The Louvre, the Académie des Sciences, the office of an Academician.

  Ever since 1768, when Lavoisier—then only twenty-five years old—became an Academician of the Académie des Sciences, so long as he was in Paris, Academician Lavoisier would arrive at his office in the Louvre at exactly seven o’clock in the morning to handle official business. After ten o’clock, he would move to the Royal Gunpowder Administration on the Left Bank of the Seine. There, as Director of the Gunpowder Administration, Lavoisier not only enjoyed a high annual salary of forty thousand livres (several times that of a senior judge), but also possessed a fully equipped chemical laboratory.

  Before 1787, Lavoisier was happy to devote more of his time to the laboratory at the Royal Gunpowder Administration. There, he and his assistants, through countless experiments, refuted the phlogiston theory with undeniable facts and proved that it was the presence of oxygen that caused substances to burn. In the course of this work, Lavoisier wrote scientific papers and important books, including “Essay on Combustion,” “Method of Chemical Nomenclature,” and “Elements of Chemistry.”

  In the more than two hundred years thereafter, scholars offered this high appraisal: “He (Lavoisier) is the founder of modern chemistry. The efforts of his life caused chemistry to be completely separated from alchemy, and presented chemistry as a great natural science, clearly and in full, before the world… Lavoisier’s importance to chemistry is like Newton’s to physics and Gauss’s to mathematics—eternal, and irreplaceable.”

  Later, Lavoisier’s public duties grew heavier, and he had less time for scientific research. After the outbreak of the Revolution, Lavoisier was chosen as a member of the Reform Committee of the Estates-General; yet, tired of the deputies’ violent agitation, he announced his resignation from the National Assembly. Not long after, however, Lavoisier took part in the work advocated by Necker’s government: “to reform the old system of weights and measures, and create new units for international use.” In that work, the unit of weight, the “gram,” and the unit of length, the “metre,” were established.

  At the beginning of 1790, the committee of the Académie des Sciences was designated to be responsible for drafting the new system of weights and measures. Its members included Lavoisier, Condorcet, Lagrange, and Monge. Half a year later, Lavoisier was tasked with drafting a report, advocating that one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth’s pole to the equator be adopted as the standard (approximately equal to 1 metre), thereby establishing the metric system. By 1791, the Academy again designated Lavoisier to be responsible for setting the standard of mass. After measurement, Lavoisier proposed that the standard of mass should be the kilogram, defining it as the mass of 1 cubic decimetre of water at its point of greatest density: 1 kilogram.

  In this period, the prosecutor André—who plainly held severe political prejudice against the tax farmers—not only incited the people to riot against the tax farmers, but also demanded in the Assembly and in the courts that the tax-farming system be abolished. All this brought immense trouble upon Lavoisier himself and his family. Even so, Lavoisier still persisted in the work entrusted to him by the Academy, merely handing over the Gunpowder Administration and the laboratory to his student and friend éleuthère Irénée Dupont to manage.

  When the standards for the “metre” and the “gram” were promulgated, French society at first was filled with opposition. Strangely, it was the mortal enemy of the tax farmers, the prosecutor André, who gave the new standards tremendous support. In a speech at the Jacobin Club, André likened the new weights and measures to “a crucial cornerstone that lays the foundation of modern science and civilization,” declaring that “their existence and future development will inevitably cause Europe and Africa, the Americas, and even distant Asia, to be linked into an indivisible global village!”

  It was precisely André’s shouting support, together with the efforts of Condorcet and others, that ensured that, despite abundant controversy, the metric and gram-based standards still spread rapidly throughout France, especially in the ?le-de-France and the Greater Champagne region.

  As for this unpredictable prosecutor of the Special Fiscal Court (Deputy Prosecutor), Lavoisier did not know whether he ought to hate him or to be grateful. The protracted litigation against the tax farmers caused Lavoisier and his father-in-law, Monsieur Paulze, to lose a total of nearly two million livres. It did not amount to breaking bone and sinew, yet a thick layer of their substantial fortune was scraped away. Even men of Lavoisier’s temperament, indifferent to fame and profit, felt pained over the lost money for several days.

