The letter, the dictionary and the laboratory: translating chemistry and mineralogy in eighteenth-century France

SUMMARY

Eighteenth-century scientific translation was not just a linguistic or intellectual affair. It included numerous material aspects requiring a social organization to marshal the indispensable human and non-human actors. Paratexts and actors' correspondences provide a good observatory to get information about aspects such as shipments and routes, processes of translation and language acquisition (dictionaries, grammars and other helpful materials, such as translated works in both languages), texts acquisition and dissemination (including author's additions and corrections, oral presentations in academic meetings and announcements of forthcoming translations).

The nature of scientific translation changed in France during the second half of the eighteenth century. Beside solitary translators, it also happened to become a collective enterprise, dedicated to providing abridgements (Collection académique, 1755–79) or enriching the learned journals with full translations of the most recent foreign texts (Guyton de Morveau's ‘Bureau de traduction de Dijon’, devoted to chemistry and mineralogy, 1781–90). That new trend clearly had a decisive influence on the nature of the scientific press itself. A way to set up science as a social activity in the provincial capital of Dijon, translation required a local and international network for acquiring the linguistic and scientific expertise, along with the original texts, as quickly as possible. Laboratory results and mineralogical observations were used to compare material facts (colour, odour, shape of crystals, etc.) with those described in the original text. By providing a double kind of validation – with both the experiments and the translations – the laboratory thus happened to play a major role in translation.

Acknowledgment

This paper is dedicated to the memory of William A. Smeaton (1925–2001), to whom I would like to express my gratitude. In January 1997, I presented a first paper on ‘L'affirmation internationale d'un centre scientifique de province: Guyton de Morveau et l'office de traduction de l'Académie de Dijon’ at the conference Problèmes de traduction au XVIII^e siècle in Nantes. I did not know at the time that Bill Smeaton had given one about ‘Chemical Translation in Dijon’ six months earlier, at the Third British-American-Canadian Conference in the History of Science, in Edinburgh. When we realized that we had worked on the same topic separately, we exchanged our drafts. Considering that my own research was more advanced, he generously gave up and warmheartedly provided me with further pieces of information. My gratitude also goes to Jean-Luc Clairambault and John Perkins for revising my English, and to the two anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 René Taton, ‘Madame Du Châtelet, traductrice de Newton’, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, t. XXII (juillet-décembre 1969); Judith P. Zinsser, ‘Translating Newton's Principia. The Marquise Du Châtelet's Revisions and Additions for a French Audience’, The Royal Society of London, Notes & Records, 55 (2) (2001), 227–45; Michel Blay, ‘Marat, lecteur et traducteur de l’Optics de Newton’, in L'Optique de Newton, ed. by Françoise Balibar and Michel Blay (Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1989), pp. 433–54; Jean-François Baillon, ‘Retraduire la science: le cas de l’Optique de Newton, de Pierre Coste (1720) à Jean-Paul Marat (1787)’, in Traduire la science, hier et aujourd'hui, ed. by Pascal Duris (Pessac: Publications de la Maison des sciences de l'homme d'Aquitaine, 2008), pp. 69–88.

2 Ferdinando Abbri, ‘Lavoisier e Dandolo. Le edizioni italiane del Traité élémentaire de chimie’, Annali dell'Istituto di filosofia dell'Università di Firenze, 6 (1984), 163–82; Lavoisier in European Context: Negociating a New Language for Chemistry, ed. by Ferdinando Abbri and Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent (Canton, MA: Science History Publications, 1995).

3 S.J. Miles, ‘Clémence Royer et De l'origine des espèces. Traductrice ou traitresse ?’ Revue de synthèse, 4 série, No. 1 (1989), 61–83.

