Balthazar Georges Sage

Balthazar-Georges Sage was a French chemist who was a founder of the Paris Ecole Royale des Mines. He held a powerful position and was influential in preventing advances in chemistry in France by his insistence on supporting outdated ideas, such as the phlogiston theory, in the face of evidence to the contrary provided by his contemporaries who included Antoine Lavoisier. He also opposed reform in chemical naming. Some historians have called him a "false scholar".