  Yet on the other hand, André was also a man who kept his word. Once the two sides reached a bargain between prosecution and defence, the prosecutor immediately cancelled the state prosecution against the tax farmers, and also brought to justice the rioters who had injured Monsieur Paulze. Lavoisier knew well enough that this was merely a piece of stagecraft meant to cover appearances, but through this lawsuit, the many disgraceful past deeds of the tax farmers were, in legal terms, thoroughly laundered clean.

  Privately, however, André hinted that Lavoisier would do best to leave France, or at least to keep far from Paris, the political centre, because men such as Marat would still fix their attention upon the notorious tax farmers. Naturally, Lavoisier, who loved his country, resolutely refused this kindness. Soon after, André retreated to a lesser request (or perhaps it was his true purpose all along), twice inviting Lavoisier to take part in a joint project between the United Investment Company and the Académie des Sciences.

  To be candid, when he received the second invitation from the dictator of Reims, Lavoisier was once tempted. André promised to build a new polytechnic institute at the University of Reims and to recommend that Lavoisier serve as its Dean, with chemistry—this entirely new discipline—established within it as well. Moreover, the research funding would exceed by more than double what Lavoisier received from the Academy and from the tax farmers. The condition, however, was that the research topics in chemistry had to serve certain special purposes of André’s: for example, strong acids, strong alkalis, dyeing and printing materials (including picric acid), and agricultural fertilizers.

  It was proven that investment in scientific research could greatly increase productivity and reduce product costs. In this respect, André was wiser than other decision-makers and never miserly. Technological innovations in cotton-spinning machinery enabled the United Investment Company, in less than a year, to throw the industrialists and merchants of Lyon—the traditional French textile centre—into panic. They tried to use administrative means to forcibly suppress their competitor, but André crushed them flat with ease.

  Two days ago, the merchant vessel detained at Lyon, carrying cotton-yarn products, was not only released by the River Port Supervisory Office, but the municipal officials, gritting their teeth while forcing smiles, also paid the shipowner a sum of money in compensation. This was because André, invoking a letter from the Rolands in Paris, warned the officials and merchants of Lyon in an extremely domineering tone: do not ever provoke my people or my goods. Once you provoke me, I swear I will come to Lyon and levy taxes upon 150,000 citizens of Lyon!

  This prosecutor (Deputy Prosecutor), renowned in outsiders’ eyes for arrogance and tyranny, not only possessed power and influence but was also adept at amassing wealth. He treated scientists especially well, supporting them and valuing their inventions and creations. All this filled Lavoisier with admiration. More importantly, under André’s rule, there was no anarchic violence.

  But none of that was the point. The point was that, in Lavoisier’s view, André—also trained as a lawyer—was, like himself, a genius, a true genius. From the four-colour problem, which no one could solve, to the “Fourier cholera map” that affected the safety of drinking-water sources in the capitals of both France and Britain, and to the Bordeaux mixture that changed the history of Europe’s agricultural resistance to pests and disease, André was guiding these developments, openly and in secret alike.

  At the end of 1790, although Lavoisier refused André’s invitation for the first time, he recommended his own student and assistant, the twenty-five-year-old chemist and engineer Lebon (a French practitioner of gas lighting), to serve at Reims. Not long ago, Lebon wrote to his mentor, proclaiming that Deputy Prosecutor André Franck was a scholar of inexhaustible wisdom, an omnipotent natural magician, one beloved of God, the God-Favoured…

  Lavoisier had already come to believe that, if André had not placed his chief talents and energies into politics, the amassing of wealth, and poetry, then his scientific achievements might have been as outstanding as Lavoisier’s own.

