Louis Lefèvre-Gineau

Louis Lefèvre-Gineau (7 March 1751 – 3 February 1829), born at Authe (Ardennes), was a French chemist, scientist and politician.

Of modest origins, he was raised by his uncle l'abbé Meslier, curate of Étrépigny, and became a mathematics teacher for the children of the Baron de Breteuil.

Beginning work with Lavoisier, he studied with him the chemical composition of water. A Deputy under the French Revolution, he was a member of the commission charged to define the metric system and to determine the mass of the kilogram.

From 1788 to 1823, he occupied the chair in mechanics, then general and experimental physics, at the Collège de France, where he was the administrator from 1801 to 1823. He was made a member of the Académie des sciences in 1795. He was appointed inspector-general of education (inspecteur général des études) in 1803, inspector-general of the university in 1808, and inspector-general of the University of Paris in 1815. He was made a Chevalier d'Ainelle under Napoleon's Empire, in 1808.