Jesuitic connections, tenets, and zeal. The | He had become so enamored of science that lady, not being interfered with at first, de- he resolved to devote his life to it. No arguvoted her son by some formal act to the ment was of the least avail. The plan of special service of the Virgin, and, the better taking orders was again urged by the mother, to guard his consecrated infancy, had him and the Bishop now sided with her; but the clothed like a girl. Till his twelfth year he young gentleman had already adopted liberal was constantly disguised in a white frock notions on the subject of religion, and would and petticoat, and had little misses for his on no account listen to them. In a letter to only playmates-a probation sufficient, in M. Turgot, of 1775, he states that his creed was Arago's opinion, to account for some pecu- settled by the age of seventeen. He appears liarities both in the physique and the morale to have left the college in 1762, and anof his manhood. The abstinence from all nounced his resolution to depend on his own rude, boyish sports, we are told, checked the resources-from which it may be inferred proper muscular development of his limbs; that he had seriously displeased the Bishop, the head and trunk were on a large scale, though they became good friends afterward. but the legs were so meagre that they seem- The Biographie Universelle states that his ed unfit to carry what was above them, and earliest patron was the Duke de la Rochefouin fact he never could partake in any strong cauld, and that through his influence he soon exercises, or undergo the bodily fatigues to obtained "some pensions:" but M. Arago, which healthy men willingly expose them- though he more than once describes the Duke selves. On the other hand, he had imbibed as his "best friend," makes no allusion to the tender-heartedness of a delicate damsel- this circumstance of "pensions," which, if retaining to the last, for example, a deep true, is a rather important one. horror for inflicting pain on the inferior animals. M. Arago quotes more than one letter in which he signifies that tyrannical man makes free with the life of sheep and bullocks merely in consequence of the want of foresight on the part of those victims;-the inference would be that he never ate beef or mutton-but of such practice the history affords no trace. As to insects, says M. Arago, "he never would kill them, unless, indeed, they occasioned him particulur inconvenience;" but this, we suspect, might be said of every man in the world except Caligula and the entomologists. When he had reached his twelfth summer, the episcopal uncle protested against the petticoats, and the gracility of his lower fabric was for the first time revealed to common eyes when he removed to the Jesuit seminary at Rheims. The mother wished him to prepare for a clerical career, but the Caritats strongly disapproved of this, and it was settled that he should follow the paternal profession of arms, of which, as the Bishop observed, many of the most illustrious ornaments, Condé, for instance, had been trained under the Company of Jesus. At this school, Condorcet made rapid progress-in mathematics especially-and being transferred in 1758 to the College of Navarre at Paris, he there also carried off the highest prizes year after year, and became decidedly the most distinguished of its alumni. One of his prizeessays was read in the presence of D'Alembert, who prophesied that the youth would by and bye be an honor to the Academy. D'Alembert had never, it seems, lost sight of him, and to his encouragement and advice he now owed much; but his talents were early ripened, and in fact within the next three years he placed his reputation as a man of science as high as it ever was to be. It is no wonder that most exalted anticipations were formed, and we think it quite possible that if he had adhered steadily to his first line of study he might have left a name worthy of ranking with the Lagranges and Laplaces; but there are, we believe, few who now, measuring his actual attainments, place him in the first class of mathematicians: Arago evidently does not. He had the advantage of appearing at a season very favorable for the exercise of ingenuity, when the Calculus was in rapid development, and there was something for any sharp eye to discover. These eras are the Californias of science: a new source of wealth is opened which the first comers gather-and then follows a period of severer toil and slender gains until a fresh and unwrought region is again disclosed. Condorcet was an eager adventurer, but he found grains rather than lumps, and above all, he did not persevere. His chief efforts were directed to extending the scope of the Calculus-to bring it to bear upon cases in which it had previously proved unmanageable. Unfortunately, however, his most ambitious formula are precisely those of which the value is most doubtful. He never attempted to apply them himself, and we believe they have not proved of the slightest service to the world. It may, we think, be asserted safely that science would have stood | implored Condorcet to find some substitute where it does if he had never lived. Skillful at the Academy, and undertake the care of analyst as he was, he discovered no new the invalid during a winter of Italy. The principle-no great step can be ascribed to Secretary agreed to make this sacrifice, and him. We observe that considerable impor- the pair started but their reception at Fertance is still attached by some English wri- ney was so delightful that week after week ters to his Essay on the application of the passed away there until it was thought too Calculus to judicial questions. He was not late for crossing the Alps, or the restoration the first who worked on that