eedleman" himself possessed,
which, in this case, rapidly led to the _denouement_ of 1791, when he
was elected a member of the Legislative Assembly by the department of
Paris. In the next year he was raised to the rank of President by a
majority of near one hundred votes. While in the Assembly, he brought
forward and supported the economical doctrines of Adam Smith, proposed
the abolition of indirect taxation, and levying a national revenue upon
derivable wealth in amount according to the individual, passing over all
who gained a livelihood by manual labor. He made a motion for the public
burning of all documents relating to nobility--himself being a Marquis.
He took a conspicuous place in the trial of the king; he voted him
guilty, but refused to vote for his death, as the punishment of death
was against his principles. The speech he made on this occasion is fully
equal to that of Paine's on the same occasion.

When the divergence took place between the Jacobins and Girondists,
Condorcet strove to unite them; but every day brought fresh troubles,
and the position of the Seneca of the Revolution was too prominent to
escape the opposition of the more violent taction.

Robespierre triumphed; and in his success could be traced the doom
of his enemies. An intercepted letter was the means of Condorcet's
impeachment. Deprived of the support of Isnard, Brissot, and Vergniaud,
the Jacobins proscribed without difficulty the hero whose writings had
mainly assisted in producing the Revolution. His friends provided means
for his escape. They applied to a lodging-house keeper, a Madame
Vernet, if she would conceal him for a time; she asked was he a virtuous
man--yes, replied his friend, he is the---- stay, you say he is a good
man, I do not wish to pry into his secrets or his name. Once safe in
this asylum, he was unvisited by either wife or friends; morover, such
was the hurry of his flight, that he was without money, and nearly
without books.

While in this forced confinement, he wrote the "_Esquisse d'un
Tableau Historique des Progres de l'Esprit Humain_," and several other
fragmentary essays. In this work he lays down a scheme of society
similar to the "New Moral World," of Robert Owen. Opposing the idea of
a God, he shows the dominion of science in education, political economy,
chemistry, and applies mathematical principles to a series of moral
problems. Along with the progress of man he combined the progress of
arts--estima