Marie-Jeanne de Lalande

Marie-Jeanne Amélie Lefrançois de Lalande (; 1768 – 8 November 1832) was a French astronomer. She was a key collaborator to the works of Jérôme Lalande.

Her reputation as a scientific woman was attested by an anecdote related to Carl Friedrich Gauss: In 1806, during a military campaign in Prussia, he declared he knew but one French woman that worked in science, Madame Lefrançois de Lalande.

Biography Marie-Jeanne Harlay was born in Paris in 1768, daughter of school teachers Jean François Harlay (born 1730) and Anne Elisabeth Cany (born 1744). Some early authors considered her the illegitimate daughter of Jérôme Lalande. Michel Lefrançois de Lalande, nephew of Jérôme Lalande, also learned astronomy with his uncle and married Marie-Jeanne in 1788. During the trip, the Duchess added the name Amélie to de Lalande's name.

She died in Paris in 1832.