ground-and of D'Alembert seemed to authorize a return if he went much more into detail than the to Paris. This introduction to Voltaire detwo or three who had preceded him, he has termined the future career of Condorcet. in the sequel been very largely distanced, From that time, if he did not lay aside his especially in our own time, by Poisson. His abstract science, at least he gave up all notreatise is very ingenious, and we may say tion of forwarding its march, and contented amusing, but there is a radical flaw in all himself with noting and recording, in a style tentamina of the class-there are not, and of distinguished excellence, the trophies never can be, real data for the application of erected by steadier enthusiasts. Voltaire had the mathematical theory of probabilities to been much struck with his literary facility, judicial decisions, or to any other questions and inoculated him effectually with the pasin which allowance must be made for the in- sion for philosophical proselytism. In a word, calculable variety in the talents, attainments, he was now to be one of the most active and moral qualities of men. But we do not contributors to the Encyclopédie; and Didepresume to dissert on a subject as to which rot, &c., became his most intimate companthose who wish to pursue it can consult a ions at Paris, while his correspondence with scientific authority so high as M. Arago's. Ferney continued to the close of Voltaire's We merely repeat that at best he exhibited life to be close and confidential. The King of sagacity in a comparatively new application Prussia in due time honored him with many of the theory of probabilities. What imme- flattering communications. He was recogdiately concerns us here is, that when hardly nized throughout Europe as among the ablest beyond the limit of manhood, he had already agents of the Anti-Christian Conspiracy. established a brilliant reputation. The Academy of Sciences soon chose him for their Assistant-Secretary. Having filled up with applause a large hiatus in the academical Eloges, he not long afterward was elected Perpetual Secretary-and in that capacity produced a very extensive series of similar panegyrics, some of which may still have a high degree of interest for a limited class of readers. The emolument of his office was not much, but the position was considered enviable-it gave him every opportunity of familiar intercourse with the lights of philosophy, and through them an easy introduction to the saloons and suppers of the influential ladies who had embraced the doctrines of the sect, and not a few of whom had condescended to form tender connections among its Coryphæi. Until 1770 he had continued to give his more serious hours to his mathematics; but very unluckily as we believe for his ultimate fame-in the summer of that year his ambition received a new turn. D'Alembert had fallen into a condition of nervous irritability which afflicted all his friends, and grievously alarmed his celebrated amie, Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse. She urged on him the temporary abandonment of his diagrams, and Voltaire's letters seem, in England at least, to be very little read in comparison with some other classes of his writings; and we wonder this should be so-for not only are they essential to the understanding of his actual proceedings, but many of them are hardly below any productions of his pen in the felicity of execution. When he is addressing a friend-not a King, or Prince, or great lady-we may almost always fancy that we hear him talking at his own fireside. The ease and also the elegance are consummate—they are on a par with the undisturbed self-esteem, the unwearied self-seeking, the untameable vivacity and the insatiable malignity of the man. The letters to Condorcet, and especially the new ones (which it is not difficult to account for Condorcet's suppression of during his lifetime), bring out some peculiar traits-illustrating very satisfactorily the profound self-control, without which no man can maintain himself through a series of years as the head of an energetic party. What Condorcet says (in a note to Turgot) of some of his pamphlets, is especially true of his letters to the juniors of his sect: these things are not done pour la gloire, but pour la cause-we must not consider him as author, but as apostle;" his heart was in his pen-he never lost sight of | probable confidants-but the burden is althe purpose. M. Arago, whose conclusions as to the affairs of stars and their satellites few will question, extols the good nature of Voltaire as shown in these documents: we admire the politeness, the good sense-the far-seeing impervertible adroitness of the venerated chief. He had long before this time commended the saying of a monarch who practiced what he preached-L'esprit des hommes puissans consiste à répondre une polilesse à une impertinence ;—but this was not a mere matter of manners. He was too wise not to appreciate the importance of such a resident at Paris as he had hit on in Mr. Secretary Condorcet-a sharp, cool-headed man-thoroughly imbued with écrasez l'infame, but certain, unless his own authorly self-love were involved, to see more clearly than even an Argus at a distance could do, what would be the practical effect of any specific publication at any specific time on the mind of the Parisians. In every one instance, accordingly, when Condorcet suggests a pause or an alteration, the great leader complies and that with such apparent frankness and simplicity of tone that we have no doubt many contemporary astronomers put the same interpretation that M. Arago does now on these astutest of rescripts. On the other hand, as M. le Marquis became more and more deeply engaged in the warfare of the Encyclopedists, it