CONUORCET: A BIOGRAPHY. 199 



cruel actions, a century of intolerance and fanaticism. The field was 

 large, but was not too much for the power, the knowledge, and the zeal 

 of the writer. In his beautiful work Condorcet first shows us I'llopital 

 in Italy, with the constable of Bourbon, in the parliament and council 

 of Bologna. We then see him at the head of the finances. Later it is 

 the chancellor, the minister, the statesman whose acts are revealed to 

 the reader. The history of a life so full of incident could not properly 

 be reduced to the limits of an article which could be read in sixty min- 

 utes — the time prescribed by the academy. Condorcet could not comply 

 with this limitation, and his eulog}' was three times longer than the 

 programme allowed. This was sufficient in itself to make the rejection 

 of the essay a foregone conclusion, to say nothing of the criticism the 

 work excited in the literary Areopagus, of which the author of the 

 Lyceum has preserved some specimens. 



According to La Harpe, the style of the eulogy of l'H6i)ital lacked 

 harmony. The charge would have been a graver one had he said (if it 

 could be said) that it lacked character, nerve, accuracy ; that the ideas 

 were neither new nor profound, and in that case it would be only nec- 

 essary as a refutation to refer to such passages as the following : 



" If Bertrandi (keeper of the seal of Henry II) has escaped the exe- 

 cration of succeeding centuries, it is because always petty even in the 

 midst of his greatest power, always subaltern, even while occupying the 

 highest places, he was too insignificant to attract attention." 



" All the citizens wept over the ruin of their country. L'Hopital alone 

 did not despair. Dope never abandons noble souls. The love of the public 

 good had with the chancellor all the characteristics, all the illusions of a 

 veritable passion; I'Hopital did not ignore obstacles, but felt his power 

 to cope with them." 



But " the obscurity of the style." In this criticism, I do not know what 

 La Harpe means by " phrases which double upon each other." He is cer- 

 tainly clear enough, however, when he complains of Condorcet's want of 

 dignity in speaking of vine-poles, billets of wood, and little pies, in the 

 eulogy of a chancellor. We ought to hope in the spirit of loyalty that 

 this remark of La Harpe's did not influence the decision of the Academy. 

 Would you know where the expressions occur which made the critic so 

 indignant ? They are in a note, in which with reason the author denounces 

 the strange, we might better say the deplorable regulations, which 

 the prohibitive system suggested to even such minds as that of Michel 

 de I'Hointal. Yes, gentlemen ; the fact cannot be denied ; the virtu- 

 ous chancellor prohibited the crying of little patties in the streets, in 

 order — his words are unequivocal — to insure the pastry-shops from idle- 

 ness and the people from indigestion. We may laugh in these days, we 

 may be astonished, but none the less the sale of fagots, and vine- poles also, 

 was forbidden. The laws of the time even determined theform of breeches 

 and of farthingales. The fact that I'Hopital could approve such re- 

 strictions, shows clearly to what point even men of genius may yield to 