4 Brigitte Lépinette, ‘La traduction de textes scientifiques français au XVIII^e siècle en Espagne. Quelques considérations sur la formation des vocabulaires scientifiques espagnols’, in Europe et traduction, ed. by Michel Ballard (Arras: Artois Presses Université; Ottawa: Presses de l'université d'Ottawa, 1998), pp. 117–36; Traduire, transposer, naturaliser: la formation d'une langue scientifique moderne hors des frontières de l'Europe au XIX^e siècle, ed. by Pascal Crozet and Annick Horiuchi (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2004).

5 For instance: Cultural translation in early modern Europe, ed. by Peter Burke and R. Po-chia Hsia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Cultural transfers: France and Britain in the long eighteenth century, ed. by Ann Thomson, Simon Burrows and Edmond Dziembowski (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2010).

6 That feature was neglected by Scott L. Montgomery, Science in Translation. Movements of Knowledge through Cultures and Time (Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press, 2000), who did not consider intra-European translation. Among the first to investigate that topic were Bertel Linder and William A. Smeaton, ‘Schwediauer, Bentham and Beddoes: translators of Bergman and Scheele’, Annals of Science, 24 (1968), 269–73. On the translations into French, see Patrice Bret and Ellen Moerman, ‘Sciences et Arts’, in Histoire des traductions en langue française. XVII^e-XVIII^e siècle, 1610–1815, ed. by Yves Chevrel, Annie Cointre and Yen-Maï Tran-Gervat (Lagrasse (Aude): Éd. Verdier, 2014), pp. 595–722.

7 Larry Stewart, The Rise of Public Science: Rhetoric, Technology and Natural Philosophy in Newtonian Britain, 1660–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Jan Golinski, Science as Public Culture. Chemistry and Enlightenment in Britain, 1760–1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Oliver Hochadel, Öffentliche Wissenschaft. Elektrizität in der deutschen Aufklärung (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003); Sciences and Spectacle in European Enlightenment, ed. by Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Christine Blondel (Ashgate, 2008); P. Bret, ‘Un bateleur de la science: le “machiniste-physicien” François Bienvenu et la diffusion de Franklin et Lavoisier’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 338 (October-December, 2004), 95–127.

8 Apart from the translations in periodicals, more than a hundred books were translated into French in those fields during the eighteenth century, either in France or abroad (7.5%). The source-languages were German (37.5%), English (31%), Latin (24%), Italian (4%), Swedish, Spanish and Dutch. The authors belonged to the Holy Empire (43%), Britain (28.5%), Sweden (14%), France, i.e. French authors translated from Latin, and Italy (5% each), the Netherlands and Spain.

9 For that reason, Boscovich translated his own Voyage astronomique et géographique from Latin to French in 1770.

10 ‘The smallest number of our French mineralogists knows German, and out of 20, surely 19 will not understand what you print in Zellerfeld’ (Dietrich to von Trebra, [Paris], 6 February 1788: Arch. Dietrich, Reichshoffen, 64/2, pp. 195–6).

11 See Florence Catherine, La Pratique et les réseaux savants d'Albrecht von Haller, vecteurs du transfert culturel entre les espaces français et germaniques au XVIII^e siècle (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2012); Florence Catherine, ‘La traduction, outil d'une circulation orientée des savoirs : le cas des versions françaises des ouvrages d'Albrecht von Haller’, in La traduction comme dispositif de communication dans l'Europe moderne, ed. by Patrice Bret and Jeanne Peiffer (Paris: Editions Hermann, forthcoming); Andrea Bruschi, ‘Langue(s) et traduction(s) dans la correspondance de Lazzaro Spallanzani’, in La traduction comme dispositif de communication dans l'Europe moderne, ed. by Patrice Bret and Jeanne Peiffer (Paris: Editions Hermann, forthcoming) .

12 I am currently working on a complete edition of Guyton de Morveau's correspondence. A first calendar will be issued in Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, in 2016.

