CONDORCET: A BIOGEAPHY. 181 



the false views of those who, in my estimation, have never truly com- 

 prebeuded the majestic aspect presented to his generation by the great 

 Condorcet. 



If I venture to hope that I have fonnd truth where others have 

 fallen into error, it is because I have had access to private sources of 

 information. The distinguished daughter of our former secretary, and 

 her illustrious husband, General O'Connor, have placed their rich 

 archives at my disposal, with a kindness, unreserve, and liberality for 

 which I cannot sufficiently thank them. Many manuscripts of Condorcet 

 finished or incomplete, his letters to Turgot, answers from the lord lieu- 

 tenant of Limoges, the comptroller- general of finance, fifty-two unpub- 

 lished letters of Voltaire, the correspondence of Lagrange with the sec- 

 retary of the Academy of Sciences and with d'Alembert, letters of Fred- 

 erick the Great, of Franklin, of Mademoiselle de I'Espinasse, of Borda, of 

 Monge, &c. — such are the treasures I received from the honorable family 

 of Condorcet. This is the material which has led me to clear and precise 

 ideas of the part taken by our confrere iu the political, social, and intel- 

 lectual movement of the second half of the eighteenth century. 



I have a fear that I have not sufficiently avoided a temptation result- 

 ing from the kindness of General and Mrs. O'Connor. In going over 

 the manuscript confided to me, my mind was involuntarily impressed 

 with the apprehension of the thousand accidents which might happen to 

 those precious pages, and the result has been an uncommon number of 

 quotations, and therefore an expansion of points which perhaps might 

 better have been only alluded to. I am aware of the inconvenience 

 of such elaboration, but consider as sufficient compensation that I have 

 perhaps rescued from oblivion facts, opinions, and literary judgments 

 of great value ; that I have made to speak in my place many eminent 

 personages of the last century. 



One word as to the unusual length of this article. I am well aware of 

 the demands it must make upon the patient attention of my hearers, 

 and the gr^at desirability of retrenchment even after the numerous 

 omissions which had become necessary by the exigencies of a public 

 reading, but I consider my mission unusual, and more than ordinarily 

 solemn ; in fact I am about to undertake the rehabilitation of a col- 

 league, and that in every point of view, scientific, literary, philosophical, 

 and political. Any feeling of self-love that might interfere with this end 

 would manifestly be unworthy of the assembly I address as well as of 

 myself. 



Infancy and youth of Condokcet — His studies, his chaeacter, 

 HIS mathematical labors. 



Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat de Condorcet, formerly perpetual sec- 

 retary of the Academy of Sciences, was born on the 17th of September, 

 1743, in Picardy, in the small village of Eibemont, which had already given 

 to the Academy the engineer Blondel, celebrated by the construction of 



