morals and such the taste of this philosophi- | the doctrine of the perfectibility of m cal school! We need not go deep into Turgot's history after 1774. Amidst the financial perplexities that surrounded the monarchy at the accession of Louis XVI., Maurepas, though personally distrustful of his views and intentions, was induced to invite him into the administration-it was judged necessary to conciliate the rising sect, and Turgot's birth and connections were considered as pledges against his going into an actual revolution. The Biographie Universelle, in mentioning that and some similar appointments, says, "this epoch marks the commencement of our hommes d'état écrirassiers:" and it was truly the commencement de la fin. Turgot, Minister of Marine, immediately nominated Condorcet to a post in his department-an inspectorship of canals-and when he removed by-and-bye to the ministry of Finance, the younger philosopher became "Inspecteur des Monnoies." How soon the rashness and gaucherie of Turgot involved Paris and half France in famine, confusion, revolt, and massacre, we need not remind our readers. His wildest measures had all been defended in journals and pamphlets by his subaltern; and Condorcet had especially distinguished himself by a bitter answer to Necker's antiTurgot disquisition on corn-laws. The passage that, according to our philosophic biographer, gave the deadliest offence was in the last page, where Condorcet, apologizing for his plain words, said he had the consolation to think they could do M. Necker no harm, and quoted a certain high functionary who published some poem, and being told by his friends to prepare himself for sharp criticism, replied-" Make yourselves easy as to the reviewers-I have got a better cook." This cut the Amphitryon banker was not, it seems, to forgive. He succeeded Turgot as Minister of Finance, and Condorcet wrote to his friend that he also would immediately resign his inspectorship-rather than be dismissed, as he candidly says he had no doubt he must be, on the first decent opportunity. Whether the resignation was actually tendered, or accepted, we have some doubts— which shall be explained by-and-bye. How ever that may have been, both Turgot and he redoubled their diligence as economical essayists but the Biographie Universelle thinks it needless to spend many words on Condorcet's writings of this class, because, it says, We have in vain sought for a single 66 ascribing all social mischiefs and We may pause for a moment on o "If the people are often tempted to c crimes in order that they may procure the saries of life, it is the fault of the laws; a bad laws are the product of errors, it wo more simple to abolish those errors than t others for the correction of their natural e Error, no doubt, may do some good: it may vent some crimes, but it will occasion mis greater than these. By putting nonsense the head of the people you make them stupi from stupidity to ferocity there is but a Consider-if the motives you suggest for just make but a slight impression on the that will not direct the conduct-if the im sions be lively, they will produce enthusiasm enthusiasm for error. Now the ignorant e siast is no longer a man: he is the most ter of wild beasts. In fact," adds our arithmeti "the number of criminals among the men prejudices is in greater proportion to the number of our population, than the numbe total of that class. I am not ignorant that, in criminals in the class above prejudices is to actual state of Europe, the people are not, haps, at all prepared for a true doctrine of mo but this degraded obtuseness is the work of so institutions and of superstitions. Men are born blockheads: they become such. By sp ing reason to the people, even in the little they can give to the cultivation of their intell we might easily teach them the little that necessary for them to know. Even the ide the respect that they should have for the prop of the rich is only difficult to be insinuated am them-first, because they look on riches as a of usurpation, of theft perpetrated upon them, unhappily this opinion is in great part true: ondly, because their excessive poverty ma them always consider themselves in the case sbsolute macossit. eese in which oven w being poor as they would be after having low- | d themselves by larcenies. It is merely therebecause institutions are bad that the people so commonly a little thievish upon principle." 360, 361. Vil sub sole novum! We find here almost dentical terms, and fully in meaning, M. udhon's maxim of maxims: La Propriété tle Vol! "hen follows another remarkable specimen is coolness and also of his logic-admire calculator par excellence :— Sciences obtained the long coveted honor of a place among the Forty of the Academie Française. The delay is ascribed to the antipathy of Maurepas and the "men with prejudices," who alleged, it seems, as their ground of objection, Condorcet's refusal to write the Eloges of some academicians of their own color, and the warmth with which Im he had extolled all defunct Cacouacs. In speaking of the establishment of false re- er it may be that we regard as the true one, istory of the evil which the others have done es to prove the truth of our assertion." 