Joseph-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de CONDORCET (1741–1 - Lot 21

Joseph-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de CONDORCET (1741–1794), mathematician, philosopher, and economist; a deputy to the Legislative Assembly and a member of the National Convention (representing Aisne), he was arrested as a Girondin and took his own life by poisoning. L.A., [La Roche-Guyon, September 1777, to Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot]; 1 page, in-4 (water-stained). Regarding the eulogy for the Duke of La Vrillière, which Condorcet refused to deliver [he had replied to Maurepas, the duke’s son-in-law, that he would never praise such a minister; furious, Maurepas prevented, for as long as he lived, Condorcet’s election to the Académie française.] He is about to write to d’Alembert. “It is certain that I would risk more by delivering the eulogy [for the Duke of La Vrillière], and that I would risk being persecuted for a folly rather than for a reasonable act. I have not written the eulogy in its entirety, but I have outlined it in my mind [...] The eulogy for Mr. Trudaine would be another way to displease Mr. de Maurepas. [...] I do not know to what extent I should fear exclusion from the Académie Française, but it is certain that the eulogies of Mr. de La Vrillière and Mr. Trudaine, as I would have written them, would have provided ammunition against me. Besides, I regard the fact that Mr. de La Vrillière was not praised as a battle won"... Condorcet then speaks of Necker: “I fear that this Necker will starve us to death by trying to advance his plans without upheaval. It is a sad thing that twenty million people are tossed about between madmen, fools, and scoundrels”... Works of Condorcet, ed. Arago and O’Connor, vol. I, p. 270. – Unpublished Correspondence of Condorcet and Turgot (1883), CXXXI.