CONDORCET
In the history of the French Revolution, we read of a multitude of sections, each ruled by a man, and each man representing a philosophy. Not that each man was the contriver of a system, but the effervescence of one. As true as Robespierre was the advocate of Rousseau, as Marat was the Wilkes of Paris, as Danton was the Paine, and Mirabeau the expediency-politician of reflex England, so true is it that Condorcet was the type of the philosophic Girondists, the offspring of Voltaire.
The two great schools of metaphysics fought out the battle on the theatre of the Constituent Assembly, in a spirit as bitterly uncompromising as when under different phraseological terms, they met in the arguments of the School-men, or further in the womb of history, on the forum of Athens. It is a fact no less true than singular, that after each mental excitement amongst the savons, whether in ancient or in modern times, after the literary shock has passed away, the people are innoculated with the strife, and, destitute of the moderation of their leaders, fight for that doctrine which they conceive oppresses their rights. The French Revolution was one of those struggles. It gave rise to epoch-men. Not men who originated a doctrine, but those who attempted to carry it out. Condorcet was one of those men. He was the successor of Voltaire in the Encyclopædic warfare. The philosopher amongst the orators. Destitute of the amazing versatility of the sage of Ferney, he imbibed the prophet's antipathy to superstition, and after a brilliant career, fell in the wild onslaught of passion. The Revolution was the arena on which was fought the battle involving the question whether Europe was to be ruled for a century by Christianity or Infidelity. The irresolution of Robespierre lost to us the victory of the first passage of arms, equally as decisive as Lafayette in 1830, and Lamartine in 1848, being Liberals, lost in each case the social Republic by their vacillating policy. The true Freethinkers of that age were the Girondists. With their heroic death, the last barrier to despotism disappeared; the Consulate became the only logical path for gilded chains and empire. With the ostracism of the Republicans by Napoleon the Little, a Parallel is completed between the two eras of French history.
The family name of Condorcet was Caritat. His father was a scion of an aristocratic family, and an officer in the army. The son who gave honor to the family, was born in the year 1743, at Ribemont, in Picardy. His father dying early, left his son to be educated with his wife, under the guardianship of his brother, the Bishop of Lisieux, a celebrated Jesuit. The mother of Condorcet was extremely superstitious, and in one of her fanatic ecstasies, offered up her son at the shrine of the Virgin Mary. How this act was performed we cannot relate; but it is a notorious fact that until his twelfth year, the embryo philosopher was clothed in female attire, and had young ladies for companions, which, M. Arago says, "accounts for many peculiarities in the physique and the morale of his manhood." The abstinence from all rude, boyish sports, checked the proper muscular development of his limbs; the head and trunk were on a large scale, but the legs were so meagre that they seemed unfit to carry what was above them; and, in fact, he never could partake in any strong exercises, or undergo the bodily fatigues to which healthy men willingly expose themselves. On the other hand, he had imbibed the tenderness of a delicate damsel, retaining to the last a deep horror for affliction pain on the inferior animals.
In 1775, he entered the Jesuit Academy at Rheiras. Three years afterwards, he was transferred to the College of Navarre, in Paris, and soon made himself the most distinguished scholar there. His friends wished him to enter the priesthood, not knowing that even in his seventeenth year he had embraced the Deism of the age.
At the age of nineteen he left college, and immediate-ly published a series of mathematical works, which established his fame. Shortly after this, the Academy of Sciences chose Condorcet for their assistant secretary. In the year 1770 he accompanied D'Alembert in a tour through Italy, making a call for some weeks at Ferney, where he was delighted with the company of Voltaire, and was duly recognised as one of the Encylopædists; and, on his return to Paris, became the literary agent of his great leader.
A Quarterly Reviewer, writing on Voltaire and Condercet, says of the former, "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 Paris – he 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 clerk – thence, 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 passionate remonstrants from him and his probable complaints – but the burden is always the same – "Tolerate the whispers of age! How often shall I have to tell you all that no one but a fool will publish such things unless he has 200,000 bayonets at his back? Each Encyclopædist was apt to forget that, though he corresponded familiarly with Frederick, he was not a King of Prussia; and, by-and-by, not one of them more frequently made this mistake than Condorcet – for that gentleman's saintlike tranquillity of demeanor, though it might indicate a naturally languid pulse, covered copious elements of vital passion. The slow wheel could not resist the long attrition of controversy; and when it once blazed, the flame was all the fiercer for its unseen nursing. 'You mistake Condorcet,' said D'Alembert, 'he is a volcano covered with snow.'"
