His next undertaking was of a more adventurous nature; for, in April 1784, he ascended with the President de Virly in a balloon, and he repeated the experiment in the month of June, hoping to be able to direct his aerial course at pleasure. The balloon appears to have been about thirty feet in diameter ; and, when we consider the action of the wind upon a surface of such extent, we must be aware that every attempt to oppose or modify it must have been perfectly futile. He was visited soon after by the infenious and lamented Mr Tennant, who went to Dijon purposely in order to become acquainted with him, and who had an opportunity to perform some original experiments in his laboratory. He was made a Member of the Royal Academy of Medicine at Paris, in 1786, as a compliment to the merits of his labours for the preservation of the public health. He received a visit, in the succeeding year, at once from MM. Lavoisier, Berthollet, and Fonrcroy, together with Mange and Vandermonde ; and our countryman, Dr Beddoes, who was travelling in France, had the good fortune to join this interesting party, all of them deeply engaged in the discussion of the great chemical questions which were then undecided. In April 1788, Mr Guyton was plac ed on the list of the Foreign Members of the Royal Society of London, and the same mark of respect was also paid him, at different times, by almost all the scientific societies ef Europe.
In September 1791, he was unfortunately elected a member of the Legislative Body, and having also been made Solicitor General of his department, he could no longer continue the chemical lectures, which he had delivered without intermission for fifteen years, and he resigned his chair to Dr Chausier. It must not be omitted by an impartial biographer, that, on the 16th of January 1793, he thought him self compelled to vote with the barbarous majority ; and it is a poor compensation for this fatal error that, in the same year, he resigned a pension of 2000 francs a year, in favour of that republic, to which he had already sacrificed the best feelings of justice and humanity. He afterwards became a Commissary of the Assembly, attached to the army of the Nether lands. In this capacity, besides many other instan ces of personal courage, he is said to have rendered essential service to his countrymen by the construc tion of a balloon, in which he ascended, together with some of the staff of General Jourdan, in order to motions of the enemy during the battle of Pleuras. After his return to Paris, be was pointed Professor of Chemistry in the Ecole Poly leanly:se, and he was an effective cooperator in the first establishment of that useful institution. In
1795, he was again chosen a member of the Assem bly of Five Hundred ; and he was appointed by the government one of the forty-eight Members of the National Institute, then recently embodied. He had for some time been a correspondent, but was never a member, of the Academy of Sciences. His politi cal engagements terminated in 1797, when he re solved to devote himself once more exclusively to science. In 1798, be fulfilled the duties of Director of the Ecole Polytechnique, during the absence of Monge, who was in Egypt, and for whom he insisted that the salary should be reserved. The following year, Bonaparte, then First Consul, made him a General Administrator of the Mint. He received the Cross of the Legion of Honour in 1803, and ob. tained, two years afterwards, still higher rank in the order, particularly as an acknowledgment for the public benefits which bad been derived from his methods of fumigation. In 1811, he was elevated to the dignity of a Baron of the French empire.
From 1798 to 1813, he had continued his labours as Professor of Chemistry in the Ecole Polyieck xigae; he then obtained leave to retire, but he sur vived only a few years, and died of a paralytic affec tion, or rather of a total decay of strength, the 21st December 1815; at a period when he would short ly have bad to encounter the effects of a retributive justice, which would have been very felt at so advanced an age. In stature he was rather be low than above the middle size ; his conversation was animated and copious, his manners courteous and obliging, and he was full of anecdote, and to communicate whatever information he He married, late in life, Madame Picardet, the wi dow of an academician of Dijon, whose tastes and pursuits were congenial with his own, and who had distinguished herself by translating several works of science and of literature from the different languages of the north of Europe. Of his numerous publica tions, a bare catalogue will he amply sufficient to show the extent of his researches and the variety of his pursuits. It is the more necessary to do justice to his diligence and perseverance, as we cannot ea sily point out any one important discovery or inven tion that can be considered as commensurate to the high promise of his early infancy. The article Acta of the Thctionary, and the Methodical Nonsendatsov, must be ranked as the best of his productions, but the character of both these is rather useful than splendid.