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Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, 1743-1794.
French Enlightenment philosopher, mathematician, social scientist, economist, gentleman, politician and humanitarian. The Marquis of Condorcet was perhaps the only giant of the Enlightenment present and involved at the 1789 Revolution.
Background
Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, was born in Ribemont (near Saint-Quentin, Picardy). His father, a cavalry captain, died in battle when the young Condorcet was only four. A sickly child, Condorcet was raised by his pious mother, assisted by an uncle (a future Bishop of Lisieux). It is insinuated in some sources that Condorcet's family were originally Huguenots from the Dauphiné that had since re-converted to Catholicism.(BdC). Despite his noble "Marquis" title and rank, the Condorcet family seemed to lack any fiefs or landed property, and Condorcet's financial position was always precarious and dependent on the generosity of others..
At the age of eleven, Condorcet was placed at a Jesuit college in Rheims. Condorcet demonstrated an early mathematical aptitude. He transferred in 1758 to complete his education at the prestigious Collège de Navarre in Paris. The sixteen-year-old Condorcet defended his thesis on mathematical analysis in 1759 before a committee of senior mathematicians that included the Encyclopediste Jean le Rond d'Alembert, making a great impression on them. At the age of nineteen, with the financial support of the Duke of Rochefoucauld, Condorcet moved definitively to Paris in 1762, setting himself up as an independent scholar. D'Alembert took him under his wing and served as his mentor and conduit to the Paris intelligentsia circles, introducing him to leading contemporary mathematicians like Jean-Louis Lagrange.
Academician
In 1764, Condorcet published his first work, an essay on integral calculus. It was very well-received by the French scientific establishment. and was followed up by further treatises applying and extending his methods of integration. In March, 1769, Condorcet was elected to the prestigious Académie Royale des Sciences. Condorcet was put to work composing a series of official biographies of 17th C. scientists for the academy. Research for this project sparked Condorcet's interest in the history of science, which he would later work into his theory of civilizational progress. In June, 1773, Condorcet was elected deputy and successor of Grandjean de Fouchy, the perpetual secretary of the Académie des sciences. This raised some eyebrows, as Condorcet was still young and the astronomer Bailly had been previously promised that position. The fingerprints of d'Alembert were visible in the maneuvering to raise his protegé - and given that d'Alembert himself had just been elected permanent secretary to the Académie française, there was an ill-feeling among some scientists (Buffon in particular) that d'Alembert was trying to erect an institutional despotism via Condorcet.
In the 1760s and early 1770s, Condorcet's work was almost exclusively dedicated to pure mathematics, publishing mostly in the house journals of the Académie Royale des Sciences. Besides his own articles, Condorcet was the author of numerous anonymous prefaces to other people's articles (notably Laplace and Langrange) in the Histoire de l'Académie Royale des Sciences (HARS) in the early 1770s Condorcet also continued putting out his string of eulogies of deceased scientists for the annals of the Academie.
In the early 1770s, D'Alembert persuaded Codorcet to contribute several articles on mathematical topics for the Encylopédie - not, of course, to the original edition (it had been finished when Condorcet was merely a boy), but rather for the Supplément volumes being prepared by Robinet. However, delays to the publication of the Supplément led Condorcet to pull out his notable economics article - "Monopole et Monopoleur", written c.1775 - and publish it separately as a pamphlet. However another 23 articles written by Condorcet, almost all on pure mathematics, would remain in the Supplément volumes, which finally appeared in 1776-77. They are notable for Condorcet's easy exposition of the considerable rapid advances in mathematics which had taken place in the last quarter-century, bringing the work of Euler and Lagrange to the fore.
Disciple of Turgot
Condorcet's interests soon began to expand. In Paris, again through d'Alembert, Condorcet fell in with the philosophes clique of Voltaire, Diderot, Condillac, etc. and was drawn to begin thinking about social and political topics. (An apparent turning point was Condorcet's extended visit to Voltaire in Fernay, in September-October 1770). He also corresponded with the Italian wing of Beccaria and Verri. In 1774, Condorcet wrote an anonymous polemic defending the philosophes against the conservative Abbé Sabathier de Castres.
Condorcet was not happy with the manner in which the philosophes concentrated solely on demolishing traditional ideas about social order without positing anything to replace them. It is partly for this reason that Condorcet (like d'Alembert) was drawn to the remarkable Physiocratic economist Jacques Turgot, whom he regarded as a constructive thinker.
Condorcet had been introduced to Turgot by d'Alembert back in 1769, at the famous salon of Mademoiselle Julie de Lespinasse. Twenty years his senior, Turgot encouraged Condorcet to explore economic questions, and move from academic life to public service. After Louis XVI appointed Turgot as French minister of finance (contrôleur-général de finances) in 1774, Turgot promptly appointed d'Alembert and Condorcet to a state commission to inquire into navigable waterways. Turgot later arranged to have Condorcet appointed at the head of the French Mint (inspecteur général des monnaies) in January 1775, a position Condorcet would hold for the next fifteen years.