13 Regarding translation, especially those of Torbern Olof Bergman in Sweden (G. Carlid and J. Nordström, Torbern Bergman's Foreign Correspondence. (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiskel, 1965)); Richard Kirwan in England, then Ireland (A Scientific Correspondence during the Chemical Revolution: Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau and Richard Kirwan (1782–1802), ed. by Emmanuel Grison, Michelle Goupil and Patrice Bret (Berkeley: Office for History of Science and Technology, University of California (Berkeley Papers in History of Science, 17), 1994); Lorenz Crell in Germany (Archives de l'Académie des sciences, Paris, file Guyton de Morveau [now AdS/GM]), and Francisco Javier Angulo (private collection). The related footnotes referred to those collections.

14 Mainly Pierre-Joseph Macquer (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Manuscrits français 12306, f°123–157; AdS/GM), Claude-Louis Berthollet (AdS/GM) and Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (Œuvres de Lavoisier. Correspondance, vols. 1–3 (1762–83), ed. René Fric; vols. 4–5 (1784–88), ed. Michèle Goupil; vols. 6–7 (1789–94), ed. Patrice Bret (Paris: Albin Michel; Belin: Académie des sciences-Editions Hermann, 1955–2012) (reprint Académie des sciences-Editions Hermann, 2012, 7 vols.). The related footnotes referred to those collections.

15 Other provincial examples have been brilliantly studied for Chemistry by John Perkins, ‘Creating Chemistry in Provincial France before the Revolution: The Examples of Nancy and Metz’, ‘Part 1 Nancy’, Ambix, 50 (2003), 145–81; ‘Part 2 Metz’, Ambix, 51 (2004), 43–75.

16 Pascal Duris, ‘Traduire Linné en français à la fin du XVIII^e siècle’, in Traduire la science, hier et aujourd'hui, ed. by Pascal Duris (Pessac: Publications de la Maison des sciences de l'homme d'Aquitaine, 2008), pp. 89–107.

17 R. Kirwan, An Essay on Phlogiston and the constitution of acids (London: Elmsly, 1787).

18 P. Bret, ‘“Enrichir le magasin où l'on prend journellement:” la presse savante et la traduction à la fin du XVIII^e siècle’ in Les journaux savants dans l'Europe moderne. Communication et construction des savoirs / Scholarly Journals in Early Modern Europe. Communication and the Construction of Knowledge, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, ed. by Jeanne Peiffer, Maria Conforti and Patrizia Delpiano, 63, No. 170–1 (2013), pp. 359–81.

19 See Maurice Crosland, In the Shadow of Lavoisier: The Annales de Chimie and the Establishment of a New Science (London: British Society for the History of Science, 1994).

20 Full bilingual edition by Poinsinet de Sivry, Jault and Querlon (Paris: Vve Desaint, 1771–82), 12 vols.

21 L'Encyclopédie méthodique (1782–1832): des Lumières au positivisme, ed. by Claude Blanckaert and Michel Porret (Genève: Droz, 2006), p. 28.

22 Some 70 leagues (280 kilometres) south-east of Paris and 40 (160 km) north of Lyons.

23 Andreas Önnerfors, ‘Svenska Pommern, Svenska Pommern Kulturmöten och identifikation 1720–1815’ (Lund: Avd. för idé- och lärdomshistoria, Univ., 2003).

24 Gueneau de Montbeillard, ‘Discours préliminaire’, Collection académique, I (1755), p. xxxvij.

25 Ibid. – The reviews in learned journals were most often called ‘Extracts’, even without any quotation of selected passages. For foreign texts, these were often the first printed step of translation – if not the only one.

26 Ibid., p. xxxvij, lj.

27 Recueil des mémoires les plus intéressans de chymie et d'histoire naturelle contenus dans les Actes de l'Académie d'Upsal et dans les Mémoires de l'Académie de Stockholm, publiés depuis 1720 jusqu'en 1760 (Paris: Didot, 1764), 2 vols.

