Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
by
the end of 1775.
32
In 17756 he was also working on other anti-Necker pam-
phlets and essays, including Monopole et monopoleur, and Sur labolition des
31
BN(R). Nouv. Acq. 23639, f. 30. See also Boiteux, Voltaire et le m enage Suard, 57. For an
authoritative history of these events, see also Dakin, Turgot and the Ancien Regime, pp. 177206.
Cf. V. Lublinsky, Voltaire et la guerre des farines, Annales historiques de la Revolution franc aise
31 (1959), 12745. On Condorcets attack on Necker, see also Badinter and Badinter, Condorcet,
pp. 1314.
32
Bakers view (Condorcet, p. 412 n. 253). The Lettres sur le commerce des grains, written in 1774, did
not appear until April 1775.
20 Condorcet and Modernity
corvees. In March/April 1776 the vitriolic Lettre dun laboureur de Picardie ` a
m. N
, auteur prohibitif appeared, and the same year saw the publication
of his most substantial treatise on the grain issue, the Reexions sur le com-
merce des bles.
33
With Condorcets intervention broader questions of liberty,
justice, tax reforms and feudal privilege were injected into the economic
controversy.
Science, economics and politics were now converging in Condorcets
thinking as he became involved in a number of other projects, under
Turgots aegis, requiring technical as well as administrative skills. Some
almost matched the grain trade issue for political sensitivity. The weights
and measures problem, for example, had an international as well as national
dimensionwithits implications for navigation. The endof Turgots ministry
prevented the implementation of Condorcets proposals,
34
but he would
return to these complexities after the Revolution. Other forms of political-
scientic input into Turgots policies included the introduction of more
accurate naval instruments, the reprinting for circulation to naval ofcers
of Eulers Theorie compl`ete de la construction de la manuvre des vaisseaux
and the setting-up of a sea-water distillation machine on La Pourvoyeuse,
under the direction of Lavoisier and dEstelle.
Other projects related to schemes to improve the nations infrastruc-
ture. Condorcet urged the reform of public health provision in Paris with
detailed proposals to replace the H otel-Dieu with a more efcient system of
local hospices and health centres in a bold scheme to nationalise and laicise
health care.
35
Good road-building plans had already been set in motion
by Trudaine, with some success, and the new national system of roads
would continue to be developed.
36
Canals, however, remained a surpris-
ingly neglected aspect of the transport and communications network in the
ancien regime, little progress having been made since the construction of the
Languedoc canal under Colberts administration in the previous century.
Canal-building had been resumed in the middle years of the eighteenth cen-
tury, however, and two ambitious projects were well advanced when Turgot
33
See Robinet, Condorcet, pp. 3848.
34
On Condorcets disappointment, see Correspondance inedite de Condorcet et de Turgot, ed. Henry,
p. 277.
35
See L. S. Greenbaum, Condorcets Memoire sur les h opitaux (1786): an English translation and
commentary, Condorcet Studies 1 (1984), 8397. This memoire, dated 1786, was not printed until
1977. On the inuence of physiocratic theory on Condorcet in the matter of public health and
welfare, see also L. S. Greenbaum, Health care and hospital building in eighteenth-century France:
reform proposals of Dupont de Nemours and Condorcet, SVEC 152 (1976), 895930.
36
See J. Petot, Histoire de ladministration des ponts et chaussees 15991815 (Paris: M. Rivi` ere, 1958),
pp. 115334; E. Vignon, Etudes historiques sur ladministration des voies publiques en France aux dix-
septi`eme et dix-huiti`eme si`ecles, 3 vols. (Paris: Dunod, 1862).
Prole of a political life 21
came to power, namely the Picardy and Burgundy canal systems. To carry
these engineering projects forward, Turgot turned to Condorcet and, with
dAlembert and Bossut, Condorcet was placed in charge of experimental
research on canals. The results of their collaborative research, heralding the
advent of a new science of hydrodynamics, were published by Bossut in the
Nouvelles experiences sur la resistance des uides in 1777. The navigational
and engineering challenge was formidable, and Condorcets research was
instrumental in demonstrating the aws in existing proposals for the tun-
nels for the new canals, whose design would have made it impossible for
boats to pass through. In the course of the demonstration a whole new
branch of physics was invented. Apart from technical issues, Condorcet
also soon found himself immersed in research of a more sociological nature
in Flanders and Picardy on the impact of the new canals on local commu-
nities. This resulted in an angry report to Turgot, published in 1780 as the
Memoire sur le canal de Picardie, in which the corps of engineers and the
inadequacies of their professional training were strongly criticised.
37
Roads and canals brought Condorcet into the adjacent political mine-
eld of the corvee, and the whole system of forced labour organised under
Louis XV to do the actual construction work on the roads. Condorcet did
not hesitate to urge Turgot to extend to the whole of France the reforms of
the corvee that Turgot had already implemented successfully as intendant in
Limoges.
38
After seeing for himself the brutal conditions which the corvee
imposed on the Picardy labour force, with the apparent complicity of the
corps of engineers, Condorcet argued strongly for the abolition of the corvee
in Sur labolition des corvees. Unfortunately, his proposals, circulated anony-
mously as Benissons le ministre, were drafted in a style that alienated rather
than converted its readers.
39
Turgots subsequent half-measures embodied
in the ill-fated Six Edicts,
40
watered down by opposition from Trudaine,
were denounced in the Paris Parlement. Prospects for reform were damaged
further in the winter of 17756 by another provocatively worded pamphlet
on the question of seigneurial dues, the Reexions sur les corvees, ` a milord
.
Arguably, Condorcets lack of diplomatic nesse in seeking to resolve these
37
Correspondance inedite de Condorcet et de Turgot, ed. Henry, pp. 2623. For a good contemporary
account of these developments in canal-building in eighteenth-century France, see J.-J. Lalande,
Des canaux de navigation, et specialement du canal du Languedoc (Paris, Dessaint, 1778).
38
Correspondance inedite de Condorcet et de Turgot, ed. Henry, p. 200. Dakin, Turgot and the Ancien
Regime, pp. 23951, 2669.
39
Correspondance inedite de Condorcet et de Turgot, ed. Henry, pp. 198, 2257. Cf. Vignon, Etudes
historiques, vol. iii, pp. 140, 11618.
40
These included proposed legislation to abolish all dues levied on grain in Paris, the suppression of
ofces relating to the collection of customs duties and other tolls and the abolition of the Caisse de
Poissy which controlled the meat trade. See Dakin, Turgot and the Ancien Regime, pp. 23151.
22 Condorcet and Modernity
issues might well have helped to end the ancien regimes brief irtation with
philosophic government.
For invaluable practical experience in the formulation and management
of the social-scientic mission of progress the twenty months of the Turgot
ministry were crucial for Condorcet as the time during which he started to
cut his political teeth. By 1776 he had more or less completed the process
of intellectual relocation that took him from the private, exclusive world
of academic science to the public, inclusive world of political discourse
and engagement.
41
This political relocation of the scientic mission can
already be detected in the eloges of great academicians that he had started
to compose for the Academy of Sciences even before his election to the
Academy as pensionnaire surnumeraire, adjoint avec survivance in 1773.
42
In
spite of the despair and disillusionment with politics he experienced after
the fatal event of Turgots dismissal in 1776, also the year in which Julie
de Lespinasse died, his opposition to ancien regime injustice continued to
grow. In the 1780s this was to express itself in new contexts with the 1781
rst edition of the Reexions sur lesclavage des n`egres, the Recueil de pi`eces
sur letat des protestants en France, also published in 1781, and towards the
end of the decade by his pioneering advocacy of womens civil rights.
from marqui s to ci ti zen
Between 1781 and 1788 Condorcet was preoccupied with the political, eco-
nomic and social applications and ramications of probabilism, and his
reception speech to the Academie Franc aise on 21 February 1782 signalled
once more his condence in probabilism as a sophisticated instrument for
the management of social policy.
43
For the next few years his research was
to be conducted with the potential of probability theory for public admin-
istration foremost in his mind. The rst ve sections of the Memoire sur
41
On the stages of this transition, see Baker, Condorcet, pp. 2782; Robinet, Condorcet, pp. 5984.
42
Condorcet was elected Perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences in 1776. Sixty-one of these
eloges were assembled in the rst collective edition of Condorcets works (1804) and published under
the title Eloges des academiciens de lAcademie Royale des Sciences. A second, enlarged edition was
published in 1773, see D. Williams, Condorcet and the art of eulogy, in R. J. Howells et al. (eds.),
Voltaire and his World. Studies Presented to W. H. Barber (Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1985),
pp. 3645.
43
A vrai dire, Condorcet ne cessa jamais de cultiver les sciences, la g eom etrie principalement, qui lui
servit m eme ` a tromper les heures dangoisse pendant sa longue proscription, au cours de laquelle il sut
encore poser les bases logiques de la science sociale (Robinet, Condorcet, p. 29). On the mathematical
basis of Condorcets engagement with the world of social policy and public administration, see H.
Dippel, Projeter le monde moderne: la pens ee sociale de Condorcet, Condorcet Studies 2 (1987),
15576.
Prole of a political life 23
le calcul des probabilites, applying probability theory to the problems of
judicial reform and the assessment of evidence, appeared in 1784. It was
in that year also that Condorcet delivered two important speeches to the
Academy, the rst on the occasion of Baillys reception (25 February) and
the second on the occasion of Choiseul-Goufers reception (26 February).
The following year saw the publication of the seminal Essai sur lapplication
de lanalyse ` a la probabilite des decisions rendues ` a la pluralite des voix, a work
with revolutionary insight into the relevance of probability theory to vot-
ing procedures, decision-making and policy implementation. Condorcet
reformulated the implications for social science in less technical language
in the Elements du calcul des probabilites, not published until 1805. Social
mathematics, a termused in the full title of the latter work, was nowrmly
embedded in his political discourse.
44
The science of mathematics and the
science of society, the double legacy of dAlembert and Turgot, would soon
combine to form a single, coherent theory of progress whose implications
were drawn out in his discourse to the Lycee of 15 February 1786, and in
the Tableau general de la science qui a pour objet lapplication du calcul aux
sciences politiques et morales.
45
In spite of Turgots opposition for economic reasons to ofcial support
for the American insurrection against the British crown, France would
contribute signicantly to the victory of the Americans in the War of Inde-
pendence. It is not certain how far Condorcet shared Turgots reservations,
but it is fair to conclude that he probably did share them.
46
The Americans
he met in Paris provided him with most of his information about the war.
He knew Benjamin Franklin, who was American Minister in Paris between
1777 and 1783 and also an active member of the Academie des Sciences, but
he was closer to Franklins ministerial successor in Paris Thomas Jefferson,
with whom he shared scientic interests.
47
Jefferson and Condorcet had
44
Elements du calcul des probabilites et son application aux jeux de hasard, ` a la loterie et aux jugements
des hommes, par feu m. de Condorcet. Avec un discours sur les avantages des mathematiques sociales et
une notice sur m. de Condorcet (Paris: an XIII [1805]). This work was intended as a textbook for use
in the Lycee. See R. Taton, Condorcet et Sylvestre-Francois Lacroix, Revue dhistoire des sciences 12
(1959), 12758, 24362. Baker sees this as the clearest statement of probable belief that Condorcet
attempted to build upon these mathematical foundations (Condorcet, p. 81).
45
According to Robinet, the date of composition is 1787, and the work was rst published in the Revue
dinstruction sociale (22 June and 6 July 1795), see Condorcet, p. 378. The date of publication is also
given as 1795 in the Arago-OConnor edition. In the Almanach anti-superstitieux, the date for the
completion of the Tableau is given as mid-March 1794, see Condorcet, Almanach anti-superstitieux
et autres textes, ed. A.-M. Choulliet et al. (Paris: Universit e de Saint-Etienne, 1992), p. 26. McLean
and Hewitt, on the other hand, insist that the correct date of publication is 1793 (Condorcet, p. 79).
46
McLean and Hewit, Condorcet, p. 14.
47
F. Sommerlad and I. S. McLean (eds. and trans.), The Political Theory of Condorcet II (Oxford:
Oxford University Social Studies Faculty Centre Working Paper 1, 1991), pp. 18695.
24 Condorcet and Modernity
much to say to each other, especially with regard to issues of constitutional
reformrelating to bicameralismand the separation of powers. Jefferson was
probably the closest of all Condorcets American contacts, and the question
of their mutual inuence has been more closely explored in recent years.
48
Condorcet also knewFilippo Mazzei, representative for Virginia in 1779,
who returned to Paris in 1785, soon becoming part of the Condorcet cir-
cle. Part of Mazzeis Recherches historiques sur les Etats-Unis de lAmerique
septentrionale . . ., par un citoyen de Virginie was translated into French by
Condorcet and Sophie, and published in 1778. It was through Mazzei (and
also Jefferson) that the four Lettres dun bourgeois de New Haven ` a un citoyen
de Virginie, sur lunite de la legislation, Condorcets rst great essay on social
choice, came to James Madisons attention. The bourgeois in question is
of course Condorcet himself, one of ten French citizens made a Freeman
of New Haven, Connecticut, by the city on 10 May 1785. Mazzei is the
citoyen de Virginie, as described on the titlepage of his own Recherches his-
toriques. Madison possibly also knew about Condorcets second great essay
on social choice, the Essai sur la constitution et les fonctions des assemblees
provinciales, although the evidence for this is not clear. Madison did not
approve of Condorcet, and he disliked the latters views on unicameralism
and federalism.
49
Apart from La Fayette, the other member of the Condorcet circle
with direct experience of the American insurrection was Thomas Paine,
whom Condorcet might have met initially through Franklin and Sophie
de Grouchy whenPaine rst visitedParis in1781 to seek aidfor the American
insurgents. Paine and Condorcet certainly became close friends after Paines
second visit in 1787, and Paine owed much of his uency in French to
Condorcets help. Condorcet also had some contact with two other Amer-
ican founding father gures, namely John Adams and Governor Morris.
Adamss 1787 Defence of the Constitutions of the United States was translated
into French in 1789, and was criticised in a pamphlet by William Living-
stone. Cahen attributed the French translation with notes on this anti-
Adams pamphlet to Condorcet, although additional input from Mazzei
48
On the relationship between Jefferson and Condorcet, and Jeffersons role in the propagation of
Condorcets ideas in America, see particularly M. Albertone, Condorcet, Jefferson et lAm erique,
in Chouillet and Cr epel (eds.), Condorcet, pp. 18799; I. S. McLean and A. B. Urken, Did Jefferson
and Madison understand Condorcets theory of social choice?, Public Choice 73 (1991), 4457; A. B.
Urken, The CondorcetJefferson connection and the origins of social choice theory, Public Choice
72 (1991), 21316.
49
See J. P. Boyd, C. T. Cullen, J. Cantonziriti et al. (eds.), The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 27 vols.
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 195197), vol. xiv, p. 437; McLean and Hewitt, Condorcet,
pp. 667.
Prole of a political life 25
and Jefferson has since been identied.
50
Adams was familiar with the
Lettres dun bourgeois de New Haven and, as in the case of Madison, the
Lettres further conrmed his dislike of what he perceived to be Condorcets
fanciful radicalism, a dislike that was to last for more than twenty years.
51
Morris, a leading member of the Constitutional Convention, was not a
great admirer of Condorcet either. He met Condorcet in March 1791, and
judging from his diary entry the meeting was not a great success.
52
By 1786 Condorcet had recovered from his despair at Turgots dismissal,
and much of his happiness in that year can be attributed to his marriage.
He and Sophie would have one child Eliza, born in 1790. The year of
the American Declaration of Independence was also a year which saw the
publication of important works whose themes on power, sovereignty and
justice interlock closely. These include the rst volume of the Vie de m.
Turgot, the Reexions dun citoyen non gradue sur un proc`es tr`es connu, the
Recit de ce qui sest passe au Parlement de Paris le 20 ao ut 1786 andDe linuence
de la Revolution dAmerique sur lEurope, in which the American Revolution
was seen as a philosophical, as well as political, event and as an example not
to be copied slavishly in every respect by the French. Other revolutionary
texts would follow in the next two years leading up to the convocation
of the Estates-General, including the Sentiments dun republicain sur les
assemblees provinciales et les Etats-Generaux, the Lettres dunrepublicainsur les
affaires americaines, the Lettres dun citoyen des Etats-Unis ` a un Franc ais sur les
affaires presentes, the Lettres dunbourgeois de NewHaven, the Sentiments dun
republicain sur les assemblees provinciales et les Etats-Generaux, the Reexions
sur les affaires publiques par une societe des citoyens, the Idees sur le despotisme
and the Essai sur la constitution et les fonctions des assemblees provinciales. This
corpus of seminal essays was all published between 1787 and 1788 against a
background of increasing political and economic volatility in France and in
the colonies. The year 1788 also sawthe publication of the second edition of
the Reexions sur lesclavage des n`egres, and Condorcets presidency between
13 January and 31 March of the Societe des Amis des Noirs.
50
They generally back Livingstones republicanism against Adamss alleged monarchism (McLean
and Hewitt, Condorcet, p. 67).
51
He was still warning Jefferson about it in 1813, see L. J. Cappon (ed.), The AdamsJefferson Letters. The
Complete Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams (Chapel Hill, NC:
University of North Carolina Press, 1959), p. 355. With regard to Jeffersons reactions to Condorcets
political views, and especially to the four New Haven letters, see D. Huggins, John Adams et ses
r eexions sur Condorcet, in Chouillet and Cr epel (eds.), Condorcet, pp. 21117.
52
The entry is quoted in McLean and Hewitt, Condorcet, p. 68. One further American connection
with Condorcet has been suggested by McLean and Hewitt, namely Alexander Hamilton, co-editor
with Madison and Jay of the Federalist, but the link has not been nally proved (p. 69).
26 Condorcet and Modernity
The May 1788 edicts, drafted by Malesherbes,
53
failed as public opinion
swung to the cause of the parlementaires, and pressure to convene the
Estates-General became irresistible. Change could not come from above,
and by the middle of 1788 it was clear that the monarchy could no longer
drawits authority fromthe structures and precedents of the ancien regime.
54
Briennes proposals to resolve the growing nancial crisis, some of which
had already been made by Calonne,
55
included projets on which Condorcet
hadworkedinthe Turgot years, suchas the abolitionof the corvees, free trade
in grain, removal of tax privileges and anti-parlementaire judicial reform.
