&gt; butchered to satiate their hatred towards the &quot;elite&quot;<p>The elite are the people at the top.  Being as this head was chopped off in Dr. Guillotin&#x27;s invention at the behest of the people running his country, I&#x27;d say he was no longer part of a noble, elite class when he took his last breath.<p>He may have been smart, but he was not smart enough to avoid being on the violent, rapacious Ferme générale, which expropriated wealth for the king from working people creating wealth.  French society had enough of this parasitism after too many long years, so off to the guillotine with Lavoisier and the king, and good riddance.  Chemistry somehow managed to progress after his death.<p>Nowadays we have the heir LP&#x27;s sending money to VC&#x27;s, &quot;activist shareholders&quot; trying to steal more from the workers at corporations creating wealth, judges and bondholders in the US trying to use their dirty deals with Argentina&#x27;s old junta to steal more from Argentina.  The USA is rife with parasites, and many feel the same way about our modern parasites as those that lead Lavoisier to the guillotine.