28 Others were Denis Barberet (1714–70), in Dijon, and Jacques Savary (?–1768), in Brest.

29 Collection académique. Partie étrangère, vol. XIII (1779), p. j. Spanish was removed from the list of the mentioned languages; Swedish and Russian were added.

30 Ibid., p. ij.

31 The first attempt, made as early as 1668–70, was a manuscript version entitled ‘Journal d'Angleterre’, probably by four different translators (AdS, 1J19).

32 Anthony Turner, ‘An Interrupted Story: French Translations from Philosophical Transactions in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, Notes & Records of the Royal Society, 62 (2008), 341–54; Jeanne Peiffer, ‘Mettre le lecteur à portée de comparer le Ciel de Padoue à celui de Paris, ou Traduire les Philosophical Transactions en français’, in La traduction comme dispositif de communication dans l'Europe moderne, ed. by Patrice Bret and Jeanne Peiffer (Paris: Editions Hermann, forthcoming).

33 Pierre Demours, ‘Préface du Traducteur’, Transactions philosophiques… (Paris, Briasson, 1759), p. xxxj–xxxij.

34 Natural History, Botany and Agriculture only were translated by Gibelin. Other translators were Reynier (Experimental Physics), Pinel, alone (Chemistry, Anatomy, Animal Physics, Medicine and Surgery) and along with Willemet and Bosquillon (Materia Medica and Pharmacy), Millin de Grandmaison (Miscellanea, Observations and Travels, which belonged to Antiquities and Fine Arts).

35 Abrégé des Transactions philosophiques de la Société royale de Londres (Paris: Buisson, 1787–1791).

36 Morveau to Kirwan, Dijon, 26 September 1786.

37 Morveau to Perceval, Dijon, 31 December 1786.

38 ‘It was on account of this assiduity of the savants of Dijon, in making known whatever was published in foreign countries, that the wits of Paris, on seeing a translation of a scientific work, used to say “cela vient du bureau de Traduction de Dijon”’. Augustus Bozzi Granville, ‘An account of the life and writings of Baron Guyton de Morveau’, Journal of Science and the Arts, 3 (1817), 249–96 (p. 279).

39 Morveau to Bergman, Paris, 20 January 1779.

40 Journal de physique, 3 (March 1774), 209–18; (April 1774), 305–13. For the identification of the translator (‘Mme P…’, and not yet ‘Mme P***, de Dijon’), see Morveau to Macquer, Dijon, 3 September 1782. On Claudine Picardet, née Poulet, later Mme Guyton de Morveau (1735–1820), see P. Bret, ‘Les promenades littéraires de Madame Picardet. La traduction comme pratique sociale de la science au XVIII^e siècle’, in La traduction comme dispositif de communication dans l'Europe moderne, ed. by Patrice Bret and Jeanne Peiffer (Paris: Editions Hermann, forthcoming), pp. 125–52; P. Bret, ‘Mme Picardet, traductrice scientifique ou cosmétique des Lumières?’, Pour la science, 446 (December 2014), 70–5.

41 Dijon Library, Minutes of the Dijon Academy, reg. 16, 13 December 1787. On Virly, see P. Bret, ‘Traduction, correspondances et mobilités autour de la “révolution chimique”: le réseau de Guyton de Morveau et les voyages du Président de Virly’, in La communication en Europe, de l’âge classique au siècle des Lumières, ed. by Jean-Yves Beaurepaire (Paris: Belin, 2014), pp. 150–8; P. Bret, ‘Entre formation et médiation: les voyages d'un minéralogiste amateur, le Président de Virly, 1777–1786’, in Les sciences à l’âge des Lumières, ed. by Anthony Turner (Paris: Editions de l'Amandier (coll. La bibliothèque fantôme), forthcoming).

42 On female scientific translation in 18^th-century France: P. Bret, ‘Traductrices scientifiques’, in Dictionnaire des femmes des lumières, ed. by Valérie André and Huguette Krief (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2015), pp. 1156–61.