  By contrast, Lavoisier’s wife, Marie Paulze, harboured deep hostility toward André, even to the point of being etched into bone. It was precisely due to Marie’s strenuous opposition, together with the need for the disabled father-in-law to be cared for by family, that Lavoisier politely refused André’s request for cooperation a second time.

  Because Marie Paulze’s mother died very early, and because she received a relatively formal and traditional education in a convent from childhood, she possessed talent and uncommon gifts. After marriage, Marie was not only a gentle and virtuous wife, but also Lavoisier’s helpful assistant and student in his work, something very rare in the scientific world of the day.

  After their marriage, Marie followed her husband in conducting experiments and gradually developed an interest in chemistry. At the same time, she instinctively sought to approach and learn the subject and used her linguistic gifts to translate for Lavoisier many relevant scientific writings in English or German. Whenever Lavoisier gave demonstrations at gatherings of scientists, Marie would sit quietly beside him, drawing diagrams and taking notes.

  On the other hand, for certain reasons, Lavoisier felt deeply guilty toward his wife. His long exposure to various dangerous reagents—especially his early work on heating mercury and coal tar in reductive studies—severely damaged his body and ultimately deprived him of the ability to father children, a regret that the Lavoisier couple would carry for life. For this reason, Lavoisier greatly respected Marie’s views in matters large and small, including the two refusals of André’s offers.

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  Because of the limitations of conditions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, chemists of that era had few safety precautions and almost wagered their lives upon science; Madame Curie and her husband were the same.

  As for his guilt toward his wife, when Lavoisier learned that his capable assistant Dupont was courting Marie, he felt no jealousy and instead tacitly allowed everything to unfold. Indeed, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, among Parisian men of the upper classes, it was considered a fashionable elegance to be “cuckolded,” whether actively or passively. Likewise, men would also have many mistresses. Yet there were two famous exceptions: one was Lavoisier, and the other was the future infamous Minister of Police, Fouché.

  Returning to the present: the Academy documents laid upon the long table had already been sorted and arranged by assistants, awaiting Lavoisier’s review, and the small booklet placed on the very top was the daily bulletin of the Académie des Sciences. Lavoisier casually took it up and skimmed it, and several items caught the chemist’s attention.

  Under the strong recommendation of the Correspondence Society of the Académie des Sciences and the French Planters’ Federation, the Bordeaux mixture—whose inventor, André, had declared he would not protect it by patent—had begun comprehensive promotion within France. It was expected that, by the first half of next year, its application would cover more than 50% of the nation’s vineyards, raise grape yields by at least 20–30%, and greatly improve the quality of French grapes.

  Academician Fourcroy, by treating phosphate rock with dilute sulphuric acid, had produced a new substance, named “phosphate fertilizer.” Since April of this year, “phosphate fertilizer” has been promoted on a trial basis in the farmlands of the Reims region. Moreover, the high-yield potatoes that Fourcroy had cultivated over many years had achieved a bumper harvest in the Reims region. In early May, with the support of Deputy Prosecutor André, Reims City Hall decided to award Academician Fourcroy ten thousand livres.

  After an internal vote, the Académie des Sciences decided to confer upon the Italian scientist Alessandro Volta the title of Foreign (Honorary) Academician of France. Volta was currently a professor of physics at the University of Pavia and the inventor of the voltaic pile, which would be completed next year. At the same time, the University of Reims specially appointed Academician Volta as a lifetime professor, and promised that within half a year it would build a battery laboratory for him at the polytechnic institute, to conduct practical research into electrical energy.

  The Académie des Sciences decided that, over the five months from May to September of this year, it would join medical experts from the Paris Faculty of Medicine in travelling to Reims to conduct on-the-spot investigation and verification of the truth of the medical paper co-authored by the English physician Edward Jenner and Deputy Prosecutor André Franck, “A Study of the Cause of Cowpox and Its Consequences,” and thereafter decide whether to promote cowpox inoculation among doctors throughout France in order to prevent smallpox.

