192 CONDOECET: A BIOGRAPHY. 



presence by those who knew how to read and to assume without feeling 

 passion, that if my little effort was well depicted and well acted it might 

 produce at Paris a happy effect. I was, unfortunately, mistaken. I 

 was aware of most of the faults you have the kindness to point out, 

 and I add to them many others. I was endeavoring to make a picture 

 out of a rough sketch, when your criticisms, dictated by friendship and 

 by reason, came to increase my doubts of its worth. We can do noth- 

 ing well in the arts of imagination and taste without the aid of an en- 

 lightened friend." 



1 feel that I am dwelling too long upon a point of the life of Condorcet 

 which would seem to be alieady sufficiently illustrated, but I am irre- 

 sistibly impelled to give a third and last incident of the frankness of 

 Condorcet, which, in this case, truly amounted to a beautiful and noble 

 action. 



Voltaire and Montesquieu, did not like each other. Montesquieu even 

 allowed this to be too evident. Voltaiie, irritated by some pamphlets 

 published by Montesquieu, wrote atFeruey, against the VJEspritdes Lois, 

 several articles, which he sent to his friends in Paris, asking to have 

 them published. Condorcet did not yield to the demand, imperious 

 as it was, of the illustrious old man. "Do you not see," he remon- 

 strated, " that to what you say to-day will be opposed your former 

 praises of Montesquieu'? His aihnirers, displeased l>y the way in which 

 you take up some of his erroneous statements, will seek for similar inad- 

 vertencies in your own works, and they cannot possibly fail to find such, 

 for even Caesar describing his campaigns in his Commentaries, commits 

 some inaccuracies. * * * You will, I hope, pardon me for notcomply- 

 ing with your request in this matter, which you seem to have so much 

 at heart. My attachment compels me to tell you what is for your advan- 

 tage and not what will please you. If I loved you less, I would not dare 

 to oppose you. 1 know the faults of Montesquieu, but he is worthy 

 enough for you to overlook them." After this noble and loyal lan- 

 guage, which was wellcalculated to rectify wrong ideas, it cannot, be said 

 that all the philosophers of the XVIIIth century were the vassals of 

 Voltaire. The short response of the illustrious old man to the remon- 

 strances of Condorcet is a document so valuable to the history of our lit- 

 erature that I cannot allow it to lemain hidden in my portfolio ; here it 

 Is: 



"There is but one way to respond to what a true philosopher wrote 

 me on the 20th of June. I thank him very sincerely. One ought not 

 to blush to go to school, even if of the age of Methuselah * * * I 

 repeat my thanks." 



Condorcet successor of Grandjean de Fouchy, as Secretary 

 OP THE Academy of Sciences — Appreciation of his eulogies 

 OF THE Academicians. 



Fontenelle had given so much eclat to the functions of the secretary 

 of the Academy of Sciences that at his death no one wished to succeed 



