Anne-Antoinette Diderot family name Diderot
Anne-Antoinette Diderot (born Anne-Antoinette Champion 22 February 1710 – 10 April 1796) was the wife of the pioneer encyclopedist Denis Diderot and the mother of his only surviving child, Marie-Angélique Diderot (1753–1824).The marriage took place despite parental opposition and after dark on a Wednesday night, under conditions of secrecy. Sources indicate that the couple's life together was not without incident, but the marriage nevertheless endured from 1743 until the death of the philosopher in 1784.The path to marriage
In 1741, it was found that Denis Diderot living in a room in the same house as Anne-Antoinette and her mother. Early in 1743, having known them for approximately two years, knowing that she was a Catholic but also fully aware that no dowry would be involved, the philosopher decided he wished to marry Anne-Antoinette. He sought his father's permission, who opposed the idea and obtained a lettre de cachet (royal injunction) against the proposed marriage; he had Denis locked up in Carmelite Monastery in the countryside outside Troyes where he might reflect further on the matter.Diderot was 29 at this time. The story of the prelude to the marriage between Denis and Anne-Antoinette Diderot is often repeated, incorporating the information that a decree of 1697 meant that a man marrying without his father's consent before he reached the age of 30 (or a girl marrying under a similar interdict before reaching the age of 25) must be disinherited by his (or her) parents.   Other sources suggest that this simplifies the legal context to the point of misrepresenting it.   In any event, after a few weeks Denis Diderot managed to escape his monastic imprisonment. In a letter written at the end of February 1743 to his future wife Diderot describes his incarceration, his monastic existence, the wickedness of the monks, and his overnight escape between a Sunday  and a Monday. He had jumped out of a window and managed, at one stage, to find a stage coach connection to Troyes.His letter spelled out that getting away from the monastery had involved significant weight loss because of the amount of walking he had had to undertake in the cold rain. He also wrote that he had hidden some money in his shirt tail as a precaution. Then he reached the central burden of his letter, which was that the rest of his life was dependent on her decision for or against him.   Finally he reached Paris. Anne-Antoinette let it be known unambiguously that she had no wish to marry into a family in which she was not welcome; and that he should stop trying to contact her. Later, however, mother and daughter had a change of heart, and during the night of 6 November 1743, one month after Diderot's thirtieth birthday, the two of them were secretly married in the church of Saint-Pierre-aux-Bœufs, one of the few Paris churches prepared to hold a marriage service without evidence of parental approval for the solemnisation ceremony. Didier Diderot only found out about his son's marriage six years later.Married life
The children
Once married the Diderots moved into their first home together, in the Rue Saint-Victor, close to the Place Maubert in what is today the 5th arrondissement of Paris. It was here that on 13 August 1744 she gave birth to their first child, their daughter Angelique who the next day, 14 August 1744, was christened at the church of Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet. The godparents were Auguste Blanchard, an official of the church, and Marie-Catherine Léger, the widow of François Lefebvre.   After six weeks Angelique died on 29 September 1744. By 1746 the family were living in the Rue Traversière, and that year they moved again to an address in the Rue Mouffetard, but they continued to live in the same part of Paris near the Place Maubert. Their two sons, François Jacques and  Denis-Laurant, both died in infancy.   Their fourth child, Marie Angélique Diderot (1753–1824) achieved some notability on her own account as a talented musician-instrumentalist.   In 1772 she married Abel Caroillon de Vandeul (1746–1813), the son of an industrialist, and is sometimes identified in sources as Marie Angélique de Vandeul.
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