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The day after the guillotining of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, on May 8, 1794, mathematician Joseph Louis Lagrange, a close friend of the man known as the father of modern chemistry (Pasteur called him the lawmaker of modern chemistry) is said to have lamented: "It took them only an instant to cut off that head, but it is unlikely that a hundred years will suffice to reproduce a similar one."

Lavoisier's execution was the culmination of his association with a powerful organisation called the Ferme générale, a franchised customs and excise operation appointed by the King to collect or "farm" duties and taxes and presided over by a finite number of investors and administrators. Lavoisier became a member at the age of 26, in 1768. According to a biography by Jean-Pierre Poirier, by the time the Nicolas Salzard lease of the Ferme générale expired in 1786, Lavoisier had earned the equivalent of $48 million.

Lavoisier used his considerable wealth to fund his obsession with scientific theory. He built a laboratory where he constructed experiments and apparatus which led him to a discovery of the constituent elements of air and water and his version of the law of conservation of mass, which formed the foundation for much of his work.
In his book, Lavoisier: Chemist, Biologist, Economist, Poirier notes that while Lavoisier's contribution to science was considerable, it was more hobby than profession.

As a government-appointed administrator Lavoisier exerted sufficient influence to approve the construction of a wall around Paris with a number of tollgates to monitor the flow of goods into and out of the city and to prevent smuggling, especially of tobacco. Lavoisier was derided for his part in its construction and later denied that he had anything to do with it. He also resisted a plan to relocate the city's abbatoir's beyond the residential areas, where they were the source of disease and pollution, because this would mean that it would make it harder for the Ferme générale to keep an eye on the production of meat. Most of the wall was destroyed during the Revolution.

It is said Lavoisier was particularly loathed by revolutionary leader Jean Paul Marat because he had once mocked one of Marat's inventions. All 28 of the members of the Ferme générale were  arrested, convicted and executed on the same day. When Lavoisier appealed for time to complete some scientific work the presiding judge answered: "The Republic has no need of scientists." His body was thrown into a common grave.   


Portrait of Monsieur Lavoisier and his Wife, Jacques-Louis David. 1788.