circumstances.” Roland emphasizes
the contradictions within the medical community’s approach to her illness;
one group prescribes emetics while another prescribes food. She presents
herself as a reasonable and informed reader, who is able to analyze the weak
spots of learned doctors’ arguments and perform a self-diagnosis.
During her bout with dysentery, Roland had increasing difficulties in
producing breast milk. As we have seen, Roland considered maternal
breastfeeding a moral duty and a medical necessity; thus the loss of milk
had an immediate impact on her identity as a mother. Her letters juxtapose
detached observations—speaking of Eudora as “the child”—and expres-
sions of despair. For example, in the 26 December letter, she notes that
while her maid and sick-nurse were busy, “je me suis chargée de l’enfant;
à peine a-t-il été dans mes bras, qu’il s’est mis à crier en me fixant; il m’a
semblé qu’il cherchait après sa bonne; j’en ai conclu qu’il se déplaisait avec
moi, et ce soupçon m’a désespérée” (1:85; I took care of the child; it was
hardly in my arms, than it began to cry, staring at me; it seemed to me it
was looking for the nurse; I concluded that it didn’t like being with me, and
this made me despair). (The original French juxtaposes Roland’s personal
“désespérée” with her more impersonal reference to “l’enfant”—and thus,
her use of the masculine singular pronoun “il” to refer to Eudora.) Roland
presents herself as a detached observer; she “concludes” that “the child”
prefers the nurse to the mother. But she also presents herself as a feeling
woman who cries after that observation, although later in the letter she
scolds herself: “J’en pleure encore, je suis d’une faiblesse impardonnable.
Mais mon enfant ne connaîtra pas mon sein; il ne s’y jettera plus avec cet
empressement si touchant pour les mères: pourquoi n’ai-je plus de lait!”
(1:85; I’m still crying over it; I’m inexcusably weak. But my child will not
know my breast; she will no longer reach for it with that eagerness that is
so touching for mothers: why do I have no more milk!).
Determined that she alone would breastfeed Eudora, Roland refused
to turn her duties over to a hired wet-nurse (sometimes referred to in
eighteenth-century France as a mercenaire). Instead, she experimented with
a variety of techniques to feed her baby, using mainly cow’s milk or barley
water. Her greatest challenge was to find a replacement for the physical
breast. She tried to feed the baby using a small spoon, various-sized bottles,
a piece of cloth dipped in milk, and a sponge attached to a bottle.50 None
of these techniques, however, could replace the maternal breast. Roland
perceived that the physical separation of baby and breast was weakening
the emotional bond between her and Eudora. On 28 December 1781, she
notes that the child had refused her care, and she laments, “Je n’ai pu le
25voir froidement” (I could not see it with a cold eye).51 However, she also notes in this same letter that her breasts were swollen. She consulted with her doctor, who told her that she might be able to breastfeed again: “Mon médecin dit qu’il serait possible que le lait revînt en reprenant des aliments et de la santé; je n’ose me livrer à cet espoir dont la seule lueur me fait tressaillir” (1:89; My doctor said it might be possible for the milk to come back, as I regain my health and appetite; I dare not entertain this hope, the single thought of which makes me tremble). Roland thus decided to act, and she began the fight to regain her breast milk, stating in her letter dated 3 January 1782, “Si la nature me refuse les privilèges qui appartiennent aux mères, il faut au moins que tout le tort soit de son côté” (If nature refuses me the privileges that belong to mothers, the entire fault must be on her side).52 One might see in this dramatic state- ment Roland’s desire to imitate Rousseau’s Julie. But I believe we can also understand Roland’s fight as typifying her scientific motherhood in that she privileges a scientific approach in her struggle to maintain autonomy over her body and her maternal experience. Roland adopts a medical tone in her letters to convey to her husband why maternal breastfeeding is crucial for Eudora’s health. In her 23 December 1781 letter, she had noted that Eudora was small for her age.53 She also stressed Eudora’s lack of growth in her letter from 29 December 1781: “Elle n’est pas grandie d’une ligne depuis un mois; je l’ai mesurée hier; elle n’a qu’environ 23 pouces; c’est très