Lavoisier’s execution stemmed from his tax-collector post rather than his chemistry

Evidence

Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743 94), French chemist, described by Engels as “the first to place all chemistry, which in its phlogistic form had stood on its head, squarely on its feet”. Lavoisier was executed, not for his ideas, but because in order to finance his experiments he had obtained the hated post of fermier-general of taxes. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2671