Condorcet wrote his anonymous Lettres sure le commerce de grains in late 1774, in defense of Turgot's controversial edict liberalizing the grain trade. But the policy was imperiled in the Spring of 1775, with bread riots in Paris and the "Flour Wars" out in the countryside. The riots were fanned by the appearance of an anti-Turgotian tract by the Neo-Colbertiste writer Jacques Necker. Condorcet promptly wrote a reply against Necker in late 1775 (Du commerce du bleds), and followed it up with more anti-Necker, pro-Turgotian tracts, such as "Monopole et Monopoleur". It was in reference to the the ferocity of these writings that d'Alembert would characterize Condorcet as an "enraged lamb" ("mouton enragé"), and a "volcano covered in snow" ("un volcan couvert de neige"), an allusion to Condorcet's otherwise outwardly calm and amiable disposition, as well as his prematurely white hair.
The Turgotian era came to an end in June 1776, when Turgot was summarily dismissed by Louis XVI. Condorcet immediately submitted his resignation in protest, but was persuaded by Turgot himself to stay on. Condorcet had to swallow the humiliation of serving under his nemesis, Jacques Necker, who ascended to the controller-general position in October, 1776 and promptly reversed most of the Turgotian policies.
Return to the Academy
Although continuing his position at the mint after the fall of Turgot, Condorcet detached himself from Necker's government, and focused on his academic activities. The old enemies of d'Alembert who had made Condorcet's initial years at the Académie a bit difficult, were hardly pleased by the succession of government appointments Turgot had arranged for Condorcet. They were particularly incensed when Turgot earmarked a significant portion of government funds designated for the ARS specifically to fund Condorcet's research. In early 1775, in an apparent act of retaliation, they had the Académie appoint a committee of four to "revise" Condorcet's eulogies and threatened to set up permanent board of censors for his prefaces. As a result, Condorcet suspended his academic writing and even renounced his right to succeed in the secretariat. Nonetheless, when Grandjean de Fouchy finally retired in 1776, Condorcet was unanimously elected perpetual secretary of the Académie des Sciences on August 7, 1776.
Back in control, Condorcet promptly resumed the composition of eulogies for academicians, now extending his coverage to those lately deceased, composing more than fifty eulogies over the next decade - including Linnaeus (1778), Daniel Bernoulli (1782), d'Alembert (1783), Leonhard Euler (1783), Turgot's brother (1789) and Benjamin Franklin (1790). Condorcet used his eulogies not merely to hail individual men, but also as platform to explore his own ruminating ideas about the role of science, mathematics, and politics in society. He held his nose to compose one for his old enemy Buffon (1788), but absolutely refused to write one for the Duke of La Vrillière, partly on account that the late minister had been an enthusiast of private arrest warrants (lettres de cachet). This refusal reportedly annoyed the new French minister, the Count of Maurepas, who consequently blocked Condorcet's admission into the Académie française (BdC)
In 1777, Condorcet wrote a treatise on comets, which earned a prize from the Prussian Academy in Berlin. That same year, he wrote an extensive eulogy to Michel d'Hôpital, the moderate French chancellor during the 16th C. wars of religion, whom he portrayed as a proto-philosophe, and defender of natural rights. Condorcet's eulogy to d'Hôpital was submitted to a competition for the Académie française. Although it wasn't rewarded with a prize (possibly by Maurepas's intervention), it was well-received when published. In 1776, Condorcet put out a new edition of the Pensées of Pascal, to which he added (in 1778) extensive notes and a "Éloge to Pascal". Again, Condorcet tried to re-cast the 17th C. French philosopher as a modern philosophe. He reinterpreted Pascal's pessimistic (some might say realistic) view of human nature, with all its faults and frailties, as subtly anticipating the Enlightenment's optimistic view of man, emphasizing that these deficiencies were not inherent in human nature, but the fault of social order. The eloge to Pascal was much admired by Voltaire.
Condorcet's activities at the academy dominated much of his time after 1776. The Académie des Sciences was repeatedly called on by the government to organize scientific investigations - e.g. on the state of prisons, canals, and also to independently judge the validity of new scientific discoveries (often tricky, given the wave of pseudo-scientism that surged around this time, as many frauds tried cash in on the fashionable Enlightenment wave). Condorcet had to assemble committees and oversee the delivery of their reports. The Academy under Condorcet's directorship inquired into the hot-air balloons of the Montgolfier brothers, and confirmed their validity. But Condorcet's Academy became engulfed in public controversy in 1779-80 when they turned down two notable charlatans: Franz Mesmer (who claimed to have discovered "animal magnetism") and Jean-Paul Marat (the future revolutionary firebrand was at this time claiming to have discovered a new theory of light, fire and electricity, much of which ran contrary to Newtonian physics). Disappointed, Mesmer, Marat and their supporters denounced the Academy, and its director Condorcet in particular, in a barrage of verbal assaults in the public press, accusing them of corruption among other things.
Mathématique sociale
Amidst all this, Condorcet also found some to return to mathematical writing, but it was no longer merely the pure analysis of yore. Condorcet had been recently turned on to probability theory and statistics, and quickly saw them as the key to apply mathematics to the political and social subjects he was interested in. Condorcet hailed Laplace's "inverse probabilities" as the route to follow in all sciences (see preface of 1774, p.xviii). Inspired by Lagrange's 1772 memoir (p.513) on planetary motion, in 1777 Condorcet appended a celebrated expository essay of the new method in a report on a canal commission. He continued to drop reflections on the importance of budding science of mathematical probability to science in general and "political arithmetic" in particular, in various other writings, e.g. in the eulogy to Pascal (1778). Condorcet invoked it in his controversy over population demographics with the hapless Moheau in the Mercure de France (1778-79). The Count of Maurepras died in 1781, clearing the way for Condorcet's election to the Académie française in January 1782. Condorcet's reception address talked about the prospect of applying mathematics to the social science, and not merely the natural ones.