43 Journal de Dijon et de la Côte d'Or (21 October 1820), 333.

44 Morveau to Macquer, Dijon, 3 September 1782. From those languages before August 1782 and December 1785 respectively.

45 P. Bret, ‘Stratégies et influence d'une traductrice: Mme Picardet et le Traité des caractères extérieurs des fossiles d'Abraham Gottlob Werner’, in Femmes des sciences de l'Antiquité au XIX^e siècle. Réalités et représentations, ed. by Adeline Gargam (Dijon: Editions universitaires de Dijon, 2014), pp. 177–208.

46 Morveau to Bergman, Dijon, 7 June 1781. See also Morveau to Picot de la Peyrouse, 15 September 1781.

47 Morveau to Bergman, Dijon, 10 October 1781. That odd piece, was Holmberger, ‘Le pan des bœufs, qui indique les plantes que mangent les Bêtes à cornes, & celles qu'elles rejettent’, Journal de physique (June 1782), 448–54.

48 P. Bret (note 18).

49 Morveau, ‘Mémoire contenant des vues pour conserver à la langue française la prérogative d’être la langue universelle’, Journal littéraire de Nancy, XXI (1787), 38–46, 56–64 (written in 1785).

50 Ibid., pp. 44–6.

51 Ibid., pp. 59–60.

52 Ibid., p. 61.

53 In 1784, when the Government wanted to have Rinman translated, Magnien was asked to send a receipt for a previous payment. Morveau to an official in a ministerial administration, Dijon, 11 December 1784 (Archives nationales, F/14/7873).

54 Morveau to Bergman, Au Croisic, 30 August 1783.

55 He translated Thunborg's dissertation in 1783, while Guyton had previously given an extract, then started translating Kirwan's experiments on the attractions of saline and acid substances, which was continued by Bressey, Angulo and Mme Picardet in Dijon, in 1784–85. Marchais was probably recruited by Morveau in Paris.

56 Mongez to Morveau, 3 January 1777.

57 Mongez to Morveau, 22 November 1780; Bergman to Morveau, 18 November 1783.

58 Keiko Kawashima, ‘Madame Lavoisier et la traduction française de l'Essay on phlogiston de Kirwan’, Revue d'histoire des sciences, 53 (2) (2000), pp. 235–63.

59 Morveau to Kirwan, Dijon, 13 December 1787.

60 Mme Lavoisier to Morveau, Paris, 6 September 1788.

61 AdS, Lavoisier 118 D.

62 Ingemar Oscarsson, ‘“…who has had the courage and ambition to learn Swedish.” The Handlingar of the Swedish Academy of Sciences in 18^th century European translations, adaptations, and reviews’, in La traduction au siècle des Lumières. Enjeux et pratiques scientifiques, intellectuels et politiques, 1660–1840, ed. by Patrice Bret and Jean-Luc Chappey, http://www.perspectivia.net/, forthcoming.

63 P. Bret (note 18), pp. 374–5.

64 Journal de physique, 40 (April 1792), 258–70; Opuscules II, pp. 1–27.

65 For the place of translation at the origins of the journal, see P. Bret, ‘Les origines et l'organisation éditoriale des Annales de Chimie (1787–1791)’, in Œuvres de Lavoisier. Correspondance, vol. 6 (1789–1791), ed. by P. Bret (Paris: Académie des sciences, 1997), pp. 415–26, including a revised transcription of the ‘Règlement du 14 janvier 1789’, art. 7 (Arch. École polytechnique, Palaiseau, Fonds Gay-Lussac, IX. GL.5.1, f°65v-66v.), first published by M. Crosland, In the Shadow of Lavoisier (note 19).

66 Morveau to Bergman, 3 June 1780. Six months at least were expected for a book from Britain too: Morveau to Perceval, 15 March 1783 (PRONI, Belfast, D906/202).

