When Louis-Antoine de Bougainville returned to France on 15 March 1769, the 39-year-old explorer was fêted as a hero: he had commanded the first French expedition to sail around the world, he had explored unknown lands and enabled the collection of thousands of specimen of flora and fauna – not least the spectacular climbing plant named after him: the bougainvillea, which would soon decorate thousands of homes around southern Europe. His book A Voyage Around the World, published two years later, was rapturously received, particularly for its description of Tahiti and its sexually liberated society.
No such welcome awaited Jeanne Baret (sometimes spelled Barret or Baré) when she returned to France five years later. She had joined Bougainville’s expedition dressed as a man and, as the botanist’s assistant, had done most of the fieldwork collecting samples – including, very likely, the celebrated bougainvillea. She had survived a harrowing sea voyage, become an accomplished botanist in her own right and accrued a small fortune along the way. When she returned to France in 1774 or 1775 (even the date of her arrival is uncertain), she could claim a place in history as the first woman to have travelled around the world. It was an extraordinary achievement by any measure, yet she had no public recognition in her lifetime and has only recently started to receive some of the recognition due to her.
Baret had an inauspicious start in life. Born in La Comelle in Burgundy on 27 July 1740, her father was an illiterate by Glynis Ridley) paints her as a knowledgeable herb woman, dispensing her folk knowledge to the men of science.