69. We conclude, then, that the truth is always 1 to the people, and that, if the people holds rors, it is expedient forthwith to remove We will only state four exceptions." e head of these excepted errors is no. La croyance d'un Dieu rémunérateur et ur-qu'il ne faudrait pas attaquer chez un dont la morale serait fondée sur une reliausse, a moins que cette religion ne fût te" hat substituted for that false religion?— qu'une morale fondée sur la raison seule bien etablie."—Ib. 382. 3 known to all that Voltaire had written ublished in his later days some Notes e Pensées de Pascal, intended to ate the authority of the Christian philosoThey appeared, however, too moderthe eyes of Condorcet, who prepared edition of the Pensées, garnished with s notes of a far more audacious characd transmitted the MS. to Ferney. Volas delighted-"You have laid open the f Serapis," he writes, " and shown us ; and the spiders." The old man volunto have the work printed in Switzerder his own eye—and this was done . He died a few months afterward— gay young Count d'Artois (Charles to the archiepiscopate, and the philosophers felt the urgency of a demonstration. Hence this successful struggle in favor of a candidate more than usually atheist." We need hardly observe that Baron Grimm, in his earlier letters, used to extol Condorcet in the warmest terms. In 1783, his constant friend and supporter, D'Alembert, died, and left him the whole of his property. In the same year died also the aged Bishop of Lisieux-and his nephew no doubt inherited whatever remained of the family estates in Dauphiny. Of this succession not a word occurs in any life of Condorcet that we have met with; but among other remarks in a pamphlet "sur Condorcet," published at Lausanne in 1792, by "Chas, homme de Loi," it is said that "till the Revolution was at hand, he seemed to attach as much consequence as any one of his class to his titles and his fiefs." That he had no fiefs prior to 1783, is apparent from the whole course of his proceedings. Not long afterward the volcano made a most unlooked-for eruption. The flame was suddenly kindled by the bright eyes of a young and well-born beauty, Mademoiselle de Grouchy, and the Secretary, now turned of forty, married her in a great hurry-even, remarks M. Arago, without having brought her family to book on the weighty question of dower. M. Arago becomes unusually animated here, and is not ashamed to place his hero's proceedings in favorable contrast with those of Lagrange. D'Alembert heard from a third party at a distance that that brother sage had made “le saut perilleux," one. It is stated in various accounts of our losopher that, liberal as he had always be his conversion to the Republic was the res of his personal intercourse with Mr. Thor Paine. But that gentleman did not ho France with his presence until the revolut had passed through several important stag and M. Arago, though without naming Pai is anxious to prove a much earlier date the final orthodoxy of his hero. Turgot d in 1781-and Condorcet's Life of h though not published till 1786, had proba been in hand all the intervening yea From the date of its appearance, howev there could be little doubt of Condorce extreme politics. M. Arago quotes a eulogizes many prominent passages, whi as he tells the Academy, prove that n confrere's full illumination far preceded events of 1789. He dwells with particu zeal on the lofty denunciation of nobility this performance; and we think he is qu warranted in inferring that the Marquis, w condemned aristocracy in 1786, had beco in his heart an enemy of monarchy bef 1789. Furthermore, if he did not oper duty of a mathematician to calculate son bonheur-you have, I presume, made that calculation, and found the solution to be marriage." Lagrange answered-"I know not whether I have calculated ill or well, or rather I believe I have not calculated at all, for if I had, I should probably have been like Leibnitz, who by dint of reflecting never resolved. I will confess to you that I have never had any taste for marriage; but circumstances decided me to invite one of my cousins to take care of me and all my concerns-and if I did not write, it was because the thing appeared to me too indifferent to be worth mentioning to you." Condorcet's marriage was a happy After a little observation of the young lady, even the Duchesse d'Enville said to the secretary, nous vous pardonnons. And no wonder, for Madame de Condorcet was eminently an esprit fort. The Biographie des Contemporains adorns the wedding with some romantic details, which Arago rejects. It tells us that the lady had formed a passion which incurred the paternal veto-that when Condorcet addressed her, though she did not conceal her admiration for his talents and society, she avowed her unaltered feeling-proclaim his