208 CONDOECET : A BIOGRAPHY. 



The disfavor that tbis nomination drew upon Condorcet (tlie expres- 

 sion of tbis feeling is found in most of tbe writings of tbo time) is to me 

 inexplicable. Were the literary claims of Bailly to the nomination so 

 indisputably superior to those of Condorcet that the latter could not hon- 

 estly have received the preference "? " Should speculation," d'Alembert 

 maliciously remarks, " in regard to an ancient people, about whom every 

 thing is known except their name and place of abode, overbalance the 

 ingenious, learned, and often elegant descriptions of men of our timel" 



In any case, supposing Condorcet was mistaken in his claims to an 

 Academic chair, the illusion was a very natural one. Thus in the unpub- 

 lished Correspondence of Voltaire, I have so often quoted, I read, under 

 the date of 1771 : " You should do us the honor of belougiug to the 

 Academy. We have need of men who think as you do." Is this said in 

 mere politeness, and not seriously % 



I pass over an interval of live years, and on the 26th of February, 

 1776, iind in another letter of the great poet : " Belong to our Academy ; 

 your name and your eloquence will have some effect upon the set of 

 hired assassins established in Paris." The same desire is re])eated with 

 variations in several letters of the month of March. That of the 16th 

 contains this passage : '• I repeat to you that if you do not this time 

 do me the honor of joining us, I shall go and pass the rest of my loutli 

 at the Academy of Berlin or that of St. Petersburg." The old man 

 becomes afterward still more pressing: "I wish you would promise 

 me," he writes on the 9th of April, 1776, " for my comfort, that you will 

 take my place in the Academy and aid our assembly with your words, 

 as you have supported it with deeds. Be received by M. d'Alembert, and 

 I will feel greater confidence that all will be well." 



Voltaire the sceptic doubts everything except the merit, the attach- 

 ment, and the gratitude, of our confrere. 



We are now at the commencement of 1776. At the close of the year 

 following, the 21th of November, 1777, the author of Merope wrote again 

 to our former secretary : *' I shall always be tenderly attached as long as 

 I live to him who forms the glory of the Academy of Sciences, and I 

 hope he will some day do the same for the French Academy. Since the 

 history of literature makes regretful mention of many candidates who 

 entered the Academy only after soliciting long for the honor, I may be 

 permitted to show one man of letters who became an academician only 

 after he had been long solicited." 



Condorcet testaimentary executor of d'Alembert. — His mar- 

 RiAGrE WITH Mademoiselle de Grouchy. 



The ordinary, the regular course of things in this world brings some 

 days of mourning, of tears, and of deep sorrow even into the least 

 troubled lives. Condorcet experienced this in 1783. That year, on the 

 29th of October, death robbed him of his friend, the illustrious geometer, 



