Louis Jacques Thénard member of Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Career
In 1804 Vauquelin resigned his professorship at the Collège de France and successfully used his influence to obtain the appointment for Thénard, who six years later, after Fourcroy's death, was further elected to the chairs of chemistry at the École Polytechnique and the Faculté des Sciences. He also succeeded Fourcroy as member of the academy. In 1821, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1825 he received the title of baron from Charles X, and in 1832 Louis Philippe made him a peer of France. From 1827 to 1830 he represented the département of Yonne in the chamber of deputies, and as vice-president of the conseil superieur de l'instruction publique, he exercised a great influence on scientific education in France. He died in Paris on 21 June 1857. A statue was erected to his memory at Sens in 1861, and in 1865 the name of his native village was changed to La Louptière-Thénard.Above all things Thénard was a teacher; as he himself said, the professor, the assistants, the laboratory — everything must be sacrificed to the students. Like most great teachers he published a textbook, and his Traité de chimie élémentaire, théorique et pratique (4 vols., Paris, 1813–16), which served as a standard for a quarter of a century, perhaps did even more for the advance of chemistry than his numerous original discoveries.
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