In his private life, Condorcet endemic financial difficulties were alleviated in 1783, when his old friend D'Alembert died, leaving his property to Condorcet. This was compounded by the inheritance that Condorcet received from his uncle, the Bishop of Lisieux, who died the same year ([QR, p.16])
The Marquis de Condorcet was a consistent republican, a life-long opponent of slavery and an ardent proponent of economic liberalism. Condorcet distanced himself from Rousseau's attempt to alter classic rationalism with sentiment, preferring instead to raise reason to the mathematical level. Condorcet argued that the only social obligation is to obey the general reason, rather than the general will. The will of the majority should be trumped if it fails to comply with reason.
In the social sciences, Condorcet is most famous for his mathematique sociale, his belief that socio-economic phenomena and policies ought to be studied and dealt with by mathematical and statistical methods. Codorcet illustrated this in his own approach to questions of electoral suffrage. Condorcet published his Essay in 1785, applying probability theory to voting situations, which is perhaps best known for its dim view of group rationality. Among his results was the "Condorcet theorem", proving that if the individual probability of reaching a correct decision is less than half, then the probability that a voting assembly will reach the correct decision diminishes the greater the number of voters, and the "Condorcet paradox" that even if individual voter preferences are transitive, the collective outcome can exhibit intransitive preferences. Condorcet weighed various alternative voting schemes, reaching several more results (e.g. that supermajority is preferable to simple majority, and majority voting is preferable to forced unanimity). But Condorcet overall conclusion was that there are no failsafe voting schemes and that efforts must be made to educate voters as enlightened and critical thinkers, in order to improve their chances of reaching a correct decision.
In 1786, Condorcet published a memorial to his fallen mentor Jacques Turgot (who had died back in 1781), that went beyond the usual eulogies, and allowed Condorcet to pontificate on the grander theme of government and the economy. Condorcet's plea for laissez-faire was couched in the abstract terms of reason and justice.
"In all classes of society, the particular interest of each naturally tends to blend with the common interest; and, as the rigorous application of justice obliges us to allow every individual to enjoy the freest use of his property, the general good of all is in accordance with this principle of justice. Agriculture should be free, industry should be free, commerce should be free, interest on money should be free...What laws should society have on these objects? Instituted to preserve for man his natural rights, obliged to watch for the common good of all, justice, the public interest prescribes that society bear legislation that ensures the freest exercise of the property of each, that does not establish any restrictions upon it and destroys any that remain, and prevents fraud or violence from establishing the contrary." (Condorcet, 1786: p.208).
On December 28, 1786, Condorcet married Marie Louise Sophie de Grouchy, who was then about half his age, and the sister of the future French general the Marquis de Grouchy. She was an intellectual in her own right, who would go on to translate Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. After their marriage, the Madame de Condorcet hosted an important salon in Paris, attended at one time or other by famous luminaries like Thomas Paine, Abbé Morellet, Cesare Beccaria, Thomas Jefferson, and Adam Smith himself . During the revolution, she also hosted the Cercle Social in their home. Sophie would later edit her late husband's works in 1804. Their only child, a daughter Eliza (future countess O'Conner) would organize the 1847 edition of his collected works.
Backed by his new wife, Condorcet became more active politically. Inspired by the 1787 British abolitionist society of Thomas Clarkson, the Marquis of Condorcet founded the Société des Amis des Noirs in February 1788 (bnf), along with Pierre Brissot (future Girondin) and Étienne Clavière (future Jacobin), . Condorcet composed the Society's original regulations (bnf) and was elected its first president in January 1789 (bnf). He was joined by notable friends like the Duke de Rochefoucauld, the American war hero Marquis de Lafayette and future Paris mayor Jérôme Pétion in the abolitionist cause.
In 1787, Condorcet re-edited an edition of Euler's famous letters to a German princess. Two lectures on mathematics and probability, delivered at the Lycée in 1786 and 1787, along with his Élémens (wr. 1787, pub. 1805), were written around this time, planned by Condorcet to constitute a fourth volume to accompany Euler's letters. To tie them together, Condorcet set out a comprehensive "Tableau général de la science". However, the planned volume ended up not appearing. Condorcet would go on revising and re-revising his Tableau, which only appeared in print after his death.
Condorcet returned to political science in his "Quattre lettres", published in Filippo Mattei's 1788 treatise on the constitutional project of the United States (itself a reply to Mably). Taking on the persona of an anonymous Virginia legislator, Condorcet proposes a unicameral legislature, based on an electoral process drawn from his 1785 Essay. Condorcet went on to demand constitutional restrictions to ensure legislation according the natural law, preserving equality before the law, free trade, laissez faire, freedom of religion, women's suffrage, etc. as being fundamental rights of man, and recommends the Physiocratic single land tax as the basis of public finances.
