Jeanne Baret died at her home in Saint-Aulaye, France, on 5 August 1807 at the age of 67.
Jeanne Baret died on 5 August 1807 at her home in Saint-Aulaye, France, at the age of 67. By the time of her death, she had lived a life that spanned an extraordinary arc, from humble peasant origins in Burgundy, through years of disguised service on a historic global naval expedition, to a quieter later life as a married woman in rural France.
Following her return to France in 1775 and her marriage to Jean Dubernat, Baret settled into a domestic life largely removed from the scientific and exploratory circles she had once, however clandestinely, been part of. She reportedly received a modest pension, arranged partly through recognition of her contributions to Commerson's botanical work, providing her some financial security in her later years, a rare acknowledgment for a woman of her social standing at the time.
Her death went largely unnoted by the wider world; there were no grand obituaries or public commemorations reflecting the historic nature of her earlier journey. It would take historians and biographers working centuries later to piece together the full scope of her achievements and to elevate her story to its rightful place in the history of exploration and science. Today, Baret is remembered not only for the botanical specimens she helped collect but as a symbol of resilience and ingenuity, her story serving as an important corrective to histories of exploration that have historically centered exclusively on men.