on, and it explains
the violent, confused, and inadequate manner in which nearly every one
of these changes was made. It was proposed at that time to appoint
Condorcet to be governor to the young dauphin. But Condorcet in this
piece took such pains to make his sentiments upon royalty known, that in
the constitutional frame of mind in which the Assembly then was, the
idea had to be abandoned. It was hardly likely that a man should be
chosen for such an office, who had just declared the public will to be
'that the uselessness of a king, the needfulness of seeking means of
displacing a power founded on illusions, should be one of the first
truths offered to his reason; the obligation of concurring in this
himself, one of the first of his moral duties; and the desire not to be
freed from the yoke of law by an insulting inviolability, the first
sentiment of his heart. People are well aware that at this moment the
object is much less how to mould a king, than to teach him not to wish
to be one.'[29] As all France was then bent on the new constitution, a
king included, Condorcet's republican assurance was hardly warranted,
and it was by no means well received.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] _Oeuv._ i. 71.

[14] _Ib._ i. 73, 74.

[15] _Oeuv._ i. 296.

[16] _Ib._ i. 78.

[17] _Oeuv._ i. 89. Condorcet had 16 votes, and Bailly 15. '_Jamais
aucune election_,' says La Harpe, who was all for Buffon, '_n'avait
offert ni ce nombre ni ce partage_.'--_Philos. du 18ieme Siecle_, i. 77.
A full account of the election, and of Condorcet's reception, in Grimm's
_Corr. Lit._ xi. 50-56.

[18] _Oeuv._ iii. 109, 110.

[19] His wife, said to be one of the most beautiful women of her time,
was twenty-three years younger than himself, and survived until 1822.
Cabanis married another sister, and Marshal Grouchy was her brother.
Madame Condorcet wrote nothing of her own, except some notes to a
translation which she made of Adam Smith's _Theory of Moral Sentiments_.

[20] Montesquieu, Raynal, and one or two other writers, had attacked
slavery long before, and Condorcet published a very effective piece
against it in 1781 (_Reflexions sur l'Esclavage des Negres_; _Oeuv._
vii. 63), with an epistle dedicated to the enslaved blacks. About the
same time an Abolition Society was formed in France, following the
example set in England.

[21] _Au Corps Electoral, contre l'Esclavage des Noirs._ 3 Fev. 1789.
_Sur l'Admission des Deputes des Planteurs de Saint Dom