  …

  The final brief item was a request from the Archbishop of Metz: the Académie des Sciences would solicit, from scholars and technicians across the nation, an invention—an underground safety lamp capable of preventing mine firedamp explosions caused by open-flame lighting. Once the invention was verified by the Academicians and adopted, the inventor would receive a high reward of twenty thousand livres provided by the Lorraine Mining Federation.

  In the eighteenth century, the iron ore and coal mining industries of Lorraine flourished with the growth of the French economy. Vast mineral resources were developed, and the number of miners increased day by day. Yet because of equipment and technical problems, accidents underground were common, especially firedamp (coal gas) explosions—dreaded by miners as a scourge—which occurred from time to time. After an explosion, the only solution was to block the tunnels at once to prevent the fire from spreading. In doing so, large numbers of miners were often buried alive in the mines, a sight too dreadful to bear.

  (To clarify: all underground mines contain dangerous firedamp (coal gas), not only coal mines; thus, iron-ore tunnels also carry the risk of firedamp explosion and burning.)

  Because ventilation was poor, mines dug deep downward would sometimes accumulate large quantities of flammable and explosive firedamp (coal gas) and other dangerous gases. Underground firedamp, upon meeting fire, would either explode or burn. Yet coal could not be mined underground without lamps, and so one of the solutions was to invent a safety lamp suitable for coal mines. The mine lamps used at the time had two defects: first, the glass shade was liable to shatter; second, the vent hole above the shade was liable to let the flame flare out. Either defect could lead to an explosion or fire.

  Previously, many people, including Lavoisier, had attempted to improve the mine lamp, but none achieved a substantive breakthrough. Two weeks ago, a large coal mine in Lorraine suffered a sudden firedamp explosion caused by a mine lamp’s flame, killing nearly 500 miners. When the news reached Paris, at Robespierre’s proposal, the presiding officer of the National Constituent Assembly immediately announced a recess of five minutes, and all deputies rose in solemn silence to mourn the victims of the Lorraine mining disaster.

  Seeing this, Lavoisier could not help but shake his head.

  Twenty-five years ago, he had once been commissioned by the Academy to travel to Lorraine—including the departments of Meuse, Vosges, and Moselle—to conduct an on-the-spot investigation of the utilization of local mineral resources. During that time, Lavoisier raised a sharp question: as surface minerals grew ever more depleted, forcing mines to expand into the depths underground, one must constantly attend to the hidden danger of firedamp, in order to prevent accidents caused by open flames when using mine lamps.

  Yet at that time, the government and mine owners generally either did not wish to accept Lavoisier’s warning or did not believe it. Even when mines suffered casualties, mine owners, under the protection of local officials, could deliberately conceal the number and nature of the accident, and in the end reduce a major matter to a minor one, and a minor one to nothing. But since 1789, with the rise of public opinion, major accidents could no longer be ignored by the nation, whose attention had turned to political news.

  Lavoisier had also once tried to make a safety mine lamp, but his energies were limited. Moreover, the tax-farmer lawsuit launched by André left him vexed and distracted, and he could not work normally. In April of this year, Lavoisier bundled up all his design ideas for a safety mine lamp and posted them to his student Lebon, hoping that the latter could overcome this technical difficulty.

  Just as he thought of Lebon, Lavoisier saw, among the documents on the table, a letter sent by this student from the preparatory Reims Polytechnic Institute. He opened it. The letter began with greetings for the health of his teacher and Madame, then spoke of the learning and working environment; praise for André and for the Reims Polytechnic Institute overflowed from every line.

  At this, Lavoisier smiled faintly. Unlike his other student, Dupont, born of a wealthy family, Lebon came from a commoner household in the provinces. In Paris, he completed his university studies by gnawing on black bread, working part-time while studying. Only after Lavoisier took him on as an assistant did his life improve. Yet because of his family background, Lebon still suffered discrimination and exclusion among the circle of assistants. In the eighteenth century, science was the preserve of the rich, for the poor could not establish private laboratories of their own, nor bear the high cost whereby a single glass test tube could be worth one livre.

