Creating Chemistry in Provincial France before the Revolution: The Examples of Nancy and Metz. Part 1. Nancy

Abstract

This paper uses case studies of the cities of Nancy and Metz to demonstrate that chemistry was established as a thriving public science in the French provinces in the last decades of the old regime. It shows that physicians and apothecaries were key figures in this development. I argue that a detailed study of how such minor figures as Henry Michel du Tennetar and Pierre François Nicolas in Nancy constructed their public lives and careers can help us to a broader analysis, one that is not exclusively metropolitan, of the social, cultural, economic and political forces that shaped chemistry in France in the period of the Chemical and French Revolutions.