Condorcet's 1788 Essai picked up Turgot's Memoire on municipalities as the basis of his own ideas on government. For Condorcet, like Turgot, the importance was not finding the "general will" (which Rousseau thought impossible anyway), but of finding "general reason". The form of government in itself did not matter, whether or not it represented the will of the people did not matter. What mattered is whether it can reach decisions conformable to reason and natural right, independent of petty self-interest and arbitrary preferences. Given the propensity of a single man, like an absolute monarch, or a small clique of ministers, to be wrong, Turgot had forwarded a plan for the formation of representative assemblies of property-owners, without distinction of rank or estate, as the best means to discover "correct" rational decisions.
Political Career
The French Revolution of 1789 opened up the unexpected opportunity for the Marquis de Condorcet to apply his ideas to France itself.
Facing imminent bankruptcy, in the late summer of 1788, King Louis XVI abruptly called for the Estates-General to convene for the first time in 175 years. Condorcet's Essai on provincial assemblies, written earlier in the year, only came out from the printers in December, 1788 and was already obsolete. Nonetheless, Condorcet enthusiastically contributed a series of instructive pamphlets addressed to electors and delegates, e.g on instructions to give to delegates, on the Third Estate, a French translation of the English 1689 Declaration of Rights, a renewed plea for the abolition of slavery, a call for the exclusion of representatives of slaveholders in the French colonies, etc. As a nobleman, Condorcet was part of the second estate, and he assisted the composition of the cahiers de doleances for the nobility of Mantes (cahier) in March, and subsequently a commissioner for the cahier for the nobility of Paris (cahier in AP) in April, 1789. But Condorcet did not manage to get elected as a delegate himself. For the pre-eminent constitutional scholar, former government economic official and long-time director of the Académie de Sciences, it must have been a sore disappointment to be forced to sit out of the greatest political event in France in decades.
Constituent Assembly (Jun 1789-Sep 1791)
As the Third Estate defected to their own assembly in June 1789, Condorcet's "Turgotian" constitutional program was promoted by his friend and patron, the Duke of Rochefoucauld, as a model basis for the new National Assembly of France. The Paris commune had been formed on Bastille day July 14, 1789 (his old academic rival, the astronomer Bailly, was elected mayor of Paris on the same day) Condorcet promptly enrolled in the National Guard, and assisted Lafayette with its organization, but continued outside of the political process . This finally began to change on September 18, 1789, when Condorcet was elected to the municipal assembly of the Paris commune, as a representative of the left bank district of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-de-Prés. Condorcet was dispatched to Versailles in October, as an emissary to confer and negotiate with the National Assembly on behalf of the Paris commune
During the Constituent Assembly phase (June 1789-Sep 1791) of the revolution, Condorcet watched from the sidelines. Although not a member of that assembly, Condorcet could not resist commenting on the assembly's attempts to hammer out the first written constitution for France. Condorcet joined discussion clubs, printed articles in the press and put out pamphlets. Condorcet was among maybe only a handful of people in France at the time already exhibiting republican inclinations. Condorcet considered the formula of a constitutional monarchy to be an absurd contradiction, and warned against it, calling it a fatal flaw in the eventual Constitution of 1791. He came out against against bicameral formulas, and argued strenuously for a single unicameral legislature. He pushed for the widest democratic net possible, agitating against property qualifications (marc d'argent), for women's suffrage, and equal rights for religious minorities and people of color. All this made Condorcet a favorite of the popular left and alienated him from fellow nobles. He welcomed the abolition of feudal privileges and the hereditary nobility. He dropped his "marquis" title, and began thereafter referring to himself merely as "Condorcet" (it was Condorcet who, a couple of years later, moved the assembly to order the burning of all genealogical records of noble titles (see AP for June 19, 1792)).
Condorcet's time in the Turgotian ministry was not forgotten, and from the outset, Condorcet deployed his experience in economic and fiscal matters to comment on economic policy. Even before the Estates had first met, Condorcet came out against plans, then being contemplated by Necker, for a note-issuing bank of credit and forced loans to overcome the immediate fiscal crisis. Condorcet denounced these ideas as unjust, and proposed instead the confiscation and sale of church property (this is before May 1789!) and the issue of notes secured on those anticipated revenues. .Condorcet's most practical contribution in this period was his plan for the reorganization of the royal finances into a centralized national treasury ('Trésor nationale"), and for his efforts, Condorcet was appointed by the king as one of its six commissioners. He drew severe opposition from the nobility for his proposal to abolish the civil list (pensions granted by the crown to individuals). But Condorcet also came under occasional political fire from the left, e.g. for his opposition to the creation of Assignats and for defending the preservation of the old alliance treaty with Spain ("Bourbon family pact").
In February 1790, Condorcet joined Dupont de Nemours, La Rochefoucauld, Sièyes and other moderates disenchanted with the factionalism in the Jacobins Club and formed the "Société de 1789", dedicated to a free constitution and the advancement of a liberal society (Condorcet wrote the Society's initial articles, separating themselves firmly from both from the Jacobins and the monarchical Feuillants). Condorcet and Dupont were the editors of the society's Journal (which ran from June 5 to September 15, 1790). Some famous Condorcet political pieces, notably articles against property qualifications (marc d'argent) and in favor of women's suffrage, were published here. He also made some contributions to Le Bouche de Fer, the mouthpiece of the Cercle Sociale, a proto-republican society.
