Antoine Lavoisier isolated, identified, and named oxygen.
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What with climate change deniers, anti-evolutionists,
new earth enthusiasts, anti-vaxers,
and Trumpista zealots, a lot of scientists these days are feeling
pretty put upon and threatened by politics. But, believe me, it could be worse. Ask Antoine
Lavoisier.
The French Aristocrat was indisputably the most famous and important
scientist in the world. He is rightfully
considered the Father of Modern
Chemistry and made major contributions to biology as well. Most
famously he identified and named oxygen as
essential to combustion. His English
contemporary, the theologian/philosopher/scientist Joseph Priestley had isolated the element but didn’t understand what he had found insisting until he
died that it was dephlogisticated air,
a particularly pure form of common air deprived of its phlogiston, a theoretic substance within bodies released during combustion. Lavoisier would have none of that.
He also isolated, identified, and
named Hydrogen. Other accomplishments included helping
construct the metric system,
creating the first extensive list of
elements, reforming chemical
nomenclature, establishing sulfur
as an element rather than a compound, predicting the existence of silicon, and discovering that although matter may change its form or shape, its mass always
remains the same.
Lavoisier creating water by combining Hydrogen and Oxygen.
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That’s a pretty impressive portfolio
of accomplishments. You would think that
a scientist of such enormous achievement would be admired by the self-avowed
worshipers of reason at the head of
the ever-tumultuous revolutionary French
Revolutionary regimes. You would be
wrong.
Like many minor aristocrats,
Lavoisier had been generally supportive of the early stages of the Revolution,
but became increasingly alienated by growing violence and enmity to the Catholic Church to which he was
devoted. Despite generally trying to
remain aloof from the political turmoil around him, it was known that he was
generally as conservative as his
English rival Priestly was radical. After the execution of Louis XVI in January
1793, his days were numbered.
Lavoisier was born to a wealthy
family in Paris on August 26, 1743, the son of an attorney at the Parlement
of Paris. His mother died when he was five years old
leaving him a substantial fortune of his own.
His formal schooling began at age 11 at the Collège des Quatre-Nations in Paris. In his final years before matriculation he,
became obsessed with science, particularly chemistry, botany, astronomy, and mathematics under the tutelage of Abbé Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, a noted
astronomer.
Despite these passions the young man
dutifully followed his father into a legal education, graduating with a Bachelor of Law in 1763 and was
admitted to the bar the following
year. He never practiced, however, and
began devoting himself to his experiments.
He published his first article on chemistry the year he graduated law
school and read the paper before the prestigious French Academy of Science.
In 1766 he was awarded a gold
medal by the King for an essay on the problems of urban street lighting. Then he studied geology under Jean-Étienne
Guettard, a leading Enlightenment scholar.
That led to an appointment to a geological
survey of Alsace-Lorraine in
1767. In 1768 his rapid advancement was
recognized by his appointment to membership in the Academy.
Around that time he picked up a side line to assure himself of a steady
stream of income while leaving plenty of time for his experiments. That side line would help lead to his
downfall. He bought a share of the Ferme
générale, a corporation which lent money to the Government and Court in
exchange for the right to collect taxes and
import duties. He became a part time fermier
généraux—literally tax farmer—a
position that was a license to print
money. It was also widely despised
by those from whom it collected taxes and seen as enormously corrupt.
Portrait of Monsier Lavosier and His Wife by David.
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At the age of 28 Lavoisier married
the even wealthier Marie-Anne Pierrette
Paulze, the 13-year-old daughter of a senior member of the Ferme générale. Despite the age difference, it was a good
match and the well-educated and talented young woman became the scientist’s
most important associate as well as his wife.
She kept his notes,
collaborated on his efforts to systematize chemical nomenclature, and
translated important English scientific papers, including those of
Priestly. She even made sketches and engravings to illustrate Lavoisier’s experiments.
In 1772 he began the long series of
experiments on combustion that led him finally to identify oxygen and dispute
Priestley’s conclusion in his famous Easter
Memoir in 1778.
