1 ll t Ch 5 (19 9
f r n nd t 17 A d nt f th r n hl r n v n b rt n t n r f r n 1 l pp 51-55 ( t t n fr p 55 1 A l r xpr n "th l f h h v nt" n- 1 W A S t n " h Ch l W r f d S r l d d n v l bl ppr l f v r pl n h tr b A W th th xt f tt r Wr tt n t h b M d v r" Ann n v n " v r nd th Or n f M d rn Ch tr " O r , S ., 197 , 1-1 19 4, 1 - 31 19 W A S t n r r , Ch t nd v l t n r , S - A v r Mé r d Ch , l r 1 5 p t n nd n 19 pp 13 -13 7 h r p bl h d n 1 5 b v r d S W S thr r b M Cr l nd ér t r d A S t n "M d v r S nd E I d nt d r v r, r 19 3 ( l t r d l v r d t th l d l é v rt ; nd th bl t n f v r Mé r d h " A b x, h S t f Ar l, MI C br d MA 19 7; nd G 8 , 6, -3 , S nt t nd r , C br d Un v r t r 3 S Ch t n " f th Ch l v l t n rt C br d 197 1 Méth d d n l t r Ch " ll. t. Ch ., 19 9 3 1 A f ll nt f v r r n r n h tr th 7-11 Ch t n (p p nt t th t th th r r l t d n n r f r n t h np bl h d n r pt v n b d r n rd r f G t n b n th ld t l v r nd th Ch tr f f , Un v r t f W n- A r r En l péd Méth d , Ch , l n M d n 19 5 n r 179 p 5 f r n 19 pp 13 -17 5 E ll n- r n " pp rt r l r rè d l 3 W A S t n "M h l E èn Ch vr l" End v r, Ch t r ll d t x r v x d v r" n S h l r 1989, , 9-9 v r t l év l t n r nç . I. é d Art , r v d f r n Mé r , p 7 d r nn r 1957 pp -7 h r p rt r n ll pp r d 5 h xpl n nt n d n l tt r fr M d - n 179 n th v r r rn l d é d Art . v r t S r n r 17 9 nd d d n r f r n 1 M "Str t r f M tt r nd Ch l h r n th pp 11-13 17th nd 1 th C nt r " n M Cl tt Ed Cr t l r bl n th h d nt rr p nd n p bl h d b G d nt t r fS n , Un v r t f W n n M d n 1959 pp 9 - Ed f f El thér Irén d nt fr C nt p r r C rr p n 51 d n , 11 l + Ind x r l r 19 3- 7 r d - 7 A v r El nt f Ch tr , tr n K rr n f r l v nt xtr t W A S t n r f r n In 17 9 Cr h Ed nb r h 179 (f l r pr nt v r Y r 19 5 S d nt l t d t th E t t -G n r l d p t f th h rd pp 155-15 E t t f r th t n f r b t 9 l tr th f r Ib d p xx v Aft r th r n h v l t n th f l d pt d th n d nt d 9 S fr d nd bb "C p t n A l t d r A p t f th Ch l v l t n" Ann. S ., 1968, 24, 75- 93; S fr d " h Ch l v l t n n th t r f Ch tr " O r , 19 4, 3 -5 Dr. William A. Smeaton is member of the Department of 1 I v n "M d v r" Ch , 1953, 4, 13- 9 History and Philosophy of Sclence at Un v r t College 11 r f ll d n f th l r th r x h London, London WC1E 6BT, England. Best known for his C l r h r f G r v r t n lt, Cl r nd n biographical study of A. F. Fourcroy, he is interested in 18th r Oxf rd 1971 century French chemistry and is currently studying the life and 1 S fr d " v r nd th hl t C nn t n" work of L. B. Guyton de Morveau, one of the first converts to A b x, 19 9 6, 31- ( p ll p 3 It th ht th t th rd Lavoisier's system. " d f bl " ppl d t t l t nd th t t h ld h v r d " l f bl " b rt n t n A t r f Ch tr , l 3 M ll n nd n 19 p 5 v r th r n d bt th t th n f th r r n h n rt n t n r n LAVOISIER'S POLITICS 13 f r n 7 pp 9- 9 1 A r r S tê d C nn n Ch , Arthur L. Donovan, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy d n l 9 n 1 p 9 15 h n A S t f Ch tr , nd d ll nd r d- Antoine Lavoisier, one of history's greatest scientists, was also f t Ed nb r h 1 pp 3- ( d n n r l nd p 1 3 (pr a prominent public administrator during the final decades of d the Old Regime. Several of his involvements in public affairs 1 In d rn t r r t d Cl nd x r t d are fairly well known. For years he served on commissions C1 In l t n Cl + O — Cl + OCl nd n xp r t and committees of the Academy of Sciences, as a Director of l ht OCl Cl + O the National Gunpowder Administration, and as a tax farmer ll t Ch 5 (19 9 and financial advisor to the crown. His contributions to these activities all deserve further study and we must hope that in time administrative historians will undertake them. My goal in this brief paper is biographical, however. My purpose is to provide a sketch of what we might call Lavoisier's ethic of public service. How did he view his responsibilities as a citizen, a term that was widely used before the outbreak of political revolution, and to what extent did his personal ethics of public service reflect the political culture of his time? My subject, then, is Lavoisier the public administrator, not 18th century chemistry as such, nor the nature of his contributions to the revolution in which modern chemistry was forged. Antoine Lavoisier was born into a well-to-do professional family. His father, while a young man, had come to Paris to study law, and in 1741 he had the good fortune to inherit an uncle's estate, which included a house and a position as barrister at the Parlement of Paris. A year later he married the well-dowered daughter of an attorney at the Paris law courts and she bore them two children before her own untimely death in 1748. Antoine, born in 1743, and his younger sister, who died while in her teens, were then reared by their father, at all times a devoted and attentive parent, and by a maternal aunt A l t 19th nt r p n dr n f v r fr th 19 d t n f A b èr t l r v x d S v nt M d rn. S pp dl who lavished adoring care on the children. b d n p nt n b v d Lavoisier's sense of his place in the world and of the oppor- tunities open to him naturally reflected the circumstances of his comprehensive view of his interests. I therefore suggest that youth. While many of the most notable writers and