Note (return) — SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Reading edition
The reputation of Chaptal as a chemist being well established, he was called to Paris in 1793, by the committee of public safety, to be consulted relative to the making of gunpowder and the production of saltpetre. It must be in the memory of all those who recollect the history of the first years of the French Revolution, that the want of saltpetre, the principal ingredient in gunpowder, had nearly put an end to the war; and as France had shut the ports of all nations against herself, no other resource remained but to produce the saltpetre at home. Before Chaptal was sent for, a manufactory, for this purpose, had been established at Grenelles, near Paris; but it was insufficient for the immense demand. Chaptal soon, by his skill and activity, so improved this establishment, that it supplied all that was wanted, and this at a time when France had about 1,400,000 soldiers.3