Once again he found himself defending a beleaguered reforming minister.
56
Condorcets renewed political commitment to the public good in the
light of anticipated change generated a number of interesting essays in
1789, including the four Lettres dun gentilhomme ` a messieurs du Tiers-Etat,
the Reexions sur les pouvoirs et instructions ` a donner par les provinces ` a leurs
deputes aux Etats-Generaux, not forgetting his clarion-call for freedom for
400,000 black slaves in the French West Indies, in response to the growing
crisis in Saint-Domingue, in the form of a series of remarkable abolitionist
addresses and press articles. By now he was a regular contributor to the
Journal de la Societe de 1789, a journal for which he wrote the Prospectus,
and which he would co-edit with Dupont de Nemours and C.-E. Pastoret
from 5 June until 15 September 1790. During the next four years he would
also contribute to other political journals such as La Bouche de fer (January
179024 July 1791), the Bulletin de amis de la verite (31 December 179230
April 1793), Le Republicain, ou le Defenseur du gouvernement representatif,
founded with Brissot and Paine (July 1791), La Feuille villageoise (from
30 September 1790), the Journal de Paris (from 1 January 1777), on which
he would briey replace Garat as the ofcial reporter of the proceedings of
the National Assembly,
57
the Chronique de Paris (24 August 178925 August
53
On Lamoignon de Malesherbess role, M. Marion, Le Garde des Sceaux Lamoignon et la reforme
judiciaire de 1788 (Paris: Hachette, 1909), is still authoritative.
54
For a succinct account of the undermining of divine-right monarchical structures during the years
between Turgots departure and 1788, see J. Bosher, The French Revolution (London: Weidenfeld
and Nicolson, 1989), pp. 85132.
55
On 20 August 1786 Calonne presented the King with his Precis dun plan damelioration des nances.
Condorcet knew Lom enie de Brienne well, having met him some twenty years previously in Mlle
de Lespinasses salon.
56
Baker reminds us that Condorcets support for Brienne was not unconditional. He had particular
reservations, for example, about the proposals to establish a plenary court, and had serious concerns
about Briennes overall policy (Condorcet, p. 249).
57
Condorcets ofcial duties lasted from 23 October until 10 November 1791 when the Directors
dismissed him following readers complaints, see Chronique de Paris 2 (1791), 1285, for the text of the
letter of dismissal. On Condorcets activities as a journalist, see H. Delsaux, Condorcet journaliste
(17901794) (Paris: Champion, 1931).
Prole of a political life 27
1793), the Chronique du mois, ou Les Cahiers patriotiques (November 1791
July 1793), the Journal dinstruction sociale, edited with Si ey` es and Duhamel
(1 June 17936 July 1793), Le Moniteur universel (fromMay 1789), Le Patriote
franc ais (28 July 17892 June 1793) and the Biblioth`eque de lhomme public,
ou analyse raisonnee des principaux ouvrages franc ais et etrangers (17902).
After the rst ill-fated meeting of the Assembly of Notables in February
1787, whose proceedings Condorcet was able to follow closely despite the
secrecy in which they were held, and with the approach of the historic
meeting of the Estates-General, Condorcets prole as a public gure grad-
ually acquired more substance. In March 1789 he addressed the Electoral
Assembly of Mantes, and although this body did not mandate him as one
of its ofcial representatives to the Estates-General, it did elect him to a
board of six commissioners responsible for the preparation of the cahiers
de la noblesse. On 20 April he registered on the role of noble electors for
the fteenth departement in Paris as a resident of the H otel des Monnaies
in the Luxembourg district. He was duly elected to the Chambre de la
noblesse.
58
A few days later he was elected to the General Assembly of the
Paris municipality as Commissaire, although again he was unable to win
a nomination to the Estates-General itself. He was kept well informed of
developments in that body by deputies like La Fayette, Montmorency and
Si ey` es with whom he shared membership of the Club de Valois. Excluded
from direct participation, however, he would concentrate for the next three
months onreworking the Essai sur la constitution et les fonctions des assemblees
provinciales, now overtaken by events and to be reissued hastily as Sur les
fonctions des Etats-Generaux et des autres assemblees nationales. Condorcet
shared the rising public concern at the interminable manuvrings of the
Estates-General, and in the Reexions sur les affaires publiques par une societe
de citoyens he proposed measures to speed things up. Incredibly, he was also
preparing at the same time the Vie de Voltaire for volume lxx of the new
monumental Kehl edition of Voltaires works, in which he was to play an
increasingly large editorial role.
There is little rm evidence of Condorcets direct participation in the
events of 1117 July 1789, or of his immediate reactions to the fall of the
Bastille. His role seems to have been little more than that of a spectator
(by no means uncritical), and his presence in Paris during those turbulent
days is conrmed by his well-documented activities in the Societe des Amis
58
Condorcet was chosen together with La Rochefoucauld and S emonville. The forty-seven aristocratic
deputies who joined with the Third Estate on 25 June 1789 were led by Clermont-Tonnerre, a colonel
in the Royal Navarre regiment, see L. Cahen, Condorcet et la Revolution franc aise (Paris: F. Alcan,
1904; repr. Geneva: Slatkine, 1970), p. 181.
28 Condorcet and Modernity
des Noirs and in the Academie des Sciences. Cahens reference to a moral
revolution is difcult to substantiate, though not as difcult as Michelets
delicious contention that Eliza was actually conceived on the night of the
fall of the Bastille.
59
All that is known is that Condorcet enlisted with some
urgency in the National Guard set up in the wake of Neckers dismissal
by the Paris Commune to assume responsibility for the administration
of the city, and destined later to become Robespierres power-base during
the Terror. He was seen wearing the uniform of the National Guard, but
carrying a large umbrella instead of a sword.
60
Whether Condorcet enlisted
to show support for the course that events had taken, or because he feared
their consequences for public order, is not clear,
61
but he emerged from the
chaotic aftermath of the storming of the prison as the representative for the
district of Saint-Germain in the new municipal body.
62
servant of the revoluti on
Condorcets rst task as a servant of the Revolution was to report on the
impact of foreigntroop movements onthe city, and by the end of September
he was acting as the municipalitys envoy to the Constituent Assembly at
Versailles.
63
Though there is no direct evidence, as a member of the Comite
de constitution, it is possible that he participated in the drafting of the
preamble and seventeen articles of the Declaration des droits de lhomme et
du citoyen, ofcially adopted on 4 August, though not sanctioned by Louis
XVI until 5 October. His signature is not on the document, however, possi-
bly because he was not entirely satised with the wording of the Declaration,
judging it in the Reponse ` a ladresse aux provinces, ou Reexions sur les ecrits
publies contre lAssemblee nationale to be too vague and too ambiguous as
a practical guarantee of citizens rights (ix: 491). He contributed to the
attempts to restore calm during the October Days (56 October), when
escalating public discontent, aggravated by severe food shortages, culmi-
nated in the removal of the royal family from Versailles to the Tuileries,
59
Cahen, Condorcet, p. 137; J. Michelet, Histoire de la Revolution franc aise, ed. G. Walter (Paris:
Gallimard, 1961), Part 1, p. 656. Alexandrine Louise Sophie was born in mid-April? 1790.
60
E. and R. Badinter cite a nineteenth-century source for this gem of information, Condorcet, p. 281.
61
Baker, Condorcet, p. 267. Baker prefers, more persuasively, to take the view that any changes in
Condorcets mind brought about by the 14 July insurrection, on the suffrage for example, was the
result of a gradual evolution rather than any sudden conversion (p. 267).
62
Robinet draws attention to the fact that Condorcet was not elected immediately to the Assemblee
constituante, in contrast to mediocrities such as Pluvinet, Levacher de La Torini` ere and Garnier,
Condorcet, pp. 856.
63
On Condorcets activities in the context of the Paris Commune, see Robinet, Condorcet, pp. 85130.
Prole of a political life 29
the relocation of the Assemblee constituante to Paris, and a further wave of
emigration. Condorcets experience of these dramatic developments bred in
him a deep fear of anarchy, and he expressed this fear in the Reexions sur ce
qui a ete fait, et sur ce qui reste ` a faire, lues dans une societe damis de la paix.
64
The Reexions offer an eloquent analysis of a dangerously unstable political
environment in which rights had been restored to the people in principle,
but in which the people, moved still by understandable hatred and suspi-
cion, had not yet shown themselves capable of enlightened judgement in
the exercise of those rights. The problem of educating public opinion and
of the civic formation of the citizen was to be central to Condorcets edu-
cational reforms, as can be seen from the Prospectus du Journal dinstruction
publique and also the Projet de declaration des droits, both of 1793.
The Club des Impartiaux, a caucus of constitutional royalists led by
Malouet and Maillet du Pan, had been meeting regularly since the winter
of 1789 to discuss ways in which the moral and political sciences could be
applied to the problem of restoring order.
65
In January 1790, as a moderate
response to the Club des Jacobins, many impartiaux, including Si ey` es and
Malouet, transferred their allegiance to the Societe de 1789, of which the rst
meeting was held at the Palais-Royal on 13 May 1790.
66
The rst volume of
the journal of the Societe de 1789 appeared on 5 June, and it contained fteen
articles relating to the societys procedures and aims, of which nine were
written by Condorcet. It was in this journal that his defence of womens
voting rights, Sur ladmission des femmes au droit de cite, was rst published.
By the spring of 1791 the Societe de 1789 had acquired a more reactionary
character, and many members, including Condorcet (in May), Si ey` es and
Talleyrand, defected to the Club des Jacobins, while others opted for the
Feuillants.
67
Condorcets political steel was forged in the furnace of Parisian munic-
ipal politics. On 3 December 1789 he was elected to the Comite des Vingt-
Quatre, becoming president the following day. It was in that capacity that
64
See Cahen, Condorcet, pp. 13941, 15871. The Society of Friends of Peace, a group of moderates
meeting at La Rochefoucaulds house, mutated into the Societe de 1789.
65
Propaganda was disseminated through the Journal des Impartiaux (FebruaryMarch 1790).
66
The plans for the future of this society were set out by Si ey` es in the Ebauche dun nouveau plan de la
societe patriotique, adopte par le Club de Mil-sept-cent-quatre-vingt-neuf, probably published in March
or early April 1790. They were elaborated further by Condorcet in the Prospectus. Membership of
this group in 1790 stood at about 400. For an autograph of the Avertissement, dated May/June 1789,
in which Condorcet records the decision of a few citizens from different orders united by a love for
equality and justice to found the society, and sets out the editorial conventions, see BIF Condorcet
MS 858, ff. 312.
67
For an account of the history and demise of the Societe de 1789 and the Feuillants, see Baker, Condorcet,
pp. 27285.
30 Condorcet and Modernity
he elaborated a set of proposals on behalf of the Commune for the con-
stitutional reorganisation of municipal powers, printed as Sur la formation
des communes. His role as an active member of the Comite des Vingt-Quatre
was to come to an end in June 1790, but by then, astonishingly, he had
written more than forty addresses, pamphlets and essays, including the
inammatory Sur le choix des ministres (April 1790), and many probing
analyses of scal and taxation issues, foreign policy, assembly procedures,
representation and the franchise.
68
His stature and inuence as a political
gure, rather than simply as a philosophe and Voltaires representative on
earth, was now growing, not only as a consequence of his writings, but also
as a consequence of the network of powerful political allies he had built
up by 1790.
69
He was considered ministrable, although he never showed
any overt signs of ministerial ambition, and he failed in August 1790 to
win re-election to the municipality. However, his interest in public nance,
kindled in the Turgot years, was still strong, and his views on the need
to reform the Treasury and the taxation system were expressed in numer-
ous essays in 1790, including the Memoire sur la xation de limp ot, Sur les
operations necessaires pour retablir les nances and Sur la constitution dun
pouvoir charge dadministrer la tresorerie nationale. On 8 April 1791 Con-
dorcet was appointed, on the comte de Mirabeaus nomination, as one of
six Treasury administrators.
Political life in Paris was becoming bitterly factional, and Condorcet
tried to avoid open afliation with either the Girondins or the Montagnards,
despite being by now a member of the Club des Jacobins.
70
In an attempt
to heal divisions he published, in collaboration with Si ey` es, a Profession de
68
In 1790 alone these include, in addition to the ve memoires on education, the Reponse ` a ladresse
aux provinces, ou Reexions sur les ecrits publies contre lAssemblee nationale, the Reexions sur laction
judiciaire, the Reexions sur lusufruit des beneces, the Reexions sur letendue des pouvoirs de lAssemblee
nationale, the Eloge de m. Franklin, the Discours ` a lAssemblee nationale, the Lettre au President de
lAssemblee nationale and the Instructions adressees aux Directoires des quatre-vingt-trois departements
(all on the weights and measures problem), Sur les conditions deligibilite, Sur le decret du 13 avril,
Des lois constitutionnelles, Sur ladministration des nances, Sur ladmission des femmes au droit de cite,
Sur la constitution civile du clerge, Sur le prejuge qui suppose une contrariete dinterets entre Paris et
les provinces, Sur les tribunaux dappel, Aux amis de la liberte sur les moyens den assurer la duree, Sur
le mot pamphletaire, Des causes de la disette du numeraire, de ses effets et des moyens dy remedier, Sur
la constitution du pouvoir charge dadministrer le Tresor national, Sur les operations necessaires pour
retablir les nances, Sur les caisses daccumulation, Sur la xation de limp ot, Sur limp ot personnel, Sur
la proposition dacquitter la dette exigible en assignats. See Robinet, Condorcet, pp. 889.
69
These included La Fayette, Mirabeau, Si ey` es, La Rochefoucauld, Montmorency and Liancourt,
see Badinter and Badinter, Condorcet, pp. 2903; J. Guilhaumou, CondorcetSi ey` es: une amiti e
intellectuelle, in Chouillet and Cr epel (eds.), Condorcet, pp. 2239.
70
On Condorcets party allegiances, and in particular the case for associating him with the Girondins
as a cause if not as a party, see M. Dorigny, Condorcet, lib eral et girondin, in Cr epel and Gilain
(eds.), Condorcet mathematicien, pp. 33340.
Prole of a political life 31
foi patriotique which appeared just before the ight of the royal family to
Varennes. Tom Paine had arrived in Paris for the second time in June 1787
on a scientic mission in connection with his design for an iron bridge,
and by the summer of 1791 he was more or less part of the Condorcet
household, Sophie even undertaking a translation of parts of the Rights of
Man, written in response to Edmund Burkes Reections on the Revolution
in France. On the question of rights generally, and the rights of women and
slaves in particular, Condorcet and Paine shared much common ground.
Together they defended the republican cause against Si ey` es and other advo-
cates of constitutional monarchy, and towards the end of June Condorcet
founded, with Paine, Bonneville, Lanthenas and Achille Du Chastelet, the
Societe Republicaine. It was almost certainly as a result of Paines inuence
that Condorcets republicanism was by now so outspoken. With Paines
help he drafted a provocative poster which appeared on the streets on
1 July denouncing the absence of the King from Paris, and accusing him of
deserting his people.
Condorcets republicanismwas givenfurther radical expressioninarticles
for Le Republicain, a new journal co-edited with Brissot, in which De la
Republique, ou un roi est-il necessaire ` a letablissement de la liberte, originally
a speech read out to the Cercle Social in the grounds of the Palais-Royal on
8 July, together with the brilliantly satirical Lettre dun jeune mecanicien aux
auteurs du Republicainappearedinmid-July, attributedby some to Sophie.
71
From now on Condorcet would seek to rally public opinion to the cause
of republicanism, and Le Republicain would provide an inuential vehicle
for this. Anti-monarchical views were also expressed in Sur linstitution
dun conseil electif. Unsurprisingly, after these publications Condorcet was
crucied in the moderate and royalist press.
72
At the end of October 1791 Condorcet was elected president of the
Comite dinstruction publique, and his articles on education, rst pub-
lished in the Biblioth`eque de lhomme public, a journal that he had helped
to launch in February 1790, were grouped together as the ve Memoires
sur linstruction publique, and supplemented by an extended essay, Sur la
necessite de linstruction publique. The Memoires were written for the guid-
ance of the Constituent Assembly, and contained far-reaching proposals
71
See B. Vincent, Thomas Paine ou la religion de la liberte (Paris: Aubier, 1987), p. 209. According
to Jaur` es, De la Republique was le premier manifeste grand et noble de lesprit r epublicain, see J.
Jaur` es, Histoire socialiste de la Revolution franc aise, 6 vols. (Paris: Messidor/Editions sociales, 19836),
vol. ii, p. 419. On Sophies putative authorship of the Lettre dun jeune mecanicien, see McLean and
Hewitt, Condorcet, p. 18; Lagrave, LInuence de Sophie de Grouchy, p. 437.
72
See Cahen, Condorcet, pp. 2635; Robinet, Condorcet, pp. 3141.
32 Condorcet and Modernity
for a root and branch reform of the curriculum in schools and universi-
ties, plans to introduce the teaching of moral and political science as well
as the physical sciences, advice on the political responsibilities of primary
and secondary schools for the formation of citizens, the democratization
of knowledge, universal literacy and the reconciliation of natural equality
of rights with natural inequality of talents. The Rapport et projet de decret
sur lorganisation generale de linstruction publique, postulating nothing less
than a fully integrated national education system from infant school to
university, was presented for approval to the Comite dinstruction on 918
April 1792, and to what was by now the Legislative Assembly, on 204
April.
73
For Condorcet, educational reformwent to the heart of the missionof the
Revolution, liberation from ignorance and prejudice being in his view the
key to true political freedom in an enlightened Republic of Citizens.
74
His
scheme would provide the basis for the next centurys framework of public
education in France, but had little chance of immediate implementation.
As with so many of Condorcets projects, it was overtaken by events. Even
as he was speaking the Assembly received the Kings reluctant invitation to
declare war on Austria, Hungary and Bohemia, and although Condorcet
was able to complete his presentation of the report on 21 April, it was
not debated. The Assembly registered general approval, but Condorcet was
deeply disappointed with the outcome.
75
In the rst six months of 1791 he had witnessed a serious deterioration
of the already fragile relationship between Louis XVI and the Constituent
Assembly, exacerbated by the conscation of the biens nationaux and the
introduction of the civil constitution of the clergy. The gathering constitu-
tional storm broke with the abortive attempt of the royal family to escape
from Paris on 20 June, resulting in their arrest at Varennes. The event trig-
gered a massive emigration of members of the ofcer corps, and exposed
Frances military vulnerability. On 21 June the Constituent Assembly, under
Condorcets presidency, recommended the suspension of Louis XVI from
his constitutional functions, widening the schism in the Assembly between
republicans and constitutional monarchists.
