history. The first was religious, and therefore he hated it; the second was accompanied by much argument, and had no religion about it, and therefore he extolled it. It is scientific knowledge, he said, which explains why efforts after liberty in unenlightened centuries are so fleeting, and so deeply stained by bloodshed. ‘Compare these with the happy efforts of America and France; observe even in the same century, but at different epochs, the two revolutions of England fanatical and England enlightened. We see on the one side contemporaries of Prynne and Knox, while crying out that they are fighting for heaven and liberty, cover their unhappy country with blood in order to cement the tyranny of the hypocrite Cromwell; on the other, the contemporaries of Boyle and Newton establish with pacific wisdom the freest constitution in the world.’[11] It is not wonderful that his own revolution was misunderstood by one who thus loved English Whigs, but hated English Republicans; who could forgive an aristocratic faction grasping power for their order, but who could not sympathise with a nation rising and smiting its oppressor, where they smote in the name of the Lord and of Gideon, nor with a ruler who used his power with noble simplicity in the interests of his people, and established in the heart of the nation a respect for itself such as she has never known since, simply because this ruler knew nothing about principes or the Rights of Man. However, Nemesis comes. By and by Condorcet found himself writing a piece to show that our Revolution of 1688 was very inferior in lawfulness to the French Revolution of the Tenth of August.[12]

II.

The course of events after 1774 is in its larger features well known to every reader. Turgot, after a month of office at the Admiralty, was in August made Controller-General of Finance. With his accession to power, the reforming ideas of the century became practical. He nominated Condorcet to be Inspector of Coinage, an offer which Condorcet deprecated in these words: ‘It is said of you in certain quarters that money costs you nothing when there is any question of obliging your friends. I should be bitterly ashamed of giving any semblance of foundation to these absurd speeches. I pray you, do nothing for me just now. Though not rich, I am not pressed for money. Entrust to me some important task—the reduction of measures for instance; then wait till my labours have really earned some reward.’[13] In this patriotic spirit he undertook, along with two other eminent men of science, the task of examining certain projects for canals which engaged the attention of the minister. ‘People will tell you,’ he wrote, ‘that I have got an office worth two hundred and forty pounds. Utterly untrue. We undertook it out of friendship for M. Turgot; but we refused the payment that was offered.’[14] We may profitably contrast this devotion to the public interest with the rapacity of the clergy and nobles, who drove Turgot from office because he talked of taxing them like their neighbours, and declined to glut their insatiable craving for place and plunder.

Turgot was dismissed (May 1776), and presently Necker was installed in his place. Condorcet had defended with much vigour and some asperity the policy of free internal trade in corn against Necker, who was for the maintenance of the restrictions on commercial intercourse between the different provinces of the kingdom. Consequently, when the new minister came into office, Condorcet wrote to Maurepas resigning his post. ‘I have,’ he said, ‘declared too decidedly what I think about both M. Necker and his works, to be able to keep any place that depends upon him.’[15] This was not the first taste that Maurepas had had of Condorcet’s resolute self-respect. The Duke de la Vrillière, one of the most scandalous persons of the century, was an honorary member of the Academy, and he was the brother-in-law of Maurepas. It was expected from the perpetual secretary that he should compose a eulogy upon the occasion of his death, and Condorcet was warned by friends, who seldom reflect that a man above the common quality owes something more to himself than mere prudence, not to irritate the powerful minister by a slight upon his relation. He was inflexible. ‘Would you rather have me persecuted,’ he asked, ‘for a wrong than for something just and moral? Think, too, that they will pardon my silence much more readily than they would pardon my words, for my mind is fixed not to betray the truth.’[16]

In 1782 Condorcet was elected into the Academy. His competitor was Bailly, over whom he had a majority of one. The true contest lay less between the two candidates than between D’Alembert and Buffon, who on this occasion are said to have fought one of the greatest battles in the not peaceful history of the Academy, for mighty anger burns even in celestial minds. D’Alembert is said to have exclaimed, we may hope with some exaggeration, that he was better pleased at winning that victory than he would have been to find out the squaring of the circle.[17] Destiny, which had so pitiful a doom in store for the two candidates of that day, soon closed D’Alembert’s share in these struggles of the learned and in all others. He died in the following year, and by his last act testified to his trust in the generous character of Condorcet. Having by the benevolence of a lifetime left himself on his deathbed without resources, he confided to his friend’s care two old and faithful servants, for whom he was unable to make provision. This charge the philosopher accepted cheerfully, and fulfilled to the end with pious scrupulosity. The affection between Condorcet and D’Alembert had been warm and close as that of some famous pairs of antiquity; a natural attraction of character had clothed community of pursuit and interest with the grace of the highest kind of friendship. Even Condorcet’s too declamatory manner only adds a certain dignity to the pathetic passage with which he closes the noble éloge on his lost friend.[18] Voltaire had been dead these five years, and Turgot, too, was gone. Society offered the survivor no recompense. He found the great world tiresome and frivolous, and he described