LAVOISIER 13 



Terrible ! terrible in those days ! Men and women, 

 tied down to a cart (tumbril), were hurried along the 

 streets to the place of execution. Down clanked the axe, 

 and the head of a victim rolled into the corbeille. The 

 joy of the jealous, black calumnies, devilry, the hatred of 

 cowards, the rage and stupidity of the masses, these were 

 the feelings of men in the year 1794 and they triumphed. 



Lavoisier asked for a short time to complete a research 

 in which he was engaged, but Coffinhal (President of the 

 Revolutionary Tribunal) remarked that " la R^publique 

 n'a pas besoin de savants ; il faut que la justice suivre 



son cours." 



On 8th May 1794, the immortal Lavoisier was guillo- 

 tined in the fifty-first year of his age. Calm and resigned, 

 he met his death without flinching, without demonstration, 

 1 knowing that he had done his duty both to the State and 

 to Science. 



Lavoisier was President of the Academic, and a de- 

 putation of its members penetrated the prison and placed 

 wreaths on his grave in the Conciergerie. The name 

 of " Lavoisier " required no embellishment, nor was the 

 sculptor's art needed to perpetuate it in posterity. 



No lengthened scroll, no praise -encumbered stone; 



My epitaph shall be my name alone. Byron. 



As long as chemistry exists the name of " Lavoisier" 

 will always be remembered as the creator of a new era in 

 science ; and as long as the human race is capable of 



