texte qu'on a oublie d'inserer dans le livre des loix le mode de le juger ?"-xii. p. 324. name-e--which was not told her till some afterward by Condorcet himself. He conveyed to her house during the eve And all this truckling and twisting was in sitting of the Assembly, and in such h vain. They had but sharpened the knife for that he had with him no money what their own throats. The framing of the new It would have been imprudent for his fri constitution, the proper business and express to venture on any subsequent communic object of the Convention, could be no longer with him-so he remained for weeks ut deferred-and on this the parties were final- ignorant as to what had become of his ly forced to join issue-Condorcet again Her noble family were, like most of the being prominent, for he was one of the comin suspicion and difficulty. Her atta mittee named for drawing the programme by brother, the young Marquis de Grouchy the Girondins, and among the various been expelled from the army, in which h schemes suggested within that committee timately attained the highest rank, and his was the one adopted by the party. The wandering in anxious obscurity. She h Jacobins produced their still more extrava- was reduced to extreme difficulty; but gant plan-and the tumult at the gates and was a woman of gallant spirit, and by in the galleries having driven away many by found means to provide for herself voters and overawed others, the majority was, her child. She took a lodging in a vi for the first time, on the side of the Jacobins near town, and began practice as a m as directly against the Gironde. The victory ture-painter, the chief employment of was followed up forthwith by the proscrip- pencil being, according to the Biogr tion of Brissot and a long list of Girondins des Contemporains, among the political who had been forward in the debate. Their tims with whom the prisons were cram subsequent history is well known. Condor-« The relations of these unfortunates cet, not having spoken, was in the first instance spared. But soon afterward a letter of his to his constituents of the Aisne was intercepted in the hands of the post-office-on the 8th July, 1793, the apostate Capuchin Chabot read it in the Assembly-pointed out some passages in which the writer asserted the notorious fact that the late decision had been come to under the influence of terror-expatiated on his insolence passim as daring to criticise the Constitution!--and, loudly denouncing all aristocrats, moved the arrest (among others) of "Caritat ci-devant Marquis de Condorcet"--which was carried by acclamation. Some of his friends received intelligence in the morning of Chabot's intentions for the evening, and, foreseeing all the consequences, they instantly went in search of a retreat for him. The house they fixed upon was No. 24 in the Rue Servandoni, near the Luxembourg--a lodging-house chiefly for students, where one of themselves had occupied a chamber not long before-kept by a Madame Vernet, the widow of an architect nearly related to the celebrated painters. The widow had married again, but privately, and retained Vernet's name. Her new husband was a cousin of her own, Sarret, who passed merely for one of her lodgers. When she was asked eager for parting memorials, and her sk Meanwhile Madame Vernet, on fin who her guest was, exerted all the influ which her most generous kindness gave in persuading him to undertake some of literature which would divert his thou * A miniature of this M. Roucher, exe within the walls of the Conciergerie by Leroy Ne vous étonnez pas, objets chéris et doux, Roucher had some reputation as a poet. H been an exalted Jacobin, and celebrated in the 10th of August-which, however, prove fatal to him as to M. de la Rochefoucauld, c may add, to M. de Condorcet. He was includ ainful reflection. He began according- | assignable limit to the development of agricultural chemistry: but furthermore, you are forgetting the contemporary advancement in the intellect generally. You are not allowing for the universal practical philosophy of the new æra. Supposing it possible that under universal liberty and universal equality of education-and when just laws shall have abolished every restriction upon the commercial intercourse of the human species-there should still occur, from any unforeseen circumstance or accident, a risk in any quarter of population getting beyond the means of subsistence, the organization in its then state of progress will at once apply a remedy. The rate at which the calculating machine usually multiplies will be spontaneously altered:- dheres to his old dogmas, that there od, and that the admirable organizathe first of earthly animals is, in all partments, intellectual, moral, and 1, susceptible of improvement, not, "Les hommes sauront alors que s'ils ont des to an extent which can in strict obligations à l'égard des etres qui ne sont pas enatical language be called infinite, but core, elles ne consistent pas à leur donner l'exiseasurably beyond what has ever been tence, mais le bonheur; elles ont pour objet le of, that it may be pronounced indefidée de charger la terre des etres inutiles ou malbien-etre général de l'espèce, et non la puérile i. p. 274). When we bear in mind, heureux."