ing to M. F. Hoefer, in the "Biographie générale," gave him a place in the front rank of the economists of his time. He participated in the work of the commission on a new system of weights and measures. As treasurer of the Academy he set the accounts and inventories in order, and discovered some forgotten funds of the institution, and made them available. "In short, Lavoisier was to be found everywhere; and his facility and zeal, equally admirable, were adequate for everything."
On the 2d of May, 1794, twenty-eight of the farmers-general, of whom Lavoisier was fourth on the list, were accused in the Convention of conspiring with the enemies and against the people of France. On the 6th of May they were all condemned to death, and on the 8th were executed together. Lavoisier and his friends hoped that his great scientific eminence and the undoubted useful character of his career might be brought to bear to save him. Some efforts were made to exert such influence. Lavoisier himself drew up a memoir of what he had done for the Revolution. The Bureau of Consultations presented a detailed report on his labors. A deputation of the Lycée des Arts visited him at the Conciergerie, bearing "to Lavoisier, the most illustrious of its members," a testimonial of its admiration.
Lavoisier left no children. He is described as having had a pleasing, intellectual face, and having been of large figure and of pleasant, sociable, and obliging disposition.
His most important works were: "Opuscules physiques et chimiques" ("Physical and Chemical Worklets," 1774), "Méthode de Nomenclature chimique" ("Method of Chemical Nomenclature," 1787), "Traité élémentaire de Chimique" ("Elementary Treatise on Chemistry," 1789). A complete edition of his works, published by the French Minister of Public Instruction, 1804-'68, included these books, fifty-eight memoirs communicated to the Academy of Sciences between 1770 and 1790, and numerous notes, letters, and reports relating to the various affairs in which he was engaged. He had himself begun to prepare a collection of his works, the completed portions of which were published by his widow in 1805 in two volumes entitled "Mémoires de Chimie."
