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Various additional fragments were brought to light, especially the famous conversation between De Saci and Pascal regarding Epictetus and Montaigne; but the form of the fragments remained unchanged. It was not till the edition of Condorcet in 1776 that they can be said to have undergone any new rédaction.
There is no doubt that when Condorcet said, "Not only equality of right, but equality of fact, is the goal of the social art," he uttered the sentiments of the socialists of the Revolution.
We have seen D'Alembert, ever since the year 1763, encouraging Bailly to exercise himself in a style of literary composition then much liked, the style of éloge, and holding out to him in prospect the situation of Perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences. Six years after, the illustrious geometer gave the same advice, and perhaps held out the same hopes, to the young Marquis de Condorcet.
Heaven, the abode of all ideal perfections, and in which man places his most beautiful dreams, was limited by Condorcet to earth: his science was his virtue; the human mind his deity.
Thereupon, Hyacinthe walked off with his languid air, well pleased with the effect which he had produced on the others. "So you know him?" said Pierre to Francois. "He was my school-fellow at Condorcet, we were in the same classes together. Such a funny fellow he was! A perfect dunce!
For a time men thought that all the boasted wisdom of the eighteenth century was folly; and that those hopes of great political and social ameliorations which had been cherished by Voltaire and Condorcet were utterly delusive.
Follow him into a celebrated Assembly, into that Convention, the sanguinary delirium of which we might almost be inclined to pardon, when we call to mind how gloriously terrible it was to the enemies of our independence, and you will always see the illustrious Condorcet occupied exclusively with the great interests of reason and humanity.
“La scolastique, qui produisit dans la logique, comme dans la morale, et dans une partie de la métaphysique, une subtilité, une précision d’idées, dont l’habitude inconnue aux anciens, a contribué plus qu’on ne croit au progrès de la bonne philosophie.”—CONDORCET, Vie de Turgot.
As Mirabeau, the intellectual Catiline of his age, is the protagonist of Rebellion, that principle which has drawn the deepest utterances from the world-soul, from Job to Prometheus and Farinata, so Condorcet, whose countenance in its high and gentle benevolence seems the very expression of that bienfaisance which the Abbé de Saint-Pierre made fashionable, may be styled the high-priest of Girondinism, and he carries his faith beyond the grave, hallowing the altar of Freedom with his blood.
There is something almost tragic in the joy with which Turgot's dismissal was received on all sides. 'I seem, said Marmontel, 'to be looking at a band of brigands in the forest of Bondy, who have just heard that the provost-marshal has been discharged. Voltaire and Condorcet were not more dismayed by the fall of the minister, than by the insensate delight which greeted the catastrophe.
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