philoso- we not cast Lavoisier as a scientist, a term that in any case was phers of the Enlightenment were bright provincial lads who not coined until the early 19th century, but rather as an 18th had come to Paris to make their marks, Lavoisier was born and century philosophe who was especially interested in and adept educated in the capital. His family, while well-off, had neither at scientific investigation. He was, in other words, one of the the landed wealth nor the taste for luxury displayed by the independent-minded, politically-engaged men of letters com- leaders of aristocratic society. And Antoine, as the scion of a mitted to the program of cultural reform known then and now prosperous but relatively new family in Paris, acquired and as the Enlightenment. Indeed, I would argue that Lavoisier was guided by a powerful sense of responsibility, purpose and should be thought of as one of France's foremost philosophes ambition. His vision of himself and his duties was therefore in the last generation to reach maturity before the collapse of shaped far more by what he aspired to achieve than by the the Old Regime. advantages he enjoyed. More specifically, the Lavoisiers The Enlightenment itself should be thought of as a program belonged to the social group that historians now call the of reform that adapted to changing circumstances as it devel- bourgeoisie of the Old Regime, a group made up primarily of oped through time. When Lavoisier set out to make a place for lawyers, judicial officials, administrators, and technicians himself in Paris, the Enlightenment had already achieved a serving in royal or provincial administration. This service high level of visibility and acceptance. Voltaire's Philosophi- bourgeoisie was everywhere integrated into established soci- cal Letters, written from exile in England and designed to ety and, along with the service elite of the nobility of the sword, demonstrate the advantages of English liberalism and New- they formed the dynamic core of French public life (1). Service tonianism, was published ten years before Lavoisier's birth, to the state, and the expectation of personal advancement and the first volume of Diderot's and D'Alembert's great through such service, were as much a part of Lavoisier's Encyclopédic was issued when he was eight years old. Thus by heritage as were his family name and his religion. His later the time Lavoisier arrived at center stage, the high En- commitment to science would have been unthinkable had it not lightenment's program of naturalism in science, literature, art provided an additional way of fulfilling this compelling vision and manners was a well-developed philosophical movement, of his responsibilities to family and nation. not a radical perspective awaiting articulation. If Lavoisier What strategies did Lavoisier follow in seeking to fulfill his was to succeed in making a name for himself, he had to do more responsibilities and satisfy his ambitions? Today we think of than announce that he preferred scientific naturalism to reli- him primarily as a chemist, but if we are to render his involve- gious authority and the unadorned beauty of nature to the ments in public affairs intelligible, we need to take a more artificiality of courtly society. Such attitudes had become 1 ll t Ch 5 (19 9 commonplace by the 1760's and were beginning to look and in 1768 purchased a share in the Tax Farm, a private slightly archaic in their abstractness. To carry the program of corporation that collected certain taxes for the government. reform forward, the younger men had to develop strategies This was not a passive investment, however, and during much capable of making the principles of the Enlightenment part of of 1769 and 1770 Lavoisier was obliged to travel widely the political, social and cultural fabric of the nation. Lavoisier outside Paris while inspecting the collection of duties and the and the philosophes of his generation faced a challenge of manufacture and sale of tobacco at locations under his jurisdic- engagement, a challenge that called for doing more than tion. His immediate supervisor in these matters was the senior opposing authority with assertions of universal rights. Their tax farmer Jacques Paulze. In 1771 Lavoisier and Paulze's task was to put advanced ideas into action. daughter were married. This justly famous union occurred a Lavoisier was enrolled as a day student at the College year before Lavoisier began his epochal experiments in pneu- Mazarin in 1754, shortly after his 11th birthday. The imposing matic chemistry. Following the wedding, Lavoisier, who was buildings of the College stand opposite the Louvre, where the then 28, moved out of the house in which he had been reared
