Pierre Adet

Pierre-Auguste Adet, chevalier Adet, was a French scientist, politician and diplomat who lived from 1763 to 1834. He worked with Lavoisier on a new chemical notation system, served as secretary to the scientific periodical Annales de chimie, founded in 1789, and showed that glacial acetic acid and vinegar acetic acid were the same substance. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1796. His public career took him from secretary to the Minister of the Navy and the Colonies to commissioner to Saint-Domingue and then French ambassador to the United States, where in the 1796 presidential election he openly backed Thomas Jefferson against John Adams. He later became Prefect of the Nièvre département in 1803 and a member of the Corps législatif in 1809.