petit pour tantôt trois mois” (She has hardly grown at all in the last month; I measured her yesterday, and she is only 23 inches, which is very small for going on three months).54 In the letter of 1 January 1782, Roland suspects the baby is teething and expresses to her husband that maternal breastfeeding is essential to the teething process: “Si je ne reviens pas en état de lui donner le sein dans le fort de cette crise, il est à croire que je ne pourrai la conserver” (If during this [teething] crisis, I am no longer able to give the baby my breast, it is to be believed that I will not be able to keep her alive).55 She refers to Le Rebours to press her point home: “Mme Le Reboul [sic] elle même observe dans son ouvrage que la mauvaise disposition de l’estomac des enfants dans ce temps-là leur fait un absolu besoin du téton, faute duquel on en a vu beaucoup périr à cette époque” (1:101; Mme Le Reboul [sic] herself observes in her book that the stomach upsets of children at this time make the breast an absolute necessity for them, through lack of which we have seen many perish). She cites both Le Rebours and her physicians to explain why she needs to take extraordinary measures to continue nursing. With Eudora’s life at stake, Roland impresses on her husband the need for maternal breastfeeding, stating in the same letter “je vois évidemment que le sein de la mère trancherait promptement toutes les difficultés” (1:101; I see as evident that the mother’s breast will promptly resolve all difficul- 26 TSWL, 39.1, Spring 2020
ties). Jean-Marie’s opinion on the imperative to breastfeed is unknown.
Reynolds emphasizes that the Rolands considered parenting to be a joint
venture and notes that Jean-Marie tried to help from Paris, asking the nuns
who took care of abandoned children (at the Enfants Trouvés) about the
best means of artificial feeding (pp. 72-80). However, given the amount of
explanation and recourse to medical opinion in Marie-Jeanne’s letters, one
can surmise that he did not share his wife’s total commitment to maternal
breastfeeding. In any event, Marie-Jeanne knew the best way to convince
her husband: combining an appeal to his heart and his rational mind.
The letters show that Roland developed a voice of authority. She pres-
ents maternal breastfeeding as a medical necessity in order to prepare her
husband for the decision she had in fact already made. She had hired a
téteuse, or femme à tirer le lait (woman to draw milk), in order to encourage
the production of breast milk. Hiring a téteuse was a necessary step before
allowing Eudora to take the breast since at the time Roland’s breast milk
was not plentiful. Roland finally revealed her decision to her husband in
a long and carefully crafted letter dated 3 January 1782. While the let-
ters of 15 and 18 November are often cited to illustrate Roland’s embrace
of Rousseauian domestic motherhood, little attention has been paid to
the letter of 3 January 1782. This missive exemplifies Roland’s scientific
motherhood in that it blends her identities of mother, wet-nurse, and
woman of science. Portraying herself as a caring wife and mother, she first
expresses concern over her husband’s health. She then responds to his
reservations regarding the doctor she has been consulting, d’Hervillez. In
a swift turnabout, Roland defends the doctor whose competence she had
previously doubted. After a long discussion with d’Hervillez, she reports
in her 3 January 1782 letter that she has a better sense of his good faith
and judgment, for like herself, “il convient que la médecine est fondée, en
plus grande partie, sur des conjectures” (1:105; he allows that medicine is
founded in great part on conjecture). She continues “ses raisonnements
entraient dans mes principes; je l’estime davantage et j’ai pris quelques
degré de confiance depuis cet entretien” (1:105; his reasoning echoed my
own principles, and I esteem him more and have a higher degree of con-
fidence in him since this exchange). D’Hervillez, a doctor at the military
hospital, was part of the Rolands’ scientific network. He was a member of
the Académie d’Amiens, and he also gave chemistry demonstrations at the
Jardin du Roi in Paris.56 Roland conveys to her husband that she is able to
make informed decisions herself and that she can reason with a respected
member of the Amiens scientific community. She also reinforces her gen-
eral tendency to use doctors to bolster her own ideas; d’Hervillez becomes
competent once he echoes her own principles.
