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Reform of Weights and Measures in Revolutionary France

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A Brief History of the Metric System

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science ((BRIESFHISTCHEM))

Abstract

Reform of weights and measures was one of the grievances mentioned frequently at the meeting of the Estates General of France in 1789. A project to establish a new system of measures on philosophical principles was begun not long afterward. The project underwent several changes early on, but after the early 1790s its shape changed little even as political turmoil brought violent ends to several of the individuals and institutions involved in it. Definitive meter and kilogram standards were legally adopted late in 1799, just after the fall of the first French Republic. This chapter lays out the story of reform of French weights and measures that led to the metric system as well as shorter-lived changes in organizing the day and the year.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    John Riggs Miller’s book on weights and measures [8] reprints Talleyrand’s proposal in French as well as an English translation of it.

  2. 2.

    By this time, it was known that the earth was not a perfect sphere, that it bulged slightly at the equator. This is responsible for the variation with latitude of the length of a seconds pendulum noted in Sect. 1.4. It also makes degrees of latitude (i.e., along a meridian) differ slightly in length with latitude.

  3. 3.

    Miller published two letters from Talleyrand in his book [8], and he says that Talleyrand graciously credited his speeches in Parliament with inspiring him to raise the subject in the National Assembly (p 28). It seems to me that Miller reads too much into Talleyrand’s statement that he was aware of Miller’s efforts and that he felt it his duty to raise the same matters to the National Assembly (pp 58, 75).

  4. 4.

    Metrologists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries would disagree with this reasoning. Since 1983, the definition of the meter, base unit of length in the SI, is the distance that light travels in vacuum in 1/299792458 s.

  5. 5.

    Except that a thousandth of a meter was called a millimeter.

  6. 6.

    The months have been rendered by various English wags as

    Freezy, Sneezy, Breezy, Wheezy,

    Showery, Lowery, Flowery, Bowery,

    Snowy, Flowy, Blowy, Glowy

    or

    Snowy, Flowy, Blowy,

    Showery, Flowery, Bowery,

    Hoppy, Croppy, Droppy,

    Breezy, Sneezy, Freezy.

    The latter version has been attributed to George Ellis (1753–1815), a satirical poet and member of parliament, but I could not locate the original.

  7. 7.

    Etymologically, the words minute and second as divisions of the hour (or of the degree) derive from the Latin phrases pars minuta prima (the first small part or division) and pars minuta secunda (the second small division). The “thirds” here refer not to 1/3 of a second but to the third small division of the hour.

  8. 8.

    Napoléon Bonaparte (1769–1821) was given the oxymoronic title Emperor of the Republic in May 1804 after having taken power as First Consul in late 1799.

  9. 9.

    The “ordinary” temperature scale is one known today as the Réaumur scale. The centigrade temperature scale had been in use earlier in the eighteenth century elsewhere in Europe.

  10. 10.

    When we last saw Talleyrand early in the revolution, he was Bishop of Autun and a member of the National Assembly in the last days of the monarchy. Now he is foreign minister of the republic under the Directory. He would go on to serve as a diplomat under Consul and then Emperor Bonaparte and then under the restored monarchy.

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  1. Department of Chemistry, Le Moyne College, Syracuse, NY, USA

    Carmen J. Giunta

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Correspondence to Carmen J. Giunta .

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Giunta, C.J. (2023). Reform of Weights and Measures in Revolutionary France. In: A Brief History of the Metric System. SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28436-6_2

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