text: Jeanne Baret joined the expedition disguised as a man, calling herself Jean Baret. She enlisted as valet and assistant to the expedition's naturalist, Philibert Commerçon (anglicized as Commerson), shortly before Bougainville's ships sailed from France. According to Bougainville's account, Baret was herself an expert botanist.
  Early life
  Jeanne Baret was born on 27 July 1740, in the village of La Comelle in the Burgundy region of France. Her record of baptism survives and identifies her as the legitimate issue of Jean Baret and Jeanne Pochard. Her father is identified as a day laborer and seems likely to have been illiterate, as he did not sign the parish register.
  Little is known of Baret's childhood or young adulthood. She later told Bougainville that she had been orphaned and lost her fortune in a lawsuit before taking to disguising herself as a man. Her mother died 15 months after Jeanne was born and her father when she was 15. Historians agree that some details of the story she gave Bougainville were a fabrication to shield Commerson from complicity in her disguise.  Burgundy was at this time one of the more backward provinces of France in terms of the condition of the peasant classes, and it is likely that Baret's family was quite impoverished.