Guyton de Morveau, Claudine Poullet, baronne

Claudine Picardet (born Poullet, later Guyton de Morveau) (7 August 1735 – 4 October 1820) was a French chemist, mineralogist, meteorologist and scientific translator. Among the French chemists of the late eighteenth century she stands out for her extensive translations of scientific literature from Swedish, English, German and Italian to French. She translated three books and thousands of pages of scientific papers, which were published as well as circulated in manuscript form. She hosted renowned scientific and literary salons in Dijon and Paris, and was an active participant in the collection of meteorological data. She helped to establish Dijon and Paris as scientific centers, substantially contributing to the spread of scientific knowledge during a critical period in the chemical revolution. Due to the work of both Claudine Picardet and her second husband Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau that Dijon was recognised internationally as a scientific center. As one of the two most prolific translators in chemistry during the 1780s, Madame Picardet increased the availability of chemical knowledge at a crucial time during the chemical revolution, particularly the knowledge of salts and minerals. Her activities supported the publication of specialised scientific journals and helped to establish the use of editorial features such as the date of first publication. The value of her work as a translator was recognized by scholars of her time both nationally and internationally.