was not seldom the part of "le Vieux de la Montagne"-as by a curious coincidence the founders of the future Mountain called him-to whisper caution from his remote citadel. When he himself in these latter days was resolved to issue anything that he knew and felt to be pregnant with combustion, he never dreamt of Parishe had agents enough in other quarters, and the anonymous or pseudonymous mischief was printed at London, Amsterdam, or Hamburgh, from a fifth or sixth copy in the handwriting of some Dutch or English clerkthence by cautious steps smuggled into France—and then disavowed and denounced by himself, and for him by his numberless agents, with an intrepid assurance which down to the last confounded and baffled all official inquisitors, until, in each separate case, the scent had got cold. Therefore he sympathized not at all with any of these, his subalterns, when they, in their own proper matters, allowed themselves a less guarded style of movement. On one occasion Condorcet's imprudence extorts a whole series of really passionate remonstrances to him and his ways the same "Tolerate the whispers of Among the inedited essays is one on the 66 It Our readers would not much thank us for entering into other points of Condorcet's programme, on which Arago enlarges with a zest and sometimes with a bitterness that must have been prompted by feuds less remote than those of D'Alembert and Buffon. The pure mathematicians were in those days little disposed to acquiesce in the high pretensions of zoologists, geologists, or any of the kindred classes now so esteemed and the Patriarch of Ferney countenanced them. "A grand reputation," he says in one of these letters to Condorcet, is not to be acquired more easily than by demonstrating how the globe was constructed, or describing a new species of bug." We understand better the importance which Voltaire's immediate disciples attached to their Academies than the revelation of the same sort of feeling in Condorcet's new biographer. In those days the philosophers had a serious battle to fight, and it was of vast consequence that the troops should know each other, have confidence in their officers, and omit no art to inveigle follies or neutralize influences. At present, as against the great original objects of hostility, the battle has been fought out and won-or if anything in the nature of a prejudice ecclesiastical, aristocratical, or monarchical, still shows a sign of life, there are facilities enough for assailing such obstinate remnants elsewhere than in assemblies professedly devoted to the advancement of scientfic researches. At all events, it was sufficiently so in France when M. Arago wrote this Life. Here no motives of the class now alluded to have ever been even suspected; nor, until rather recently, were any of the educated classes of Englishmen apparently much given to those appetites for garrulous congregation and pompous exhibition that have from Julius Cæsar's time to President Buonaparte's distinguished the theatrical nation so near to us in locality and in everything but thought, sentiment, taste, and manners. We are at a loss to account for the change so visible, and not doubting that there is a mixture of good in almost every novelty, we own we on the whole continue to regret this one. You hear and read eternal vituperation of the Royal Academy in Trafalgar Square; but, whatever may be the defects in its construction, we could wish to see certain great features of its practical system imitated by bodies which assume to be of statelier importance, and, unlike it, reserve their chairs for Cavoyes. The R. A.'s work each at home in his own studio; once a year they allow each other and all the world to see what they have been doing, and the Exhibition is opened with a dinner, to which they invite such grandees as have acquired a reputation for what our antique friend Sir Thomas Urquhart calls "an emacity" in the department of modern master-pieces, or for being likely, in case of any parliamentary caviling, to indicate a just recollection of the turtle and the fraternal hour. These seem sensible arrangements. What good could come of meeting one night every week in the season to parade sketches and models? Does anybody suppose that a really fine statue or picture would gain by such a process? Does anybody doubt that at the end of the year there would be a fierce and degrading clamor about stolen hints? The system of hebdomadal manifestations and speechifications, with the autumnal interludes of provincial starring and mountebanking before women and weavers, will never, we hope, be emulated by our Michael Angelos, Bramantes, and Raphaels. The inevitable waste of time, worry of temper, lowering of tone, craving for excitement, exacerbation of shabby grudges and coddling of childish vanity, would not be atoned for by an endless chorus of newspaper applause, nor even by a profuser participation in the scientific honors of knighthood. The camaraderie of the learned bodies was, as we have said, a matter of serious business in the earlier period of Condorcet; and the female society in which he and his friends mingled, was animated by the same spirit and conducive to the same ends. From the more bustling whirl of fashionable life he soon withdrew utterly. "I had no relish,” he neatly says, " for dissipation without pleasure, vanity without motive, idleness without repose." Another philosopher who had as little. turn for the tumult and glitter of the beau monde was by twenty years his senior, but among the most intimate, and, ere long, the most influential of his friends, M. Turgot. He was of a far more important family than Condorcet, but, being a third brother, hardly better off at the outset in point of fortune. Turgot was brought up at the