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The Early Disputes between Lavoisier and Monnet, 1777–1781

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Rhoda Rappaport
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Extract

The list of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier's opponents is a long and distinguished one, ranging from Joseph Priestley and Henry Cavendish to Jean-Paul Marat. Among the less distinguished members of this company is Antoine Monnet, a minor chemist and mineralogist whose fame rests in large part on the very fact that he and Lavoisier became enemies. Unlike his better-known contemporaries, Monnet remains almost wholly neglected, and no attempt has yet been made to sort out the issues in his controversy with Lavoisier; instead, Lavoisier's biographers have been content to accept Lavoisier's own version of at least a part of the affair, with the result that Monnet has emerged as the villain of the piece and Lavoisier as the injured victim. The two men probably first came into close contact in 1776 or 1777, the nature of their relationship has remained obscure for the period 1777–1780, and the situation after 1780 has been summarized by biographers in a manner resembling that of Edouard Grimaux:

“ayant en main tous les documents réunis par Guettard et Lavoisier, il [Monnet] ajouta de nouvelles cartes à celles qui étaient déjà gravées, et publia, en 1780, un altas minéralogique incomplet, qu'il signa avec Guettard, tout en s'attribuant la plus grande part du travail. Il cita, il est vrai, Lavoisier comme l'auteur des seize premières cartes, mais il utilisa sans son aveu et sans le nommer les matériaux préparés pour le reste du travail, et négligea d'indiquer que les coupes placées en marge de chaque carte étaient le résultat des nivellements faits au baromètre par Lavoisier. Celui-ci en fut vivement froissé … Il trouva toujours en Monnet un adversaire obstiné qui, en 1798, attaquait encore les doctrines nouvelles en publiant une soi-disant Démonstration de la fausseté des principes des nouveaux chimistes.”

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , June 1969 , pp. 233 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1969

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References

1 Grimaux, , Lavoisier 1743–1794 (2nd edn., Paris, 1896), 25–26.Google Scholar Also, McKie, Douglas, Antoine Lavoisier: Scientist, Economist, Social Reformer (New York, 1952), 70–71Google Scholar, and Duveen, Denis I. and Klickstein, Herbert S., A Bibliography of the Works of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier 1743–1794 (London, 1954), 238.Google Scholar For examples of other controversies, see Daumas, Maurice, “Polémiques au sujet des priorités de Lavoisier”, Revue d'histoire des sciences, iii (1950), 133–155.Google Scholar A striking case of Lavoisier's concern to rewrite his own scientific biography is presented by Guerlac, Henry, “A Curious Lavoisier Episode”, Chymia, vii (1961), 103–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Oeuvres de Lavoisier, 6 vols. (Paris, 1862–1893), v, 221.Google Scholar

3 Monnet, , Démonstration de la fausseté des principes des nouveaux chymistes (Paris, An VI)Google Scholar, passim. Cf. his “Dissertation et expériences relatives aux principes de la chimie pneumatique”, Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, Années [1788–1789], Turin, 1790, pp. 123–205.Google Scholar

3a In later references to the geological survey, both Monnet and Lavoisier paid tribute to Guettard, Monnet including Lavoisier's name once in passing and Lavoisier omitting Monnet entirely. Cf. Monnet's prefatory remarks in the second edition of the Atlas, published after 1794 and described by Rappaport in Duveen, , Supplement to a Bibliography of the Works of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier 1743–1794 (London, 1965), 131–132Google Scholar; and Lavoisier's remarks in Pigeonneau, Henri and de Foville, Alfred, L'Administration de l'agriculture au Contrôle général des finances (1785–1787): Procès-verbaux et rapports (Paris, 1882), 68–69Google Scholar, and Oeuvres de Lavoisier (2), v, 205–206.Google Scholar

4 Cf. Journal de médecine, chirurgie, pharmacie, &c., liv (1780), 559–561.Google Scholar Monnet's journals, now at the École des mines, Paris, must be used with care because, for example, while one series of copies of letters (MS. 5527) is accurate, another (MS. 4672) is full of gross inaccuracies; some of the originals are available for comparison (Archives nationales, F14 1313–1314, Muséum d'histoire naturelle, Paris, MS. 283, and Bibliothèque municipale de Clermont-Ferrand, MS. 1339).

