108 ANDREAS KURTZ 



In the year that Andreas Kurtz was born, 

 Louis XVI. had been seven years on his 

 fatal throne, and the monarchy was tottering 

 to its fall. Necker succeeded Turgot, and 

 Joli-de-Fleury, D'Ormesson, and Calonne 

 succeeded Necker; each sought to save the 

 crown with its power, to retain the aristocracy 

 with its privileges, and to ameliorate the 

 condition of the people without ceding to 

 them authority and dominion ; but the rotten- 

 ness of the State made its dissolution 

 inevitable, and neither Necker nor Brienne, 

 "Assembly of Notables," "Parliament of 

 Paris," nor "States General," could ward off 

 the catastrophe; the monarchy was doomed. 

 France travailed in birth of the Republic. 

 It is not for us here to trace the tragic 

 history of the Revolution, nor the horrors of 

 the "Reign of Terror," but it was during 

 those years of political upheaval that a 

 change, no less extraordinary than that 

 which was taking place in the relation of the 

 people to their rulers, was occurring in the 

 world of science, and Paris was the scene of 

 both these revolutions. 



In England, Black and Priestley, by their 

 discoveries in pneumatic chemistry, had 

 paved the way for Lavoisier and his 