The impact of the ight to Varennes on the evolution of Condorcets
political thought has been much discussed. Before Varennes his stance
inclined towards that of the moderate Girondin camp on the question of
73
Condorcet was not elected to the Legislative Assembly until 25 June 1791 on his third attempt to
secure a seat, see Robinet, Condorcet, pp. 1323.
74
On the formative principles behind Condorcets ideal of a republic of citizens, see C. Coutel,
Condorcet. Instituer le citoyen (Paris: Michalon, 1999), pp. 85113.
75
See the Fragment de justication (i: 591). Cf. Robinet Condorcet, pp. 1659.
Prole of a political life 33
the position of Louis XVI within the framework of the newrepublican civil
order.
76
Certainly his commitment to republicanism, encouraged by Paine,
started to growseriously after Varennes, and the resulting collapse of public
support for the royal family.
77
The viewthat elements of Condorcets repub-
licanism were in place long before Varennes has been raised frequently in
recent years,
78
and the textual evidence does suggest that his post-Varennes
position reects a measure of historical coherence, linking together the 1765
Memoire sur les conseils, the American texts of 1788, the 1789 Lettre dun
gentilhomme du tiers etat and the 1793 Projet de constitution.
79
In constitutional matters, as in other areas, Condorcet was a gradualist,
always as much concerned with the practicalities involved in the implemen-
tation of change as with the ideological justication for it. This was almost
certainly a crucial factor in his decision to vote for the 1791 constitution.
80
The 210 articles of the 1791 constitution were ratied by Louis XVI on
13 September 1791, establishing constitutional monarchy, indirect repre-
sentative democracy, the separation of powers, and a property franchise.
Under its terms, while the King retainedpersonal inviolability andexecutive
powers, he no longer had legislative or nancial powers, and was obliged
to take an oath of loyalty to the new constitution.
81
On 14 September 1791
Louis XVI accepted the newconstitution, and Condorcet entered front-line
76
See Cahen, Condorcet, p. 321.
77
See M. Reinhard, La Chute de la royaute (Paris: Gallimard, 1969), pp. 13955. The Cordeliers, or
Societe des Amis des Droits de lHomme et du Citoyen, mobilised public opinion against the monarchy
and the 1791 constitution, and helped to organise the events of 10 August 1792. Membership in 1791
included Danton, Desmoulins and many lawyers and journalists. The groups inuence waned after
1792, and the group disappeared from the political scene in 1794 after the execution of H ebert, by
then its leader.
78
According to Alengry: Sa ligne est droite. Il a toujours et e un r epublicain . . . un ami de la
souverainet e du peuple, un ap otre de l egalit e et de la libert e (F. Alengry, Condorcet. Guide de la
Revolution franc aise, theoricien du droit constitutionnel, et precurseur de la science sociale (Paris: V.
Giard and E. Bri` ere, 1904; repr. Geneva: Slatkine, 1971), p. 834. Nora and Baker, on the other hand,
refer to a post-Varennes conversion, see P. Nora, R epublique, and K. M. Baker, Condorcet, in F.
Furet et al. (eds.), Dictionnaire critique de la Revolution franc aise (Paris: Flammarion, 1988), pp. 239,
835. Guilhaumou prints an interesting MS letter (BIF Condorcet MS 861, ff. 4016) relevant to this
issue, see Guilhaumou, CondorcetSi ey` es, pp. 2359 (Annexe).
79
Coutel concludes: Comme la raison, lid ee r epublicaine chez Condorcet a une histoire et une
perfectibilit e (Politique de Condorcet, p. 68), and asks the more interesting question, comment
devient-on r epublicain?.
80
See Coutel, Politique de Condorcet, pp. 689. Condorcet was not entirely silent about the aws
he perceived in the 1791 constitution, and again advocated a gradualist approach to change in the
Chronique de Paris (26 September 1791): Atrue republican, under a monarchical government, knows
how to wait for the slow but sure effects of reason.
81
Condorcet, in collaboration with Si ey` es, composed an address to the Assemblee Constituante on the
need for an oath of loyalty to the new constitution in the light of anti-Revolutionary conspiracy.
The Preambule contains the draft text of the oath. See BIF Condorcet MS 861, ff. 41518. Cahen
dates this text June 1791, but Chouillet suggests a correction to August/September (A.-M. Chouillet,
P. Cr epel et al. (eds.), Inventaire des manuscrits Condorcet, BIF Usuels, p. 23).
34 Condorcet and Modernity
politics as a deputy in the Legislative Assembly, with the support of Brissot
and others now grouped around the inuential journal Le Patriote franc ais,
journal libre impartial et nationale, and bitterly opposed to the royalist
and moderate camps. Condorcet was older than the average deputy,
82
his
reputation as a philosophe and embodiment of Enlightenment values was
unassailable, but his political reputation was suspect in what was basically
a monarchist assembly. At the same time, because of his known republican
sympathies, the royalist press continued to denounce him.
He participated in the October debates on the refractory clergy of the
Vend ee and the Auvergne. He voted on 6 October for the right of the
nations legislators to remain seated with heads covered in the Kings pres-
ence, presenting various nancial measures in the same session. He was by
no means an outstanding orator, but by the end of 1791 he had emerged as
one of the most prominent theorists and defenders of the Revolution, and
also as one of the most frustrated of the peoples representatives. Caught
up in the political maelstrom, he deplored the lack of progress on pressing
matters such as the constitution, taxation, education and social welfare,
and blamed the Assemblys endemic factionalism for the inertia.
83
He was
also becoming increasingly aware of the threat to legislative progress caused
by the distractions of counter-revolution, and on 28 October he gave a
speech to the Assembly on the dangers posed by the armed emigres gath-
ering at Worms and Coblenz (x: 22342). The military crisis was exacer-
bated internally by the urgent need to ll more than a thousand commis-
sions in the ranks of the army caused by the emigration of royalist ofcers
after Varennes,
84
and also externally by the Pillnitz Declaration whereby
Leopold II of Austria and Frederick William II of Prussia threatened inter-
vention. On 9 November 1791 the Assembly declared all emigres partici-
pating in foreign troop manuvres who failed to repatriate themselves by
82
On his decision to stand, see his letter accepting candidacy dated September 1791 (BIF Condorcet
MS 863, f. 1). There was considerable intrigue surrounding his election, see Cahen, Condorcet, p. 273;
Robinet, Condorcet, p. 123; Alengry, Condorcet, p. 117.
83
Unlike its predecessor, the Assemblee Constituante (July 1789September 1791), the Legislative Assem-
bly (September 1791September 1792) drew its membership more widely from the professional
classes. Over 40 per cent were Montagnards or Montagnard supporters, see E. Lemay, La Composi-
tion de lAssembl ee Nationale Constituente: les hommes de la continuit e, Revue dhistoire moderne
et contemporaine 29 (1977), 34163; C. Mitchell, Political divisions within the Legislative Assembly
of 1791, French Historical Studies 13 (1984), 35689.
84
Approximately 10 per cent of the total emigration, see D. M. Greer, The Incidence of the Emigration
during the French Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951), p. 112 (Table 1);
J. Vidalenc, Les Emigres franc ais 17891820 (Caen: Ozanne, 1963), pp. 6378; C. Blum, Condorcet
and the problem of emigration in 1791, Condorcet Studies 1 (1984), 6171. By 1792 60 per cent of
the ofcer corps had emigrated.
Prole of a political life 35
1 January 1792 guilty of treason,
85
and similar measures were taken against
clerics who refused to take the oath of loyalty of 27 November 1790. The
measures were vetoed by Louis XVI.
On 20 October Brissot demanded military action to disperse the emigre
troop formations, and on 23 December Condorcet supported Brissot and
the case for a declaration of war in the Opinion sur le rapport des comites
militaire, diplomatique et de lordinaire des nances reunis, and again in the
Declaration de lAssemblee nationale aux Franc ais of 16 February 1792.
86
The
Discours sur lofce de lempereur, his most detailed analysis of French foreign
policy at this time, appeared on 25 January 1792. He was elected president of
the Assembly on 5 February 1792, and it was ironically at this culminating
point in his career that he lost the support of both the Girondins, who sus-
pected him of plotting to dethrone the King, as well as the Montagnards.
87
The picture starts to darken as Condorcets enemies close in, and the dis-
favour in which Condorcet was now held by the Girondins was mirrored in
pro-royalist scientic circles outside France when the academies of Berlin
and Russia withdrew his membership.
The spring andsummer of 1792, a time of increasing public disorder, were
to see a sharp deterioration in Condorcets relationship with Robespierre,
for whomthe moment to unmask traitors had come. The extremist Montag-
nard, Francois Chabot, following the lead of the sea-green incorruptible,
accusedCondorcet of being a stooge of the Girondins. Condorcet responded
vigorously with counter-accusations against Robespierre in the Chronique
de Paris (26 April 1792). Robespierre dismissed Condorcets republican cre-
dentials in his own journal, the Defense de la constitution, in the following
month.
88
From now on Condorcet would be perceived by the Montagnards
as an enemy of the Revolution, a perception he was never able to shake off.
85
On the urgency for legislation on the conscation of emigre property to help pay for the war, the
property of those traitors who are the instigators and instruments of the war, see the draft decree
of ve articles in Cardots hand, BIF Condorcet MS 863, ff. 21113. The date given for the Discours
sur les emigrants is that of the manuscript, BIF Condorcet MS, ff. 3341.
86
See Cahen, Condorcet, pp. 28891. On Frances right to declare war in the circumstances following
the Declaration of Pillnitz in the winter of 17912, see also BIF Condorcet MS 863, ff. 1929: Let
us show Europe that France is united in a single act of will. Y. Benot defends the coherence of
Condorcets afliation with the war party in the light of the apparent discrepancy of his support on
22 May 1790 for the decree declaring peace to the world, Condorcet et la r epublique universelle, in
Chouillet and Cr epel (eds.), Condorcet, pp. 25161. Condorcet recorded his dismay at the prospect
of war towards the end of 1790: War at this moment would be a catastrophe with incalculable
consequences (BIF Condorcet MS 861, f. 363). Cf. Cahen, Condorcet, p. 297.
87
For some of the texts relating to the attacks on Condorcet by the Feuillants and the Montagnards,
see Robinet, Condorcet, pp. 16981.
88
On Robespierres confrontation with Brissot on 23 April 1792 in the Club des Jacobins, see E.
Guibert-Sledziewski, Condorcet et Robespierre, Condorcet Studies 2 (1987), 17783.
36 Condorcet and Modernity
The anonymous, acidically satirical portrait of Robespierre which appeared
in the Chronique de Paris on 1 May 1792, attributed immediately by an
unforgiving Robespierre to Condorcet, did little to help Condorcet deect
charges of counter-revolutionary conspiracy.
The three Girondin ministers were dismissed from ofce by the King on
13 June. As the war situation worsened, the position of Louis XVI, whose
use of the veto and whose choice of ministers seemed to Condorcet to
undermine the governments authority and legitimacy, and also the position
of Marie-Antoinette, widely perceived to be openly in league with Frances
enemies, were now major preoccupations. Despite his aversion for displays
of mobrule, Condorcet didnot protest against the interruptionof Assembly
business when an armed and angry crowd invaded the royal palace on
20 June 1792 demanding that measures be taken against Louis XVI.
89
The
placing of the bonnet rouge on the Kings head and the smashing of doors
and windows did not amount in Condorcets view to mob violence. On
6 July he addressed the Assembly on the neutralisation of royal powers
in Opinion sur les mesures generales propres ` a sauver la patrie des dangers
imminents dont elle est menacee.
90
His views on the deployment of the
mob to force through constitutional change now evolved rapidly under the
pressure of events. Condorcet never openly condoned insurrection, but he
certainly invoked it as a threat on 18 June 1792 in the Chronique de France,
and again in 1793 in the Fragment de justication.
91
By August 1792 Louis XVIs authority was collapsing, as was the principle
of representative government itself, to which Condorcet would remain
unequivocally committed. The report of 69 August, which Condorcet
presented to the Assembly on behalf of the Comite des Vingt-et-un, was
a lucid and sober assessment of the implications of any move to depose
the King, but its recommendation to engage in further negotiation with
the King was not accepted.
92
Condorcets presentation of the report, just
89
See, for example, his sympathetic account of the 20 June demonstration in the Chronique de Paris
(21 June 1792).
90
Condorcet was speaking here on behalf of the Comite des Douze. For a text that goes further than
that printed in the Arago edition, see BIF Condorcet MS 863, ff. 20621. Parts of this MS are in
Cardots hand with Condorcets annotations.
91
See also the Chronique de Paris (5 August 1792), pp. 86970.
92
See Cahen, Condorcet, pp. 41319. As the September massacres began, Condorcets abhorrence was
unambivalent, and he was anxious to protect the people and the Revolution itself from any blame:
The massacres of 2 September, the work of a few ferocious madmen, have soiled this revolution.
They were not the work of the people who, believing that they had neither the strength or the
motivation to put a stop to them, averted their eyes. The massacres were the work of a small number
of agitators with the ability to paralyse the forces of law and order and to deceive the National
Assembly . . ., Fragment de justication (x: 6035).
Prole of a political life 37
before the historic assault on the Tuileries, removed any chance he might
have had of managing the direction of constitutional change scientically,
and in a spirit of rational moderation.
93
His increasing disillusionment with
monarchy was given further expression in numerous essays that appeared
in the summer and autumn of 1792, of which De linuence dun monarque
et dune cour sur les murs dun peuple libre and the Revision des travaux de
la premi`ere legislature, both appearing in September of that year, are among
the most interesting.
On 8 August the Assembly refused to sanction proceedings against La
Fayette, the General in command of the National Guard during the Champ
de Mars massacre of 17 July 1791, when republican petitions had been pre-
sented on a makeshift altar. The Assembly then set aside, in full knowledge
of plans for an uprising, the demand made by all forty-eight sections of the
Paris Commune for the deposition of Louis XVI. The next two days saw
the replacement of the Paris Commune by the Commune insurrectionnelle.
Condorcet did not participate directly in the uprising of 10 August 1792,
passing the night of 910 August in his apartment in Auteuil,
94
where he
drafted an address to the people of Paris urging themto support the Assem-
blys attempts to protect freedom and equality, and denouncing defecting
army ofcers (x: 5434). He was present for at least some of the sessions to
address the deputies, his presence conrmed by the Fragment de justication
in which he recorded his dismay at the bloodshed in the Champ de Mars for
which he would never forgive La Fayette. His wife and his baby daughter
had been among the crowd on which La Fayettes men had red. The liberal
aristocracy, in whose circles Condorcet had moved, continued to resent his
conversion to republicanism, and he was reviled as a class traitor, Mme
dEnville even leaving his bust on a dung-heap. Many would hold him per-
sonally responsible for the atrocities soon to come in the Terror of 17934,
and the antipathy worsened with his support for Dantons appointment as
Minister of Justice in the wake of the events of 10 August.
Condorcet reviewed the Revolutions progress in the Exposition des motifs
dapr`es lesquels lAssemblee nationale a proclame la convocation dune Conven-
tion nationale et prononce la suspension du pouvoir executif dans les mains du
roi, circulated as a special decree to all departments. This was followed by
a series of addresses and declarations between 4 and 19 September on the
93
There can be no more poignant expression of the failure of Condorcets conduct in the Legislative
Assembly than the spectacle of the philosophe lecturing the people on the principles of representation
on the very eve of the insurrection of 10 August 1792 (Baker, Condorcet, p. 314).
94
They are sounding the alarm . . . I was in Auteuil; I went to Paris. I got to the National Assembly
a few moments before the King . . . (x: 597601).
38 Condorcet and Modernity
necessity for war, public order and national unity in the wake of the sur-
render of Verdun on 1 September. Condorcet did not falter in his political
duties in this critical period,
95
but he was becoming more and more appre-
hensive at the direction events were taking, a direction signalled clearly
with the power-struggle between the Assembly and the Commune insur-
rectionnelle. Attempts to disband the latter were resisted, and inevitably
the Assembly was obliged to recognise the Communes superior political
strength by conceding on 20 September 1792 Robespierres demand for the
replacement of the Legislative Assembly by a National Convention, elected
by universal suffrage.
With the surrender of Verdun, the last fortress between Paris and the
allied emigre armies, the Commune was able to exploit the war-fever, and
declare a state of emergency. The ensuing butchery of more than a thou-
sand prisoners in the violence of 27 September coincided with elections
to the Convention, and it soon became clear to members of the Legislative
Assembly, haunted by fears that the guillotine would soon touch the necks
of the nations representatives, that time was running out for the Assembly
in its current form. During these terrible days, when the heads of aristocrats
like the Princesse de Lamballe were being paraded on spikes below Marie-
Antoinettes prison window, and the butchered body of La Rochefoucauld
(a former member of the Condorcet circle) was being displayed before
his wife and his mother (Mme dEnville), Condorcet remained dismay-
ingly silent before nally expressing formal regret for the violence in the
Chronique de Paris on 4 and 9 September in what some still regard as shame-
fully weasel words. His wish to draw a curtain over the whole episode has
received much criticism from modern historians.
96
The appeal for calm contained in the eloquent Adresse de lAssemblee
nationale aux Franc ais was approved unanimously on 19 September. After
much opposition fromRobespierre, who continued to associate Condorcet
with the Girondins, Condorcet was elected to the newConvention nationale
in ve districts, and chose to accept the seat for the department of the
Aisne. The new concept of the Left and the Right in political life became
95
Robinet, Condorcet, pp. 1826.
96
Badinter and Badinter, Condorcet, p. 487. See also McLean and Hewitt, Condorcet, p. 24. The fall
of Verdun on 3 September, and the resulting threat to Paris itself, might have inhibited Condorcet.
His silence prior to 9 September could also be explained by political considerations relating to the
elections to the new National Convention and by the risk of being seen as a conspirator in a time
of national crisis when any criticism of the killing of prisoners would run the risk of accusations
of counter-revolutionary plotting. Condorcets silence during the September massacres remains,
nevertheless, a rare example of an apparent willingness to sacrice principles to expediency. He
would later denounce the massacres as a stain on the Revolution in the Fragment de justication.