In February 1790, Condorcet also founded a literary review of his own, Bibliothèque de l'homme public, with Le Peysonnel and Le Chapelier, which would run for two years. He (and the others - exact partition of authorship is unclear) composed reviews of numerous great writers on political philosophy and economics - from Aristotle to Adam Smith. Evidently, these were the works and ideas that the Condorcet believed the public, and statesmen in particular, should be reading at this historic moment. Condorcet had read Adam Smith a few years prior, and handed his copious notes over to the poet Antoine Roucher, for a new French translation of the Wealth of Nations. The translation finally appeared in1790, but Roucher had promised to print an extra volume with Condorcet's notes, but it never materialized. Condorcet's notes on Smith - or a part of them anyway- were probably those published as a review of Smith in the Bibliothèque in 1790.
It is also the Bibliotheque where where he also first laid out his comprehensive scheme for a new system of public education for France in 1791. The old system of national education, largely in the hands of religious authorities, was in a state of shambles and inadequate for the post-revolutionary era, Already aware (from his 1785 work) that an educated populace was vital, he was also adamant about ensuring that the education system would not devolve into a propagandist tool for "correct" moral and political opinions. The objective, Condorcet asserted, was to ensure a free universal system of enlightened instruction, where students would trained to become independent, critical thinkers, rather than be drilled by their teachers in the "right" opinions. This, Condorcet confidently asserted, would cultivate a citizenry inclined to reason, truth, natural right and the common good, and be less swayed by politics, petty self-interest and majority opinion. To this end, Condorcet proposed the formation of "learned companies" (compagnies de savants) in each district to be put in charge of the public education system. These local companies would be coordinated and overseen by a "national company" (Société Nationale) in Paris, composed of scholars and scientists, who chose their own members, thus ensuring the independence of the educational system from politics. It was not hard to detect that Condorcet was effectively taking his Académie de Sciences as the central model, and by franchise branches, placing it at the top of a national education system. Control of the education system by independent scholars and scientists, a long cherished goal of the Enlightenment philosophes, which seemed only a dream to Voltaire, Rousseau and the Encyclopédistes, was now approaching reality.
After the king's flight to Varennes in June 1791, Condorcet came out strongly and more openly against the monarchy. Condorcet joined Thomas Paine in briefly editing the short-lived newspaper Le Républicain, calling for the abolition of the monarchy and the introduction of a republic. It ran for only a few numbers in July, 1791 - his newspaper was abandoned in the crackdown after after the Champs de Mars massacre.
Legislative Assembly (Oct 1791-Aug 1792)
After the 1791 constitution came into effect, despite his misgivings against its preservation of the monarchy, Condorcet stood and was elected as a member of the new Legislative Assembly on September 26, 1791, as a delegate of Paris [JdP, AP].
For three weeks, starting October 22, 1791, Condorcet contributed a regular column on the National Assembly to his old haunt, the Journal de Paris, but was soon dismissed. He transferred the column to the Chronique de Paris from November 17. He would remain a regular contributor for about a year and a half. But it was a rigorous political news column, largely journalistic, which did not give Condorcet room for his more reflective commentary and speculative talents. To that end, while still doing his diligence for the Chronique de Paris, Condorcet also started contributing articles to a more argumentative review, the Chronique du Mois (no relation to the other).
In a speech before the assembly (October 25, 1791), Condorcet proposed strong measures against émigrés (French nationals, often royalists, who had fled abroad) - specifically, Condorcet proposed to require every French citizens, including those residing abroad, to swear a civic oath. Any émigré that refused would be deprived of citizenship and forfeit any property left behind in France. It was well received in the assembly, and ordered printed, but Condorcet's proposal was ultimately rejected for even stronger measures - on November 9, the assembly decided simply to declare all émigrés as "suspects conspiring against the nation" (CGD). Condorcet took the lead in authoring a Declaration (Dec 29) on behalf of the Assembly to foreign nations, threatening war if the émigrés were allowed to continue their activities. It included a declaration of just war principles, eschewing any conquests but asserting France had the right of self-defense. Condorcet's declaration was received with enthusiasm in the Assembly, and promptly ordered to be printed and sent to every unit of the National Guard and every departement in France. That same day, the still-giddy Assembly promptly voted 20 million in advance for any future war effort. [CGD] The previous day (Dec 28), Condorcet had made another speech (also ordered printed) that urged fellow delegates to demonstrate unity between the Assembly and king's ministers, by passing the king's legislation rather than engage in confrontational tactics, but at the same time proposed procedures by which ministers would produce regular reports to the assembly.
Shortly after his election, Condorcet had been appointed (October 14, 1791) to the education committee (Comité d'Instruction publique, composed of 24 members). The committee set aside Talleyrand's education plan, on account for its excessive room for religious instruction, and appointed a smaller commission led by Condorcet to draft a new plan. Condorcet's views gradually prevailed, and the commission presented a draft plan to the rest of the committee in February 1792. After two months of debate in committee and some minor amendments, the proposal was ready to be submitted to the Legislative Assembly. On a curious note, Condorcet's presentation of his comprehensive public education plan on 20 Apr 1792 was abruptly interrupted by King Louis XVI's entry into the assembly to request a declaration of war on Austria (AP), kicking off the French Revolutionary Wars. On the spot, Condorcet delivered an oration articulating the French case for the war (Apr 20), which was so well-received that the assembly agreed to have it published and distributed to the army. Condorcet's presentation of his education plan was resumed the next day Apr 21. A vote on the education plan was postponed pending an inquiry into its projected expenses. It would remain on the burner for over a year. It was read again on May 25, but adjourned again. Attempts to revive the project in August, 1792 were overtaken by other political events.