Academy of Sciences held its meetings, and today house the and, together with his 13 - year - old bride, established a home of constituent societies of the Institut of France. In the 18th his own. Twenty years later he was to recall that at that time century the College had many prominent scientists on its "I was young; I had just entered on my career in science; [and] faculty and offered a first-class education in the sciences and I was hungry for glory" (2). Financially independent, happily the humanities. The normal course of study lasted nine years. married, and intellectually vigorous, Lavoisier was searching Lavoisier was a highly successful student and after seven years for opportunities to employ his talents on the stages provided he transferred to the faculty of law. Two years later, at age 20, by the Academy of Sciences and in the King's service. He was he received his law degree and the following year he was eager to put advanced ideas into action and he was exception- admitted to the bar at the Parlement of Paris. Yet long before ally well prepared to do so. qualifying to follow his father's career, he had decided to In 1771 Lavoisier began drafting an eloge of Jean Baptiste devote a large part of his energy and time to science. While Colbert, the great 17th century minister of finance. He planned reading law he had continued to work with the Abbé de to submit the essay to a prize competition announced by the Lacaille, who had introduced him to mathematics and astron- Academie Francaise, but he never completed it. A manuscript omy as a student. He also attended the private lectures of such copy of his draft survived, however, and was published in his prominent teachers as the chemist G. F. Rouelle and the collected works. It is a most revealing essay, for like many of experimental physicist the Abbé de Nollet, and he geologized Lavoisier's drafts, it is more forthright than the works he sent on field trips with the Academician and family friend J. E. to press. One passage from the final section particularly Guettard. Although Lavoisier studied chemistry in the early deserves attention. Lavoisier is assessing the role of royal 1760's, nearly another decade passed before he formulated the academies in the cultural life of the nation. It maybe, of course, program of research that led to the oxygen theory of combus- that the view he expresses is nothing more than an attempt by tion. Thus while in the 1760's Lavoisier made a serious a junior member of the Academy of Sciences to flatter the commitment to physical science, he had not, so far as we know, immortals of the Academie Française, but I am inclined to set himself the task of effecting a revolution in chemistry. think that it accurately represents Lavoisier's true feelings From 1764 to 1768 Lavoisier campaigned vigorously for a about the function of the acadernies. He begins by crediting place in the national Academy of Sciences. He sought to Colbert with founding the Academy of Sciences and, more advance his candidacy by presenting three memoirs: an essay generally, for linking the patronage of high culture to the on how best to illuminate city streets, a two-part paper on the glorification of the King. The academies, he continues, func- mineral gypsum, and a three-part paper on mineral waters. tion like little republics that perpetuate their power from age to These papers reveal a good deal about Lavoisier's views on age (3): science and its practical applications, yet they hardly constitute first steps toward a revolution in chemistry. They served their h n t t t n th r t t ft th t n nd h v r r v d r intended purpose admirably, however, and in 1768, shortly b v ll n nt r t d n t n r n nd b rb r h before his 25th birthday, Lavoisier was installed as an assistant b d r h th v t l t n t nl n rv fr t th n t l chemist in the Academy of Sciences. p l th t r t n t r v th b t th r v t l t v r h l Let us take a look at the events that occupied Lavoisier th r t n th t n r n p r t t n nd b rb r pr nt t during the next few years before considering the significance th I h pp t p r th b d t th n b d th t of his election to the Academy of Sciences. Lavoisier's mother r v lv v rh d nd t h h th r t r p rt d th n t l t n had left him a considerable legacy and, upon reaching his th t th h v n rv d n th b nn n f th n v r majority, he was eager to invest in a venture capable of providing the additional income he needed to pursue a career Three of Lavoisier's assertions about academies are espe- in science. He therefore followed the advice of a family friend cially noteworthy: 1. They are "little republics." I take this to ll t Ch 5 (19 9 13 mean that in the republic of science, as in the republic of letters, bounded national autonomy consider the particularism of pre- one establishes one's standing by producing notable work and, revolutionary politics essential to the defense of individual having obtained recognition as a member of the republic, one liberty. For in fact, prior to the mobilization of the nation in is treated as an equal. 2. They are bastions against ignorance, defense of the revolution, the power of the French state was superstition and barbarism, which rather nicely captures quite limited. The Bourbon kings, despite their claims to Lavoisier's unexceptional views on the beliefs of the unen- divine sanction and absolute authority, could do little more lightened. 