After demonstrating that she can assess her doctor’s medical judgment,
Roland relays that she and d’Hervillez have discussed chemistry. She
27gives a brief overview of those in their community who are followers of the German chemist/alchemist Georg Stahl and those who support the theories of George-Louis Le Sage, a member of the Academy of Sciences.57 Roland casts doubts on Le Sage, whose experiments on phosphoric acid she believes merely repeat what others have already done. She closes the discussion with a final ironic comment—“Mais ne me sied-il pas bien de mêler ma musique aux ergo de vos docteurs?” (But does it not befit me to blend my music with the ergo of your learned doctors?)—before turning to the subject of breastfeeding (1:106). Thus, Roland broaches the topic of maternal breastfeeding only after she establishes her love, authority, and scientific acumen. She shows her husband that she is able to make her own decisions regarding medical issues and can competently judge a scientific debate. All this lends her the authority she needs before she reveals to him that, in his absence, she has taken the initiative to employ a téteuse.58 Before breaking the news, she urges him to remember that she is in good health: “Rappelle-toi donc que je mange, digère et dors bien, que je n’ai plus de coliques et que les forces reviennent . . . puis sache que, du premier jour de l’an, j’ai fait revenir la femme à tirer le lait” (1:107; Remember that I am eating, digesting, and sleeping well, that I have had no more bouts of colic, and that I am regain- ing my strength . . . know, then, that since the first of the new year, I have had back the femme à tirer le lait). Her tone is both firm and conciliatory; she presents her decision as an accomplished fact that she does not regret because it has produced the desired results. Jean-Marie is then treated to detailed reports on his wife’s bosom. Roland presents her breasts and her breast milk with the demeanor of a scientist doing experiments in the lab. She explains that the first few days yielded only “des gouttes d’une eau glaireuse et salée” (some drops of a slimy and salty water), but “ce matin, cette eau était blanchâtre et plus douce” (1:107; this morning, this water was whitish and sweeter). She continues, presumably later in the day, with an update: “Je me suis interrompue ici pour me faire tirer; le sein gauche particulièrement a fourni des gouttes de lait clair et faible, j’en ai fait sortir cinq ou six par le seul pressement de mes doigts” (1:108; I interrupt myself here to have my milk drawn; the left breast in particular has furnished drops of a clear and weak milk, I made five or six drops come out by simply pressing with my fingers). Indeed, in the same letter—dated now “Friday morning”—she comments that at daybreak, she pressed her breasts, and “tous les deux ont donné des gouttes de lait que j’ai goûté; il est encore léger, mais fort doux” (1:112; both gave drops of milk that I tasted; still light, but very sweet). In a letter dated 6 January 1782, she states that the téteuse is coming twice a day—a sign that the milk is descending. She continues to document the breast-milk tasting: “J’ai toujours du lait au bout des seins: il sort aisément, commence 28 TSWL, 39.1, Spring 2020
à prendre plus de couleur et de consistance sans être encore sucré” (I still
have milk in my breasts: it comes out easily, is starting to take on more
color and consistency, without being too sweet).59
Subsequent letters continue to emphasize observation and documenta-
tion and give a portrait of a woman in complete control. In one dated
31 January 1782, Roland gives more details on the ease and regularity of
breastfeeding.60 She also explains that she has been examining Eudora’s
excrement to make sure that the baby does not have worms. Later in
the letter, she identifies some plant specimens that Monsieur d’Eu and
Monsieur de Vin have brought (1:174-75). As Eudora’s health improves,
the letters include fewer practical applications of science to motherhood.
However, they evidence a continued interest in scientific inquiry, includ-
ing botany and mesmerism.61
Roland comes back to scientific motherhood in her short essay “Avis à
ma fille.” This work, published posthumously in the Champagneux edition
of Roland’s writings in 1800, repeats much of the maternal experience
recounted in the letters with the additions of a detailed account of her
labor and a frank portrayal of what it was like to have breast milk drawn by
a téteuse. While Roland praises Le Rebours’s Avis aux mères qui veulent nour-
rir leurs enfants as the only breastfeeding manual worth reading, and indeed
the one that convinced her to breastfeed, she also stresses the limitations
of Le Rebours’s work: “J’avois lu attentivement l’Avis aux mères de Me. le
Reboul [sic], dont je ne puis assez louer la sagesse et l’exactitude, quoiqu’il
n’instruise pas pour tous les cas, sans doute parce qu’on ne les sauroit tous
prévoir” (p. 305; I had read Mme Le Reboul’s [sic] Avis aux mères atten-
tively; I cannot praise its wisdom and exactitude enough, although it is not
informative for all cases, since one cannot predict them all). Apparently,
Le Rebours’s work was of little help in her particular case.