The war did not resolve the tensions between the king and the assembly. In early June 1792, the king dismissed his Girondin ministers, and surrounded himself with the old conservative feuillants, who advised a more obstructionist course. The reverses of the French army in the field and uprisings in the provinces brought concern that the king was actually banking on a counter-revolution by force of arms. The Assembly had already established a Commission extraordinaire (or "Commission of Twelve") in March to "to inquire into the troubles affecting the kingdom", but as it was dominated by monarchists, it turned a blind eye to the threats. To redress the imbalance, the Assembly reorganized the Commission on June 18, appointing Condorcet as one of nine supplementary members (thus bringing the number up to twenty-one). The Commission promptly began discussing what constitutional means were available for the legislative assembly to overcome the obstructionist king (still the formal executive). Partly on Condorcet's initiative, the commission came up with a formula, and on July 11, the Assembly voted to declare "the fatherland in danger" ("La patrie est en danger") and assume emergency executive powers for itself, allowing it to ignore the king's will or veto. These executive powers were effectively vested in the Commission extraordinaire (foreshadowing the future Committee of Public Safety). On July 21, Condorcet was elected the chairman of the Commission (CSP intro),. Thus, all of a sudden, Condorcet was effectively the chief executive of France!
In the prelude to this legislative coup, Condorcet had advised Commission and the Assembly to take care to remain strictly constitutional to the letter and, on July 6, had drafted an address to the king explaining the fatherland-in-danger motion, and proposed decrees to regulate the responsibilities of ministers (July 6), the sale of the seized property of émigrés (July 6) and procedures for the appointment of fiscal and treasury officials (July 6). A month later, in early August, Condorcet's Commission was exploring the constitutional tools available for the deposition of the king outright. Presentations on this were made before the Assembly on August 3rd and 9th. But the street took matters into its own hands. On August 9, 1792 Danton's club forcibly took over the Paris Commune, and the next day, Parisian mobs and National Guardsmen stormed the Tuileries Palace. That evening, the Assembly simply voted to suspend the remaining powers of the king.
In his writings of this period, Condorcet limited himself to calling for a new convention to amend the constitution (without explicitly talking about suppressing the monarchy). His wish came true by the end of August, when the Legislative Assembly was dissolved a new constitutional convention ("National Convention") called, with delegates to be elected by universal suffrage.
National Convention (Sep 1792-June 1793)
On September 6, 1792 , Condorcet was elected to the National Convention, as a deputy for the Picardian department of l'Aisne (Thomas Paine, Jean de Bry and the notorious Louis de Saint-Just were his fellow delegates, AP). Condorcet was now at the peak of his political power. As the last surviving Enlightenment giant still in politics, the "Dean of the Republic of Letters" (as he was sometimes hailed), Condorcet was among the most prominent statesmen in the new assembly, He was promptly elected secretary (Sep 21) and vice-president (Sep 21) of the National Convention, and presided in sessions when the formal president (Jerome Pétion) was unavailable. With the constitutional monarchists swept out by universal suffrage, Condorcet believed this new assembly resembled his theoretical ideal, that the era of bickering factions, intrigues and narrow self-interest was over. Of course, that was not the case, as the National Convention soon fractured between moderate Girodins and the radical Montagnards. Nonetheless, Condorcet endeavored to maintain an enlightened aloofness, above either party. Despite personal connections to Girondin leaders like Brissot, Condorcet was believed to be a champion of the common people. The radical left regarded Condorcet as "their man", and welcomed his appointment to parliamentary committees, believing he would represent their interests and counter-balance the moderate majority. But over time, as the Jacobins took over and radicalized the Montagnards, their honeymoon with Condorcet began to unravel.The monarchy was abolished on September 22, 1792, only the second day after the Convention opened, and the French Republic declared. On Oct 11, 1792, Condorcet was appointed to the Convention's committee (along with Abbé Sieyès, Thomas Paine, Jacques Brissot, George Danton and some others) to draft a new constitution for the French Republic, to replace the outdated 1791 monarchical constitution.. Finally being given a platform to apply his theories, Condorcet threw himself into the work on a constitutional draft. But academic perfectionism, in-committee quarrels and work on other commissions (e.g. defense) would delay and extend this process for many months.
His new busy schedule also kept him from his journalistic and philosophical recreations. In January 1793, Condorcet took on a co-writer Launay d'Angers, for his Chronique de Paris column in January 1793, but his more reflective output in the Chronique du Mois declined precipitously.
The delay in Condorcet's constitution was fateful, as events would not wait for the savants to cross the t's and dot the i's. As the new republic was forced to chug along on uneasy ground without a clear constitutional foundation, it created much uncertainty and instability. Lack of a republican constitution fed the hopes of royalists (and stoked the fears of radicals) of a monarchical restoration. This prospect eventually led to the trial and execution of the deposed king Louis XVI in January 1793. The Montagnards voted for death, while most Girondins voted for death but with suspended sentence. Condorcet implicitly voted for death - more precisely, he voted for the "gravest sentence available" against Louis XIV, but could not bring himself to positively vote for death, out of his opposition to the death penalty in principle (Jan 17); he abstained on the vote for suspending the sentence (Jan 19).