3. They succeed admirably as institutions, The than hold together a nation that in its daily life was profoundly academies serve their purposes generation after generation divided by diverse social customs and dispersed political without requiring the intervention of enlightened ministers or authority. The King's political power was largely symbolic, other patrons. Note also that the academies he is praising are for it rested on his claim that he alone represented the nation as r l institutions. Lavoisier, like most other philosophes, a whole. His will was public will, but he could only work his evidently believed that only institutions under the control of will if he could obtain the support and cooperation of regional the monarchy were capable of putting enlightened ideas into authorities. action. The central drama of pre-revolutionary politics revolved Lavoisier's views on the social structure and function of around the contest between the King's ministers, who sought academies are revealing for several reasons. As a scientist he to subordinate political particularism to administrative cen- saw the Academy of Sciences as the arena in which he could tralization, and the local aristocrats, who sought to defend what distinguish himself by presenting his theories and experiments they deemed their ancient liberties. The issue was clearly before his peers and by serving on numerous highly visible drawn in the crisis of 1771, the same year in which Lavoisier commissions and committees. As an administrator, Lavoisier drafted his eloge of Colbert. Chancellor Maupeou, in an was especially interested in the organization and internal attempt to break the power of the Parlements that were oppos- governance of the Academy. Even before he entered the ing reforms proposed by the King, "abolished venality of Academy he was drafting proposals for its reorganization, and parlementary office, reorganized parlementary jurisdictions, he struggled mightily to save the Academy of Sciences before limited the judicial right of remonstrance, and staffed his it was abolished, along with the other academies, in 1793. The remodeled "parlements" with men willing to exercise their academies also served as representatives of the more general functions on condition of removability subject to the royal program of reform championed by Lavoisier and others, most will" (5). The parlementary judges thrown out of office notably A. R. Turgot and the Marquis de Condorcet. This objected strenuously to this "reform," which they considered program was simultaneously royalist, rational and republican. a despotic usurpation of power. They responded by leading the While quite radical in the political context of the Old Regime, first of the "aristocratic" revolts that, by rendering France this program came to appear centrist as the revolution became ungovernable, finally forced the calling of the States General increasingly radical, and it was ultimately cut down in the cross in 1788 and all that followed. fire of left and right extremism. Familiarity with this axis of political tension helps render What were the distinctive features of this comprehensive intelligible the suspicion with which Lavoisier's efforts to program of reform? Historians of the French Revolution still apply his scientific knowledge to the needs of the nation were consider the answer provided by Alexis de Tocqueville in his sometimes greeted (6). For Lavoisier was above all else one of classic h Old nd th r n h v l t n the best the King's men, an administrator ready to serve the nation by starting point for any exploration of this complex question (4). exercising authority in the King's name. Consider, for In the Old Regime, de Tocqueville argues, France was under- instance, his long and successful service in the Gunpowder going a wrenching administrative centralization. This transfer Administration, to which Turgot appointed him in 1775. Pre- of power threatened to transform a national polity organized viously the production of gunpowder had been farmed out, like around local and regional judicial courts into a centralized the collection of taxes, and France had produced less than half absolutism in which the functions previously performed by of the powder she required. Lavoisier centralized the collec- these courts would be brought under royal administrative tion of raw materials and the production of powder, and his control. Traditionalists viewed their ancient privileges, which reforms were so successful that in 1776 and 1777 France was came to be condemned as feudal, as the legitimate rights and able to supply the American patriots with powder for their war responsibilities of local corporations, the most notable of of independence. By 1788 France had achieved self-suffi- which were the regional courts of law called Parlements. ciency in powder production and her powder was considered Those who, with Tom Paine, think of the French Revolution as the best in Europe (7). It is therefore only just to note that the a great liberation from the dead hands of feudalism and success of France's revolutionary armies owed a good deal to absolutism consider this aristocratic defense of pre-revolution- Lavoisier's reforms. It would be simpleminded, however, to ary French politics reactionary. But those who, like Edmund think that politically alert Frenchmen judged Lavoisier's Burke, are troubled by the revolution's legitimation of un- efforts in strictly national/utilitarian terms. The central 1 ll t Ch 5 (19 9 question at issue was not how much gunpowder was being society devoted to the principles of liberty, equality, and produced, but which locus of