90 SotTie Account of the Life and IVritings of Condorcet. 



him by the high consideration which he had so justly acquired 

 by his talents and success: he knew how to descend to the level 

 of those who were merely entering upon those studies in which 

 he excelled. He never endeavoured to force his opinions upon 

 persons whom the superiority of his talents or the influence of 

 his character rendered his inferiors. " I may deceive myself," 

 he observed: " and if lam ivrovg, my friends must not conceal 

 it from myself or from others." In patronizing young men, 

 he did not merely give them the advantage of his protection, he 

 served them with zeal ; and by means of a simple and modest 

 tone of voice, a civility truly affectionate, by the pleasure and 

 instruction which he blended in his familiar intercourse, he in- 

 spired them with a gratitude as gentle as it was sincere, and an 

 attachment as durable as it was respectful. 



We have already mentioned the friendship conceived for him 

 by Turgot and D'Alembert : the latter made him one of his 

 testamentarv executors. He had many other friends equally 

 celebrated for their talents and their virtues : among these was 

 the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, and his respectable mother the 

 Duchess d'Enville. Their attachment for Condorcet was so 

 much the subject of animadversion at the commencement of the 

 revolution, by those who surrounded them, that they gave up 

 his acquaintance with regret, yielding rather to importunate and 

 unremitting solicitations than to their own conviction. About 

 this period, when men and even things were liable every moment 

 to take opposite qualities, it was no longer possible to establish 

 a character on the public voice. Condorcet, like all those who 

 made a figure in this dreadfiil crisis, was subjected to the most 

 contradictory opinions ; but there remained to him, among men 

 of intelligence and virtue, some faithful friends, who preserved 

 for his memory a just respect, which will not be belied by an 

 examination of facts, if it is directed by that spirit of modera- 

 tion and impartiality which knows how to make allowances in 

 every scries of events for the caprices of fortune, and the errors 

 whicii naturally occur in the wisest political combinations. 



The character of Condorcet is impressed in the forms of his 

 style. The enemy of all declamation, he rarely quits the tone of 

 calm discussion : we ought not therefore to expect from his 

 writings grand displays of eloquence, but always accuracy, fre- 

 quently elevation, and also profound research. We might re- 

 proach him with negligence, which he would have no doubt 

 corrected, if he had attached more importance to the form of 

 his writings, which were almost always produced on the spur 

 of unforeseen occasions. He is also accused of being occa- 

 sionally obscure ; and it must be confessed, that the man who 

 could in his literary productions explain abstract propositions, 



and 



