(1743-1794)
Lavoisier's papers
at the Archives of the Academy of Science in Paris
At the Archives of the Academy of Science in Paris The Archives of
the Academy of Science in Paris, (23 quai Conti, 75006 Paris). under
the responsability of Christiane Demeulenaere-Douyère,
Curator, keeps in the Lavoisier Collection more than 2000
shelf-marks, including scientific papers, manuscripts concerning
chemistry, mineralogy, geology, meteorology, 14 laboratory books, and
the original manuscript of the Opuscules Physiques et Chymiques, the
Traité élémentaire de chimie and the
Réflexions sur l'instruction publique.
When Lavoisier was condemned to death by the Revolutionnary Tribunal
on Thursday, May 8, 1794, his property and papers were confiscated by
the Republic. On 9 Thermidor (July 27), the same year, came
Robespierre's downfall. Then Madame Lavoisier with the help of
Abbé Morellet fought to obtain the restauration of her husband
property. By April 1796, she had recovered all the papers that had
been seized. When she died, on February 10, 1836, aged 78 years, her
property went to Gabrielle Ramey de Sugny, her brother's
granddaughter. This lady married Léon de Chazelles, who was a
close friend of Jean-Baptiste Dumas. The two men published
Lavoisier's papers. The two first volumes appeared in 1862 and 1864;
the two last volumes in 1892 and 1893.
Then, it was decided to publish Lavoisier's correspondance and
Édouard Grimaux was responsible for this. But in 1894, the
Dreyfus case was the occasion of a conflict between Grimaux, who was
in favor of Dreyfus, and the family. And for sixty years the
correspondance waited.
In 1948, the Academy of Sciences gave responsability to René
Fric and to a Comité Lavoisier for the publication of the
correspondance. The first volume (1768-1769) appeared in 1955, the
second (1770-1775) in 1957, the third (1776-1783) in 1964.
René Fric died in 1970 and it was only in 1986 that a new
Comité Lavoisier, with Léon Velluz, Alain Horeaux and
Michelle Goupil published volume IV (1784-1786); volume V (1787-1788)
appeared in 1993; Patrice Bret published
volume VI (1789-1791) in
1997 and the publication of two more volumes is in progress.
In 1993 a number of missing letters and a vast amount of unpublished
information was made available when le comte Guy de Chabrol donated
more than 1000 documents to the Archives of the Paris Academy of
Science, and 350 of Lavoisier's manuscripts, which had been lost for
25 years, were returned. These latter papers had been discovered in
Clermont-Ferrand, spilling forth from a wall cupboard plastered over
for years in the house of René Fric, the editor of the three
first volumes of Lavoisier's correspondence.
Among other sources of documents concerning Lavoisier in France, must
be mentioned the Archives Nationales, the Departmental and Municipal
Archives, the Bibliothèque Nationale, the National Assembly
Library, the Bibliothèque Mazarine, the Bibliothèque
Sainte Geneviève, the Bibliothèque Cujas, the
Bibliothèque de la Ville de Paris as well as the libraries at
the Sorbonne, the Institut de France, the Cité des Sciences,
the Museum of Natural History, the Academy of Medicine, the Faculty
of Medicine, the Faculty of Pharmacy, the Arsenal, the National
Conservatory of Arts and Trades and the French Society of
Agriculture, the departmental archives and municipal libraries
located in Clermont-Ferrand, Orléans, Blois, Limoges and
Angoulême.
In United Kingdown
In London, the British Library and the Royal Society Library and
Archives make available sources concerning contributions by Joseph
Black, Joseph Priestley, Richard Kirwan, David MacBride, John
Pringle, Stephen Hales, Charles Blagden, and many others. The
National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh provides valuable testimony
on James Hall's sojourn in Paris during the Revolution and the
frequent contacts he had with Lavoisier.
In the United States
In the United States, a prime source of information is the Lavoisier
Collection at Cornell University. 324 manuscripts, including Jean
Etienne Guettard's records of the geological investigations with
Lavoisier, unpublished lecture notes of Guillaume François
Rouelle and Joseph Black, Lavoisier's laboratory worksheets recording
the experiments on the large-scale decomposition and synthesis of
water carried out with Jean Baptiste Meusnier in 1785, letters and
reports on Mesmerism, and such diverse topics as street lighting, the
effects of heat, meteorology, the decimal system, and the new weights
and measures. Furthermore, Lavoisier's participation in public
affairs -the General Farm, the Gunpowder and Saltpeter
Administration, the Discount Bank, the Committee on Agriculture, the
Orléans Provincial Assembly - is distinctly reflected in the
wealth of correspondence, notes, invoices, receipts and leases that
can be seen there. The printed material of the collection consists of
1288 titles contained in 2012 volumes, and makes up more than 90
percent of the 705 entries in the standard Bibliography of the Works
of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier by Duveen and Klickstein (London, 1954)
and its Supplement (London, 1965). Using this same material, Marco
Beretta recently published Bibliotheca Lavoisieriana. The Catalogue
of the Library of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, which sheds new light on
the nature and impact of Lavoisier's sources.
Two other American sources of documents regarding Lavoisier and his
epoch are the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware, and
the Houghton Library at Harvard University. In the former can be
found manuscripts written by Quesnay, Turgot, and Du Pont de Nemours.
Fruitful visits can be made to other libraries in the United States;
in particular the American Philosophical Society Library in
Philadelphia, the Princeton University Library, the New York Public
Library, and the Rockefeller University Library.