authority was being strength- fraternity. ened. In fact, the more Lavoisier rationalized gunpowder Lavoisier for years operated with notable success in a production, the more suspicious those opposed to the King highly stressed and rapidly changing political culture. The became. In other words, his efforts on behalf of the nation were tensions within that culture were not simply ideological ex- judged in terms of the political vision they served rather than pressions of the antagonism between two opposed social for their technical efficacy. classes - that view, central to Marxist historiography, emerged Lavoisier's commitment to centralized and rationalized later from a social analysis of the effects of industrialization administration put him at odds with the defenders of apolitical and a political analysis of the French revolution. Nor was the order based on the particularist liberties of local corporations. revolutionary transformation of French politics simply a pro- At the same time, his allegiance to the King was equally gressive liberation achieved through the destruction of the old offensive to those on the political left. The issue here is order. Lavoisier and his colleagues in reform were neither essentially constitutional, the central question being: How did reactionary absolutists nor revolutionary democrats. Rather, the legitimation of power at the national level come to be they sought to alter radically the way the French state func- separated from the person of the King and vested in the tioned while preserving its unity and promoting its prosperity. collective will of the people as expressed through their repre- Although in the short run their program failed dramatically, sentatives? Contemporary historians of the French Revolution and at terrible personal cost, in the long run their vision of the describe this shift as the emerging hegemony of public opin- relations between scientific knowledge and political power ion, a subject that is still of disturbing centrality in modern came to prevail. But it did so only after the people of France, democracies. Of course the political concept of a General Will speaking first through their revolutionary leaders and then had been spelled out by J. J. Rousseau well before the Revolu- either through their Emperor, or through plebiscites, or through tion put it into practice, and the role of public opinion and the their legislative representatives, had replaced the King as the problem of representation were much discussed in the decades embodiment of the nation. before 1789. The issue was a difficult one for centralizing ministers like Turgot, for while they considered respect for the f r n nd t authority of the King fundamental to national cohesion, they were hardly advocates of what they condemned as "oriental 1 S K M r "Enl ht n nt nd v l t n n r n despotism". The trick was to provide all citizens with mean- Old r bl n d Appr h " rn l f M d rn t r , ingful forms of political participation while maintaining the 8 , , 1-3 3 political stability and administrative integrity of the state as a A v r O vr , l r 1 -1 93 l p whole. 1 This problem had an analogy in the world of science and 3 Ib d l p 1 there Lavoisier opted for the republican resolution. According S r t Int rpr t n th r n h v l t n, C br d to this view, the authority vested in the Academy of Sciences Un v r t r C br d 19 5 rests with those who by virtue of talent and achievement have 5 K M r " r n h l t l h ht t th A n f been assigned responsibility for determining what is and what I " rn l f M d rn t r , 197 0, is not good science. Within this community of peers, only S f r x pl th p n n rn n v r nt nt reason and evidence are considered persuasive. In its relations th t n rl t h h l f t th h nd f r b n 17 9 with others, the community of science speaks with the author- d r b d n M K Ant n v r, C ll r Y r ity granted to it by the nation. But this assignment and exercise 19 pp 133-135 of authority was resented by those who, like the radical and 7 C C G ll p S n nd l t n r n t th End f th would-be scientist Jean-Paul Marat, had been denied a place in Old , r n t n Un v r t r r n t n 19 p 5 the Academy. Therefore, when the opportunity presented itself, they were quick to condemn as the abuse of privilege what Lavoisier saw as the proper use of authority grounded in Dr. Arthur L. Donovan teaches in the Department of Humani- reason and merit. To the radical Jacobins, only v l nt r ties of the United States Merchant Marine Academy, King's associations, as opposed to those invested with royal privi- Point, New York 11024-1699. He is author of "Philosophical leges, were legitimate, and it was this view that sealed the fate Chemistry in the Scottish Enlightenment" and editor of the of the royal academies. Utilitarian arguments proved to be special edition of "Osiris" on the Chemical Revolution. He is without force in this contest between the meritocratic prin- currently editing a selection of Lavoisier's chemical writings ciples that informed the republican image of the world of for use in college courses and is in the early stages of writing learning and the democratic interpretation of how one should a biography of Lavoisier. go about pursuing and applying scientific knowledge in a