Prole of a political life 39
a physical reality in terms of seating arrangements in the new National
Assembly. It is not known where Condorcets seat was actually located
in the disposition of 189 deputies which saw the Girondins occupy the
right-hand side of the chamber, with the Montagnards on the left and the
moderates in between on the plaine. He was nominated secretary at its rst
meeting on 20 September, and vice-president the following day. A motion
from Collot-dHerbois and the slippery Si ey` es to abolish royalty, to which
Condorcet was ex ofcio a signatory, was passed.
97
On the previous day a
decree had been issued offering fraternal support to all peoples seeking to
throw off the yoke of tyranny, and in the course of the next twelve months
Condorcet would associate himself with the drive to internationalise the
Revolution in a series of addresses and pamphlets, many commissioned by
the Convention, some more attractively written than others.
98
decli ne and fall
Between 10 August and 20 September 1792, the weeks of the First Terror,
marked by the deportation of refractory priests, the arrest of aristocrats
and the September massacres, power was shared on an emergency basis
between the Legislative Assembly, its successor the National Convention,
a new Conseil executif provisoire, headed unofcially by Danton, and the
Commune insurrectionnelle controlled by Robespierre. The First Republic
was proclaimed on 21 September 1792, and the new dawn of Year I was
saluted by Condorcet in the Eloge de Danton, in which he also attempted
once more to distance himself from the Girondins and improve relations
with the Montagnards. He marked the proclamation of the Republic in
De la nature des pouvoirs politiques dans une nation libre, an essay in which
the Projet de constitution rst started to take shape. This is followed by
another manifesto, Sur les elections, which picks up the threads of a much
longer work that had been published in 1789, entitled Sur la forme des
elections. Condorcet still seemed to be poised at the edge of a brilliant
political future in the new Convention, although his popularity probably
still owed more to his status as a philosophe rather than as a politician.
99
As the Convention consolidated its powers, however, his political inuence
97
See Cahen, Condorcet, pp. 4367. Robinet, Condorcet, p. 221. Condorcet commented with some
bitterness on the attempts to block his election in the Fragment de justication.
98
These include the Reexions sur la Revolution de 1688 et sur celle du 10 ao ut 1792, De la Republique
franc aise aux hommes libres, the Avis aux Espagnols, the Adresse aux Bataves, Aux Germains, Lettre ` a
un Suisse, Appel ` a tous les peuples, Lettre de Junius ` a William Pitt.
99
A. Patrick, The Men of the First French Republic: Political Alignments in the National Convention of
1792 (London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972), p. 178.
40 Condorcet and Modernity
and standing would decline, ill-health gradually undermining his energies.
For the time being, however, things looked promising. On 1112 October
he was elected to the important Comite de constitution, along with Si ey` es,
P etion, Vergniaud, Paine, Brissot, Gensonn e, Bar` ere and Danton, and work
started on the ambitious, but ill-fated, Projet de constitution. The so-called
Girondin constitution would be presented to the Convention on 15 and
16 February 1793, and was received with a notable lack of enthusiasm.
In the closing months of 1792 the most urgent issue before the Conven-
tion was the question of whether or not Louis XVI was jugeable. Deputies
hesitated, fearing international repercussions as well as internal dissension
as a consequence of any move against the King, who was by now incar-
cerated in the Temple.
100
At rst it was felt that the trial and execution
of Louis XVI would deprive the Revolution of its most valuable hostage,
and provide an already hostile Europe with the provocative spectacle of
another Charles I on the scaffold. On 7 November, however, a report was
received from the twenty-four-member Comite de legislation, set up after
10 August to examine the incriminating documentation found in the
Tuileries. Chaired by a Toulouse lawyer Jean Mailhe, deputy for the Haute-
Garonne and Public Prosecutor, the committee conrmed the Conventions
right to put the King on trial. There is no direct evidence of any role played
by Condorcet in the Mailhe committees deliberations, and on 7 November
Condorcet simply noted in the Chronique de Paris that the last act of the
drama of the French Revolution had started.
The debate on the Kings fate opened on 13 November, inaugurated
by a powerful maiden speech from Saint-Just, and the royal interrogation
before the bar of the Convention began on 1011 December, following
Lindets reading of the list of charges on 10 December. It was on that
day that Condorcet was nominated to a committee of six commissaires
with responsibility for the presentation of documentary evidence to be
used at the trial. Condorcet agreed only in part with the conclusions of
the Mailhe report. Louis XVI was certainly guilty, in his view, of crimes
100
See the interesting post-scriptum to a letter sent by Stanhope to Condorcet towards the end of
1792, warning him about Burkes contribution to English hostility towards the Revolution, and
about the danger of English military action against France, Robinet, Condorcet, p. 350 (Annex F
(v)). For fragments of the CondorcetStanhope correspondence between 1786 and 1789 see BIF
Condorcet MS 867, ff. 3465. Condorcets appreciation of Stanhope (and also Price) in the context
of liberty is recorded in BIF Condorcet MS 863, ff. 2834. In 1790/1 Condorcet criticised the praise
that had been accorded to Burke by the Mercure de France in a letter now only in fragmentary
MS form, commenting on Burkes attacks on the French constitution (BIF Condorcet MS 860, ff.
21517). On the contrasting attitudes of Burke and Condorcet towards revolution, see M. Ludassy,
La Tradition lib erale divis ee: Condorcet et Burke devant les r evolutions anglaise, am ericaine et
francaise, in Cr epel and Gilain (eds.), Condorcet mathematicien, pp. 3418.
Prole of a political life 41
against the state, and of betraying his oath. He agreed with Mailhe that
the King must be called to account, but he opposed adamantly the death
penalty, rejecting in the Chronique de Paris on 56 December Robespierres
demands to execute without further delay those already found guilty in
the court of public opinion. In the Opinion sur le jugement de Louis XVI,
presented on 19 January 1793, two days before the Kings execution, he
also recorded his disagreement with Mailhes recommendation that Louis
XVI should be judged by the Convention, preferring to see an elected
national jury have that onerous responsibility instead. It was one of the
few points, ironically, upon which Condorcet and Robespierre agreed. In
the event, the Convention decided on 3 December to put Louis XVI on
trial, and the King duly appeared before it on 11 December 1792.
101
Con-
dorcet was under no illusion about the outcome, and his misgivings are
recorded in the articles printed in the Chronique de Paris on 15, 28 and
29 December.
In the actual vote he supported Mailhes rst proposition, namely that
the King was guilty of plotting against the people, thereby constituting a
threat to the security of the state. He voted with the Montagnards against the
second proposition to make the judgement of the Convention subject to
ratication by the people.
102
On the sentence itself, he voted for the impo-
sition of the severest penalty, excluding death. Brissot and the Girondins
pressed for any sentence passed to be suspended, and made a number of
moves to save the Kings life. In calling into question the legitimacy of the
Conventions actions, however, they dug their own graves, politically and
literally. Louis XVI was declared guilty on 14 January 1793, and on 1617
January the death sentence was passed, the vote to reprieve being lost on
1920 January.
The King was guillotined on 21 January. Although he had accepted the
right of the Convention to try the King, Condorcet had warned in the
Opinion sur le jugement de Louis XVI that Europes monarchs would accuse
the Convention of lynch-law justice if it acted as judge and jury, and that
as a consequence the Revolution would be associated only with bloodshed,
regicide and mob rule (xii: 308). In the Opinion he had proposed the
abolitionof the deathpenalty as a general principle, along withother judicial
reforms, in a vain attempt to save the Kings life, and Frances international
honour. Surprisingly, the Opinion had been welcomed by the Convention,
and its publication and distribution authorised in spite of its authors refusal
to countenance regicide. In the vote on the Kings life, Condorcet was
101
See Robinet, Condorcet, pp. 24752.
102
Cahen, Condorcet, p. 463; AN, C243.
42 Condorcet and Modernity
among the seventeen deputies who abstained, abstention ending once and
for all his brief irtation with the Montagnards. His political future, already
in ruins along with the Girondin constitution he had presented to the
Convention in February 1793, received a further setback when he was not
appointed to the committee established subsequently to review the draft.
His voice as a journalist was then stilled by the decree of 9 March 1793
requiring deputies to cease all press activity. The next day he would witness
the invasion of the Convention chamber by an armed crowd, soon to
be followed by Robespierres demand for the establishment of a Tribunal
revolutionnaire with executive powers. Condorcet was now dangerously
isolated, and would be further exposed after the purge of the Girondins
on 2 June 1793 and the arrest of twenty-nine deputies, plus the Girondin
ministers Clavi` ere and Lebrun-Tondu.
103
The summer of 1793 saw the start of the second phase of the Terror,
which was to last until the spring of 1794, and the rise to power of the
Comite du salut public, established on 6 April, together with its auxiliary
arm, the Comite de s urete generale. Condorcet was nominated to neither
of these powerful bodies, although he did act for a while as an advisor
to the former,
104
in spite of his well-known distaste for the use of terror
as an instrument of revolutionary power. On 8 July, after the clandestine
circulation of Aux Citoyens franc ais, sur la nouvelle constitution, in which he
attacked bitterly the opponents of his discarded and discredited Projet de
constitution, he was denounced for conspiracy by the ineffable Chabot
105
in a poorly attended meeting of the Convention. This was followed by
the sealing of his apartment, and by the promulgation on 3 October of a
warrant for his arrest and the conscation of his possessions.
In the last fragment that he would write, he would compare his fate
to that of Socrates and Sidney, dying in the cause of freedom and freely
accepting death as a necessary sacrice to the gods of justice and truth (i:
609). The dark days of the winter of 17934 were illuminated only by the
courage and steadfastness of friends such as the Suards and Mme Vernet,
the landlady who gave him shelter, by the undying love of his wife, forced
for her own safety to divorce him, and not least by his own heroic conduct.
103
On the impact of the fall of the Girondins on Condorcet, see Badinter and Badinter, Condorcet,
pp. 57482; cf. M. Dorigny and M. Ozouf, Girondins, in F. Furet et al. (eds.), Dictionnaire critique,
pp. 37485.
104
With a membership initially of nine, the Comite de salut public was dominated by Danton until its
membership changed in July, and control passed to Robespierre.
105
See Sommerlad and McLean (eds. and trans.), The Political Theory of Condorcet, 1 (1991), pp. 21921.
Chabot would be later accused of fraud and guillotined within a week of Condorcets death.
Prole of a political life 43
After completing the Conseils ` a sa lle (i: 61023) and his Testament (i: 625),
he ed Paris as soon as the Suards could no longer protect him. Citizen
Caritat Condorcet would never see Sophie and Eliza again. He spent the
last days of his life as a refugee travelling under the name of Pierre Simon, in
poor health and constant danger. His tribulations did not, however, prevent
the completion by mid-March 1794 of the Esquisse dun tableau historique
des progr`es de lesprit humain, published in October 1795.
Badly wounded in the leg, Condorcet was arrested in Clamart-le-
Vignoble on 27 March 1794,
106
having been reported to the police, so
legend has it, by an innkeeper whose suspicions had been aroused, not
only by Condorcets dishevelled appearance, but also by his aristocratic
request for a twelve-egg omelette. He was searched, and then transferred
to the prison in Bourg-la-Reine, where he died on 28 March. The cause
of death was declared to be a seizure, and on the death certicate it was
noted that there was bleeding from the nostrils,
107
but the circumstances
of Condorcets death have been the subject of much speculation ever since.
According to Garat and others, he took poison to escape the indignities of
the guillotine, and there is some evidence that he had already made contin-
gency suicide plans along those lines.
108
The evidence for suicide remains,
however, inconclusive. No poison phial was found among his possessions,
and a modern interpretation of the medical report on the body, as well as the
position in which it was found, would suggest a heart attack, possibly the
result of weeks of hardship and stress, exacerbated by hard interrogation.
The true circumstances of those last moments will probably never now be
known, and we are left simply with the bleak fact of a paupers burial in a
communal grave in the local cemetery on 30 March 1794. His death was
not announced in the press until the end of December.
Mindful perhaps of its shabby treatment of one of the most gifted
and courageous of the Revolutions servants, the Convention approved
on 13 March 1795 the purchase of 3,000 copies of the Esquisse, and autho-
rised Sophie de Condorcet to reassume possession of her husbands cons-
cated property and papers. Sophie would live on until 1822. Together with
Barbier, Cabanis and Garat, she would protect the moral and intellectual
106
For the text of the proc`es-verbal of Condorcets arrest, the report on the discovery of his body, an
inventory of the items found in his pockets by his jailors, the wording of the death certicate and
other relevant documentation, see Robinet, Condorcet, pp. 35869 (Annex H (iv); Badinter and
Badinter, Condorcet, pp. 6278.
107
Proc` es-verbal de la lev ee du corps, Robinet, Condorcet, p. 361.
108
BIF Condorcet MS 475, f. 37 (correspondence of the OConnor family). See also Alengry, Condorcet,
p. 326; Badinter and Badinter, Condorcet, pp. 6312.
44 Condorcet and Modernity
legacy of one of the great political visionaries of the later years of the
French Enlightenment in the formof the monumental twenty-one-volume
collective edition of the uvres compl`etes, published in the tenth anniver-
sary year of Condorcets death in 1804. It would fall to her daughter and
her son-in-law, General Arthur OConnor, to ensure Condorcets survival
in the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-rst centuries with the great
18479 edition of his works that they prepared in collaboration with
Francois Arago.
chapter 2
Human nature and human rights
Condorcets views on the natural origins of law, justice and human rights
are scattered across no fewer than ninety-eight essays, proclamations and
treatises. In nearly all of them at some point Condorcet would remind his
reader that the only true purpose of the civil order was the protection of nat-
ural rights, and that the art of jurisprudence related solely to the fullment
of that purpose. The notion of rights per se was never seriously questioned,
only afrmed and rened. Rights were not given to man by a divine agency,
nor were they brought into existence and legitimised by reference to philo-
sophical principle or historical tradition, as Condorcet pointed out with
characteristic sharpness in Sur le sens du mot Revolutionnaire: When it
came to building freedom on the ruins of despotism, and equality on the
ruins of the old aristocracy, it was wise not to go looking for our rights in
Charlemagnes chapter-houses or in the laws of the ripuarian Franks; they
were founded on the eternal rules of reason and nature (xii: 618). Natural
human rights preceded and transcended all positive law codes. However,
although after the Renaissance modern states had started to recognise the
legitimacy of rights as a political concept, that legitimacy had been located,
not in nature, but rather in biblical and mythological traditions, or alter-
natively in Greek republican principle and practice.
1
Natural rights were literally in nature, and endemic in human nature.
In so far as their political implications crystallised with the operations
of reason, enlightenment itself became for Condorcet a deeply political
phenomenon, representing in effect the greatest revolution of all. In the
anonymously published Lettres dun citoyen des Etats-unis ` a un Franc ais
sur les affaires presentes
2
he specically linked rights to the process of
1
See Condorcets comments on Blois in the notes for the Kehl Voltaire (iv: 35465).
2
This work, along with other 17878 texts such as the Essai sur la constitution et les fonctions des assemblees
provinciales, were praised by Jefferson who sent copies back to America, see Badinter and Badinter,
Condorcet, p. 244 n. 1. The Lettres were not signed in order to avoid offence to friends and allies
who remained supporters of the parlements. On Jeffersons role in the propagation of Condorcets
45
46 Condorcet and Modernity
enlightenment, thereby identifying the enemies of enlightenment as the
enemies of those rights:
In every civilised nation with a moderately sized population there can be no enjoy-
ment of natural rights without enlightenment; the enemies of enlightenment are
thus the enemies of mens freedom to enjoy their rights. Now, just trace the history
of French philosophy and literature since the Renaissance, and see whether the
blame for the countless obstacles that have been placed in the path of enlight-
enment can be put on the government or on aristocratic bodies . . . Was it
the government which prevented the publication of a general dictionary of sci-
ences, a monumental work that has since become indispensable to the progress of
reason? . . . It was the aristocratic corps of lawyers that blocked it. (ix: 1056)
Only throughenlightenment couldmenbe savedfromtheir chains; enlight-
enment being both a right in itself, and a means to achieve rights.
3
For
Condorcet natural rights were incontrovertible, ineradicable donnees of the
human condition, derived from the nature of man and of things, eternal,
inalienable, inviolable and universal. All individuals shared in a common
genetic and physiological equality, an equality derived from nature whose
implications extended into the political world. That was the equality which
authenticated societys moral, political and legal structures, an order of nat-
ural equality in which the origins of natural rights were to be found. Rights
furnished the absolute benchmark of justice, and as such required the lawto
be universal and consistent. Condorcet took issue on this specic point with
the more relativistic approach adopted by Montesquieu.
4
Justice was not a
contingent concept, and rights were not subject to variation in accordance
with wealth, climate, geographical location, national character, race, rank
or sex: all men by their very nature possess equal rights (vi: 178).
5
Only
with universality of the law, reecting the universality of human nature
and human need, could the principles and purposes of natural justice be
assured, and universally applied in the civil order.
6
ideas in America, see M. Albertone, Condorcet, Jefferson et lAm erique, pp. 18795; McLean and
Urken, Did Jefferson and Madison understand Condorcets theory of social choice?, 44558. Cf.
F. Sommerlad and I. S. McLean (eds. and trans.), The Political Theory of Condorcet (Oxford: Oxford
University Social Studies Faculty Centre Working Paper 1, 1989), p. x.
3
On this point, see also the Eloge de m. de Fouchy, 16 April 1788 (iii: 3234).
4
See the Observations de Condorcet sur la vingt-neuvi`eme Lettre de lEsprit des lois (i: 378); cf. Alengry,
Condorcet, pp. 74576; J. S. Schapiro, Condorcet and the Rise of Liberalism (New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1934; repr. 1963, 1978), p. 119.
5
In the Fragment sur lAtlantide (vi: 631) rights assumed political tangibility in response to mans
evolution as a rational being and the consequential imperatives of moral awareness.
6
Cf. Bakers comments onCondorcets critical reactions to Montesquieus methodology, and inparticu-
lar to Montesquieus approach to the invariability principle inlegislation. For Condorcet Montesquieu
Human nature and human rights 47
Man thus emerged from wild nature as a fully edged political creature
with natural rights built in as quasi-biological attributes, awaiting only the
development of their potential strength as in the case of other mental and
physical attributes.