-(ib. 258.) e), that out of every fifty whose peganization fitted them for attaining e in science, literature, or art, at rty-nine, on the lowest calculation, herto received such felicity of matecture to no purpose, because its provere undeveloped by education, it is task of arithmetic to arrive at the l of geometricians, economists, poets, , &c., &c., who will have adorned d, within the first, the second, the tury--and so on-after a just sysducation shall have been applied to e mass of these indefinitely perfectnines (ib. 254). The calculation as creased product of illustrious physiatomists, chemists, and botanists, is with assurance that disease will, limited allowance of centuries, have red; so that, while it would be abanticipate immortality, death shall ccasioned by accident, or--at a gradt prodigiously extending distance by exhaustion or evaporation of the gas or vital principle (ib. 273). It escape the author that some may inconvenience from the reproof human life to the averages of liluvian epoch--and first as it retriment. To this he answers that -al improvement will keep pace in other departments--we shall In the same style he overthrows all suggestions as to the hazard of political ambitions multiplied in a ratio analogous to that of the breed. Universal education implies universal self-denial and self-devotion. It is not to be questioned that some organizations will still show a certain superiority over others as respects the qualities for government and administration; but, while these varieties will be very willing to perform the functions for which they may be peculiarly adapted, the others will have too clear a perception of this their adaptation not to wish to see it exercised;--the cause of the superiority being recognized as physical or fatal, there will be nothing of that envy and grudging wherewith men now contemplate a superiority ascribed by them to the injustice of social and educational arrangements fairly within the control of human reason. Woman is a delicate topic. From various peculiarities in her physique, and functions therewith connected, she may be said to be more or less a malade until she has passed the middle stage of existence. It is probable that even when female life reaches to some hundreds of years, the effect of these arrangements may still be discernible; but even so, that weaker division will have partaken in the general march-and there can and political exertions than man as we now see him is.* This philosophy has still its a Even while we are writing we rece Among other prophecies of the Esquisse ume from the London press of 1850 is one of a universal language-not oral," The Purpose of Existence popu but graphical, and " easy as algebra" (ib. 270). We need not go farther into detail. sidered," and which announces Soon after Condorcet's death, the MS. containing all this mass of atheism and insanity was submitted by the Convention to their Committee of Public Instruction--and the printing and diffusion thereof were, at the recommendation of that conclave, unani-him in deciding that when mously decreed. *This chapter reminds us of a lively conversation between Diderot and the celebrated Abbé Galiani (the great friend of Madame d'Epinay), which is recorded in the rambling and gossiping work called Mémoires de Condorcet, and professing to be in part compiled from his Notebooks (1824):-Diderot. How do you define woman? "Galiani. An animal naturally feeble and sick. Did. Feeble? Has not she as much courage as man! 66 "Gal. Do you know what courage is? It is the effect of terror. You let your leg be cut off because you are afraid of dying. Wise people are never courageous-they are prudent-that is to say, pol troons. Did. Why call you woman naturally sick? "Gal. Like all animals, she is sick until she at tains her perfect growth. Then she has a peculiar symptom which takes up the fifth part of her time. Then come breeding and nursing-two long and troublesome complaints. In short, they have only intervals of health until they turn a certain corner, and then elles ne sont plus des malades peut-etre elles ne sont que des vieilles. "Did. Observe her at a ball-no vigor then, M. l'Abbé ? "Gal. Stop the fiddles-put out the lights-she will scarcely crawl to her coach. 