264 LAVOISIER. 



of his costly apparatus to perform. Twice a week his 

 apartments were thrown open to receive all scientific men, 

 foreigners as well as natives; all were received with the 

 utmost courtesy ; and to young men of merit in straitened 

 circumstances this enlightened and truly liberal person 

 was a generous auxiliary. 



The lustre which his labours had shed over the scientific 

 renown of France, the valuable services which he had 

 rendered to her in so many important departments of 

 her affairs, the virtues which adorned his character and 

 made his philosophy beloved as well as revered, were 

 all destined to meet the reward with which the tyranny 

 of vulgar faction is sure to recompense the good and the 

 wise, as often as the base unlettered multitude are per- 

 mitted to bear sway and to place in the seat of domi- 

 nion their idols, who dupe to betray and finally punish 

 them. The execrable triumvirate in 1794 seized 

 him with twenty-seven others, who had been fermiers- 

 general before the Revolution, an employment he held 

 as it were by inheritance ; they were all flung into prison 

 upon a charge which as against most of them, certainly 

 as against Lavoisier, was ridiculously groundless, that 

 of having mixed water and ingredients hurtful to the 

 health of the citizens for the adulteration of tobacco, 

 one of the objects of the ferme; but their real crimes 

 were their possessions. On hearing of the order for his 

 arrest he fled, and remained for some days in conceal- 

 ment; but understanding that his escape might injure 

 the others, and that among them M. Paulze, his father- 

 in-law, had been arrested, he nobly, though to the 

 sorrow of the sciences, gave himself up and was confined 

 with the rest. He presently perceived that he must 



