Ancien régime

“The Year One existed only in retrospect; no one experienced it directly." It wasn't until October of 1793 for the French monarchy to accept Lavoisier as a scientist and look at his work more carefully. The "le principe oxygine", as Lavoisier called it, helped put his permanent mark in the history of science. This principle was first started when Joseph Priestly called it fixed air. Then, Carl Wilhelm called it fire air. Finally, Lavoisier defined it as oxygen and it opened up all new context for which modern chemistry evolved. The French Monarchy started to collect taxes from people and made a company out of it. The company put a tax on salt, tobacco and alcohol, and goods imported to Paris from other places in France. The company was called the general farm and was abolished in 1791 because of mismanagement. Lavoisier ended up being a part of the general farm and turned a profit of 48 million current United States dollars. Antoine Lavoisier was born into a family of lawyers and robins. Lavoisier was the last of these and he preferred work over play. Lavoisier was following in his father's footsteps because he was going to the same college his father went to. He was also going to college for law. Lavoisier was not interested in law, so he studied literature. He got a second place prize in literature for an essay he wrote. Lavoisier's first real look at chemistry was “l’Abbé Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille”, a mathematician and astronomer. Lavoisier learned astronomy, calculus, and Newtonian physics from his teacher. Lavoisier left the college in 1761 and enrolled in a law school like his father would have wanted him to. His father always told him that science is something for leisure time, but never for a profession. Lavoisier was not interested in the law as he was in science. He started learning mineralogy when he went to the Paris law school. He also studied botany with Bernard de Jussieu. “In 1764 Lavoisier received his legal degree and was admitted to the Parlement de Paris." Antoine began working on project with street lighting for his academy. Lavoisier did his experimenting in a dark room and was awarded a gold medal for his studies.