Through the lens of the Parisian chemist Jean Hellot (1685-1766), this thesis explores the interactions between scholarly practices, economic thought, productive relationships, and the environment in the 18th century. Jean Hellot is renowned for his scholarly and technological involvement in the politics of the French Kingdom, when his expertise was mobilized by the French Académie des sciences and by the State, through the trade and industry authorities, in the fields of textile dyeing, mining, coinage, and porcelain, all subjects of keen interest to administrators in the Age of Enlightenment. Hellot is a typical example of a scientific advisor at the service of the state and industrial development, a figure analyzed in historiographical studies at the crossroads of science, technology and economic history. Beyond the posture of the scientist who, through scientific tools, justifies and legitimizes state policy, this thesis also examines the way in which 18th-century chemists imposed their own economic and productive vision.
In addition to the purely technical or scientific considerations that would be decisive in the use or improvement of the arts of dyeing, the manufacturing of porcelain, or mining, Jean Hellot formalized a science of testing that embraced environmental and commercial issues linked to the intensification and globalization of trade which, fueled by colonial prospecting, confronted the scientist with new resources and techniques. From the 1750s onwards, production and economic doctrine were marked by a period of transition, often described as the rise of liberalism. Rather than opposing mercantilist Ancien Régime of production, with that of the liberal "market", this thesis reveals the way in which powers were reconfigured, and places the focus on the chemical expertise, which was deployed outside the space of the laboratory. Whether evaluating goods, providing solutions to environmental problems or nurturing the promise of an energy transition based on coal, the chemist Hellot already justified a "naturalization" of the intensification of resource exploitation and the collateral effects of chemical and dye industrialization.