Sorbonne, and inspired all his teachers there with the confidence that he would be one of the most distinguished lights of the Gallican church. The first performance that attracted notice beyond the walls was a Discourse on the Evidences of Christianity; it was extravagantly lauded by the clerical party, and moved in a correspoding proportion the bile of the wise men. But, whereas Dr. Chalmers appears, after being for several years a parish minister, to have first imbibed a real belief in revealed religion while preparing an article on the evidences for Sir D. Brewster's Encyclopædia, there seems reason to infer that a similar course of study had ended in a very different manner with Turgot. Shortly afterward, to the confusion of his professors and heavy disappointment of his relations, he announced that he had changed | though he has reasons for not avowing it his mind, and would not enter into holy orders. He alleged to them modest distrust of his own qualifications, but to intimates said candidly-"I cannot walk through all the days of my life with a mask on my face." He turned to the law-in due time obtained promotion-and for a course of years acted vigorously with the government minority in the parliament of Paris, and in opposition to the refractory majority, which was headed by one of his own elder brothers, the President Turgot. This conduct led to the Intendancy of the Limousin, in which office he soon made himself remarkable by some excellent administrative reforms, but in the sequel still more so by the audacity of his proposals and plans for sweeping changes in the whole department of taxation and internal economy. He was among the first that adopted in France the new science of political economy, and he pushed its doctrines to extremes that never found favor with Adam Smith himself. Among the rest, he was a strenous church reformer-indicating more and more distinctly his opinion not only that all church property should be fairly taxed for state purposes, but that the property itself ought to be redistributed, small sees united, the emoluments of great ones cut down, monastic establishments of all sorts got rid of, and-decent provision being made for existing lives-the general surplus considered and dealt with as at the command of the financial minister of the crown. These suggestions were in the beginning_accompanied by constant professions of Turgot's sincere respect for religion and the church, whose real interests were, he continually reiterated, nearer to no man's heart than to his own. The true sentiments of the reformer, however, could hardly escape detection provincial eyes are close watchers, and of all men Turgot was the most awkward in everything but the use of his pen. None had less command over his countenancenone could less bear the trouble of affectation in small habits and daily things. The clergy about him soon understood the man, and they, as rural churchmen usually are, were too much in earnest to control their indignation. People at a distance, even the shrewdest of the Anti-clericals, seem to have been taken in at first. When the Intendant was about to visit Switzerland, D'Alembert gave him an introduction to Voltaire, in which he takes pains to assure the Patriarch that he might receive him with confidence -"You will find him an excellent Cacouac, la Cacouaquerie ne mene pas à la fortune." To which Voltaire replies by-and-bye-"I have been charmed with Turgot-if you have three or four sages like this among you, I tremble for l'infame." After having performed his kotow at Ferney, he redoubled his zeal in the ecclesiastical direction, but still observed as to his caconaquerie a prudent reticence, which Voltaire now appreciated and often recommended to the Parisian conclave as exemplary. "Your friend Turgot is admirable," says he to Condorcetno man understands better how to shoot the arrow without showing the hand." " We may pause for a moment to say that in general Condorcet's letters to Voltaire, like all the rest of the sect, are characterized by a humility of submission, an extravagance of adulation, worthy of the Cadis and Muftis of a Commander of the Faithful. But behind his back, in their epistles to each other, it is somewhat different. All alike-the grave D'Alembert, the austere Turgot, and the snowy Condorcet-are in raptures when Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse communicates to them, and insists on their handing over to their prime patroness, whom Arago styles "la respectable Duchesse d'Enville," the intelligence she, Mademoiselle, had just received from Geneva of a visit paid to Ferney by a Messaline de cette ville," with some alarming consequences. It is like the merriment of a set of young monks on discovering a lapse of father Abbot. Again, Condorcet, when on a tour, writes to Turgot that he had been gratified in a country-house with the perusal of a Commentary on the Bible by Emilie (Mad. du Chatelet-" Venus Newton") in ten volumes; and adds that he thought he could detect here and there the assistance both of the "Vieux de la Montagne" and "son jeune amant "-i. e., St. Lambert. To which Turgot answers that he had himself many years ago seen "Emilie's Bible," but that it was then in four volumes. However," adds he, "there is no doubt that between le Vieux and son jeune amant Emilie was likely enough to expand her dimensions." A cruel enough joke, when we recall the circumstances of her death in child bed, on which occasion her disconsolate husband, whom Lord Brougham calls "a respectable man" (they are all honorable men), finding Voltaire and St. Lambert in tears together, said, Gentlemen, you best know which has the most reason to weep I have at least this consolation, that I had no hand in the misfortune." Such were the |