hostility to the Crown in 17: and that the philosopher, on his part, having been smitten mainly with her mind, proposed that they should be united "upon a Platonic understanding," to which the fair one agreed. We concur with M. Arago in preferring dates on this occasion to the Biographie. The philosopher's wedding was in 1786, and the future Madame O'Connor, whether she was the first-born or not, is mentioned as a girl between five and six years of age in 1793. We are approaching graver events. From the first, Condorcet proclaimed himself enthusiastically for the cause of our American colonists; and when Franklin arrived in Paris, none welcomed him with more zeal-not even Turgot; who, however, reached a felicity of compliment never approached by Condorcet in his famous Inscription: or even in 1789, we hope to be pardoned * The merit of this is hardly lessened by its be- then, there can be no doubt that if he e ing only a sincularly fortunato imitation of a line in self with Necker before that minister re- | taire, first printed at Geneva in the following year (1787), was, on the contrary, read with universal curiosity and very general approbation. This skillful and noxious specimen of the art which Condorcet had so assiduously cultivated was, in the course of a few months, amalgamated into the great Kelh edition of the works of Voltaire, the Notes to which were chiefly by Beaumarchais (the editor), Decroix, and Condorcet. These last are now printed by themselves, and fill, as we mentioned, a considerable space in Arago's fourth volume. We think it right to copy one of them--" On the Condemnation of Charles I. King of England :” ned his power in 1788. It is possible ugh that he may have been restored to office by De Brienne: it is certain that held it under Necker, whose name aprs as Finance minister-in-chief on the e page with his own in this Almanac of 9. Whether he had ever in fact lost nection with the Finance department been 1776 and 1789, we cannot at this nent decide; but even on the former suption, he had all along, it is to be inferred, ined hopes of recovering such a connec; and, therefore, could hardly be exed to denounce the Crown while the wn was still the patron. As to the se-the office of Inspector of the Mint was shed in 1790-but Condorcet was imately afterward appointed a Commiser of the Treasury-which place he reed to the last, and we have evidence re us that he also continued in his old al residence at least as late as January 1792. M. Arago may think it absurd vell on matters so small as these; but re at present in a sublunary sphere, and ems to us not wholly unworthy of note the philosopher was also a placeman-a lucrative office under the Crown bethe Revolution began, and continued-a very short, if any, interval-in the ment of it until he incurred the mortal ice of the power which he had aided in bolition of the Monarchy and abetted in nurder of the King. we may trust Madame de Genlis and rimm, the Life of Turgot had at the but little success.* The Life of Vol The Life of Turgot was published at Amsternd London in October, 1786. In April, 1787, red La Religion considérée comme l'unique u bonheur et de la véritable Philosophie: re fait pour servir à l'éducation des Enfants de S. Monseigneur le Duc d'Orléans, et dans on réfute les principes des prétendus Philoso odernes. Par Mad. la Marquise de Sillery, nt Mad. la Comtesse de Genlis. In this com sive volume the lady offers the following lent remarks on M. de Condorcet's new perce:"The author, cold, serious, starched, es calmly the total overthrow of laws and s, religious, political, social. He is wild, yet animated; his madness never rises to deliricomes not in fits--it is continual, uniform, atic-alike extravagant and dull--so monothat it excites neither curiosity nor surprise. e of the book has been as odd as the book it attacked everything-and it made no Grimm treats the work with equal disre "The minutes of this procedure have been preserved. A legitimate tribunal which upon such grounds should condemn a ragamuffin to a month of the house of correction, would commit an act of tyranny; and if we add, that neither according to the particular law of England, nor (supposing the English to have been at that time absolutely free) according to any principle of public law which a man of good sense can recognize, could that tribunal be regarded as a legitimate one, we shall have a just idea of this extraordinary judg ment. "Charles replied with a moderation and a firmness which do honor to his memory, and contrast with the harshness and the bad faith of his judges. "It is said that highway robbers, when magistrates fall into their hands, have occasionally had the fancy to subject them to a formal mockery of trial before perpetrating their murder. Nothing his friends. Nothing but the full atrocity of facan more resemble the conduct of Cromwell and naticism could have hindered that sentence from producing a rising of all parties, to prevent by general indignation the possibility of its execution; and fanaticism alone has ever ventured to make its apology."