67 Morveau to Kirwan, 6 January 1785.

68 Bergman to Morveau, 13 May 1783; to Macquer, 16 April 1782.

69 Crell to Morveau, 19 December 1785.

70 Morveau to Macquer, 3 September 1782, and to Bergman, 14 January 1783.

71 Morveau to Macquer, 22 February 1780.

72 Morveau to Kirwan, 14 June 1785.

73 W.A. Smeaton, ‘Books are added to Guyton de Morveau's Library; A Study of Personal and Academic Communications in 1785’, Ambix, vol. 34 (1987), p. 140–46 (p. 143). See Catalogus librorum uper mortalis Jacobi Reinboldi Spielmann med. et prof. cadem, plusimar. membri publice auctionis lege divendendorum, mense januarii a MDCCLXXXV, Strasbourg, John Heinr. Heiz, 1784.

74 Mongez sent Morveau Vergennes's address (Mongez to Morveau, 30 May 1785).

75 Morveau to Macquer, 6 July 1779.

76 Expériences sur l'air, Londres, E. Cox, 1785.

77 Willemet to Morveau, Nancy, 11 October 1788 and 21 November 1791 (private collection).

78 Fontana to Morveau, 14 February and [late February-early March] 1783 (AdS/GM).

79 Kirwan sent him two volumes of 1784, through a friend of Virly (Kirwan to Morveau, 26 July 1785).

80 Morveau to Kirwan, 30 December 1782. See also 13 December 1787.

81 Morveau to Tingry, 1^st April 1786 (BGE, Geneva, Ms. fr. 2149, f. 166–67); Berthollet to Morveau, Paris, 10 July [1785].

82 Nicander to Morveau, Stockholm, 1^st June 1787 (Dijon Library, Ms. 3113).

83 Danielle Fauque, ‘An Englishman Abroad: Charles Blagden's Visit to Paris in 1783’, Notes & Records of the Royal Society, 62 (2008), 373–90.

84 P. Bret (note 45).

85 Morveau (note 49), pp. 59–60.

86 Macquer to Morveau, Paris, 30 January 1783. However, Morveau demonstrated that the translations from Dijon were better: Journal des sçavans (June 1783), 409–10.

87 Journal de physique, 17 (June 1781), 465–9. Lindblom translated that book from Swedish, as well as the prefaces of the German and English editions, which he criticised while correcting their mistakes.

88 Morveau to Bergman, 22 November 1780. Also Morveau to Picot de La Peyrouse, 15 September 1781 (Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, Paris, Ms 1992, f° 471).

89 Morveau to Bergman, Dijon, 10 October 1781.

90 Morveau to Perceval, 31 December 1781 (PRONI, Belfast, D906/187).

91 Morveau to Picot de La Peyrouse, Dijon 15 September 1781.

92 Already mentioned, section 1.2.

93 Morveau to Bergman, Dijon, 10 October 1781.

94 On the translations of the Handlingar, see Oscarsson (note 62).

95 Abr. M., Sahlstedt, Swensk Ord-Bok, Efter det nu för tiden i Tal och Skrifter brukliga sättet in rättad. — Dictionarium Suecanum, Ad usum in Sermone & Scriptis hodiernum applicatum (Stockholm, 1757).

96 Keralio to Gjörwell, 24 February 1776, quoted by Jean Sgard, ‘Louis Félix Guynement de Keralio, traducteur, académicien, journaliste, intermédiaire’, Dix-huitième siècle, 40 (2008), 43–52 (pp. 47–8).

97 Morveau to Bergman, Le Croisic, 30 August 1783. Levin Möller, Nouveau dictionnaire françois-svedois et svedois-françois. En ny frantzösk och svensk samt svensk och frantzösk lexicon, eller orda-bok. Utgifwen af Levin Möller, Stockholm and Upsal, 1745.