  Last November, when Lavoisier asked more than thirty of his students and assistants who were willing to follow Deputy Prosecutor André to serve at Reims, Lebon was the first to step forward. Lebon believed that André, like himself, was of common origin, and that the former, having gained great honour through effort, would not exclude and discriminate against the sons of the same class.

  Half a year later, facts proved that Lebon’s choice had been very correct. In March, Lebon’s new idea of using gas street lamps for urban lighting quickly drew the attention of the Reims City Hall. After rigorous verification by experts, the government planned, in the second half of this year, to conduct an experimental operation of gas street lighting at the University of Reims. This previously unknown young man, almost overnight, became a darling of the scientific world, as Fourier had been last year.

  Lebon’s rapid success in Reims immediately attracted many frustrated scientific intellectuals in Paris. Under Fourier’s lobbying and recruitment, he even “packed up and took away” more than 200 scientists, engineers, scientific scholars, and university graduates in one stroke, bringing them into the preparatory Reims Polytechnic Institute. Even among Lavoisier’s assistants and students, with the good mentor’s tacit consent, more than one-third departed, one after another.

  Even Lavoisier’s close friend, the Academician and chemist Professor Berthollet, forty-three years old, who had worked with Lavoisier to establish the new chemical nomenclature, was drawn by a research topic of the Reims Polytechnic Institute. That topic was how to transform trinitrophenol (picric acid), which served as a yellow dye, into a violently powerful high explosive.

  In 1771, an Englishman named Wolff treated phenol with concentrated sulphuric acid and concentrated nitric acid, obtaining a yellow solid: trinitrophenol. Several years ago, Berthollet had tried to prove in the laboratory that ammonium nitrate had an explosive power ten times that of black powder, and that trinitrophenol was stronger still than ammonium nitrate. Yet a laboratory explosion caused Berthollet to lose two important assistants, and he had to terminate the research.

  Now, Reims promised to provide assistants, funds, various raw materials, and a laboratory, so that Berthollet could restart the picric-acid experiments; the temptation was naturally irresistible. In leaving, Berthollet also brought along his friends Vauquelin and Guyton de Morveau. They, too, were celebrated chemists of this great age.

  During his work at the Reims Polytechnic Institute, Vauquelin not only began research into synthesizing urea, but also served as Vice-Dean. Morveau, while assisting the military factories in improving the quality of gunpowder, also developed a strong interest in hydrogen balloons and strove to apply them on the battlefield.

  As André continuously poached Lavoisier’s colleagues and assistants, he did not forget to send to this genius chemist a large number of new prodigies. The fourteen-year-old Gay-Lussac and the fifteen-year-old Thénard were among the best of them. Because of rumours that Gay-Lussac had once served as the private secretary of the prosecutor André, the aristocratic youths led by Dupont all kept a consistent, respectful distance from the people of the “overbearing monarch of Reims.” For French high society knew that the young Deputy Prosecutor was fiercely protective of his own, and that revenge usually did not wait for a second night.

  In return, André would at times do something astonishing, relying on others to resolve certain confusions of Lavoisier’s. In his early years, through a large number of quantitative experiments, Lavoisier discovered that in chemical reactions, the total mass of all substances entering the reaction was equal to the total mass of all substances produced after the reaction. Lavoisier explained this as the law of the indestructibility of matter. This was also the law of conservation of mass, praised as one of the basic laws universally present in nature.

  Yet in the eighteenth century, to prove or refute that conclusion with certainty required extremely precise experimental results, and the tools and techniques of Lavoisier’s day (mass changes smaller than 0.2% could not be detected) could not meet strict requirements. For this was a most fundamental question, requiring later generations to continuously improve experimental techniques in order to resolve it.