Talk:Louis Antoine de Bougainville
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It is true that a woman accompanied the Bougainville expedition, but she went disguised as the male valet to the botanist Philibert Commerson, and on her birth certificate her name was spelled "Baret" not "Bare" as Bougainville did in his journals. His journals were copied and published in book form, so naturally the spelling error spread. According to church records, she was born in the Burgundian area of France called Lome on July 27, 1740, so she was 27 when she was masquerading as a young man in Tahiti. While Bougainville returned to France in 1769, Jeanne did not make it back until 1775. Commerson did not live to return. Jeanne had not left his side for 10 years. What is astonishing is that she managed to deceive over 300 French sailors and marines concerning her true gender for almost eighteen months. What is almost as astonishing is that she lived to be 67 years old in an age when short lifespans was the norm. She died peacefully, at home, on August 5, 1807. She left no details of her life, so she took the secrets of her remarkable life with her.