7
Rights were literally natural; they were not acquired
or granted, but derived from mans nature as a sentient being. Condorcets
position did not change on this point, and he would return to the issue at
length in the Esquisse where he ascribed only to the ninth epoque the forging
of the essential connection between mans nature and mans rights.
8
Such
rights drew their legitimacy and authenticity from human sentience which
permitted the emergence of a moral dimension to human life. Sentience
authenticated civil society, and the growth of sensation was the rst thing
that Condorcet would stress in his analysis of mans emergence from prim-
itivism. The point was made, for example, in the second of the Lettres dun
bourgeois de New Haven
9
` a un citoyen de Virginie where he noted that rights
were natural
because they are derived from the nature of man; that is to say, because man is a
sensitive [i.e. sense-driven] being, able to reason and have moral ideas from the
very rst moment of his existence. It follows from this, as an obvious and necessary
consequence, that he must enjoy these rights, and that he cannot be justly deprived
of them. (ix: 14)
Political rights emergedfromnatural rights as a consequence of relationships
as the civil order replaced the state of nature. With political rights came the
had failed to dene scientically the criteria for recognising a just law. The question of inuence and of
the general relationship between Montesquieus thought and Condorcets has yet to be fully explored.
According to Baker, there is evidence to suggest that Condorcet cut his teeth in questions of politics
and legislation on De lesprit des lois. Baker draws attention in this respect to the evidence of an early
Condorcet manuscript entitled Memoires sur differents sujets adresses ` a m. le vicomte de Condorcet, par
m. le marquis de C
, both of 1775; Sur labolition des corvees and the Reexions sur le commerce des bles, both of
1776. The most detailed of Condorcets proposals for reformof ancien regime taxation and economic
policy, including management of the national debt and the establishment of a national bank, is to be
found in the Essai sur la constitution et les fonctions des assemblees provinciales (viii: 22158). In 1790
The civil order 79
By far the longest section in the Idees is Section 15 which is devoted to
the despotism of mobs, to be particularly feared in countries with large
urban centres of population. The despotism of mobs was for Condorcet
a symptom of their manipulation by powerful sectional interests, which
weighs on the nation, luring the people into complicity in the enactment
of legislation against their true interests (ix: 161). This form of despo-
tism drew its force from irrationality and superstition, and worked only to
the advantage of the privileged. Condorcet passionately denounced such a
betrayal of the conditions of the social pact by means of which the peo-
ples strength was deployed against the people, exploited by opinion-makers
working for corps interests, often to bring about the downfall of enlightened
leaders, whom people have known how to render odious, from whose
political vision they might have beneted.
22
This blind, malleable force
had ensured in England the survival of unjust, outdated, but misguid-
edly popular legislation, deprived the Dutch of their liberty in 1777 with
the restoration of the stadtholder and strengthened tyranny in Denmark.
The raw energy of the despotism of mobs in Constantinople had con-
tributed as much to the destruction of Greek civilisation as the swords of
barbarians and the disputes of theologians: We know that the absurdity
of the projects of this type of despotism is matched only by the barbarity
of its methods (ix: 162).
In an urban setting the acute danger of such despotism was signalled
by the ease with which crowds could assemble in large numbers to give
vent to their anger and frustrations. Condorcet advocated two solutions.
He thought that the dangers could be averted, at least in part, by reform of
commercial life. Withwiser, more enlightenedeconomic policies, the streets
could be emptied of the unemployed, the regulatory grip of the professions
and guilds over workers employment conditions could be weakened and
the hostility of the poor towards the policing of the civil order, arising
as a consequence of their economic deprivation, diminished. The second
solution lay in the division of large cities into independently administered
districts, in which small assemblies of citizens could meet in an orderly and
purposeful fashion without distinction of rank or profession, the only just
Condorcet issued a closely argued series of essays on the practicalities involved in scal reform, see
the Memoire sur la xation de limp ot (xi: 40570), Sur la constitution du pouvoir charge dadministrer
le tresor national (xi: 54179), Sur limp ot personnel (xi: 47383), Sur les operations necessaires pour
retablir les nances (xi: 36585), Sur la proposition dacquitter la dette exigible des assignats (xi: 487515),
Des lois constitutionnelles sur ladministration des nances (x: 10717), Nouvelles Reexions sur le projet
de payer la dette exigible en papier force (xi: 51927), Des Causes de la disette du numeraire, de ses effets,
et des moyens dy remedier (xi: 53140). Cf. Vie de m. Turgot (v: 2623).
22
Condorcet no doubt had the fate of Turgot in mind here.
80 Condorcet and Modernity
way, and at the same time the surest, of preventing unauthorised gatherings
from disturbing the peace (ix: 163). An unenlightened, uneducated people
was defenceless against the depredations and persuasive powers of sectional
interests. The chains of ignorance would be lifted only with the advent of a
free press and a reformed education system. Until that day arrived, however,
the baneful coalition of corps interests would continue to persuade the
people that autocratic monarchy served their interests, and that the divine
right of kings did not contravene the social pact, particularly with regard
to the right to renegotiate the conditions of the civil order. This was the
most harmful political consequence of the despotism of mobs.
Like Madison, Condorcet differentiated carefully between despotism
and tyranny. Tyranny was the legalised repression of rights in the name
of the state (ix: 164), that could be exercised by any government. He
illustrated the point by citing the example of a well-ordered, politically
virtuous, republic,
23
that could still pass repressive legislation against heresy
and blasphemy, and in which industry and commerce could still be shackled
by arbitrary legislation. Tyranny did not need a despotic constitution in
which to ourish, although tyranny and despotism usually did coincide
in modern nation-states to produce a situation in which the necessary
compromise between natural freedom and political obligation had been
tilted heavily towards the latter in the constitutional equation.
the relocati on of soverei gnty
Condorcet explored the issue of political freedom in a modern despotic
context in De la nature des pouvoirs politiques dans une nation libre (On
the nature of political powers in a free nation), written in November 1792
when the debate on the future of Louis XVI was well under way and
would lead within weeks to the decision by the Convention to put the
King on trial, and impose the death penalty on anyone advocating the
restoration of the monarchy. In De la nature Condorcet noted that, even
as a concept, freedom had all but disappeared in a despotic civil order
in which individuals were inured to obedience, and experienced freedom
only as the right to submit themselves to the will of others. With the
constitution of 3 September 1791, followed on 13 September by Louis XVIs
oath of allegiance, Condorcet thought cautiously that a measure of political
freedommight have been achieved with the advent of elections to Assembly
23
In the notes for the Kehl Voltaire Condorcet held Geneva up as an exemplary model of democracy,
in which every law was the expression of the general will (iv: 3223).
The civil order 81
seats, but it was at most a semi-freedom: that is the point at which their
feeble feeling of independence stopped (x: 589). Semi-liberty produced only
instability, or storms, not only because it was incomplete, but because the
pressures on the civil order could be relieved only by the imposition of even
more restraints on the individual. In this interesting essay on freedom and
the implications of submission to authority, and the relationship between
majority will and minority rights, Condorcet identied only one authentic
constraint on freedom that was required by nature and reason:
that is the necessity and obligation to obey, in the actions that must ensue from
a common rule, not ones own reason but the collective reason of the majority;
I say its reason, not its will, for the power of majorities over minorities must
never be arbitrary; it does not extend to violation of a single individuals right;
it does not go so far as to compel submission when it obviously goes against
reason. (x: 58990)
Collectively and individually, the citizenmust recognise that ina just civil
order power is embodied in, and exercised through, the will of the majority.
Majorities can exercise tyrannical power too, however, and submission to
the will of the majority cannot be required if that will is arbitrary, or if
submission is based on obligation to obey per se. Submission can only be
justied by the need for, and collective acceptance of, common rule, and
the alignment of majority will with common rule could only be assured
if rights were equal, and the common interest fully recognised: The man
who submits in advance to the majority can reason thus: I know that my
actions must be made subject to a rule to which similar actions by my
co-citizens are equally subject (x: 591). The common rule, dictated by
collective rationality, will not always coincide with individual reasoning
processes, with their origin in self-interest, which conict inevitably with
those of others. Members of a civil order must therefore decide which
rules meet the requirement of collective rationality, a decision best taken
in Condorcets view on a basis of majority voting.
The sources of moral obligation and political necessity lay therefore in a
collective act of reasoning exercised by the majority of citizens through their
representatives in an elected assembly such as the Constituante (Constituent
Assembly). However, the only function of the rst legislative corps charged
with the establishment or, in the case of France, the renewal of the civil
order, was to dene what constituted common rule, and to declare it:
One step beyond that and tyranny begins (x: 594). The transformation
of that common rule into law would then occur only in the light of the
subsequent tacit or explicit acceptance of the majority of an Assemblee
82 Condorcet and Modernity
legislative (Legislative Assembly) that would replace the Constituante once
that body had completed its work, and function as a collective legislator:
This amounts to Solon or Lycurgus being replaced by an assembly (x: 595).
Minorities which felt that their rights were being ignored by the majority
had to choose between on the one hand submission based on enlightened
self-interest and faith in the virtues of collective rationality in order to
ensure the survival of the social pact, or abrogation of the pact on the
other. The test of collective rationality would be its empirically veriable
degree of compliance with the natural rights of all.
The transition from legislative proposal to legislative reality marked for
Condorcet the dangerous moment of delegation of power to other agencies
in the enactment of the syllogism of government.
24
The modalities of
delegation were of crucial importance in the defence of freedom against
despotism, because those modalities opened the doors to real power, a
force which acts on the actions of individuals independently of their will or
their reason. This was the force that imposed the general will of the state
over passions and self-interest, and compelled compliance of the dissident
individual. The model was Socrates, but you cannot expect fromevery man
that level of reason and moral rectitude (x: 597). Therein lay the challenge
of the syllogism. If civil war was not to ensue from the engagement of
the states will with that of its opponents, then the public interest required
cast-iron guarantees that the law was rmly grounded in public consent,
and that the civic obligation to submit to laws with which one disagreed
privately was deeply embedded in the public mind. Condorcet feared the
consequences of growing public awareness of the fragility of the civil order,
and of the laws designed to uphold it. Public disaffection arising from fear,
prejudice or conict of principle was contagious and politically lethal. Any
loss of condence in the civil order threatened the social pact, and the
wound had to be cauterised but preferably by persuasion rather than
force:
You can see here how necessary it is to persuade the great majority of people of
the benevolence of the laws, that they should have condence in those who draft,
implement or execute them, and that every citizen should be deeply conscious of
24
Condorcet explained what he meant by the syllogism of government thus: Between the law and
the thing which must be done in accordance with it lies the job of what, in a given circumstance,
is the correct application of the law, that is to say the job of making a syllogism of which the law is
the major part, a more or less general fact the minor, and the application of the law the conclusion.
For example, every citizen will be required to contribute to the necessary cost of public services, in
proportion to his income: that is a law; the cost forms part of public services: that is a general fact;
each citizen must therefore contribute to this cost: that is the application of the law (x: 5956).
The civil order 83
the feeling that he must offer a provisional obligation to obey even those laws of
which he disapproves, as well as their implementation, which he might nd unjust.
(x: 602)
Restoration of condence in the essential benevolence of the law was for
Condorcet a key requirement of successful political management.
At the heart of the problemof public disaffection with the civil order was
the incendiary issue of equality, for Condorcet the most potent ingredient
in any threat to public order and national unity. The right to equality,
this precious right, fears of its erosion and attempts to disguise or excuse
the effects of its denial (the main policy of the aristocracy) lay behind
most civic unrest in Condorcets view. This had been well illustrated by
the fate of Greece and Rome when natural rights had been subordinated
to corps interests. The quality of civic life then became dependent on the
transitory wisdom of those who govern,
25
with the result that vigilance
over the integrity of the civil order was neglected. Inequality could never
be entirely eradicated in a free society, but Condorcet was condent that
its effects could be mitigated through public education, good legislation,
the abolition of hereditary privilege, the decoupling of public ofce from
the claims of rank and wealth, taxation and banking reform, free trade,
enlightened poor law policies and progressive public works programmes.
The exercise of government was seen by Condorcet essentially in terms of
practical problems to be solved, a calculation to be made, a job to be done:
a simple task similar to that of making a book, putting a machine together
or solving a problem (x: 604). The aim was always to make the alienating
distance between rulers and the ruled less offensive. That distance could be
narrowed above all by an effective electoral system, and a judicious system
of representation in which the people could have real choice.
26
In the reections that bring this important essay to a close Condorcet
explored further the destabilising effects of the growing distance between
rulers and ruled in contemporary France. In the First Republic the conduct
and decisions of republican legislators were already in danger of becoming
as opaque to the public gaze as those of the ancien regime. Citizens were
unconvinced that their consent to submit was still required, and that their
right to corrective constitutional change was still respected:
25
Aredeeming feature of ancient Greece was, however, the importance attached to the right of assembly
(vi: 412). In the Eloge de Michel de LH opital Condorcet thought that the management of the civil
order was much easier in ancient societies (iii: 534).
26
On this latter point Condorcet noted that problems of electoral procedure and representation had
proliferated in the aftermath of the Revolution. In the Idees he dened a good electoral system as
being quite simply the one that truly delivered the will of the majority, but did not elaborate.
84 Condorcet and Modernity
It is then that, having nothing more to fear, with no threat to his freedom or
enduring injustice, [the citizen] can open himself without fear to that sentiment
of scrupulous respect for the established laws, of submission to legal authority,
which is the necessary basis of that civil tranquillity without which all societies
tend towards continual revolution, are always unhappy and unstable, and oat
uncertainly between disorder and tyranny. (x: 608)
For Condorcet, one revolution was quite enough, and if a second were to
be avoided then the government had the crucial responsibility to ensure
the re-engagement of a free people with the laws to which it sought to
bind them. The problem of how to ensure that re-engagement, and give
it constitutional reality in a rapidly evolving political environment, runs
through the whole of these remarkable reections on the transformation
of France into a successful modern republic, ordered by the values of an
enlightened society.
27
The relocation of sovereignty was predicated, for Condorcet, on the
establishment of a system of political representation that would transmit
the peoples will through elected assemblies. In the post-peuplade stage of
socialisation sovereignty had been delegated, though not surrendered, to
kings as stewards rather than sources of sovereign authority in their own
right:
Thus, in a constitution which is truly free, all power emanates only from the
people, and is related to the unanimous will to submit to the opinion of the
majority . . .; also the power of delegated authorities can be reduced to that of
the people themselves, exerted necessarily with the peoples condence, or rather
when the people no longer think that this power is being used merely to protect
those authorities. (x: 611)
However, the sovereign will of the people could not be exerted in a direct,
unmodulated way, if perpetual insurrection and instability were to be
avoided. It had to be managed in accordance with reason and the law,
to which it would not be forced to submit, but to which it would wish to
submit: In this way liberty and peace, respect for the laws, independence
and freedom of action, and the most ardent passion for the public interest
and for reason and enthusiasm can exist in the same country, and come
together in the same soul (x: 612).
Among Condorcets many concerns about the restoration of sovereignty
to the people, and the integrity of the social pact in France in the closing
27
The conditions needed for the successful evolution of the civil order into a modern state are listed
in Sur la necessite de faire ratier la constitution par les citoyens, et sur la formation des communautes de
commune (ix: 41330), La Republique franc aise, aux hommes libres (xii: 10919) and Sur linstitution
dun conseil electif (xii: 24366).
The civil order 85
years of the ancien regime, was the question of class divisions. In Que toutes
les classes de la societe nont quun meme interet (That all classes in society have
the same interest) (8 June 1792), he made a careful distinction between the
natural hierarchy of the social structure and the hierarchy that was the work
of social institutions, masters and slaves, an hereditary nobility and bour-
geoisie (xii: 645). The distributionof wealth and property necessarily engen-
dered a class of citizens who were not dependent on others for survival, and
a class of citizens that was. Condorcet did not viewthe relationship between
capital and labour per se as a threat to rights or equality, being itself based
on the natural right to property and the fruits of ownership: But the distri-
bution of work and wealth, and of population produces inevitably a system
in which some can live without having to work and others having only
work as a way to survive: farmers, manufacturers and businessmen, entre-
preneurs, workers and consumers, nanciers and capitalists (xii: 6456).
There was no opposition of interest. Class division in this context did
not mean class conict. Progress, including commercial progress, would
unite men in the civil order, not divide them, provided that social relation-
ships were in accordance with the sentiments of nature, and men were
aware that their happiness depended on the assurance of happiness for
others.
The clash of interests between the rich and the poor, town and country,
arose as a symptomof unjust laws, corrupt institutions andanalienatedpeo-
ple deprived of its sovereign rights. The causes were solvable with enlight-
ened political management on the part of legislators. Good laws, legitimate
institutions and progressive social policies would eventually result in a
co-ordination of class interests that would protect and sustain employ-
ment, provide adequate rates of pay and maximise for all the economic
benets of capital investment in commerce and industry. Condorcet advo-
cated the cohesion rather than the destruction of the class structure, and his
policy proposals were directed not only towards the welfare of the poor, but
also towards the prosperity and security of the rich. The future happiness
of both economic groups was given equal consideration:
But if the comforts of life do not accompany hard work, the amount of work done
diminishes, and with that the dividends of the rich also diminish. But if the vicious
order of society condemns a large class of people to poverty, then either property is
threatened or the rich are obliged to sustain the poor, which is a lot more expensive
than preventing them from being poor in the rst place. (xii: 648)
Condorcet recognised that those who had nothing could not derive much
happiness from their proximity to those who had everything:
86 Condorcet and Modernity
It is true that without hope and the possibility of increasing ones wealth, without
the assurance of being able to use it freely, all activity would cease; for the man
with very modest means one would thus destroy an important resource, that of
being able to increase the reward for his labour signicantly by spending a small
sum of money to increase productivity; it is also true that one would reduce
the number of jobs available and consequently all means of subsistence and
welfare. (xii: 6489)
Aclass structure, reformedandrevitalisedalong suchlines, couldbe justied
as a cementing, harmonising force in civil life; a class structure based on
the historical prerogatives of an hereditary aristocracy, which conspired to
prevent men knowing their rights,
28
was an entirely different matter. In Sur
le sens du mot Revolutionnaire Condorcet noted ironically the old meaning
of the term aristocracy as government by wise men, who succeeded in
bringing prosperity to the peuplades, after which the role of the aristocracy
in the civil order had become less benecial, synonymous with tyranny
(xii: 6234).
