Lavoisier died at age 50, on the guillotine | Hacker News Reader

Lavoisier died at age 50, on the guillotine

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95 pointsdaddy_drank46 comments

The murder of Lavoisier is one of the most horrible outcomes of the French Revolution -- which was generally horrific, mass drownings [1], Reign of Terror (the word 'terrorism' comes from this episode in French history[2]) and whatnot. That is what I think about on Le Quatorze Juillet.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drownings_at_Nantes [2] http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=terrorism

another fun fact about them:

Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier, his wife remarried to a rich publisher after Lavoisier's death, who supported her to publish a lot of the work. (both awesome people) David, the guy who painted this portrait was the person who signed Lavoisier's guillotine papers. The story goes David was an amateur scientist, had some presentations, and was humiliated when Lavoisier make it clear that it was pseudo science. David wanted to be elected to the royal society but because of this never got to. He was a friend but thus became the enemy. He also painted the painting "death of Marat". He himself was executed a year later.

David died in 1825. He fell out of favour for his part in the Terror but was kept on and even offered roles in the restored monarchy.

Thanks for the correction!

I'm suspicious that you can really describe the French Revolution as "generally horrific". Sure, there were quite a few executions (~40k or so), that were often arbitrary and spectacular. And the Vendée rebellion got massacred (~100k+ depending on the source) [1]. But what really contributed to the death toll were the Revolutionary wars [2] and the Napoleon campaigns [3].

By contrast, modern warfare with machine guns, artillery, bombers, and genocide regularly yielded much higher death tolls [4].

[1] http://necrometrics.com/wars18c.htm#FrRev1

[2] http://necrometrics.com/wars18c.htm#FrRev

[3] http://necrometrics.com/wars19c.htm#Napoleonic

[4] http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm

There is something particularly horrific about being killed in a political purge. Getting killed by a falling bomb isn't personal; you just happened to be under the wrong piece of airspace at the wrong time. The people who died in the Reign of Terror or Stalin's Purges or the Cambodian genocide lost a pernicious game of playground politics. Their executioners knew their names.

Well, you need to put the numbers in perspective. In 1789 the population of Paris was around 600-700k. So in relative terms, an amount of people that is equivalent to 6%ish of Paris got executed, and in total a fifth of the equivalent of Paris died. Seems pretty bad to me. Also, all this happened in 3 short years.

Besides, they're both just really horrific. "40k is nothing" is not quite the right attitude here.

Of course. But consider:

- Over a 5 year period, ~40k is ~8k/year or around 22/day for the French revolution, with a population of ~26M around 1790.

- Over a 29 year period, ~20M is ~700k/year or around 1.7k/day for Staline, with a population of around ~102M around 1950.

Not discounting the horrific nature of getting your head chopped off of course. But all things equal the guillotine and arbitrary executions during the French revolution was nowhere near as deadly as Staline or other 20th-century mass-murder regimes. Humanity made great "progress" in between the two in its ability to industrialize murder.

Revolutions are violent, especially when they are over-throwing 10 centuries of monarchy.

Did you know that the 14th of July is not a celebration of the storming of the Bastille? It is actually celebrating the 14th of July 1790, the Fête de la Fédération, a pacific celebration of the French nation.

Or it has its origins in both. Especially as the Fête de la Fédération was the commemoration the year after the storming of the Bastille.

It might help were the 14th not commonly referred to as Bastille day and feature a military parade.

14th July isn't referred to as Bastille day in France though, and the parade doesn't have much to do with the Revolution either, it's just common for countries to have a military parade on the national day.

Try to call it Bastille Day in France, nobody would have a clue what you're talking about.

The parade started in 1880, and was a political move after the defeat of 1870. Today it's a diplomatic event, foreign corps are invited, as well as heads of state.

It is referred to as "Prise de la Bastille", not "Bastille Day"

In 1989, for the bicentennial, primary school held ceremonies/parties, some kids built a cardboard milk box Bastille prison replica.