In addition to his regular
scientific work and his lucrative activities as a tax collector, Lavoisier won
another rich plum when he was appointed one of four members of the Royal Gunpowder Commission, which was
charged with improving the quality French powder and improving the manufacturing process. He was very successful at this and turned a
former loss for the Crown to a profit making enterprise and significantly
improved French arms. As part of the
deal he was also given a home and a laboratory
at the Royal Arsenal where he
lived and worked between 1775 and 1792.
Those were the happiest and most
productive days of his life. Working in
close cooperation with a young and beautiful wife he adored, he made discovery
after discovery, published important papers, and reaped honors. And the family’s already considerable
fortunes were fattened by the steady stream of income from the Ferme générale and Gun Powder
commission. Despite his royal patronage,
he stayed mostly away from the intrigue and distraction of Court life—and from
the rising discontent bubbling under the surface of the country.
It all started to fall apart in 1789
with the eruption of the Revolution—which he quietly supported in its early
days. Knowing that the Ferme générale was widely unpopular,
Lavoisier proposed reforms which would reduce perceived corruption and ease the
onerous tax burden on the lower levels of society. But anger at the corporation was too
much. It was dissolved and its fermiers généraux publicly reviled and
humiliated. Next he was dismissed from
the Gun Powder Commission and forced to leave his home and laboratory.
In 1791 Jean-Paul Marat, the radical
journalist, propagandist, and
popular leader of the sans-coulottes singled Lavoisier out
for attack. He charged that the
scientist had become rich as a tax collector with a scheme to “adulterate
French tobacco.” No formal charges were immediately filed, but
he found himself if mounting danger.
Perhaps when Marat was assassinated he felt the crisis had passed.
Indeed despite his distress at the
mounting violence and anticlericism of the Revolution, he seemed to feel
that his personal prestige as a scientist would insulate him. He even spent some of that prestige in an
appeal to allow foreign born scientists to leave the country. Those scientists were given leave, but his
meddling angered many in power.
In August of 1793 the Academy, and
all other learned societies were repressed, stripping Lavoisier of his
last layer of protection.
The architect and leader of the Reign of Terror, Robespierre.
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Then at the height of the Reign of Terror Maximilien de Robespierre,
the demagogic leader of the Convention ordered
the arrest of former fermiers généraux
including Lavoisier. In addition to the
general charges of corruption against the others, he was also charged with the
alleged tobacco adulteration scheme.
On May 8, the scientist was arrested
and brought to trial. An appeal for
clemency so that he could continue his vital scientific research was harshly
denied by the revolutionary judge who said, “The Republic needs neither scientists
nor chemists; the course of justice cannot be delayed.” He and his 27 other co-defendants were
immediately taken from court to the guillotine.
Robespierre, who had overplayed his
hand, followed Lavoisier to the guillotine just three months later. By the end of 1795 the new government
officially exonerated him returning his confiscated possessions with the note
“To the widow of Lavoisier, who was falsely convicted.” She spent the rest of her life organizing and
publishing her late husband’s notes.
Lavoisier riding to his execution on the guillotine.
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Meanwhile, Lavoisier’s old
scientific rival Priestly had his own problems for opposite reasons. Priestly was an ardent supporter of the
French Revolution. Unfortunately he
lived in England which was at war with the Republic
and was an unpopular religious Dissenter. In 1791 a mob, whipped up by Tory rhetoric, attacked and burned his Birmingham home and laboratory. Eventfully he had to flee to the United
States with the assistance and support of Thomas Jefferson. He settled
in Pennsylvania where he
concentrated on his preaching. He
introduced English style Unitarianism,
which differed from the theology emerging from the New England churches, to the middle-Atlantic
region.
In the end, both men were
honored. Fat lot of good it did Lavoisier’s
health.
Republic needs neither scientists nor chemists; mob, whipped up by Tory rhetoric,
ReplyDeleteWhere else have we heard this?