ce, the task of
examining certain projects for canals which engaged the attention of the
minister. 'People will tell you,' he wrote, 'that I have got an office
worth two hundred and forty pounds. Utterly untrue. We undertook it out
of friendship for M. Turgot; but we refused the payment that was
offered.'[14] We may profitably contrast this devotion to the public
interest with the rapacity of the clergy and nobles, who drove Turgot
from office because he talked of taxing them like their neighbours, and
declined to glut their insatiable craving for place and plunder.

Turgot was dismissed (May 1776), and presently Necker was installed in
his place. Condorcet had defended with much vigour and some asperity
the policy of free internal trade in corn against Necker, who was for
the maintenance of the restrictions on commercial intercourse between
the different provinces of the kingdom. Consequently, when the new
minister came into office, Condorcet wrote to Maurepas resigning his
post. 'I have,' he said, 'declared too decidedly what I think about both
M. Necker and his works, to be able to keep any place that depends upon
him.'[15] This was not the first taste that Maurepas had had of
Condorcet's resolute self-respect. The Duke de la Vrilliere, one of the
most scandalous persons of the century, was an honorary member of the
Academy, and he was the brother-in-law of Maurepas. It was expected from
the perpetual secretary that he should compose a eulogy upon the
occasion of his death, and Condorcet was warned by friends, who seldom
reflect that a man above the common quality owes something more to
himself than mere prudence, not to irritate the powerful minister by a
slight upon his relation. He was inflexible. 'Would you rather have me
persecuted,' he asked, 'for a wrong than for something just and moral?
Think, too, that they will pardon my silence much more readily than they
would pardon my words, for my mind is fixed not to betray the
truth.'[16]

In 1782 Condorcet was elected into the Academy. His competitor was
Bailly, over whom he had a majority of one. The true contest lay less
between the two candidates than between D'Alembert and Buffon, who on
this occasion are said to have fought one of the greatest battles in the
not peaceful history of the Academy, for mighty anger burns even in
celestial minds. D'Alembert is said to have exclaimed, we may hope with
some exaggeration, that he was better pleased at winning that vi