When Turgot became Minister of Marine, he gave Condorcet a post as Inspector of Canals; from this he was subsequently promoted to the Inspector of the Mint. When Turgot was replaced by Necker, Condorcet resigned his office.
In 1782 he was elected one of the forty of the Academy of Sciences, beating the Astronomer, Bailly, by one vote. In the next year, D'Alembert, his faithful friend, died, leaving him the whole of his wealth; his uncle, the bishop, likewise died in the same year, from whom he would receive a fresh accession of property. Shortly after this, time, Condorcet married Madame de Grouchy – also celebrated as a lady of great beauty, good fortune, and an educated Atheist. The marriage was a happy one. The only offspring was a girl, who married General Arthur O'Connor, uncle to the late Feargus O'Connor, an Irish refugee who was connected with Emmett's rebellion.
During the excitement of the American War of Independence, Condorcet took an active part in urging the French Government to bestow assistance in arms and money, upon the United States; after the war was concluded, he corresponded with Thomas Paine, who gradually converted him to the extreme Republican views the "illustrious needleman" himself possessed, which, in this case, rapidly led to the denouement of 1791, when he was elected a member of the Legislative Assembly by the department of Paris. In the next year he was raised to the rank of President by a majority of near one hundred votes. While in the Assembly, he brought forward and supported the economical doctrines of Adam Smith, proposed the abolition of indirect taxation, and levying a national revenue upon derivable wealth in amount according to the individual, passing over all who gained a livelihood by manual labor. He made a motion for the public burning of all documents relating to nobility – himself being a Marquis. He took a conspicuous place in the trial of the king; he voted him guilty, but refused to vote for his death, as the punishment of death was against his principles. The speech he made on this occasion is fully equal to that of Paine's on the same occasion.
When the divergence took place between the Jacobins and Girondists, Condorcet strove to unite them; but every day brought fresh troubles, and the position of the Seneca of the Revolution was too prominent to escape the opposition of the more violent taction.
Robespierre triumphed; and in his success could be traced the doom of his enemies. An intercepted letter was the means of Condorcet's impeachment. Deprived of the support of Isnard, Brissot, and Vergniaud, the Jacobins proscribed without difficulty the hero whose writings had mainly assisted in producing the Revolution. His friends provided means for his escape. They applied to a lodging-house keeper, a Madame Vernet, if she would conceal him for a time; she asked was he a virtuous man – yes, replied his friend, he is the – stay, you say he is a good man, I do not wish to pry into his secrets or his name. Once safe in this asylum, he was unvisited by either wife or friends; morover, such was the hurry of his flight, that he was without money, and nearly without books.
While in this forced confinement, he wrote the "Esquisse d'un Tableau Historique des Progrès de l'Esprit Humain," and several other fragmentary essays. In this work he lays down a scheme of society similar to the "New Moral World," of Robert Owen. Opposing the idea of a God, he shows the dominion of science in education, political economy, chemistry, and applies mathematical principles to a series of moral problems. Along with the progress of man he combined the progress of arts – estimating the sanatory arrangements of our time, he prophecied on the gradual extension of longevity, amongst the human race; and with it, enjoyments increased by better discipline in gustatorial duties. He has similar views on the softer sex to M. Proudhomme (his immediate disciple,) and, in the close of the work, Condorcet announced the possibility of an universal language, which is daily becoming more assimilated to modern ideas.