66 'Did. See her in love. 66 Gal. Not so much as in instinct. A woman is habitually ill. She is affectionate, engaging, irritable, capricious, easily offended, easily appeased-a trifle amuses her. The imagination is always in play. Fear, hope, joy, despair, desire, disgust, follow each other more rapidly, are manifested more strongly, effaced more quickly than with us. They like a plentiful repose-at intervals company-anything for excitement. Ask the doctor if it is not the same with his patients. But ask yourself--don't we all treat them as we do sick people-lavish attention, soothe, flatter, caress-and get tired of them?"-(Mem. i. 150.) Condorcet, shortly after this conversation (the Abbé must have been a pleasant clerk,) writes a letter on the same grave controversy, in which (it is printed by Arago)-reluctantly confessing that there was a good deal in what the Abbé had said, he concludes thus:-"I see I must put some limit 1 Jan incint senon it as much machine human at last ceases to For e the author would not cancel the regal at least not for some time to come. would he at once abolish the peera would be satisfied with limiting the in the issuing of writs for the Chamber, or Senate, to a selection list of eminent teachers drawn up by mittee of the House of Representati to ecclesiastical matters, utterly and fully denying the inspiration of the B regards "Jesus of Nazareth” as a v and intelligent individual, to be broad tinguished from his ignorant and corr lowers, called Apostles and Evangelis he is for entrusting the whole educati very much of the practical administra the country, to a body of teachers ( alluded to) who shall inculcate, inte those few and simple maxims that rationally identified with the teach "Jesus of Nazareth" himself-to th exclusion of all the figments of cl and sects. These teachers are t 21 lity. They are to hold any religious | porteress, had a part. Madame Vernet knew how they or the majority of their congre- to impregnate with her virtue all who surrounded s please, and offer no obstruction to her. From that day forth he made no movement doctrinating of children at home in any without being observed. And here I must not lar faith that may find favor with the ligence of Madame Vernet, her profound knowpass an incident which will show the high intels. They are to elect one of their own o preside over them and the district. the stairs to his chamber, Condorcet rubbed ledge of the human heart. One day, in ascending o is to be chosen without any reference shoulders with Citizen Marcos, a deputy for the religious notions-but to obviate hy- [newly created] department of Mont Blanc, and ical objections, he shall be styled for an who belonged to the section of the Mountain; he ite period the Bishop-and he shall had been for some days one of Madame's lodgers. f be a working teacher-he shall be Under the disguise he wore Condorcet had not gular minister of the largest meeting- a continuance of the same luck? The illustrious been recognized; but was it possible to count on in his diocese, and also the headof its chief or normal school. This proscribed imparted his uneasiness to his hostess. Stop,' said she, I will soon arrange thisaffair.' though published by Mr. Chapman, She mounts to Marcos's room, and without any eals principally in American articles, preamble says to him, Citizen, Condorcet is to be really from an English pen! It lodged under the same roof with you-should he must add, written with considerable him-if he perishes, it will be you that have be arrested, it will be you that have denounced in many passages there is a flow of caused his head to fall. You are a man of honor which will fairly bear a comparison-I need say no more.' e Esquisse and Tableau. This noble confidence was not betrayed. Marcos even entered, at the peril of his life, into personal relations with Condorcet. It was he who supplied him with novels, of which our colleague devoured a vast quantity." dorcet appears to have also given some solitary days to a work of a different -a New Method of Accompting-and resumption of his earliest studies he obably have been prompted by Saro was himself the author or compiler Dus Elementary Manuals for Youth, the rest one on Arithmetic. recluse seemed for some weeks to be rbed in his literary industry as to have forgotten his actual situation; but he newspapers announced the execuseveral friends who had been proat the same time with himself, and, that the Convention had declared alty of death against all who harbored uded in such a vote, his reflections on We may here mention another trait of scribed Conventionalist besides Condorcet Madame Vernet. It seems that another prowas at this time sheltered by her, and that, unlike Condorcet, he remained there until the fall of Robespierre. When Madame O'Connor, many years afterward, asked Madame Vernet the name of this gentleman, she answered with proud calmness, "I have never seen nor heard of