- Emilie was 18-years old at the time of her marriage to the Marquis Florent-Claude du Chastellet-Lomont who was 34-years old.
This marriage was arranged by her father who then made her husband the governor of Semur-en-Auxois in Burgundy. After she bore three children, Emilie considered her marital responsibilities accomplished and told her husband that she wished to live separate lives while remaining married. He agreed, so Emilie continued her studies in mathematics and science.
- Emilie dressed in men's clothing on multiple occasions in order to gain access to Café Gradot where she would meet Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis who taught her algebra and calculus.
She did this after having been kicked out of the cafe because she was a woman. Women were not only prohibited from participating in scientific discussions by the Academy of Sciences, they were also barred from any establishment in which men met to discuss science and math.
- Emilie was the first woman to have a scientific paper published by the Academy of Sciences.
This is the same paper that her and Voltaire argue over within the play. So, when Voltaire tells Emilie that they were both listed as honorable mentions, that is the instance in which she made history.
- Emilie began an affair with the poet, Jean François de Saint-Lambert, in 1748. just a mere year before she died during childbirth (Jean François was the baby daddy).
The cause of death for Emilie is listed as a pulmonary embolism. This is a blood clot in an artery within the lung. What is cool about this? During the 1700s, humorism was a system of medicine which believed that chemical systems within the body affected human behavior. The four humors consisted of blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm. Since the pulmonary embolism affects an artery (houses the bloodstream throughout the body), the humor that coincides with that is blood. Blood is was thought to be the source of energy for the body an soul. Emilie spent her life trying to balance love versus science only to die from unbalanced humors. Emilie incapable of balancing her humors, and therefore, she was unable to find a balance between love and science - that is, until her death.
- Immanuel Kant (famous German philosopher) was accused of stealing Emilie's ideas and presenting them as his own.
He was called out by Johann Augustus Eberhard after writing his first publication entitled, "Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces."
- Emilie wrote a critical analysis of the whole Bible.
- Emilie wrote a monograph (a detailed written study) on happiness.
She wrote about the nature of happiness both in general and from the perspective of women.
- There is a minor planet and a crater (located on Venus) named in Emilie's honor.
Neat side note: The planet Venus is named after the Roman goddess Venus. She was the goddess of love, beauty, desire, sex, and victory.