29
the end of monarchy
Despite his growing sympathy with the case for a republic, Condorcet
tended to defend the merits of reformed monarchical government until
1791 and, prior to the royal ight to Varennes, he tended to minimise
contradictions between the sovereignty of the people and that of the King.
In the 1789 Reexions sur les pouvoirs, one of his longest historical analyses
of monarchical power, Condorcet set out the advantages of monarchy, and
expressed condence in its survival: France will stay a monarchy because
this form of government is perhaps the only one that is appropriate to its
28
In the notes for the Kehl Voltaire, Condorcet observed how in monarchies class distinctions ensured
an alliance of the wealthy with the powerful that imposed a veneer of constitutional normality on
the unrestrained oppression of the ruled: They will dress up oppression in the clothes of legality;
above all they will avoid allowing men to become aware of their rights . . . In a monarchy, where
there are many honours and distinctions, these will be used to attach rich men to the governments
cause, and the full weight of its authority and power will fall on the people; the fantasies of pride and
arrogance will be accommodated better than the true rights of citizens (iv: 3234). The unpublished
MS of a remarkable Dialogue entre un jeune homme et un vieillard contains an interesting analysis
of the weaknesses and dangers of this alliance, and its instruments of power in the church and the
judiciary (BIF Condorcet MS 862, ff. 45572).
29
For a denition of modern aristocracy, see the Reexions sur les corvees (xi: 64). By the autumn of
1791 the French aristocracy was associated in Condorcets mind with Frances military adversaries,
and he saw the war against France as a war fought on behalf of Europes privileged classes: The
cause of the French nation is that of the people against the nobility; this is what the whole of Europe
is pursuing, and this is why every noble and honest step taken is one step nearer to our society
(BIF, Condorcet MS 863, f. 4). This MS relates to the Declaration of Pillnitz, and was written in
SeptemberOctober 1791.
The civil order 87
wealth, to the size of its population, to the extent of its territory and to the
European political system. He even predicted that the French monarchy
wouldremainhereditary rather thanelective, toavoidthe on-going troubles
of elective countries (ix: 266). The advantages of hereditary monarchy were
extolled further in Sur linstitution dun conseil electif on 23 July 1790 (xii:
2457). In the Reexions sur les pouvoirs Condorcet could still see advantages
in the renewal of the ancient contract between monarch and people, and
he stressed the social cohesion that a modernised monarchy could offer to
a new civil order whose laws reected the common interest:
Laws will once again become an expression of the public interest; they will embody
the principle of princely power and that of the peoples obedience [Condorcets italics];
and all members of society will nd themselves united in a contract by which each
citizen will undertake with respect to the people, the people with respect to the prince,
and the prince with respect to the people as well as to each citizen [Condorcets italics]
to remain obedient to the rules established for the general good by the general
will. Such would be the incalculable advantages resulting from the union of all
political bodies and from a return of the monarchy to the rst laws by which it
was constituted, once those laws are free from the stains of the ignorance of the
ancient world and the vices of the modern. (ix: 266)
Reform of the French monarchy rather than its abolition was the path
that he hoped representatives at the Estates-General would take. In France
the person of the King was sacred, not in any sacerdotal sense but because
the King drew his authority from the terms of the social pact, by which his
sovereignty was a delegated sovereignty making him the repository of the
collective strength and will of the people (ix: 272). Through the King the
people expressed their general will; their general will created the law, and
the law created monarchs: Such is the authority of royalty, determined
by our ancestors for the benet of the princes who rule over us, and our
historical monuments bear witness tothe fact that, far frombeing meanwith
its power, the nation has still consented to treat the monarch as an integral
part of the legislative. Condorcet sawthe meeting of the Estates-General as
an opportunity to restore legitimacy and purpose to the French monarchy,
and in 1789 he preferred to attribute its failings to the excesses of ministers,
courtiers and parlementaires who, contrary to the Kings intentions and
contrary to the purpose of his institution as a royal person, would threaten
the life, liberty and property of citizens (ix: 273). As he stated at the start of
the Reexions sur les pouvoirs, he was not yet ready to lay responsibility for
Frances problems on the shoulders of Louis XVI: Attachment to the forms
of monarchy, respect for the royal personage and for the royal prerogative,
88 Condorcet and Modernity
and hatred of arbitrary power: these are the motives which dictate this work
(ix: 2667).
In a later pamphlet, Sur le choix des ministres (On the choice of min-
isters), written in April 1790, he examined two distinguishing features of
modern monarchies, and their implications for a free constitution and
for public accountability, namely royal inviolability and royal hereditary
rights to power (x: 4951). From the neutral, reassuring tone of his opening
remarks on the restraints theoretically in place in the form of separation
of executive powers, royal consent, ministerial veto and the independence
of the Treasury, it is difcult at rst to detect signs of any rejection in
principle of hereditary monarchy. In fact, however, Condorcets position
on monarchy in the main body of this text is not as sanguine as it had
been in the previous year. Monarchy had its origin not in philosophical
meditations on the nature of power, social orders and the interest of peo-
ples, but in old customs and the pressures of historical circumstance, and
we could then say: if all is not well, at least all is tolerable [Condorcets
italics] (x: 51). Sly echoes of Panglossian optimism introduce a cautionary
note. Monarchy must now be examined in the light of reason, not passion
and prejudice. Kings ruled only with the consent of a constituent power,
which was revocable. In Sur le choix des ministres, while Louis XVIs record
was treated with more caution and reservation, the problem was still not
that of Kings per se, but of one prince who is the enemy of freedom, and
the criminal intriguers that he might appoint as his ministers (x: 52). Any
criticism was directed towards the personal aws of a specic King. The
solution did not yet involve the abolition of the monarchy, but rather a
renement of constitutional control over monarchical power, and in the
remaining part of the essay Condorcet advances relatively modest proposals
for legislation whereby the Kings prerogative to choose ministers would
be retained, but his choice restricted to candidates proposed to him by the
nations representatives, the tenure of ministerial ofce being limited by
statute (x: 525).
In 1790 Condorcet was attempting to combine the principle of royal
assent to ministerial appointments with an electoral procedure that would
safeguard the common interest by the elimination of factional conict:
We retain in this form of appointment the real advantages of the monarchy, that is
to say, that unity in the executive can be more easily and more certainly maintained;
and, more importantly, avoid the factions emerging in many local situations which
would divide a council of independent leaders, and the inuence of their private
interests which, much more than those of the monarch, might be contrary to
the nations interests, and spread more virulently and more dangerously than the
passions of junior ministers. (x: 57)
The civil order 89
His proposals containat this stage nohint of a strategy todispense ultimately
with the King, or even to remove his executive powers to choose and
dismiss ministers: this is about ensuring his right, or rather giving him
a real right instead of a purely imaginary one, which he would enjoy if
his choice appeared to be free (x: 61). That right would be managed by a
representative legislature in ways that would no longer leave it powerless
in the matter of ministerial choice. As the people had to have the legal
means to change a displeasing constitution, which otherwise they could
only change by insurrection, so their representatives had to have the means
to dispense with displeasing ministers, if the political well-being of the civil
order was at risk.
30
Between 1790 and 1791 Condorcets position on the role of the monarch
in the civil order would change as tensions between monarchists and repub-
licans deepened, and events marking the prelude to the 1791 constitution
unfolded. On 19 July 1791 Condorcet presented a discours to the Cercle
Social, printed subsequently as De La Republique, ou un roi est-il necessaire
` a la conservation de la liberte? (On the Republic, or is a King necessary to
the preservation of liberty?). Written in the wake of Condorcets sense of
betrayal after the arrest of the royal family, and inuenced almost certainly
by the views of Tom Paine, with whom by 1791 Condorcet had forged a
close friendship, De La Republique was essentially a defence of the work of
the Constituante, but it also reected a new urgency on Condorcets part to
re-examine the case for monarchy in the new order. Reviewing the condi-
tions in which monarchies could function without infringing the rights of
the people, he now openly doubted that those conditions still existed in
France. The crucial question was now posed: did France need this corrupt-
ing and dangerous institution (xii: 228)?
The question was rhetorical, and its very formulation conrms Con-
dorcets conversion to republicanism, a conversion whose origins some
modern commentators are inclined to think pre-dates De La Republique.
31
Hereditary monarchy was no longer needed to shield the people from the
predatory aggressions of powerful individuals, or from arbitrary govern-
ment. Royal assent was no longer needed to give authority to government
30
In this respect Condorcet criticised the way in which the political process in England had been
degraded and debased by the party system, to such a degree that there is no serious difference of
opinion between politicians (x: 61).
31
See Introduction, p. 33 nn. 78 and 79. The carefully constructed Lettre dun jeune mecanicien, for
example, came out at the same time as De La Republique, but the issue of when this important anti-
monarchical satire, one of the most savage to come from Condorcets pen, was actually composed
is unresolved. Rather than being rushed out as a post-Varennes piece, it might have been written
earlier, see Baker, Condorcet, pp. 3045. Note, however, the letter Condorcet wrote to Louis XVI in
1791, see below p. 259, n. 19.
90 Condorcet and Modernity
policies, and was now seen as being both shameful and harmful, only that
of corruption (xii: 233). The sovereignty of Kings was no longer perceived
to have honourable origins in ancient republics, and the case made by the
friends of royalty was no longer sustainable. Condorcet reversed almost
word for word compromises made only a year earlier, his tone now reect-
ing a powerfully demotic irreverence. The voice of Paine can clearly be
heard:
We no longer live in times when this impious superstition which made a man into
some sort of God can still be counted among the ways of reinforcing the authority
of the law. Without any doubt, we no longer believe that in order to rule men it is
necessary to strike their imagination with a puerile display, and that the people will
be tempted to scorn the law if their supreme ruler did not have a Grand-Master
of the Wardrobe.
32
Any justication for the retention of the hereditary principle is nowdeemed
inappropriate for the contemporary French state (x: 234), and the clear
duty of the Constituante was to create a new constitution that excluded the
crown. The Varennes betrayal had released the people from its pact with
Louis XVI, and responsibility for the new modalities of the civil order now
revertedto them, andto their representatives inthe Constituante. The Kings
constitutional position was nullied, and the Dauphin must be educated
accordingly: at the present time, educating [the Dauphin] to be a king is
less important than teaching him how not to be one, and how to wish not
to be one (x: 237).
Condorcets disenchantment with Louis XVI was further reected in a
hostile account of royal corruption and proigacy in De linuence dun
monarque et dune cour sur les murs dun peuple libre (On the inuence
of a monarch and a court on the morals of a free people), and in the
Revision des travaux de la premi`ere legislature (Review of the work of the rst
legislature), both appearing in September 1792.
33
Few of the redeeming
features of monarchy that Condorcet had accepted earlier could survive
32
See also the unpublished fragment, dated 9 March 1792: The absurdity of this idea was understood,
and a contract between monarch and people was set up; the commitment of the Prince to the terms
of this contract became the condition of obedience to him (BIF Condorcet MS 862, f. 75). This
fragment offers incidentally more interesting evidence of Condorcets change of rhetorical tone.
33
See also the Chronique de Paris (234 September 1792). The declaration abolishing royalty and
announcing that France was to form a single republic prompted the rst fears of the National
Convention. These two great issues have been decided without any discussion. A deep feeling of
resentment against kings and the feeling that we needed to unite closely in our common defence
permitted no deliberations or delay. These feelings were felt by the nation as a whole . . . And as,
moreover, neither heredity, inviolability, the right to reject or suspend a law, the enormity of the
royal income, nor even the existence of a single head of state were needed in order for us to act
together as one, then obviously the issue between royalists and republicans boils down to this: in a
The civil order 91
the impact of historical events as the machine of Revolution gathered pace,
and its liberal, more constitutionally accommodating phase drewto a close:
The despotism of one man is illusory, apart from that of a conqueror at the head
of his army. In every other case what is called despotism is just the rule of an
anarchic aristocracy. The self-interest of the rich, of nobles and priests etc., can
keep it going; but is it not obvious that it is in the interest of absolute monarchs
to give their people liberty so that they will not reclaim it by force, to establish a
representative constitution so that such a constitution is not forced upon them,
and to replace that part of their authority that they cannot hope to retain for much
longer with recognition of the people as citizens? (x: 436)
Condorcets earlier hopes for a smooth transition to constitutional monar-
chy faded quickly as Louis XVIs collusion with the Revolutions internal
and external enemies became increasingly apparent,
34
and as the conditions
legitimising the social pact were undermined. By the end of 1792 Condorcet
accepted that consent of the people to the pact was suspended, pending
the construction of a new constitution, and the advent of a renewed civil
order to be re-legitimised in their name.
well-constituted state do we need any power to implement the law, other than the law itself? (BIF
Condorcet MS 864, ff. 3967).
34
Signicant moves against Louis XVI, in which Condorcet was involved, are marked by two reports
that appeared on 9 August 1792: the Rapport fait au nom dune commission extraordinaire ` a lAssemblee
nationale sur une petition de la commune de Paris tendant ` a la decheance du roi and the Instruction sur
lexercice du droit de souverainete.
chapter 4
Managing enlightenment
the epi stemologi cal revoluti on
In a seminal text delivered to the Academie Franc aise on 21 February 1782
upon his admission to the company of immortals, Condorcet set out his
faith in the mission of the Enlightenment.
1
He characterised his century
as the age in which the general system of the principles of our knowledge
has been developed, in which the method of discovering the truth has been
reduced to an art and, if you like, to formulae; in which reason has at last
recognised the path it must follow, and has grasped the thread which will
stop it from losing its way (i: 390). The vision that he unveiled in his
Discours de reception was one in which the human race would no longer
accept the inevitability of the triumph of darkness over light, and in which
the torch of genius and reason would be from now on inextinguishable.
A determined and tenacious condence in the cumulative dynamics of
progress is the familiar hallmark of Condorcets world-view: Truth has
triumphed; the human race is saved. Each century will add new knowledge
to that of the previous century, and this progress, which from now on
nothing can stop or hold up, will have no limit other than the lifespan of
the universe (i: 3901).
The rhetorical ourish of a public speech often heralds a crushing banal-
ity of content, then as now, but this was not to be the case on this occasion,
and any academician present anticipating superciality was to be pleasantly
surprised. That Condorcets condence in mans future well-being and
increasing prosperity would remain unshaken by events is clear from the
evidence of that extraordinary last work, the Esquisse dun tableau historique
1
On the legacy of the Enlightenment and the tenacity of Enlightenment values in Condorcets political
thought, see Coutel, Condorcet, pp. 1348, 945; M. Crampe-Casnabet, Condorcet lecteur des Lumi`eres
(Paris: PUF, 1985); Williams, Condorcet and the English Enlightenment. The reafrmation of
Enlightenment principles in the debate on constitutional change in 1789 was the main purpose
behind Condorcets foundation of the Societe de 1789, see the Lettre ` a m.
, avocat
au parlement de Pau, ` a M
, a professor of canonical
law in Cahors), purported to serve as a response. The publication of this
collection coincided with the decline of Neckers ministry under which, to
Condorcets disappointment, the protestant cause had not been advanced,
despite the fact that Necker was himself a protestant.
In the rst of these inter-related essays Condorcet cites an extract from
the address given to the Paris Parlement on 15 December 1778 by a M. de
Bretigni` eres on the civil status of the protestants and the need to repeal
anti-protestant decrees enacted in the time of Louis XIV and Louis XV.
This is followed by two paragraphs of commentary explaining the reasons
of prudence behind the decision to take no action (v: 399403), a decision
not to be interpreted as a rejection in principle of the Bretigni` eres appeal.
The second essay, the Reexions dun citoyen catholique sur les lois de France
relatives aux protestants, is a more substantial analysis of the reasons for
depriving protestants of their rights, and of the legal framework which
consolidated deprivation and intolerance, legislation that had survived the
12
The place of publication on the title page is London but, as Lauriol points out, this collection of
essays poses a number of bibliographical problems.
13
The Reexions went through two editions in 1778, of which the second was printed under Voltaires
name. The work was subsequently revised by Rabaut de Saint-Etienne, and republished in 1779
under a new title, Justice et necessite dassurer en France un etat legal aux protestants, ou La tolerance
aux pieds du tr one. See Lauriol, Condorcet et les protestants, 33 n. 7.
Reform and the moral order 125
passing of the Sun King into history. Protestants still suffered under a cruel
penal code, and the prosperity of the nation continued to suffer with them
as a result.
Tracing the origins of protestant persecution in France, Condorcet
employed a technique of ironic juxtaposition of trivial causes and momen-
tous effects, honed by Bayle in the Pensees sur la com`ete, by Fontenelle in
the Histoire des oracles and perfected by Voltaire. Under Louis XIV the
denial of civil rights to protestants had been legalised because the jesuit
Layn es proved at a colloquium in Poissy, held in the reign of Charles IX,
that they were foxes and wolves (v: 405). The royal decree of 14 May 1724
had reinforced the injustice of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by
denying protestants freedom of association and assembly, the right to bear
arms and restricting their property rights. After the revocation, protestant
homes had been requisitioned by dragoons, wives and daughters offered
a choice between rape or conversion, and protestant ministers put to the
sword. In 1685 this legalised brutality had been motivated in part by fear of
insurrection fuelled by the military threat posed by England and Holland.
No such circumstances prevailed in 1724, and the extension of the terms of
the revocation in the 1724 decree to include limitations on travel, emigra-
tion, inheritance rights, the punishment of relatives and children of dying
protestants who refused to recant, the forcible conversion of children and
their education in catholic establishments,
14
the building of catholic schools
in protestant communities at protestant expense and the proscription of
marriages according to protestant ritual, were inexcusable.
Condorcets attack on Cardinal de Fleurys decree was uncompromising:
The 1724 edict seems to assume that no more protestants exist in France; it treats
a million useful, oppressed subjects as if they were nothing; the laws relating to
the protection of property and to the civil status of citizens do not apply to them.
They are defended only by their nature, honour and integrity; and this law might
well have lled France with half a million brigands if the unfortunates which the
country oppresses had not been virtuous citizens.
15
(v: 423)
Extensive notes are then devoted to specic cases illustrating the impact on
the individual lives of protestants by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
and by the perpetuation of its iniquities in successive post-revocation
14
Condorcet reminds the reader in a note here of the case of Sirvens daughter who drowned herself
in a well after escaping from the convent in which she had been conned, leading to the accusation
of murder being levelled against her father (v: 419 n. 1).
