ck, were
D'Alembert, Diderot, Grim, St. Lambert, Condillac, Helvetius, Jordan,
Lalande, Montesquieu, and a host of others of less note. Con-dorcet,
being secretary of the Academy, corresponded with, and directed the
movements of all, in the absence of his chief. Every new book was
criticised--refutations were published to the leading theological works
of the age; but by far the roost effective progress was made by the
means of poems, essays, romances, epigrams, and scientific papers. The
songs of France at this era were written by the philosophers; and this
spirit was diffused among the people. In a country so volatile and
excitable as the French, it is difficult to estimate too highly the
power of a ballad warfare. The morality of Abbots and Nuns were sung in
strains as rhapsodical, and couplets as voluptuous as the vagaries of
the Songs of Solomon.

Much discretion was required, that no separate species of warfare should
be overdone, lest a nausea of sentiment should revert upon the authors,
and thus lead to a reaction more sanguinary than the force of the
philosophers could control. In all those cases Condorcet was the prime
mover and the agent concerned. He communicated with Voltaire on every
new theory, and advised him when and how to strike, and when to _rest_.
In all those matters Condorcet was obeyed. There was a smaller section
of the more serious philosophers who sympathized with, yet did not
labor simultaneously for the common cause--those men, the extreme
Atheists--clever but cautious--men who risked nothing--Mirabeau and
D'Holbach were the types of this class. It is well known that both
Frederick, Voltaire, and Condorcet opposed those sections, as likely to
be aiming at too much for the time.

When it was considered prudent to take a more decided step, the
Encyclopaedia was formed. Condorcet had a principal part in this
work, which shook priestcraft on its throne; it spread consternation
where-ever it appeared, and was one of the main causes of the great
outbreak. No one can sufficiently praise a work of such magnitude; nor
can any one predicate when its effects will cease.

In the "Life of Condorcet," by Arago, there is a curious extract copied
from a collection of anecdotes, said to be compiled from his note-books,
and dignified with the title of "Memoires de Condorcet." It relates to
a conversation between the Abbe Galiana and Diderot, in which it is said
Condorcet acquiesced. The subject is the fair