"There were two 'Reigns of Terror,' if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the 'horrors' of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves." —A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain

Why does the reaction always get all the attention, but the corruption and decadence that preceded and precipitated it goes with barely a mention.

Other interesting Lavoisier facts: he used to hang around the imperial gardens with a massive lens using it to burn things inside sealed chambers. This always makes me think of kids with lenses and ants, but the work was key to understanding the nature of oxygen.

his wife was a great scholar too, she diagrammed his work, and translated it and other works (french/german/english).

Nitpicking, but he died before the Empire (and I don't think there were imperial gardens) so I suppose it was the royal gardens instead (maybe Versailles or the Tuileries?).

Ah, didn't know that was different. Yes, Tuileries.

I studied Lavoisier's Elements of Chemistry in a great books program and it truly deserved its place. We traced the development of chemistry from the classical period up to the development of the periodic table, performing experiments along the way. Having such a view of chemistry allowed us to see just how revolutionary Lavoisier's classification system truly was and how it allowed chemistry to really make progress after that.

Such injustice. Who knows what else he had on his mind before he was decapitated.

Bias does no one any good. He was punished only because of his social standing and profession. He did no ill towards his fellow frenchmen yet was butchered to satiate their hatred towards the "elite".

Not the only one to die just because, in those times.

The French Revolution saw so much bloodshed for so little change (for the ordinary people at least).

I agree it was a lot of bloodshed but eventually the change was huge. France is still by far the most socialist country in Western Europe.

The major impact was the rise of national identities following the revolutionary wars and Napoleonic conquests. The same population who took part in the Terror voted happily for noted autocrat Napoleon, then lived under kings of various levels of mediocrity, briefly under a Republic before electing the then-President Emperor (because that turned out so well the first time), before returning to a Republican regime after being beaten by Bismark. The current blend of social democracy (though less and less social these days) has little in the way of direct filiation with the original French Revolution.

France never reverted to the kind of excesses that the set of Royalty at the time of the French revolution practiced.

And yes, you're right the effect wasn't a direct one but it definitely became part of the DNA of France. For instance the role of the church before and after the revolution are tremendously different and aristocracy never managed to get the same strong grip on France as it did before.

Most developed places never practiced the same excesses, though... other than the Communist countries, at least.

I think you misread parent. You seem to refer to the excesses of the French revolution, not of the French monarchy. It's true that France would not know the same kind of mass executions all over the country again, but it would exert occasionally a ferocious repression during its wars (eg, in Spain during the Napoleonic Wars) or in its colonies (eg, the massacres in French Algeria just after the end of WWII).

No, I was referring to the excesses of the monarchy. I think North Korea is one example of a Communist country that has gone above and beyond any ancient monarchy with its terrible mix of poverty, starvation, exploitation there. And it's still going that way even today.

> France never reverted to the kind of excesses that the set of Royalty at the time of the French revolution practiced.

> And yes, you're right the effect wasn't a direct one but it definitely became part of the DNA of France. For instance the role of the church before and after the revolution are tremendously different and aristocracy never managed to get the same strong grip on France as it did before.

If you mean it was the end of the absolute monarchy, then yes, absolutely. Charles X (second French king of the XIXth century) hadn't got the memo, and his attempt to go back to the good old days cost him his life. However, Napoleon's empire wasn't particularly different from pre-revolutionary France in terms of political liberties.

> I agree it was a lot of bloodshed but eventually the change was huge.

Political mass-murder of innocent women and children, mass conscription (slave armies), total war, 5 million dead, entire regions devastated for generations...totally worth it though.

> Political mass-murder of innocent women and children

What about the innocent men?

> totally worth it though.

That's up for debate.

The XIXth century history in Europe would have been much different if it were not for the French revolution (and Napoleon). For horrific Napoleon reign was, it marked the end of the constant warfare that plagued European states before (congress of Vienna).