The guillotine had not been idle during the few weeks of Condorcet's retreat. Fancying that (if discovered) he might be the means of injuring his benefactress, he resolved to escape from the house of Madame Vernet. Previous to doing this, he made his will. M. Arago, describing this epoch in his closing days, says: —
"When he at last paused, and the feverish excitement of authorship was at an end, our colleague rested all his thoughts anew on the danger incurred by his hostess. He resolved then (I employ his own words) to quit the retreat which the boundless devotion of his tutelar 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 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 a sa Fill.' Those lines, so limpid, so full of unaffected delicacy, were written on that very day when he was about to encounter voluntarily an immense danger. The presentiment of a violent end almost inevitably did not disturb him – his hand traced those terrible words, Ma mort, ma mort prochaîne! 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 be involved in the bloody catastrophe that threatened him. Should my daughter be destined to lose all– this is the most explicit allusion 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 my Lord Stanhope and my Lord 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.'"
Such was the last epistle ever written by Condorcet. Notwithstanding the precautions taken by his friends, he escaped into the streets – from thence having appealed in vain to friends for assistance, he visited some quarries. Here he remained from the 5th to the evening of the 7th of April, 1794. Hunger drove him to the village of Clamait, when he applied at an hostelry for refreshment. He described himself as a carpenter out of employment, and ordered an omelet. This was an age of suspicion, and the landlord of the house soon discovered that the wanderer's hands were white and undisfigured with labor, while his conversation bore no resemblance to that of a common artificer. The good dame of the house inquired how many eggs he would have in his dish. Twelve, was the answer. Twelve eggs for a joiner's supper! This was heresy against the equality of man. They demanded his passport – he had not got one – the only appearance of anything of the sort was a scrap of paper, scrawled over with Latin epigrams. This was conclusive evidence to the village Dogberries that he was a traitor and an aristocrat. The authorities signed the warrant for his removal to Paris. Ironed to two officers they started on the march. The first evening they arrived at Bourg-la-Reine, where they deposited their prisoner in the gaol of that town. In the morning the gaoler found him a corpse. He had taken a poison of great force, which he habitually carried in a ring. Thus ended the life of the great Encyclopædist – a man great by his many virtues – who reflected honor on France by his science, his literary triumphs, and his moral heroism. He had not the towering energy of Marat, nor the gushing eloquence of Danton, neither had he the superstitious devotion to abstract ideas which characterized the whole course of Robespierre's life. The oratory of Danton, like that of Marat, only excited the people to dissatisfaction; they struck down effete institutions, but they were not the men to inaugurate a new society. It is seldom we find the pioneers of civilization the best mechanics. They strike down the forest – they turn the undergrowth – they throw a log over the stream, but they seldom rear factories, or invent tubular bridges.
Amongst the whole of the heroes of the French Revolution, we must admire the Girondists, as being the most daring, and, at the same time, the most constructive of all who met either in the Constituent Assembly or the Convention. The Jacobin faction dealt simply with politics through the abstract notions of Rousseau: but of what use are "human rights" if we have to begin de novo to put into operation? – rather let us unite the conservative educationalism of Socialism with the wild democracy of ignorance. Politics never can be successful unless married to Socialism.
It was not long after Condorcet's death, before the Committee of Public Instruction undertook the charge of publishing the whole of his works. For this they have been censured on many grounds. We consider that it was one of the few good things accomplished by that Committee. There is nothing in the works of this writer which have a distinctive peculiarity to us; few great writers who direct opinion at the time they write, appear to posterity in the same light as they did to a public inflamed by passion, and trembling under reiterated wrongs. When we look at the works of D'Holbach, we find a standard treatise, which is a land-mark to the present day; but at the time the "System of Nature" was written, it had not one tithe the popularity which it now enjoys; it did not produce an effect superior to a new sarcasm of Voltaire, or an epigram of Diderot. Condorcet was rather the co-laborer and literateur of the party, than the prophet of the new school. Voltaire was the Christ, and Condorcet the St. Paul of the new faith. In political economy, the doctrines of the English and Scotch schools were elaborated to their fullest extent. Retrenchment in pensions and salaries, diminution of armies, equal taxation, the resumption by the State of all the Church lands, the development of the agricultural and mechanical resources, the abolition of the monopolies, total free trade, local government, and national education; such-were the doctrines