On this day in 1794 – branded a traitor during the Reign of Terror, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was also a tax collector with the Ancien Régime, is tried, convicted and guillotined in one day in Paris.
On this day in 1794 – branded a traitor during the Reign of Terror, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was also a tax collector with the Ancien Régime, is tried, convicted and guillotined in one day in Paris.
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According to popular legend, the appeal to spare his life so that he could continue his experiments was cut short by the judge, Coffinhal:
>La République n’a pas besoin de savants ni de chimistes; le cours de la justice ne peut être suspendu.
(The Republic needs neither scholars nor chemists; the course of justice cannot be delayed.)
The judge Coffinhal himself would be executed less than three months later, in the wake of the Thermidorian reaction.
Acknowledging Lavoisier’s scientific stature and importance to science, his contemporary, Joseph-Louis Lagrange, commented,
>Il ne leur a fallu qu’un moment pour faire tomber cette tête, et cent années peut-être ne suffiront pas pour en reproduire une semblable.
(It took them only an instant to cut off that head, and a hundred years may not produce another like it.)
“The revolution like Saturn devours its own children”.
Man the French Revolution was something else.