Finally, on February 15, 1793, the new constitution, a sprawling document with 370 articles, was presented by Condorcet's committee to the National Convention. It included a declaration of rights, the abolition of the death penalty and a revival of his scheme for universal public education (which had been stalled since December 1792). For the executive, it envisaged seven ministers of state directly elected by the people. However, it also contained a controversial proposal to re-draw the boundaries of the electoral constituencies, so that great urban centers (like Paris) would not be over-represented. The constitution was acceptable to the Girondins in the convention, but it was strenuously opposed by the Jacobins (now in charge of the "Montagnard" faction), as urban centers were precisely where their supporters were concentrated. Acrimonious debate over the constitutional draft would drag out for the next few months.
In March, 1793, Condorcet published an article in the Chronique du Mois, apologizing for his delays on the constitutional draft, but defending it as the best version possible. That same month, on March 9, 1793, the printing house of the Chronique de Paris was shut down, and Condorcet ceased writing his journalist column. Aloof of the gathering clouds, in May 1793, Condorcet founded a new journal, with Abbé Sièyes and Duhamel, the Journal d'instruction social, contributing more academic articles, including his famous "Tableau" of the sciences.
The unsettled framework of the country had encouraged demands from the provinces for a decentralized federal structure, which led to violent uprisings throughout the Spring of 1793. As these were perceived as favorable to Condorcet's draft, it increased radicals' suspicion of it. Through these months, the continued lack of an executive led the Convention to vest increasing powers in Robespierre's Committee of Public Safety (Comité de Salut Publique, its small, closed form finalized in April, 1793), a makeshift solution which would soon turn for the worst.
On May 29, Robespierre's CSP decided to appoint a new five-man committee, headed by Herault de Seychelles, to draft an alternative, more acceptable constitution from scratch. It took them only a few days. The new Jacobin constitution was slimmer - merely 124 articles. It vested executive power in a council of 24 appointed by the assembly (and thus controlled by the majority party) Before they could protest, the Girondins were purged from convention on June 2. It was a foregone conclusion which of the competing drafts the radical Montagnard rump Convention would adopt. Condorcet's careful, thorough, intellectual constitution was set aside, and on June 24, the Convention adopted the CSP's hastily-drafted "Constitution of Year I", after only minor amendments in a single session. The Jacobin constitution effectively enshrined a revolutionary government in the hands of a CSP with unlimited powers.
Fugitive (July 1793-Mar 1794)
A bitter Condorcet wrote an article in the Chronique du Mois denouncing the defeat of his constitution. It accused the CSP-appointed drafters of incompetence and working under an atmosphere of threat and fear. Condorcet went on to openly compare the CSP to an absolute monarchy - alien, tyrannical and above the law. The unusually passionate language of Condorcet's article was his death warrant.. On July 8, 1793, Chabot read the offending passages before the National Convention, and the raucous Montagnards promptly voted in viva voce for the arrest of "citoyen Caritat dit Condorcet"..
For the next ten months, Condorcet was a wanted, hunted fugitive. There was no hope of reprieve - as the atmosphere only worsened, with the CSP introducing its terreur policy in the following months, escalating the scale of denunciations, arrests and executions. Anyone who assisted Condorcet, or merely failed to denounce his whereabouts, were risking their own lives. Fleeing his home (@505 Rue de Lille), Condorcet remained for the next eight months in Paris, hidden in the townhouse of his cousin Madame Vernet (at 15 Rue Servandoni gmap).
It was reportedly Madame de Condorcet, at Mme Vernet's request, who persuaded Condorcet to throw himself into a new work, to pass his time. Condorcet contemplated writing a biographical memoir, underlining his public service, and role in the revolution, to impugn the injustice of his persecution. But in the height of the terror, such an apologetic piece would likely serve no purpose. Probably sensing he had little time left, Condorcet decided to give posterity a different production, a comprehensive summary of his social philosophy. The result was the Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain, Condorcet's great humanitarian tract on the progress of the human spirit.
Warned about an imminent search of Mme Vernet's home, Condorcet left Paris on March 25, 1794, and proceeded through the countryside on foot. He initially sought asylum in the home of Suard in Fontenay-aux-Roses (south of Paris). But he ended up not staying there - according to some, Suard turned him away; but Suard's memoirs suggest that Condorcet himself deemed it was too risky to stay there. Condorcet made his way to an inn in Clamart-de-Vignoble, but his exhausted, disheveled appearance prompted the innkeeper to turn him away, assuming he was a penniless vagabond. When Condorcet pulled out a gentleman's wallet full of assignats, to prove he could pay, it immediately raised suspicions. Evasive answers led some of the inn clients to denounce him to the local authorities. Interrogated in the midnight hours of 27 to 28 March, Condorcet presented himself as a dismissed valet "Pierre Simon", who had left Paris and was looking for work. But his story failed to persuade the committee, who placed him under arrest. Condorcet was dispatched under guard to Bourg-la-Reine, where he was incarcerated in a house turned into makeshift prison (at 49 Grande Rue, now 81 Ave Le Clerc, gmap). The next day, in the late afternoon of March 30, "Pierre Simon" was found dead in his cell. Although it is often assumed Condorcet took his own life in prison, with a poison pill he carried, it is also possible that the that the 51-year-old Condorcet may simply have succumbed naturally from the exhaustion of his flight.