15
See also Condorcets comments on the 1724 decree in the notes for the Kehl Voltaire (iv: 4745), the
Eloge de Charras (ii: 73), the Eloge dHuyghens (iii: 70) and the Reponse au plaidoyer de m. dEspremesnil
(vii: 58).
126 Condorcet and Modernity
decrees, exemplied by the treatment of women and children refusing to
convert,
16
the exclusion of protestants from public ofce, as well as from
professions and trades for which certicats de catholicite were a prerequi-
site for entry (v: 42536). These obstacles could be surmounted, but only
if protestants were prepared to discard their conscience and integrity by
consenting to oaths of catholicity, witnessed by people with few scruples,
and a cheap and easily obtained certicate (v: 426). Thus was the moral
order subverted in the illusory cause of national religious unity as protes-
tants were obliged to sacrice their principles in order to survive, result-
ing in a situation in which the state rewarded liars, and punished honest
men.
Religious persecution, represented in France by the plight of protestants,
exemplied for Condorcet the fragility of the moral order and the conse-
quences for political (and religious) life when that order was not sustained
by enlightened legislation.
17
France had nothing to fear from reform of its
draconian, outdated laws:
The morality of protestants is the same as that of catholics: it is Christian morality;
it prescribes obedience to the law, it forbids any interference with the government
under which they live, and orders people to accept persecution without protest.
Under a prince who persecutes protestants, and in a republic, protestant writers are
republicans; under a prince who tolerates them, and under a monarchist govern-
ment, protestant writers have a monarchist spirit. It is the same thing with catholic
writers: let us remember those preachers at the time of the [Catholic] League; let us
just think about the impact of their preachings, and say no more that protestants
are the enemies of kings. (v: 444)
Insurrection, instability and republicanismcould not be ruled out, however,
if reform did not take place, as the historic example of Holland under the
rule of Philip II demonstrated only too clearly.
18
A moral, peace-loving
minority could all too easily be transformed by retrogressive legislation into
16
For example, the ogging of eight protestant girls at Uz` es: Protestant women were forced to attend
acts of religious worship they regarded as being idolatrous. They were subjected to holy oggings
which they could only regard, in the light of their faith, as the ultimate renement in monkish
debauchery and cruelty. In Uz` es eight girls, between the ages of sixteen and twenty-three, had their
skirts raised to their waists, and were whipped by nuns doing the job of executioners in the most
edifyingly zealous way before the local judge and the major commanding the Vivonne regiment
(v: 420 n. 1). Forced marriages with catholics in Alsace form the subject of a further substantial note,
see v: 423 n. 2.
17
On the crimes committed during the Counter-Reformation, and in France particularly at the time
of the Saint Bartholemew Massacre, see the Lettre dun theologien ` a lauteur du Dictionnaire des trois
si`ecles (v: 315). In the notes for the Kehl Voltaire Condorcet intercalated an acerbic commentary on
the religious policies of Louis XIV (iv: 4001).
18
Philip IIs persecutions were the direct cause of the establishment of a republic in Holland (v: 443).
Reform and the moral order 127
a disruptive, politically dissident force in which the fanaticism of religious
intolerance would engender an equally brutal counter-fanaticism.
The danger to public order, and ultimately to the security of the state,
arising from the political radicalisation of the protestants provides the omi-
nous subtext to a raft of carefully formulated rhetorical questions high-
lighting the advantages of liberating French law from the historical legacy
of religious prejudice and persecution:
Would these same men who, groaning under the yoke of cruel legislation, and
surrounded by children whom the law refuses to recognise, excluded from public
ofce, and still loving a country which has rejected them, love it less if it were to
become their homeland? They pray for their king when the laws oppress them.
Would they stop loving him because he has become their benefactor? . . . Frances
enemies are the ones who should fear the revocation of these laws. The impossi-
bility of causing disturbances in France by stirring up protestant fanaticism; or of
reducing Frances population by enticing [protestants] away; Frances population
increased by a crowd of rich, industrious foreigners, if in fact the name of foreigners
can be given to them; the acquisition of all of those secrets our neighbours industry
still hides from us; all the ills arising from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes
cured in an instant; a million happy citizens with a renewed zeal for their country:
these will be the effects of happy change, and that is what superstition, dressed up
in the name of politics, would like us to fear. (v: 445, 446)
Condorcet analysed the case for reform systematically, but with charac-
teristic caution, in the remaining pages of this powerfully persuasive essay.
Arguments relating to the need for new legislation to protect religious
minorities are balanced by the need not to confront the church directly
on the issue of its right to condemn heresy. Tolerance of heretical sects
did not imply surrender to the theological position of the protestants, but
merely an end to their persecution. His eloquent plea for tolerance was
about equality of civil rights, not parity of dogmatic status:
We are not asking for protestants to have anestablishedreligionandstate-appointed
ministers; we ask that they be allowed to have children. We are not talking here
about two state religions, although freedom of worship has not caused any upsets
in those states which have adopted it; but we are saying that all men who live in
the same country, pay their taxes and obey the law, should enjoy the rights of men
and citizens. (v: 4478)
Like plantation slaves in another context, protestants were human beings,
and if they were to be denied salvation in the next world, this did not mean
that their happiness had to be denied in this one: Let us stop persecuting
[Condorcets italics].
128 Condorcet and Modernity
With the decriminalisation of heresy and blasphemy, protestant assem-
blies would be less secretive, and less threatening. Protestant ministers
would cease to have the politically inammatory status of martyrs if they
were no longer threatened with execution; changes to the laws relating to
freedom of movement and association, and also property rights, would
facilitate the integration of protestants into the mainstream of civil life. If
enforced death-bed conversions were to end, protestants would no longer
have cause to treat priests as their enemies, and inter-denominational rela-
tions would improve. While Condorcet conceded that allowing protestants
to hold public ofce might still be a step too far, given the reservations that
still held sway in the public mind, he made no concession to the case for
retaining professional restrictions: A man of good heart can consent with-
out any difculty to live under laws depriving himof any hope of becoming
a powerful man, but he cannot tolerate laws depriving him of the means
to obtain and deserve public esteem (v: 4512).
Adminstrative procedures relating to the registration of births, marriages
and deaths, all associated with offending catholic sacraments, posed partic-
ularly difcult issues of faith, and Condorcet sought to defuse potentially
bitter conict on issues of often fanatically held principle by treating births,
marriages and deaths as secular matters. Registration was simply an admin-
istrative procedure which could be carried out in accordance with civil
law. He thus proposed a formula for the ofcial separation of the civil and
religious aspects of marriage by means of a reinstatement of a 1685 law, pre-
dating the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, allowing protestants to marry
before a minister nominated by the local intendant at a designated time in
an ecclesiastically neutral location. The civil validation of protestant mar-
riage contracts would have further benecial repercussions on issues such
as inheritance rights: This form of contract would have all the civil impli-
cations of marriage without being a sacrament, just like marriages in all
other countries, whether between indels or idolators, are not sacraments
either (v: 453). Resistance to these proposed reforms was, in Condorcets
view, based on contradictory lines of argument, those defending the status
quo maintaining either that the case for change was insufciently important
to warrant the urgency with which the friends of humanity were pursuing
it, or that reform relating to protestant civil rights would be the thin end
of a wedge leading to a serious moral and political debilitation of the civil
order.
Condorcets counter-argument focussed, not on the moral or human-
itarian aspects, but rather on the principle of mutual self-interest at the
heart of the pact of association itself, injecting cost-benet implications
into arguments that could all too readily degenerate into prejudice and
Reform and the moral order 129
irrationality: So it must be shown that we are getting to the point where
abrogation of the laws against the protestants can more surely procure
for us greater advantages, and where the retention of those laws could be
most dangerous to public prosperity (v: 454). To this was added a further
socio-economic argument for toleration. The public purse needed to be
replenished. Restoring happiness and good will to more than a million
industrious, productive citizens, and bringing back to France a hundred
thousand refugees, together with their wealth and skills, would offer a
more effective cure for the nations economic malaise than the games that
had been played with paper money.
19
Policies that militated against rec-
onciliation with the protestants, at a time when a fresh haemorrhage of
citizens to a free and tolerant America was a distinct possibility, would be
self-destructive. France must turn away from the sophisms that justied
intolerance, and take the path of reason and humanity if its future was to
be secured (v: 457).
More formalised recommendations for new legislation to manage the
problemof the protestants is to be found in Sur les moyens de traiter les protes-
tants franc ais comme des hommes sans nuire ` a la religion catholique containing
forty-two draft proposals for legislation, each followed by a substantial, and
often heavily annotated, commentary. The articles are preceded by a brief
preambule and introductory comments (articles 13), setting the proposals
in a context of civil rights, mutual self-interest in the preservation of public
order and the general danger to the freedom of all citizens arising from acts
of religious intolerance. The rst three articles address the delicate problem
of balancing the decriminalisation of heresy with protection of the status of
an ofcial church deprived of its historic prerogatives to persecute minor-
ity cultes publics.
20
Protestants would have rights of free association, and
would no longer be subject to police surveillance (articles 46). Article 7
is particularly interesting for the way it reects Condorcets insight into
the psychology of intolerance and fanaticism, and the importance that he
attached to making legislators aware of the need to take account of the pro-
cesses at work in the public mind that allowed ordinary people to shed the
blood of their fellow citizens without offending their own, or the public,
conscience.
19
Condorcet uses the term agiotage here, meaning technically the inated value of paper money over
the value of silver and gold, and he had in mind the experiments of John Law and their dismal
impact on the French economy in 1720, see v: 455 n. 1.
20
An ofcially established state religion is dened by Condorcet as the sect whose clergy is paid from
the public purse, with authority only over its own adherents. A culte public, on the other hand, is
a lawfully authorised sect practised in temples designated for the purpose, and open to all. A public
cult would not be subject to discriminatory legislation.
130 Condorcet and Modernity
Condorcet was trying to ensure that rights for all citizens were guaranteed
(the primary condition for good legislation, here as elsewhere), and he
takes care in this respect not to sacrice the legitimate interests of the
catholic church to those of the protestant. While Condorcet, for tactical
reasons, proposed no openly hostile move against the dogmatic status of the
catholic church, or against catholic privileges in the context of education
or the preaching of public sermons, ironic undertones can be detected
hinting at the more overtly aggressive position on clerical privileges to be
taken up in later years. In the commentary on article 6 of Sur les moyens
Condorcet acknowledged the fears that the prospect of liberalising the laws
against protestants still aroused in most French people, but noted that
public hostility was gradually weakening. Intolerance would eventually
retreat if it was no longer useful, and if no corps advantage was to be
gained from it: This instinctive hatred of the catholic population for the
protestants is weakening, moreover, every day; and the destruction of the
laws of intolerance would soon destroy it altogether. From the moment it
became known that there was no prospect of advancement or prot from
an excess of zeal, there would be no more excess of zeal (v: 479).
Articles 819, comprising the main body of the proposals, address
the infringements of the moral order in anti-protestant legislation that
Condorcet had identied in the Reexions dun citoyen catholique, and set
out new regulatory mechanisms and procedures for the registration of civil
marriages, the publication of banns, the rules on consanguinity, the wit-
nessing of legal documents, the payment of dowries, the conditions for
annulment and the civil status of children. To cut through the confusions,
obfuscations and illogicalities, Condorcet appealed to his bed-rock prin-
ciple of natural rights. Of these one of the most crucial was the right to
own and inherit property, of which Condorcet saw the legal recognition as
a condition of the pact of association: A mans property thus becomes the
property of his children and his wife, and in societies just coming into exis-
tence this must be a condition of the act of association; this right has existed
in all nations for all free men (v: 495). The moral order would be debased
by any law that denied to any citizen recognition of his children, nullied
the validity of solemn commitments and vows and enforced conversion as
a condition of authorisation to marry:
21
We could have invoked humanity,
21
On the issue of children born outside marriage, Condorcet questioned whether the severity of the
law, as it affected the children of free unions, might be contrary to natural justice: if those laws,
motivated almost everywhere by vanity or the pretext of protecting morality, were not used more to
corrupt morality than to purify it, and if the excessive severity of the laws relating to morality did
not lead necessarily to hypocrisy and licentiousness (v: 497 n. 1).
Reform and the moral order 131
public honesty, sane politics, religion; but we wished only to speak of justice
(v: 499).
Articles 2130 move the treatise on from general principles to the minu-
tiae of administrative detail, and cover divorce procedures and settlements,
the legal and nancial entitlements of children born before or after divorce,
welfare and educational arrangements and inheritance rights, with particu-
lar attention being paid to the position of wives declaring pregnancies after
the death of their husbands.
22
Divorce was for Condorcet another secular
issue, a matter for civil law codes alone, and it needed to be separated from
ecclesiastical traditions that aligned it with other arbitrary interdictions
relating to celibacy, dietary laws and the use of a dead language to celebrate
mass. The criteria for reform were justice and usefulness, the key prerequi-
sites for all good legislation. On the specic question of protestant rights
in the area of divorce, Condorcet insisted that protestants, whose religion
did not condemn divorce on theological grounds, should be allowed to
exercise a right that would be theirs in a protestant country.
23
He then
broadened the divorce argument into an examination of gender relations
generally, and the more urgent issue of womens rights surfaced quickly.
Condorcets commentaries make clear that the purpose behind his propos-
als is to alleviate the harm done, not only to a particular religious minority,
but to the state itself: The purpose of these different articles is to remedy,
as far as this is possible, the harm which the laws against the protestants
have done to France (v: 514). For the moral order to be repaired specic
reforms must, moreover, be accompanied by retroactive, compensatory leg-
islation involving, for example, the immediate commutation of all death
sentences and committals to galley service, and the rescinding of orders
of exile. Condorcet even proposed that, in the interests of reconciliation,
steps be taken to rehabilitate the memory of protestant lives lost in the
brutal aftermath of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Here, as in other
contexts, he was concerned not only with the technical overhaul of unjust
legislation, but also with the cleansing of the public conscience.
The reintegration of all who do not profess the catholic religion into
public life would also require the eradication of any residual adherence
22
The level of detail to which Condorcet commits himself in these proposals regarding the legitimacy
of children is well illustrated here in article 30: If the birth takes place, the child will only be regarded
as legitimate as long as the time elapsing between its birth and the mothers declaration of pregnancy
does not exceed 280 days, unless the husband recognises the child born after this period as being
his (v: 503). In the commentary to this article he returned to the 280-day limit (v: 5089).
23
Interestingly, Condorcet saw the protestant community in France as a guest community with an
identity that transcended frontiers, like that of Jews. He refers here, for example, to the rights of
protestants who would like to adopt France as their homeland (v: 505).
132 Condorcet and Modernity
to prejudicial employment restrictions. In Condorcets view, the interests
of the state, as well as those of natural justice, made it imperative for the
exclusivity of post-1685 legislation to be replaced by the inclusivity of a new
code designed to open rather than close doors with regard to professional
life, the universities and schools. Protestants should be able to hold civic
ofce, and their services made eligible for public recognition through the
honours system. The natural right of all citizens to prot from the exercise
of their talents and energies is invoked with particular reference to those
professions having a direct impact on public health, the economy and
education. In these key areas, in which the public interest was crucial,
Condorcets concern was for the right of all citizens to benet from the
services of the states reservoir of human talent and energy, irrespective of
religious considerations. Employment regulations would thus be conned
to, and justied by, public interest considerations and the test of utility
rather than that of religious afliation: Religious faith cannot therefore
inuence the laws governing different professions, and every law by which
the exercise of a profession was made dependent on the profession of a
particular faith, would be contrary to justice (v: 51617).
If the rst priority was to remove discriminatory regulations affect-
ing employment, professional access and advancement, the second was
to address the problem of discriminatory educational provision, and this
raised the controversial issue of independent protestant schools, to be fully
authorised, under Condorcets proposals, by the state, and made eligible
for support from the public purse. The case is argued in article 42 of
Sur les moyens, again from the standpoint of natural rights, in this case
the rights of fathers over the education of their children, a natural right
which predates society (v: 519). Fathers could be legitimately deprived of
that right for reasons of criminality or insanity, but if it is a legal duty to
leave the education of children to fathers, it is a political duty to provide
fathers . . . with the means to obtain for their children an education appro-
priate to the formation of honest, enlightened, courageous citizens. This
devoir de justice was denied to protestants by the fact of their legal obligation
to entrust their children to catholic teachers, less concerned with educat-
ing them than converting them. It was in Condorcets view a right that
could only be restored by authorising the establishment of public protestant
schools, although he accepted that such a proposal was not without draw-
backs. Protestant children could still be pressured indirectly to convert,
and the formal segregation of protestant and catholic children risked the
creationof a ghetto mentality that Condorcet understood only too well, and
which he considered vital to eradicate if harmony and stability were to be
Reform and the moral order 133
achieved: Because these children do not participate in the same activities
as catholic children, the result is that either the catholic children will envy
their lot, or that they will detest them as heretics . . . It will thus be impos-
sible to stop these children developing a kind of instinctive hatred which
is then turned on society (v: 520). The issue behind all the proposals in
articles 412 was the constitutional recognition of rights in the face of the
legalised intolerance that continued to disgure the moral order in France,
and to fragment, and thereby weaken, the nation.
The remaining pages of Sur les moyens, separated from the commentary
to article 42 by a textual marker, Fin du Professeur en droit, contain a
series of justicatory reections on the changes advocated. Here Condorcet
introduced other issues relating to procedures for legislative reform that
were to reappear in his writings eight years later in the context of the
convocation of the Estates-General, and the immediate post-1789 debate
on the ways to bring about constitutional change that would take for
the rst time full account of the public will. Beyond the practicalities of
progressive legislation loomed the most crucial aspect of the battle to restore
the integrity of the moral order to French laws and institutions. Condorcet,
in all aspects of his constitutional thinking, was always aware that reformist
measures were futile if not accompanied by a corresponding strategy to
secure the support of public opinion and public consent. Ascertaining the
public will in a country without representative government was difcult,
and in these circumstances legislators had recourse only to the partial,
often elusive, evidence of public opinion, the only interpreter of the will of
nations when the constitution has established neither a general convention
of the people, nor a general assembly of its representatives (v: 521). A sea-
change in public opinion was a necessary precondition for the introduction
of enlightened legislation, but public opinion needed to be well informed
by having the means to participate in open political dialogue, facilitated by
a free press. Until such conditions prevailed, the churchs power to inuence
public opinion remained a fact that could not be ignored, and Condorcet
was particularly anxious to present his proposals to end the persecution of
the protestants as being actually advantageous to orthodoxy, and not open
to the accusation that their true purpose was to sacrice the interests of the
French church to those of the state (v: 522).