98 Morveau to Bergman, 25 June 1782 and 14 January 1783; Lalande to Morveau, 12 January 1787 (British Library, Add. 21514, f°100); Nicander to Morveau, Stockholm, 1^st June 1787 (Dijon Library, Ms. 3113).

99 Morveau to Macquer, Dijon, 3 September 1782.

100 Morveau to Macquer, 3 September 1782.

101 Morveau to Bergman, Dijon, 22 November and 21 December 1780.

102 Morveau to Bergman, Dijon, 10 October 1781; Bergman to Morveau, Dijon, 12 October 1781.

103 Mainly Asp to Morveau, Paris, 20 August 1785 (Dijon Library, Ms. 3113).

104 Ibid.

105 Morveau to Kirwan, 6 January and 12 March 1785; Kirwan to Morveau, 24 January 1785.

106 Morveau to Bergman, 10 October 1781.

107 Morveau to Bergman, Au Croisic, 30 August 1783.

108 Fontana to Morveau, Florence, 14 February 1783 (AdS/GM).

109 Morveau to Bergman, Au Croisic, 30 August 1783.

110 Morveau to Bergman, Dijon, 24 October 1780.

111 From Le Croisic, 30 August 1783, to Uppsala, 23 September 1783.

112 It was reprinted five years later in the second volume of Opuscules, in which Bergman had included it.

113 Fontana to Morveau, Florence, 14 February 1783 (AdS/GM); Morveau to the authors of the Journal de physique, Paris, 13 May 1783 (Journal de physique, 22 (June 1783), 447).

114 Morveau received them on 20 September 1785 (Morveau to Kirwan, same day). See Trevor H. Levere and Gerald L'E. Turner, Discussing Chemistry and Steam. The Minutes of a Coffee House Philosophical Society, 1780–1787 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Kirwan to Morveau, London, 25 June, and 26 July 1785.

115 See Oscarsson (note 62)

116 Morveau to Bergman, Dijon, 25 June 1782.

117 Bergman to Morveau, 18 November 1783.

118 Wilcke to Scheele, 27 February 1786; Scheele to Wilcke, 12 March 1786 (quoted by Oscarsson (note 62)); Scherer in Weimar did the same with the French National Institute in 1798: Scherer to Guyton, 29 August, 22 September 1798 (private collection).

119 Raffaella Seligardi, ‘The Italian Network and the European Network: Scientific Journals and the Chemical Revolution’, in Les journaux savants dans l'Europe moderne. Communication et construction des savoirs / Scholarly Journals in Early Modern Europe. Communication and the Construction of Knowledge, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, ed. by Jeanne Peiffer, Maria Conforti and Patrizia Delpiano, 63, No. 170–1 (2013), 427–54.

120 He criticised Senebier, who had not given any index in his translation of Spallanzani (Morveau to Kirwan, 12 March 1785).

121 Morveau to Kirwan, 28 February 1786.

122 Morveau to La Rochefoucauld d'Enville, 22 June 1776 (Archives municipales, Mantes-la-Jolie, fonds Clerc de Landresse, No. 1759).

123 On the Estates, see Julian Swann, Provincial Power and Absolute Monarchy: the Estates General of Burgundy, 1661–1790 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). On the courses: William A. Smeaton, ‘Guyton de Morveau's course of chemistry in the Dijon Academy’, Ambix, 9 (1961), 53–69; Nicole Rougetet, ‘Les cours publics de l'Académie de Dijon au XVIII^e siècle’ (unpublished masters thesis, Université de Bourgogne, 1971); Ronei Mocellin, ‘Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau (1737–1816): chimiste et professeur au siècle des Lumières’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Université Paris Ouest-Nanterre, 2009).

124 Morveau to Bergman, 7 June 1781; ‘Observations sur la congelation de l'Acide vitriolique concentré’, Nouveaux Mémoires de l'académie de Dijon (1782), pp. 68–72.