Roland wrote “Avis à ma fille” with Eudora in mind, but she also con-
sidered the work to be a sort of supplement to Le Rebours’s Avis aux mères
qui veulent nourrir leurs enfants and to other medical works on the maternal
experience. Once again, Roland evokes scientific method to establish her
authority. From the opening paragraphs, Roland underscores the impor-
tance of experience and observation (p. 301). As in the 1781-1782 letters,
she refers to medicine as “un art purement conjectural” (conjectural art)
and to doctors as “les gens de l’art” (men of the art) (p. 329). “Avis à ma
fille” instructs women to listen to their hearts (and to Roland herself!)
rather than to doctors who tell them not to breastfeed: “Femmes honnêtes!
tendres mères! n’en croyez ni l’art trompeur, ni la sensibilité aveugle; écou-
tez votre cœur, suivez-en les mouvemens [sic]” (p. 329; Honest women!
Tender mothers! Do not believe that deceiving art, nor blind sensibility;
listen to your heart, and follow its movements).
29It is up to mothers to “listen to [their] heart[s]” but also to document
their own cases and thereby change medical discourse on maternal breast-
feeding. Roland followed in the footsteps of Le Rebours, but whereas Le
Rebours kept a modest tone throughout, Roland openly criticized the
medical community.62 Roland’s quip in her 3 January letter—“But does it
not befit me to blend my music with the ergo of your learned doctors?”—
shows her ironic sense of humor. But in truth, Roland considered that
there was no better place for her opinion than in the company of learned
doctors. We see Roland’s desire to “blend her music with the ergo of learned
doctors” most clearly in a lengthy footnote in “Avis à ma fille,” in which
she gives her reactions to the article “Teter [sic] (‘To Suckle’)” in Diderot
and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie. The article, written by the Chevalier de
Jaucourt, cites the work of a surgeon, Monsieur Petit, to explain how infants
use their tongue to take the breast. Roland criticizes Petit’s “theories,” in
particular asserting “il n’est pas vrai que la langue, après s’être approchée
du mamelon, laisse jamais un vuide entr’elle et lui en se retirant” (p. 310,
n. 1; it is not true that there is a space between the nipple and the infant’s
tongue, once the infant stops suckling). Rather, she notes that “les enfans
laissent constamment leur langue sous le mamelon qu’elle enveloppe en
partie” (p. 310, n. 1; infants constantly leave their tongue under the nipple,
partially enveloping it). Roland obviously accepted scientific methodology,
grounded in observation and experimentation, but she disagreed with the
specific conclusions of medical theory. Instead, she offered her own expe-
rience as a way of reshaping the discourse on maternal breastfeeding and
enriching the body of observational data.
Conclusion
Roland’s 1781-1782 letters to her husband give a fascinating account of
the daily life of a new mother in eighteenth-century France. They illustrate
the shared “delight in domesticity” that Cissie Fairchilds argues typified the
eighteenth-century enlightened couple: the educated wife devoted herself
to mothering and home life; the husband participated in child-rearing and
was often present during the birth.63 Roland clearly embraced domestic
motherhood; she presents a tableau of herself by the hearth, breastfeeding
Eudora. In her writing, she embodies the image of a mother who is tender
and loving, a wife who competently runs the household. In addition to
portraying a happy nursing mother in the manner of Rousseau, the letters
foreground Roland’s adherence to scientific method. The letters stress the
importance of observation, reason, and experience as opposed to applying
an abstract law to an existing reality. In the letters, we see a woman who
was able to assess technical and scientific essays, who was observing and
documenting her maternal experience, and who leveraged both her expe-
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