Pre revolution, France was also one of the most backward political system in Western Europe, especially compared to England or the Netherlands. It also marked the end of the Church power in Western Europe

Also I see some irony that when there is a terrorist attack that kills innocent people in Paris, the way to show solidarity is to sing this in football matches:

Do you hear, in the countryside, the roar of those ferocious soldiers? They're coming right into your arms to cut the throats of your sons, your women! To arms, citizens, form your battalions, Let's march, let's march! Let an impure blood soak our fields!

Slaves were freed though.

It seems that he was hardly an innocent bystander.

> Lavoisier was a powerful member of a number of aristocratic councils, and an administrator of the Ferme Générale. The Ferme générale was one of the most hated components of the Ancien Régime because of the profits it took at the expense of the state, the secrecy of the terms of its contracts, and the violence of its armed agents. All of these political and economic activities enabled him to fund his scientific research.

He had a direct hand in oppressing an enslaved population, extracting their wealth, and using it for his own means.

The ancien régime was deeply flawed, but don't forget that the winners write history. Indeed, we live inside the Revolution still, so you can trust barely anything you've ever read on the subject. If you'd like an alternate perspective, I can recommend this volume: http://www.amazon.com/French-Revolution-Revolutions-Modern-W...

Thanks for the book!

Edmund Burke was a famous critic of the French Revolution.

It was as bad as its 20th century replicas, the red revolutions around the globe which were all based on the same ill notions of fairness, justice and equality.

Burke's an interesting case. Although revered by many contemporary American conservatives, he was a member of Britain's more left-wing political party, the Whigs (the counterpart to the more right-wing Tories).

Like most Whigs, Burke was a supporter of the American Revolution, but he was horrified by the excesses of its French sequel. He famously wrote his major work on the subject, Reflections on the Revolution in France, as a letter to French aristocrat Charles-Jean-François Depont, and later expanded it into a short book. In the Reflections, Burke predicted—over three years before the Reign of Terror—that the French Revolution would lead to disaster. Moreover, he specifically cited among the causes its abstract foundations disconnected from the reality of human nature.

La Terreur proved Burke right, of course, and yet the French Revolutionary principles—among them liberté, égalité, and fraternité—are for the most part as fresh as a daisy. Perhaps in the 21st century we could add diversité and inclusivité to the mix, but the basic lesson is clear: the Revolution hasn't ended. Burke's Reflections is thus more than a historical curiosity—it's also an urgent warning for the present.

> butchered to satiate their hatred towards the "elite"

The elite are the people at the top. Being as this head was chopped off in Dr. Guillotin's invention at the behest of the people running his country, I'd say he was no longer part of a noble, elite class when he took his last breath.

He may have been smart, but he was not smart enough to avoid being on the violent, rapacious Ferme générale, which expropriated wealth for the king from working people creating wealth. French society had enough of this parasitism after too many long years, so off to the guillotine with Lavoisier and the king, and good riddance. Chemistry somehow managed to progress after his death.

Nowadays we have the heir LP's sending money to VC's, "activist shareholders" trying to steal more from the workers at corporations creating wealth, judges and bondholders in the US trying to use their dirty deals with Argentina's old junta to steal more from Argentina. The USA is rife with parasites, and many feel the same way about our modern parasites as those that lead Lavoisier to the guillotine.

As an aside, Antoine Louis is generally credited with designing the guillotine, not Dr. Guillotin, a physician who wanted to reform capital punishment.

People get punished because of their social standing and profession all the time - see also conscripts, slaves, and persons of colour in the modern _______.

When I was getting two degrees in Chemistry Lavoisier was one of my heroes. Hard to believe how someone in the 1700's had so many modern insights given how he was taught and how primitive all the knowledge was then.

> magnetic healing devices of no clinical value are "a billion-dollar boondoggle".

Still going strong today.

NOVA broadcasted a nice piece on him on the centenary of Relativity a few weeks ago. A book was written about Eisteins enery equation explaining who invented each term. Lavoiser is credited with 'm' for the conservation of mass. Einstein generalized this conservation to the total of E and m together instead of each independently.

Does anyone know of a science history book that probably reads like this?

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