for which Turgot fought, and Condorcet popularized. If they had been taken in time, France would have escaped a revolution, and Europe would have been ruled by peace and freedom. It may be asked, who brought about the advocacy of those doctrines, for they were not known before the middle of the eighteenth century? They were introduced as a novelty, and defended as a paradox. France had been exhausted by wars, annoyed by ennui, brilliant above all by her genius, she was struck with lassitude for her licentious crimes. There was an occasion for a new school. Without it, France, like Carthage, would have bled to death on the hecatomb of her own lust. Her leading men cast their eyes to England; it was then the most progressive nation in existence. The leading men of that country were intimate with the rulers of the French; the books of each land were read with avidity by their neighbors; a difference was observable between the two: but how that difference was to be reconciled was past the skill of the wisest to unravel. England had liberal institutions, and a people with part of the substance, and many of the forms of Liberalism, along with a degree of education which kept them in comparative ignorance, yet did not offer any obstacles to raising themselves in the social sphere. Before France could compete with England, she had to rid herself of the feudal system, and obtain a Magna Charta. She was above four centuries behind-hand here. She had to win her spurs through revolutions, like those of Cromwell's and that of 1688, and the still greater ones of Parliament. The Freethinkers of England prepared the Whig revolution of William, by advocating the only scheme which was at the time practicable, for of the two – the Protestant and the Catholic religion – the former is far more conducive to the liberties of a people than the latter, and at the time, and we may also say, nearer the present, the people were not prepared for any organic change. This being the case, it is not to be wondered at that the French Revolution was a failure as a constructive effort; it was a success as a grand outbreak of power; showing politicians where (in the future) to rely for success. The men who undertook to bring about this Revolution are not to be censured for its non-success. They wished to copy English institutions, and adapt them to those of the French; for this purpose, the Continental League was formed, each member of which pledged himself to uproot, as far as lay in his power, the Catholic Church in France. A secret name was given to it —L'Infame– and an organized attack was speedily commenced. The men at the head of the movement, besides Voltaire and Frederick, were D'Alembert, Diderot, Grim, St. Lambert, Condillac, Helvetius, Jordan, Lalande, Montesquieu, and a host of others of less note. Con-dorcet, being secretary of the Academy, corresponded with, and directed the movements of all, in the absence of his chief. Every new book was criticised – refutations were published to the leading theological works of the age; but by far the roost effective progress was made by the means of poems, essays, romances, epigrams, and scientific papers. The songs of France at this era were written by the philosophers; and this spirit was diffused among the people. In a country so volatile and excitable as the French, it is difficult to estimate too highly the power of a ballad warfare. The morality of Abbots and Nuns were sung in strains as rhapsodical, and couplets as voluptuous as the vagaries of the Songs of Solomon.
Much discretion was required, that no separate species of warfare should be overdone, lest a nausea of sentiment should revert upon the authors, and thus lead to a reaction more sanguinary than the force of the philosophers could control. In all those cases Condorcet was the prime mover and the agent concerned. He communicated with Voltaire on every new theory, and advised him when and how to strike, and when to rest. In all those matters Condorcet was obeyed. There was a smaller section of the more serious philosophers who sympathized with, yet did not labor simultaneously for the common cause – those men, the extreme Atheists – clever but cautious – men who risked nothing – Mirabeau and D'Holbach were the types of this class. It is well known that both Frederick, Voltaire, and Condorcet opposed those sections, as likely to be aiming at too much for the time.
When it was considered prudent to take a more decided step, the Encyclopædia was formed. Condorcet had a principal part in this work, which shook priestcraft on its throne; it spread consternation where-ever it appeared, and was one of the main causes of the great outbreak. No one can sufficiently praise a work of such magnitude; nor can any one predicate when its effects will cease.
In the "Life of Condorcet," by Arago, there is a curious extract copied from a collection of anecdotes, said to be compiled from his note-books, and dignified with the title of "Mémoires de Condorcet." It relates to a conversation between the Abbe Galiana and Diderot, in which it is said Condorcet acquiesced. The subject is the fair sex: —
Diderot. – How do you define woman?
Galiana. – An animal naturally feeble and sick.
Diderot. – Feeble? Has she not as much courage as man?
Galiana. – 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, poltroons.
Diderot. – Why call you woman naturally sick!
Galiana. – Like all animals, she is sick until she attains 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 de malades peut-être – elles ne sont que des reilles.