125 Morveau to Bergman, 4 May 1784.

126 Morveau to Kirwan, 20 September 1785.

127 Morveau to Kirwan, 12 March 1785; Crell to Morveau, Helmstedt, 26 August 1786.

128 Phil. Trans., LXXV, part I, pp. 361–5.

129 Kirwan to Morveau, 1^st May 1785 (‘I have almost forgotten to tell you that Mr Fordyce has weighed water in an hermetically closed bottle at the temperature of 0, then reduced to ice at the same temperature, and he found it heavier of 1/4,000 in the state of ice; thus fire is a principle of lightness’).

130 After several experiments on his own (Journal des sçavans (July 1785), 493).

131 Morveau to Kirwan, 14 June 1785. See also Nouveaux mémoires de l'Académie de Dijon (First Semester 1785), p. v, § vi.

132 ‘The same experiment was made in Dijon, in February & March of this year by MM. de Morveau, de Gouvenain & Chaussier (…)’ , Journal de physique, 27 (October 1785), 265–8.

133 Morveau to Kirwan, 20 September 1785.

134 The original phrase ‘au cours de l'année dernière’ could be also translated by ‘in last year's course [of chemistry]’, where the experiments were demonstrated.

135 Morveau to Buffon, 5 December 1782, quoted by Buffon, Histoire naturelle des minéraux (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1786), vol. IV, p. 68; Kirwan to Morveau, 2 May 1782.

136 Morveau to Macquer, 3 September 1782.

137 Morveau to Bergman, 10 October 1781.

138 Dijon Library, Minutes of the Dijon Academy, reg. 12, 21 March.

139 Morveau to Kirwan, 30 December 1782; Journal de physique, vol. 18 (September 1781), 207—21, (December 1781), 467–80; Bergman, Opuscules, vol. 2, pp. 459–517.

140 La Rochefoucauld d'Enville to Morveau, March 1780, quoted by Granville (note 38).

141 Morveau to Bergman, 3 June 1780.

142 Angulo to Morveau, Paris, 12 April and Blois, 23 April 1786. On the laboratory practice in mineralogy, see Sally Newcomb, The World in a Crucible: Laboratory Practice and Geological Theory at the Beginning of Geology (Boulder, CO: The Geological Society of America, 2009).

143 Morveau to an official in a ministerial administration, Dijon, 11 December 1784; Angulo to Morveau, Madrid, 29 November 1786.

144 ‘Translator's Advertisement’, p. xi, in A.G. Werner, Traité des caractères extérieurs des fossiles (Dijon: F.N. Frantin, Mailly; Paris: Onfroy, 1790). See P. Bret (note 45).

145 Werner (note 144), pp. 310--11.

146 P. Bret, ‘Jacques-Pierre Champy (1744–1816), successeur de Lavoisier à la Régie des Poudres et salpêtres, membre de l'Institut d'Egypte’, in Scientifiques et sociétés pendant la Révolution et l'Empire (Paris, Editions du CTHS, 1990), pp. 177–201.

147 First built as a silk farm by Varenne de Béost, who also had a cabinet of Natural History, that house had been later purchased and enlarged by Champy.

148 Journal de physique, 29 (1786), July to November, especially p. 379, footnote 1. De La Métherie and Athénas referred to Champy's notes.

149 Morveau (footnote 49), p. 61.

150 ‘I am still obliged to appeal to friends or dictionary’ to read English (Morveau to Kirwan, 30 December 1782). He was no more fluent three years later (Morveau to Kirwan, 20 September 1785).

151 Morveau to Bergman, 14 January 1783; to La Rochefoucauld d'Enville, 8 January 1785 (Archives municipales, Mantes-la-Jolie, fonds Clerc de Landresse, No. 1759).

152 Only Mme Picardet carried on giving a few translations in the Annales de chimie from 1789 to 1797. Guyton still published extracts of foreign science, now mainly from English, until 1815, a few months before his death.