Lavoisier and the General Farm

In his career as Farmer-General, the great chemist Lavoisier, exemplified the professionalism and dedication to public service shared by so many of the Farm's senior administrators in the last years of the Ancien régime.  Far from regarding his involvement with the Farm as merely a source of income,  Lavoisier brought his huge energy and intellect to bear on its problems with every bit as much seriousness and zeal as he showed in his scientific work.  

Lavoisier enters the Farm

 Portrait of Lavoisier by Jean-Baptiste Greuze
Private collection,
see Beretta, Imaging a career in science (2001), p.3-4. 

At the age of twenty-four, Lavoisier had inherited a personal fortune from his mother,  but was still in need of  income to secure his long term financial independence and meet the considerable expenses of his scientific research.  Shortly after his election to the Academy of Science in March 1768,  a relative of his father's, Antoine Chaumont de La Galazière, the former Chancellor of Lorraine, advised him that one of the Farmers General, the seventy-four year old  François Baudon, wanted to sell his share in the Company.  Lavoisier bought into the Farm, first as adjunct to Baudon, and eventually, on Baudon's death in 1779, as a full Farmer-General. 

Anecdotal evidence suggests that Lavoisier's scientific colleagues were worried that his new responsibilities would prove too great a distraction,  though the geometer Fontaine quipped: "So much the better, the dinners which he gives us will be much improved" (quoted Grimaux, p.32) 

Nor were the benefits of being a Farmer-General merely financial;  Lavoisier was now marked out for a high-ranking government post - though, in the event, this ambition was never realised:

His administrative career began in 1769; M. de la Galazière succeeded in getting him entry, despite all the objections raised against admitting a young scholar, who had only a year previously been admitted as Adjunct member of the Academy of Sciences.  M.de la Galaizière insisted to the abbé Terry that Lavoisier could render service to the State by simplifying parts of the Farm's administration.  Several years later the abbé Terray and the duc d'Aiguillon, who had replaced the duc de Choiseul, congratulated themselves of the administrative services rendered by Lavoisier.  They told M de la Galaizière that they intended to give his young relative the post of  maîtres des requêtes, so that he could become an intendant of finance, with a view to entering the Ministry.  This project was never realised;  Louis XV died and the abbé Terray was replaced by Turgot.
 E. Chevreux, Journal des Savants, November 1859, p.711.

Tours of inspection

 As was the custom, Lavoisier began his career with tours of inspection. These occupied the greater part of his time in 1769 and 1770.  He travelled extensively through Picardy, Champagne and the Ardennes, mainly reporting back to the Commission des tabacs on the manufacturies and the performance of the customs police.

The indefatigable Lavoisier still attended sessions of the Academy of Science and, whilst on the road, continued his mineralogical observations, addressed local academies, and conducted experiments.  But he was occupied chiefly with the business of the Farm.  A voluminous correspondence survives between Lavoisier and his immediate superior in the Tabacs, his future father-in-law Jacques Paulze de Chasteignolles.  Paulze emphasised to the young man the need for irreproachable standards of morality and cautioned against gambling.  He advised him to take the time to study the population, industries, trade, communications, workforce and salaries in each town to be inspected.  The series of brief reports which Lavoisier prepared show him to have been an astute and thorough observer.  In one small village, he  even stayed overnight in the home of a customs official: "One can learn a great deal from subordinates when one can put them at ease". (Poirier,  p.24)

In the summer of 1770 Lavoisier was accompanied for the first fortnight of his tour by three colleagues Jacques Delahante, Parseval and the younger Bouilhac.  These were serious men.  We glimpse them, solemnly reading reports  to one another  while awaiting dinner, - Lavoisier himself delivered a memoir on the cultivation of tobacco. (Grimaux, p.33). 

Private life of a Farmer-General

 At Paulze's residence Lavoisier came into contact with many men prominent in wider government circles: the abbé Terray, who was a distant relative, Turgot, Dupont, Trudaine de Montigny, Véron de Forbonnais; also civil servants such as Bertin, Sartine and Malesherbes,  and the Academicians: d'Alembert, Condorcet and Bernard de Jussieu.  Paulze also knew the abbé Raynal, whom, as a director of the Compagnie des Indes,  he had helped with his researches. (Poirier, p.37-38)

The story of Lavoisier's marriage is too well-known  to need much retelling.  Lavoisier obligingly stepped in to rescue Paulze's thirteen-year-old daughter Marie-Anne-Pierrette from the clutches of Terray's prospective bridegroom, the comte d'Amerval, an unappealing roué in his fifties.  It was to prove an advantageous and felicitous match.  More than two hundred persons of distinction assembled on 4th December 1771 at the Hotel d'Aumont to witness the marriage contract.  

Marie Lavoisier self-portrait
 (Private collection)

Lavoisier's biographer, Jean-Pierre Poirier (p.40) provides us with the sums: Marie Anne brought a dowry of 80,000 livres; Lavoisier mustered 170,000 livres from his private fortune, 250,000 livres as advances from his father and 50,000 promised as an inheritance by an aunt. He was therefore much wealthier than his bride, but he owed a million livres on his half share in the Farm.  After paying the interest on the loans, his actual income was about 20,000 livres which (says Poirier) allowed the young couple to live very comfortably.  Lavoisier's father bought them a house in the rue Neuve-des-Bons-Enfants. In 1772, three years before his death, his father also purchased for his son the office of Conseiller-Secrétaire du Roi which conferred a hereditary title of nobility.  In March 1775  Lavoisier was appointed by Turgot as director of the newly reorganised Royal Gunpowder Administration  and moved to a house in the Arsenal, where he was still living in 1793. The couple divided their time  between Paris and the estates at Freschines, which Lavoisier acquired in 1778. The Arsenal residence, with its extensive chemical laboratory,  rapidly became an epicentre for the scientific community of the capital.