him since the 9th Thermidor. Do you expect that I should now recall his name?" It appears that among her numberless s to which his hostess exposed her- consolations, Madame Vernet from time to re cruel. He next morning had a time inscribed to Condorcet copies of verses, nication with her, which, says M. and that the philosopher responded, as in "I must, under pain of sacrilege, re-duty bound. Of his prison rhymes, how e without the change of a single ever, we shall content ourselves with one sample, which all students of June and August, 1792, and of January and February, couplet occurs in an epistle to his wife :1793, will allow to merit preservation. This "Ils m'ont dit: Choisis, d'etre oppresseur ou victime! J'embrassai le malheur et leur laissai le crime." After copious comments on the severer labors of his hero's closet, M. Arago says : When he at last paused, and the feverish excitement of authorship was at an end, our col from D'Alembert, and whatever the (I employ his own words) to quit the retreat which the boundless devotion of his tutelary angel had transformed into a paradise. He so little deceived himself as to the probable consequences of the step he meditated-the chances of safety after his evasion appeared to him so feeble-that before he put his plan into execution he made his last dispositions. In the pages then written, I behold everywhere the lively reflection of an elevated mind, a feeling heart, and a beautiful soul. I will venture to say that there exists in no language anything better thought, more tender, more touching, more sweetly expressed, than the Avis d'un Proscrit à sa Fille. Those lines, so limpid, so full of unaffected delicacy, were written on the very day when he was about to encounter voluntarily an immense danger. The presentiment of a violent end almost inevitable, did not disturb him-his hand traced those terrible words, Ma mort, ma mort prochaine! with a firmness which the stoics of antiquity might have envied. Sensibility, on the contrary, obtained the mastery when the illustrious proscribed was drawn into the anticipation that Madame de Condorcet also might possibly be involved in the bloody catastrophe that threatened him. Should my daughter be destined to lose all--this is the most explicit al-haps it is needless to mention it-there lusion that the husband can insert in his last writing." The testament is short. It was written on the fly-leaf of a History of Spain. In it Condorcet directs that his daughter, in case of his wife's death, shall be brought up by Madame Vernet, whom she is to call her second mother, and who is to see her so educated as to have means of independent support either from painting or engraving. Should it be necessary for my child to quit France, she may count on protection in England from mylord Stanhope and mylord Daer.* In America, reliance may be placed on Jefferson and Bache, the grandson of Franklin." She is, therefore, to make the English language her first study. He intimates that she may expect pecuniary assistance by and bye from the Grouchy family, and that "perhaps, when the day of justice returns, she may also derive benefit from her father's writings." From these words we must infer that there was no other property of which he could contemplate the restoration-and this is a circumstance of some importance, though, as usual, the biographers take no notice of it. Having inherited (apparently) a considerable fortune M. Arago constantly writes Dear. This friend of Condorcet's, Basil Douglas, Lord Daer, elder brother of the late Earl of Selkirk, was endowed with allusion whatever to religion-not the s est hint to warrant us in hoping that dorcet, in the immediate contemplatio death, had been shaken in his old conclu that there is no God, and no future lif man. Whether what we have quoted or may not indicate any touch of misg as to the most painful passages in his p cal conduct-our readers will form their opinion. He c These papers were both, it seems cer written on the morning of 5th of April, 1 At 10 o'clock he left his chamber i artisan's jacket and large woolen cap, usual disguise, came down to Madame's parlor on the ground floor, and entered conversation with her husband. a subject in which Madame could take interest, but seemed as if he meant to sa vast deal upon it, and plied Sarret Latin quotations-but Madame, like a g sentinel, stuck to her post de pied fern till he was on the point of despair. At the good-natured woman, observing that missed his snuff-box, forgot her caution ran up stairs to fetch it. He seized moment and rushed into the street. unusually crowded. At the first turn Sarret was at his elbow--"Your disguise incomplete-you don't know your waywill never escape the numberless agents the Commune. I will not quit you till reach YOU point wherever it mou It |