Her mother died in 1775. She became the mistress of the house. Her father formed disreputable connections. Late in that year her future husband, Roland de la Platiere, presented himself, with a letter from a friend of her girlhood. He was forty years old; he was a student; his form was awkward and his manners were stiff; his morals were irreproachable, his disposition was exacting, but his ability was great. He was capable of instructing even her on many subjects, and they became well acquainted by the elective sympathy of scholarship. She became the critic and depositary of his manuscripts. Finally, one day, after asking leave, in her father's presence the worthy man actually kissed her, on his departure for Italy. Her father, sinking lower and lower, squandered her little fortune of about three thousand dollars, wasted his own business, and then treated her with brutality. Her only amusement at this time was playing the violin, accompanied by an old priest who tortured a bass viol, while her uncle made a flute complain. Finally, after an acquaintance of five years, Roland, by letter to her father, proposed marriage. The purity of Roland's life was esteemed by Phlipon such a reproach to his own dissoluteness that he revenged himself by an insulting refusal. He then made his daughter's life at home so insupportable that she took lodgings in a convent. She was visited there by Roland, and they were finally married, without again consulting her father. During the year next succeeding their marriage they remained at Paris. From Paris they went to Amiens, and lived there four years, where her daughter was born. She assisted her husband in the preparation of several statistical and scientific articles for the Encyclopedic. She made a _hortus siccus_ of the plants of Picardy. In 1784 they removed to the family estate of Roland at Villefranche, near Lyons. She had, in the course of her studies, acquired considerable knowledge of medicine. There was no physician in that little community, and she became the village doctor. Some of her experiences were quite whimsical. A country-woman came several leagues, and offered her a horse if she would save the life of her husband, whom a physician had given up to die. She visited the sick man, and he recovered, but she had great difficulty in resisting the importunities of his wife that she should take the horse. In 1784 they went to England, and in 1787 they made the tour of Switzerland. Roland was elected member of the constitutional assembly from Lyons, and they went to Paris.