In order to fulfil his administrative commitments and still have time for scientific research, Lavoisier imposed upon himself a remorselessly disciplined schedule. His wife reports that, at the Arsenal, on weekdays he rose at five, did scientific work from six to nine, and again in the evening from seven to ten.  During the day he went first to the Farm, then in the afternoons divided his time between the Gunpowder Administration and the Academy of Science. Only Saturdays were entirely devoted to the convivial pleasures of work in the laboratory with like-minded friends. (Poirier, p.95-6)

Later career in the Farm

Edouard Grimaux estimated that between 1768 and 1784 Lavoisier earned 1,200,000 livres from the Farm - a substantial income by any standards.

Under the Lease David negotiated by Turgot in 1774, he began to play a major role in the Farm's administration.  As well as his continuing involvement with the tobacco monopoly, he was a member of several comités and  a "correspondant" with a wide ranging remit: in this capacity continued to travel on behalf of the Farm. He was particularly charged with overseeing the entry taxes into Paris and the accounts of the saltworks of Franche-Comté and Lorraine.  He also managed the accounting and personnel of the Farm itself, which meant, in effect, he controlled the salaries of 30,000 men. 

Lavoisier worked to rationalise tax collection and improve perceptions of the Farm; according to his wife, "If the laws he was obliged to make acceptable were sometimes too severe, his efforts tended to make them gentler". (Quoted Grimaux p.79). He also used his technical understanding to make material improvements. In the salines, he investigated wood consumption and analysed the chemical composition of different types of salt.  At the Tabacs, he favoured the import of leaf tobacco from Virginia and, like Jacques Delahante, advocated a monopoly on snuff grating within the manufacturies.  with the unfortunate result that the Farmers themselves were often accused of fraudulent "moistening". 

During the ministry of Turgot's successors, Lavoisier continued to accrue power and influence.  At the height of his career in 1788 he held five public posts.  He was particularly valued as director of the Gunpowder and Saltpetre Administration, where he was able to double production. In 1780, as a full member of the Company, he became one of the forty Farmers-General to share in the Lease Salzard. His contribution was crucial to the realignment of the Farm with royal government.  In 1783 d'Ormesson gave him a place on the comité des caisses which directed the Farm and controlled its relations with the Ministry. 

Wall of the Farmers-General

Lavoisier's last major project as member of the Farm, was his involvement with the notorious Wall of the Farmers-General.

Lavoisier later recalled that it was Turgot who, during his brief ministry, had first suggested building a new customs wall around Paris.  Lavoisier incorporated the proposal into awider memoir on the revenues of the capital, in which he estimated that a fifth of goods entered illicitly either through  direct smuggling or abuse of corporate privileges.  His report disappeared into the files of the Farm for some time but  was revived in 1783  by his younger colleague Mollien, who had it brought to the attention of Calonne.  The wall was  constructed and initially financed by the Company of Farmers-General, but was ultimately to be  paid for by the Royal Treasury as part of the capital of the Farm.  Ledoux, who was named as the architect, did not balk at committing 30 million livres to his grandiose plans.

Much of the invective excited by the Wall targeted Lavoisier personally -  a particularly vituperative pamphlet Delaure even accused the great chemist of depriving Paris of air. 

Rare example of the notorious pamphlet by Jacques-Antoine Dulaure, currently for sale with Bonnefoi Livres, Paris.
The author addresses Lavoisier: You, vile inventor of a tyrannical project, who have no fear of sacrificing the honor and life of your fellow citizens to your insatiable greed, be assured that whatever the titles with which you adorn yourself, the riches with which you glorify yourself, only hate and disgrace await you. The Farm owes you gold, but the country owes you its curse. You are guilty of the new oppression exercised by the financiers against your fellow citizens. The calamities that will result from it, the epidemics, the deaths of numerous men caused by unhealthy air, the misfortunes, the disorders inevitable in an over populated and sprawling city will be your crimes. (quoted Poirier, p. 172)

There is every sign that  Lavoisier completely by surprise by the strength of public reaction. In his eyes, the goal of improved administrative efficiency was a laudable one.  As Poirier points out  his outlook was fundamentally in tune with Ledoux's vision: 

"Architecture was an art that appealed to him since it was characterised by calculation order and symmetry; it was serious and its creations were meant to endure.  Given Lavoisier's attitude, the monumental character of these pavilions built to serve as tollgates becomes more understandable.  Lavoisier had been consulted about them, as was normal since he was the author of the project.  He had even had the idea of surrounding the wall with a circular boulevard for heavy hauling, forbidden within Paris.  Besides, had he not studied the proposal for the circular hospital on the Île aux Cygnes, and built warehouses and factories for the Gunpowder and Tobacco administrations?" 
(Poirier, Lavoisier, p.171-2)

References

Edouard Grimaux Lavoisier, 1743-1794 (1888)  [Internet Archive] - the monumental 19th-century biography based on archival sources. 

There are several modern biographies in English, available for loan on Internet Archive. The most up-to-date and detailed is:

Jean-Pierre Poirier Lavoisier: chemist, biologist, economist (Engl. trans. 1998) [Internet Archive]

Poirier, who is a member of the Comité Lavoisier of the French Academy of Sciences,  has also created a wide-ranging website  Les Amis de Lavoisier / Lavoisier's Friends, with extensive biographical notes. 

http://historyofscience.free.fr/

For a summary of modern assessments of Lavoisier's career, Danielle Fauque, "Lavoisier, deux cent ans après: à propos des ouvrages du bicentenaire", Revue d'histoire des sciences. 1995, vol.48(1/2) p.143-69 [Open-Access article]

https://www.persee.fr/doc/rhs_0151-4105_1995_num_48_1_1226