Condorcet's remains were buried in a pauper's grave somewhere in the cemetery of Bourg-le-Reine (now Place Condorcet). Although his remains were never found, ashes from Bourg-le-Reine were symbolically re-interred in a Condorcet memorial at the Pantheon in Paris in 1989.
Esquisse
Condorcet's Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain was published posthumously in 1795. Although written during his most desperate hour, it revealed his confidence in reason, his optimism on social progress and the the continual improvement or "perfectability" of man.
In the Esquisse, Condorcet accepts the Enlightenment axiom that man is naturally rational and free, or certainly has the capacity to become so, but has been constrained by external reality - whether by environmental challenges (urgency for survival, limited technology, etc) or by artificial civilizational restrictions and imperfections of the social order (tyranny, superstition). But he sees the history of humanity has been all about progressively lifting those external constraints, both technological and social, and allowing man's intellect and well-being to grow. Condorcet lays out a conjectural history of humanity going through stages of advancement, with progressively greater scope for reason, scientific advancement and increasing prosperity, liberty and equality, each stage laying the groundwork for the next. He breaks down human history into ten "epochs". He starts off with prehistoric men coming together in population centers (1st Epoch), pastoral peoples (2nd Epoch), agricultural peoples up to the invention of the alphabet (3rd Epoch), progress in Classical Greece up until the division of sciences in the time of Alexander (4th Epoch), progress of sciences until the decline of the Roman empire (5th Epoch), dark ages up to the recovery of knowledge in the 11th C. crusades era (6th Epoch), Medieval scholasticism up to the 15th C. invention of the printing press (8th Epoch), scientific revolution from Descartes to the French Revolution (9th epoch), prospects for the future (10th epoch).
The published Esquisse was only intended to be the introduction and outline of a projected monumental treatise, which would give the history of mind and society in more detail. There are fragments of Condorcet's writing on the history of some of the epochs (1st, 4th, 5th and 10th), which were appended to later editions, as well as the curious fragment of "Atlantide" (a commentary on Bacon's New Atlantis), on the combination of the human spirit for scientific progress. Condorcet's objective was not to serve merely as a reference work on a comprehensive history of science, but rather to illustrate the dynamics of scientific discovery, its necessary social conditions, its impact, not only in terms of enlargement of truth and improvement of human understanding but also in how they are practically deployed for the greater welfare and happiness of society, and (more ominously) the conditions which cause them to decline and fall..
Condorcet's final epoch lays out the confidence in human "perfectability" ("nature has fixed no limits to our hopes"). He predicts a near-utopian future for humanity, the emergence of a world of liberty, equality and prosperity, with human affairs guided purely by reason. In contrast to utopian writers, Condorcet does not imagine absolute equality - he recognizes technology requires specialization, some must be laborers, some managers, others teachers, etc. But he believes labor need not be onerous nor the laborer poor. ("actual equality, the chief end of the social art, which diminishing even the effects of the natural difference of the faculties, leaves no other inequality subsisting, but what is useful to the interest of all, because it will favor civilization, instruction and industry, without drawing after it either dependence, humiliation or poverty", 1795 p.318). He believes inequality of wealth, inequality of income and inequality of education are the main obstacles to this, and the cause of tyranny. But he doesn't see government interference as the solution to, but rather the cause of, inequality. Condorcet asserts that "fortunes tend to equality" (p.329), and disproportionate wealth is only maintained by fictitious laws and ill-thought institutions erected by the State, that "if an entire freedom of commerce and industry were brought forward", wealth equalization would tend to follow. But he recognizes there are other causes of inequality that may need to be addressed with new institutions. Besides his pet project of universal public education, Condorcet also recommends setting up social savings schemes to help fund pensions and unemployment, and also serve as a source of credit to enable workers to start families. (p.331). With human capacity unlimited, Condorcet does not expect a meritocracy, he expects there to be an equality of talents, as well as an equality among nations, sexes and races and, explicitly or implicitly, an end to slavery, religion, nationalism, imperialism, sexism, racism and other things built on ill-conceived prejudices. He goes on to conjecture that once poverty, vice, conflict, war and disease are eliminated by reason and scientific progress, men might enjoy lives of "indefinite" length (he does not quite say "immortal", but rather suggests that the average length of human life will be continually increasing, p.368)
Condorcet's Esquisse was published in France after Robespierre's fall in late 1795, and an English translation appeared almost simultaneously. It was widely disseminated and received many favorable reviews. It prompted Robert Malthus to write his 1798 essay on population. Malthus said Condorcet's optimism was misplaced, that any and all schemes for the material improvement of the poor will lead only to a population explosion and nullify the gains, and bring along a variety of moral and social evils ("misery and vice"), quite the opposite of perfectibility. Condorcet actually acknowledged that possibility, but set it aside, believing it would be long in the future before mankind hit that problem (p.345). Malthus's essay, of course, was geared to showing that the problem was already here.
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