COVER N.179 - FRANCE

Postmark: 58 - Corbigny - Nievre - 10.11.2022  
Posted on the 10th November, received on the 15th November 2022
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Another cover from France with quite a recent stamp on it. Thank you so much, Jean-Pierre, for the cover and the contents.

Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), is considered to be the first computer programmer, given her association with Charles Babbage's project, the Analytical engine, and her main claim to fame comes from the fact that she developed and wrote the first algorithm to be executed  by such a machine. No mean feat, considering that it all happened in the 30s...of the 19th century when the role of women in society was, generally speaking, not geared towards such remarkable scientific endeavours.

Augusta Ada Byron, countess of Lovelace, was also the only legitimate daughter of a famous father: Gordon George Byron, the 6th Baron Byron, who would go down in history as Lord Byron, the illustrious Romantic Poet, also famous for his rather colorful life.

Byron left Ada's mother when her newborn daughter was but one month old, never to return to England or meet his daughter again and it is said that Ada's mother fostered her daughter's interest in mathematics as a way to make sure that she would not follow her father's devious steps, even though Ada would always highly regard her father, to the point of asking to be buried next to his grave.

In 2009, Suw Charman-Anderson, an activist of digital rights and freedoms, once considered by the daily Telegraph to be one of the fifty most influential Britons in technology,   established "Ada Lovelace Day" as an "international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM)" as can be read on ALD's site. The day is now celebrated  on the second Tuesday of October.

In 2022, the day was thus celebrated on the 12OCT, the date chosen by La Poste to issue the 1,65€ commemorative stamp dedicated to Ada Lovelace that can be seen on the cover.

The stamp is illustrated with the reproduction of Ada's figure from a painting by   Margaret Sarah Carpenter (1836) over a turquoise background upon which  vertical running legends inform the viewer as to who is the  person in the stamp and her claim to fame as informatics pioneer, highlighted by also including the citation of  purely logical and mathematical concepts (as I, the mathematical very challenged, think is the intention...).

Unfortunately again, the post office chose to double postmark the cover, adding a mechanical postmark over the nice original manual one...