Poor Old Marat I Think Not

Jean-Paul Marat is considered today to have been a minor scientist and was so judged by the Academie des Sciences over two centuries ago. He remains, however, famous and infamous as an impassioned and uncompromising Friend of the People —a major actor in the triumphs, excesses, and tragedies of the French Revolution. Although Marat himself was murdered on July 13, 1793, some 10 months before the execution of Lavoisier, he certainly helped to inflame passions and create the atmosphere that led the brilliant aristocrat to the guillotine on May 8, 

Marat s attempt for recognition by the French Academy of Science was re- 

Poirier uses Cultural Revolution to describe France s revolt against the intellectual authority of knowledge similar, by implication, to that seen in China during the 1960s. The Academy s 1784 criticism of mesmerism, in which both Lavoisier and Franklin played lead roles, was now attacked as elitist. Two excerpts from Marat s 1791 pamphlet Les Charlatans Modernes illustrate the vulnerability of the academicians  

At the head of them all would have to come Lavoisier, the putative father of all the discoveries that have made such a splash. Because he has no ideas of his own, he makes do with those of others. 

Recall that this was after Lavoisier had totally revolutionized chemistry. Marat s description of the Academy was no less demagogic  

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