Diderot. – Observe her at a ball, no vigor, then, M. l'Abbe?
Galiana. – Stop the fiddles! put out the lights! she will scarcely crawl to her coach.
Diderot. – See her in love.
Galiana. – It is painful to see anybody in a fever.
Diderot. – M. l'Abbe, have you no faith in education?
Galiana. – 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, and 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, do we not all treat them as we do sick people, lavish attention, soothe, flatter, caress, and get tired of them?
Condorcet, in a letter, remarking on the above conversation, says: – "I do not insist upon it as probable that woman will ever be Euler or Voltaire; but I am satisfied that she may one day be Pascal or Rousseau." This very qualification, we consider, is sufficient to absolve Condorcet from, the charge of being a "woman hater." His opponents, when driven from every other source, have fallen back on this, and alleged that he viewed the sexes as unequal, and that the stronger had a right to lord it over the weaker. But which is the weaker? Euler and Voltaire were masculine men. A woman to be masculine, in the true sense of the word, is an anomaly, to be witnessed with pain. She is not in a normal condition. She is a monster. Women should live in society fully educated and developed in their physical frame, and then they would be more feminine in proportion as they approach the character of Mary Wollstonecraft. They have no right to domineer as tyrants, and then fall into the most abject of slaves. In each of the characters of Pascal and Rousseau, was an excess of sensibility, which overbalanced their other qualities, and rendered their otherwise great talents wayward, and, to a certain extent, fruitless. The peculiarity of man is physical power, and intellectual force; that of woman is an acute sensibility. Condorcet, then, was justified in expressing the opinions he avowed upon the subject.
In a paper, in the year 1766, read before the "Academy," on "Ought Popular Errors to be Eradicated!" Condorcet says, "If the people are often tempted to commit crimes in order that they may obtain the necessaries of life, it is the fault of the laws; and, as bad laws are the product of errors, it would be more simple to abolish those errors than to add others for the correction of their natural effects. Error, no doubt, may do some good; it may prevent some crimes, but it will occasion mischiefs greater than these. By putting nonsense into the heads of the people, you make them stupid; and from stupidity to ferocity there is but a step. Consider – if the motives you suggest for being just make but a slight impression on the mind, that will not direct the conduct – if the impressions be lively, they will produce enthusiasm, and enthusiasm for error. Now, the ignorant enthusiast is no longer a man; he is the most terrible of wild beasts. In fact, the number of criminals among the men with prejudices (Christians) is in greater proportion to the total number of our population, than the number of criminals in the class above prejudices (Freethinkers) is to the total of that class. I am not ignorant that, in the actual state of Europe, the people are not, perhaps, at all prepared for a true doctrine of morals; but this degraded obtuseness is the work of social institutions and of superstitions. Men are not born blockheads; they become such. By speaking reason to the people, even in the little time they give to the cultivation of their intellect, we might easily teach them the little that it is necessary for them to know. Even the idea of the respect that they should have for the property of the rich, is only difficult to be insinuated among them – first, because they look on riches as a sort of usurpation, of theft perpetrated upon them, and unhappily this opinion is in great part true – secondly, because their excessive poverty makes them always consider themselves in the case of absolute necessity – a case in which even very severe moralists have been of their mind – thirdly, because they are as much despised and maltreated for being poor, as they would be after they had lowered themselves by larcenies. It is merely, therefore, because institutions are bad, that the people are so commonly a little thievish upon principle."
We should have much liked to have given some extended quotations from the works of Condorcet; but, owing to their general character, we cannot extract any philosophic formula which would be generally interesting. His "Lettres d'un Théologien" are well deserving of a reprint; they created an astounding sensation when they appeared, being taken for the work of Voltaire – the light, easy, graceful style, with deeply concealed irony, the crushing retort and the fiery sarcasm. They made even priests laugh by their Attic wit and incongruous similes. But it was in the "Academy" where Condorcet's influence was supreme. He immortalized the heroes as they fell, and pushed the cause on by his professional duties. He was always awake to the call of duty, and nobly did he work his battery. He is now in the last grand sleep of man – the flowers of poesy are woven in amarynth wreaths over his tomb.
A.C.