"I, the undersigned, promise as soon as my funds in the new lease of the general farms under the name of Laurent David have been secured, to provide Count des Maulde with a delegation of authority before a notary..."
Sold
Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794)
Autographed letter signed.
One page in-4°. Paris. April 6, 1774.
Rare handwritten testimony of the position of tax farmer held by Lavoisier.
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"I, the undersigned, promise as soon as my funds in the new lease of the general farms under the name of Laurent David have been made, to provide the Count des Maulde with a delegation of my advance funds up to thirty-one thousand livres as security for the same sum which he has taken from my father and me for our private affairs according to the obligation executed before Master Garnier Deschesne, notary in Paris, today, and to deposit with the said Master Deschesne, as security for the said delegation, a transfer of the sum of thirty-one thousand livres to remain in his hands until the repayment of the said obligation. In Paris, this sixth of April, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-four. Lavoisier"
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In 1770, Lavoisier acquired the position of tax farmer. It was this position that led to his major scientific discoveries in chemistry. Assigned to the secretariat responsible for collecting taxes at the Paris city toll, he had access to a scale used to detect fraud, the most precise in Europe, and it was this scale that he used to perform molecular weighings of various gases with a margin of error unmatched until then.