-vol. iv. 172. How soon after Voltaire's death the commentator began his labor, or in how far he might have been restrained in it by the scruples of others, we cannot say; but this passage--which subsequent incidents invest with a singular importance-does not well harmonize with the ultra-liberalism of the apparently contemporaneous Life of Turgot and the Notes contain many other things on which we should have expected M. Arago to offer some little explanation. We are, for instance, somewhat scandalized by the contrast between Condorcet's respectful eagerness at the opening of the revolution for the co-operation of the clergy with the tiers état, but is fair enough to quote, a few pages tractive orthodoxy of certain admired authoresses and a Note of 1787 on the reforms of Joseph | known-nowhere described with such c II., where, especially praising the reduction ness as in Bailly's own Memoirs. Cor of marriage to a civil contract, and the cet's zealous behavior here, together making divorce attainable on the mere re- his activity in pamphlets and journals, quest of the married couple, he says, "this pecially the success of La Feuille Village great example will be followed by the other a paper set up and conducted by hin nations of Europe when they shall begin to company with the notorious Cerutti, feel that, in matters of legislation, it is not vanced him rapidly in popular favor; an more rational to consult divines than rope- 1791 both he and Cerutti were electe dancers."-Ibid. 445. the Legislative Assembly by the departn of Paris-among the earliest of the trium of journalism, afterward so frequent, and fatal to successive governments. Condorcet considered himself as having inherited much of the authority of the dead masters whom he had celebrated. When the expectation of an assembly of the StatesGeneral became universal (early in 1788), he published a lofty and detailed conspectus of his views as to the proper construction of legislative bodies-intimating very distinctly that the government of the country was to be thenceforth a strictly representative one. A large space is given to the needlessness and inconvenience of two chambers! This publication was of course an announcement of his own willingness to occupy a place in whatever congregation might result from the ferment of the time. Such pretensions in a savant were somewhat contemptuously criticised in certain higher circles where he had formerly been patronized. "And is it so very absurd," writes Condorcet, & that a geometrician of 45 should offer his conclusions and his services to his fellow-citizens?" We have lived certainly," says Arago-in 1845-"to see it considered as quite a settled point that a man may not only be a fit senator, but a fit minister, without having fait ses preuves in any line of study whatever." And we have lived to see M. Arago himself holding at once the two ministries of the Army and the Navy-the least fitted, one should have thought, for a theoretic geometrician. Nay, we have seen the Government, of which he was a member, issue an authoritative circular, signed by another eminent savant, M. Carnot, as Minister of Public Instruction, proclaiming (March 6, 1848) to the universal constituencies of the French Republic, that ignorance should be no objection to a candidate for the National Assembly! We have already noticed that he had b appointed Commissioner of the Treasur 1790-and we shall not here go into any the small scandal connected with that pointment by Rivarol and other cens But the office, having been conferred by Crown, was, under a law of the former sembly, incompatible with a seat in the n one. He therefore had to resign his off But to copy the words of the Lausan critic already quoted, who here at least s nothing but what the public documents c firm-"Our philosophical calculator, des ous of satisfying at once his pride, his am tion, and his cupidity, had been making the object of his researches to discover so means by which he might sit on the Legis tive bench and yet be a Commissioner of Treasury; and to attain this double res he moved resolutions-1st, that the Legis torial body should deprive the Crown of nomination of all officers connected with administration of the national treasure; a 2ndly, that deputies might hold offices that class when bestowed by the people i. e. by the same usurping Assembly. He therefore preserved his place at Treasury with his seat in the Assemb They at their first sitting appointed him a his co-journalist Cerutti as two of their Sec taries: and he was called to the chair President, by a majority of near 100, on 5th February, 1792-the very day th Cerutti's death was announced to the Asse bly. In this new dignity his first act v to sign the celebrated Letter to the King which the Assembly demanded that words Sire and Majesty should be dropp and that when the Chief Magistrate ca into the Assembly or received a deputat from it, if he chose to sit or to be cover |