5 The best summaries of Monnet's career are the anonymous eulogy in Annales des mines, ii (1817), 483–485Google Scholar, and the remarks scattered through Aguillon, Louis, “L'École des mines de Paris: notice historique”, Annales des mines, 8e série, xv (1889), 433–686.Google Scholar For the role of Berlin et al. as patrons of science, see Parker, Harold T., “French Administrators and French Scientists during the Old Regime and the Early Years of the Revolution”, in Ideas in History, ed. Herr, Richard and Parker, Harold T. (Durham, N.C., 1965)Google Scholar, and Guerlac, H., “Some French Antecedents of the Chemical Revolution”, Chymia, v (1959), 73–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Journal de Paris, 14 03 1777.Google Scholar The construction of the Atlas is treated by Duveen, and Klickstein, , op. cit. (1), 236–244Google Scholar, and Rappaport, , loc. cit. (3a), 129–132.Google Scholar

7 Copy of a letter dated 30 June 1777, École des mines, MS. 5527, pp. 226–227; the letter includes a summary of Monnet's proposals to Bertin. Monnet was later to repeat the explanation offered Lavoisier, , in Observations sur la physique, sur l'histoire naturelle et sur les arts, xi (1778), 461Google Scholar, and Atlas et Description minéralogiques de la France (Paris, 1780)Google Scholar, v. Bertin's aims in sponsoring the survey are discussed by Rappaport, “Guettard, Lavoisier, and Monnet: Conflicting Views of the Nature of Geology”, to appear in a volume of papers delivered at the New Hampshire Inter-Disciplinary Conference on the History of Geology, 7–12 September 1967; the editor of the volume is Cecil J. Schneer.

8 Oeuvres de Lavoisier (2), v, 216–221Google Scholar, and Pigeonneau, and de Foville, , op. cit. (3a), 72–73, 116–117.Google Scholar Lavoisier expected that errors of observation would be corrected in future editions of his maps.

9 Lavoisier Papers, Academy of Sciences, dossier 636. This dossier contains three documents, two of them partial drafts of the memorandum published in Oeuvres de Lavoisier (2), v, 220–221Google Scholar; one draft refers to a two-year period, a detail not found in the published version. Neither draft is dated, but both were written after the appearance of the Atlas (announced in Journal de Paris, 16 December 1780) and probably before 26 February 1781, the date of the published version.

10 Preceding note (9). The earlier questionnaire is reproduced in Oeuvres de Lavoisier (2), v, 214–216Google Scholar, and can be dated 1771 from the reply in Oeuvres de Lavoisier—Correspondance recueillie et annotée par René Fric, Paris, fase. 2, 1957, 323–326.Google Scholar

11 Guettard, , Mémoires sur la minéralogie du Dauphiné (Paris, 1779), vol. i, pp. cxv–cxxiv.Google Scholar For Guettard's personality, see Condorcet, , “Eloge de M. Guettard”, Histoire de l'Académie royale des sciences, 1786 (1788), 47–62Google Scholar, and Birembaut, A., “L'Académie royale des Sciences en 1780 vue par l'astronome suédois Lexell (1740–1784)”, Revue d'histoire des sciences, x (1957), 161.Google Scholar

12 Atlas (7), x. Monnet was to claim that Guettard had retired from the survey before Monnet took control (ibid., vi, and École des mines, MS. 5527, p. 272)Google Scholar; that this was not true is implied in Monnet's account of their interview. Among the unclassified Guettard papers at the Muséum d'histoire naturelle are unpublished memoirs on the geology of virtually every French province; Guettard's own attempt to have these and other writings published by the Imprimerie Royale failed (Archives nationales, 0'610, pièce 230). Lavoisier was to act as Guettard's scientific executor after the latter's death in 1786 (cf. Muséum, MS. 2188, fols. 30–31, 167, 179), but he, too, failed to publish any of the memoirs. Whether Lavoisier had memoirs of his own to contribute to the survey is uncertain; see Rappaport, , “Lavoisier's Geologic Activities, 1763–1792”, Isis, lviii (1967), 375–384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Observations sur la physique (7), 460.Google Scholar

14 Ibid., 459–462, and xv (1780), 423; Journal de Paris, 26 05 1778; Atlas (7), xii.Google Scholar

15 Lavoisier Papers (9).

16 Rappaport, , loc. cit. (3a), 130–132Google Scholar, and École des mines, MS. 5050, p. 376 (note). Only one of the 10 was in fact revised by Monnet; see below (18).

17 Oeuvres de Lavoisier (2), v, 221.Google Scholar Both Grimaux and McKie (1) use the word “impudence” rather than Lavoisier's “imprudence”.

18 Atlas (7), 181, 198.Google Scholar The two maps of the environs of Paris were published in the second edition of the Atlas; the relevant geological issues are discussed and the maps reproduced in Rappaport, op. cit. (7).

19 In one draft of his memorandum, Lavoisier Papers (9), Lavoisier refers to having deposited data with engraver Dupain-Triel; the phrase was then crossed out and the reference to Monnet substituted.

20 Whether the danger was real or imagined hardly matters, but Monnet's fears are apparent in his correspondence with Necker during the years 1778–1780, École des mines, MS. 5527, pp. 227–229, 232–235, 253–254, 269–270. Bertin formally submitted his resignation only in May 1780, but, as these letters reveal, Necker was earlier assuming a controlling influence, and Monnet's attempts to ingratiate himself began in 1778. Furthermore, despite the actual date of Berlin's resignation, he continued to exert some influence at Court in the 1780's and it is thus possible that Lavoisier's memorandum of 1781 was addressed to him.

21 This case of injustice, referred to again later in the paragraph, is not explained in any of the known documents.