In the light of this anxiety, Condorcet felt that it would be tactically
unwise to end the defence of his proposals for the toleration of protestant
heresy inSur les moyens without a formal denial of impiety, anda conciliatory
discussion of ways of converting protestants to the true faith. The errors of
the violent policies of conversion adopted since the Reformation were again
134 Condorcet and Modernity
pilloried, but conversion as a legitimate policy per se is not quite rejected,
retention of a proselytising role for the ofcial church being absorbed skil-
fully into the defence of protestant rights as a policy that would serve the
interests of good religion as well as good politics. Tolerance of heresy and
acceptance of reform are transformed into a litmus test of genuine piety
and presented, not as a defeat for the church, but rather as a milestone on
the road to Christian renewal and unity, thus offering the orthodox both a
challenge and a promise:
Every catholic who is convinced of the truth of his religion must therefore wish
for protestants to be tolerated, since persecution is just a way of attaching men as
indifferently to error as to truth; [every catholic] must demand at the same time
that clerical abuses be reformed, and that the behaviour and maxims of the clergy
no longer contradict perpetually the precepts and maxims of the Scriptures, for
these abuses, this contradiction, are the sole cause of opposition to the truth and
to the unity of all Christians in the same faith and in the church. (v: 5356)
The problem of persuading hearts and minds was further examined in
the Lettre de M
, echoes
Voltairean techniques of demolition. With Condorcet the velvet glove of
irony covers a barely concealed iron st of radical, angry commitment to
the cause of black human rights. Moreover, in describing Schwartz on the
titlepage as a Member of the Economic Society of B
, Condorcet estab-
lishes the putative authors qualications with regard to the commercial
arguments put forward in the text.
In the main body of the essay, Condorcet explores in remarkable detail
the relationship between planters, slave-traders and slaves, the horrors of
transportation, working conditions on the plantations and the crushing
human realities behind the legally sanctioned terms relating to the engage-
ment of slave labour, still largely determined by the 1685 Code Noir. He
speculates interestingly on alternative ways of assuring the production of
colonial goods, on the moral issues involved in the commodication of
human beings, on new administrative initiatives that could be taken in
order to bring plantation conditions under regulated control, as well as on
a number of practical, humanitarian and economic matters arising from
abolition, such as compensation for slaves as well as slave-owners. Con-
dorcets stance is uncompromising: enslavement is an act of theft by which
the slaves right to ownership of his own person has been removed. Standard
justications for this act of theft are reviewedandsummarily rejected. Ratio-
nalisations that sought to present black slaves as prisoners of war captured
in tribal battles, and destined as such for slaughter if not bought from
their victors, are discounted,
21
along with the view that slave-traders are
in fact benefactors saving negro lives (and souls) from murderous African
chieftains. Financial investment in slave welfare does not impart rights of
ownership. Nor does the need to safeguard colonial economies legitimise
slavery:
Thus, to ask whether this interest legitimises slavery is to ask whether one should
be allowed to keep the wealth obtained through crime. The urgent need I have
of my neighbours horses to work my elds does not give me the right to steal
them; so why should I have the right to force the man himself to work them? This
so-called need changes nothing, and does not make slavery less of a criminal act
on the part of the master. (Reexions, p. 11)
Condorcet was concerned to demonstrate that the ownership of slaves
did not derive from a right, and that the act of keeping another human
21
On the complicity of tribal chieftains in the trade, see the notes for the Kehl Voltaire (iv: 469).
Condorcet counters the argument partly by accusing the traders of causing wars in order to promote
the market in slaves in their aftermath.
146 Condorcet and Modernity
being in servitude could not be legitimised by analogy with the right to
own property or animals.
22
By abolishing the slave trade, therefore, the
state would not be undermining property rights. With the criminalisation
of slavery, the state wouldnot owe compensationtoslave-traders andowners
any more than it owed compensation to thieves deprived by the courts of
their possession of stolen goods (Reexions, p. 22). With the criminality
of the act of enslavement established in the light of natural justice and
morality, Condorcet then concentrated on issues of public policy, and the
accountability of legislators to enact just laws. In the concluding paragraph
of the key fth chapter, De linjustice de lesclavage des n` egres par rapport
au l egislateur, Condorcet emphasised that national prosperity should never
be achieved at the expense of justice: The interests of the powerful and
the rich must fade before the rights of any one man (Reexions, p. 15). The
economic defence of slavery was for Condorcet bereft of commercial as
well as moral credibility. Abolition of slavery would not ruin the colonies
but would on the contrary make them more prosperous. Here Condorcet
reected the inuence of the physiocrats on his thinking with regard to
the calculation of losses and prots arising in the slave trade.
23
Commercial
interests must give way to individual rights, otherwise there would be little
difference between an ordered society and a band of robbers (Reexions,
p. 13).
24
The fth chapter contains, however, that important, seemingly paradox-
ical, feature of Condorcets policies for the management of progress, namely
gradualism. Legislators were morally bound to repeal unjust laws, but in
the case of colonial slavery Condorcet does not argue for immediate eman-
cipation. Condorcet was not the only abolitionist of the period to insist on
the importance of a policy of gradualism. Lescallier and Gr egoire shared
his view,
25
and Brissot de Warville (echoing Wilberforce) also reected the
gradualist approach in his historic speech of 19 February 1788 in which he
22
Condorcet did concede exceptions (e.g. with regard to conscripted soldiers): One man cannot have
the right to sell another, unless he agreed to be sold, and this agreement became a clause in the
contract; slavery would then only be legitimate in very rare cases (iv: 624).
23
In De linuence de la Revolution dAmerique sur lEurope Condorcet commented further on the thin
margins of prot that France derived from territories that were difcult, dangerous and expensive
to administer and defend (viii: 24).
24
Economic apologies for slavery, elaborated by philosophers and jurists such as Hobbes, Pufendorf,
Grotius, Melon and others, were still widely accepted, and continued to reinforce the case against
abolition well after 1789. Condorcets stance against colonial slavery addressed the practical issue of
the economic efciency of the slave trade as emphatically as it did issues relating to morality and
rights.
25
D. Lescallier, Reexions sur le sort des noirs dans nos colonies ([Paris], 1789), pp. 1819, 523; H.-B.
Gr egoire, Memoire en faveur des gens de couleur ou sang-meles de Saint-Domingue et autres les franc aises
de lAmerique (Paris: Belin, 1789), pp. 4550.
New constructions of equality 147
referred specically to the importance of a phased abolition.
26
Condorcet
himself restated the case for gradualism in 1791 in the Adresse de la Societe
des Amis des Noirs ` a lAssemblee Nationale, ` a toutes les villes de commerce, ` a
toutes les manufactures, aux colonies, ` a tous les amis de la constitution de 1791.
Because of the calculated pragmatism of his emancipatory programme
on this point Condorcets reputation as an abolitionist has been severely
compromised in the eyes of some modern commentators. Jurt attributes
Condorcets condence in the liberating effect of market forces on colonial
prosperity after emancipation more to un souci de propri etaire que de jus-
tice sociale ` a l egard des opprim es, detecting a stance motivated not just
by humanitarian concerns but also by a concern to exploit the economic
advantages of a free market. Chalaye is also sceptical, as is Baczko. Antoine
sees only the expression of class interest in the proposals, and Benot has
drawn attention to Condorcets subsequent silence about the colonial prob-
lem in the 1793 Projet de constitution.
27
The judgement of posterity has been
perhaps too harsh on this point. Condorcets views reect the pragmatism
of the future deputy/legislator rather than any intention to compromise on
a matter of principle with a powerful alliance of vested interests, and they
encompass a vision of liberty and equality anchored rmly to the still frag-
ile principle of natural and inalienable human rights.
28
While Condorcet
insisted that the duty of legislators to repair injustice was absolute, he also
insisted that the timing of reforms in any area of legislation was crucial to
their successful implementation. The issue of public order, for example,
was paramount. Society, for Condorcet, had no purpose more important
than the maintenance of the rights of those who constitute it. If, however,
an individual citizen had been so brutalised as to be incapable of exercising
those rights, or if his right to freedom might be harmful to others, then
society could regard him as having lost those rights, or as having never
acquired them, as in the case of the need to deny temporarily certain rights
26
Cit. C. Biondi, La Soci et e des Amis des Noirs, SVEC 265 (1989), 1756.
27
Jurt, Condorcet: lid ee de progr` es, p. 394; M. Merle, LAnti-colonialisme europeen de Las Casas ` a
Karl Marx (Paris: Colin, 1969), p. 197; B. Baczko, Lumi`eres de lutopie (Paris: Payot, 1978), pp. 206
7; S. Chalaye, Du noir au n`egre: limage du noir au the atre de Marguerite de Navarre ` a Jean Genet
(15501960) (Paris: LHarmattan, 1998), p. 100; R. Antoine, Les Ecrivains franc ais et les Antilles (Paris:
Maisonneuve and Larose, 1978), p. 151; Benot, Condorcet journaliste, 384; Y. Benot Les Lumi` eres,
la R evolution et le probl` eme colonial, SVEC 265 (1989), 17535.
28
On this point Condorcet might have been inuenced by English abolitionist strategy, see A. R.
Strugnell, Colonialisme et esclavage: une etude compar ee de Diderot et de Wilberforce, SVEC 265
(1989), 1762. Condorcets insistence on gradualism is, however, already present in the rst edition
of the Reexions, published some ten years before the detailed proposals in Wilberforces bill came
before Parliament (18 April 1791). See R. Furneaux, William Wilberforce (London: Hamilton, 1974),
pp. 759.
148 Condorcet and Modernity
to children, criminals and the insane: Thus, for example, raising slaves to
the status of free men, the law must ensure that in this new capacity they
will not threaten the safety of [other] citizens (Reexions, p. 15).
If, because of their years of degradation, brutalising treatment and moral
corruption, black slaves had become incapable, like children and madmen,
of assuming the responsibilities of free men, then legislators must exercise
caution in granting them immediately the rights to which they were the-
oretically entitled. Condorcet was well aware that freedom came with a
price-tag, namely awareness and acceptance of social and political duties
and responsibilities, and could not be exercised without those responsibil-
ities being fully understood and accepted. In the case of the colonial slave
workforce, he accepted that a policy of gradualism in the implementation
of civil rights created a situation of temporary injustice, but he believed
that this could be mitigated by immediate legislation to suspend the trade.
This suspension would theoretically lead to the better treatment of slaves
pending their eventual emancipation, and would ensure that those slaves
born after the date of such legislation would at least have the prospect of
emancipation. Until the experience of freedom had returned to the slave
what slavery had deprived him of, namely the ability to meet the civic chal-
lenge of freedom, then the slave should be treated as a person temporarily
incapacitated by an accident or a disease (Reexions, pp. 1415). Common
humanity required legislators to reconcile the safety and well-being of the
slave with his rights. Just as the unskilled serf would be ruined, not liber-
ated, as a consequence of the overnight abolition of feudal serfdom simply
because he owned nothing, so the plantation slave, totally dependent on
his master for shelter and subsistence, would be engulfed by poverty and
hunger as a result of precipitate, unmanaged emancipation. Only the con-
sciences of well-meaning reformers would enjoy the illusory benets:
Thus, in such circumstances, not to allow a man the immediate exercise of his
rights does not mean that those rights are violated, or that the violators continue
to be protected; it just means applying to the destruction of abuses the prudence
necessary to ensure that any justice given to an unfortunate is more certain to make
him happy. (Reexions, p. 14)
Condorcet returned repeatedly to the paramount issue of public order.
One of the basic rights that he had identied for the individual citizen
arising from the pact of association was the right to security from violence
against his person and property.
29
Legislators owed it to society not to make
29
See D. Williams, Condorcet and natural rights, SVEC 296 (1992), 10321.
New constructions of equality 149
laws, even laws that might provoke breaches of public order if enacted,
unless they could guarantee the means to control those disturbances and
punish the perpetrators. Before raising slaves to the status of free men, the
law must therefore ensure that with the acquisition of that status the safety
of others would not be threatened. Thus in the eighth and ninth chapters
(Reexions, pp. 2333) Condorcet elaborated measures to enact legislation
in ways that were designed to prevent the anticipated breakdown of public
order caused by the fury of slave-owners and the reprisals against the
slaves themselves that could well be taken in the face of radical change,
a problem to which he had already referred in the fth chapter: for the
man accustomed to be surrounded by slaves will nd no consolation in
having only inferiors (Reexions, p. 15). Neither commercial objections
nor the need for a gradualist approach, however, are allowed to constitute a
sophistical defence of the staus quo, and Condorcet explicitly and repeatedly
stressed that abolition could not be postponed indenitely. The issue at
stake was timing and an acceptance of the need for a programme of phased
legislation whose practical implications had been thought through. There
was really no question for Condorcet of stepping back from the principle
of abolition.
30
The ninth chapter, Des moyens de d etruire lesclavage des n` egres par
degr es, the longest in the treatise, contains one of the earliest and most
interesting sets of concrete proposals for abolitionist legislation to come
out of the French Enlightenment, revealing Condorcets instinctive feel for
administrative detail upon which all great reformist legislation ultimately
depends if idealism is to be translated into reality. Measures to be adopted
in the rst phase of his proposed programme include the suspension of
the trade within Frances borders, together with an immediate embargo on
the importation of slaves; the immediate emancipation of all plantation-
born mulatto children; automatic emancipation at the age of thirty-ve for
plantation-born black children, with on-going responsibilities with regard
to subsistence and maintenance for a further period of six months assigned
to masters/employers (Reexions, pp. 2633). In Condorcets scheme slaves
would in effect be redesignated as workers on temporary contracts, with the
right to take legal action against employers to enforce the new contractual
arrangements. The new workers would be free hands whose numbers
30
The humanitarian priorities at the heart of Condorcets defence of gradualism in the context of
emancipation are set out in the tenth chapter: We have proposed the laws which seemed to us to be
the ones most certain to destroy slavery gradually, and ameliorate it while it lasts. You might think
that laws like these would be capable, not of legitimising slavery, but of making it less barbarous and
more compatible, if not with justice, at least with humanity (Reexions, p. 34).
150 Condorcet and Modernity
would ensure that wages remain so low that the cost of labour in the
new scheme of things would be very little more than that of the former
slaves.
31
Much of Condorcets Reexions is devoted to an elaboration of the mech-
anisms for the day-to-day management of abolition, rather than to matters
of abstract principle, a point on which his treatise stands out from the abo-
litionist writings of many of his contemporaries. It reads in parts like a set of
regulations to be embodied in the draft bill that Condorcet no doubt had in
mind at the time of composition. Commentary, therefore, tends to be quite
narrowly focussed on difcult issues such as the continuing responsibilities
of planters towards their enfranchised workforce (Reexions, pp. 235, 38
43). Features of Condorcets proposed legislation include measures designed
to ensure that the children of slaves would gain their freedom at the time of
paternal emancipation, whether legitimate issue or not. Slaves older than
fteen when the proposed legislation was enacted would be freed at the
age of forty. Those aged less than fteen at the time of enactment of leg-
islation would be offered at the age of fty the choice of accommodation
in a public institution to be established for this purpose, or continuing
residence on the plantation with the intermediary status of servant. Both
options would be supplemented with a pension from the former owner, at
a level to be determined by government decree. Births and deaths would be
ofcially recorded, slaves with unrecorded births being freed immediately.
The disappearance of slaves in unexplained circumstances would result in
penalties consisting of the freeing of two young slaves of the same sex as
the missing slave. To ensure compliance, Condorcet envisaged the appoint-
ment of a public ofcial for each colony, with specied duties relating to
the protection of black and mulatto slave interests during the transitional
period (Reexions, pp. 378). He gives details of a tariff to determine the
average price of a black slave, the slave then having the right to offer his
master the tariff price for his freedom which would be granted once the
sum had been deposited with the inspector.
The main body of the treatise is replete with similar micro-managerial
detail, and a wider canvas is not in fact drawn until the penultimate chapter,
De la culture apr` es la destruction de lesclavage, where Condorcet specu-
lates briey, but interestingly, on the nature of post-abolitionist inter-racial
culture and social organisation (Reexions, pp. 3843). Condorcet was anx-
ious to ensure that legislation would not necessarily be to the commercial
31
Antoine notes that it is at this point that the voice of the physiocratic idealist gives way to that
of class interest, celle de la bourgeoisie r evolutionnaire, Les Ecrivains franc ais, p. 151. See also Jurt,
Condorcet: lid ee de progr` es, pp. 3912.
New constructions of equality 151
disadvantage of the planters because of the advent of free competition in
the market for colonial goods that would regulate costs, rationalise the divi-
sion of labour and raise levels of productivity that were unrealisable with
enslaved workers. The moral benets of emancipation would thus coincide
with economic advantage and the advent of a racially integrated commu-
nity (Reexions, p. 38). The planter would show by his example that the
most fertile territory was not the territory farmed by the most wretched,
and that mans true happiness is the happiness which cannot be bought
or made to depend on the happiness of his master. The soft and tender
sounds of a ute once played on the banks of the Niger will replace the
sound of whips and the screams of black slaves (Reexions, p. 51). The issue
of the planters continuing responsibilities for their enfranchised charges
was central to Condorcets proposed legislation, and reected a realistic
concern for the welfare of the colonial workforce during the potentially
difcult transition to full emancipation. Condorcet well understood also
the need to deal effectively with colon retaliation that could well make
plantation life even harsher in the interim. Enlightened legislation in Paris
would be meaningless without the means to enforce it in the colonies.
In this respect, Condorcet proposed a system of nancial penalties and
bi-monthly visitations to plantations by government-appointed doctors to
check for evidence of mistreatment, particularly of pregnant slaves whose
children would have cost implications for plantation-owners.
In the twelfth and last chapter, R eponse ` a quelques raisonnements des
partisans de lesclavage, with its powerful defence of the achievements of
the party of humanity in a climate that had now become uncomfortable for
the philosophes, Condorcet returned to a consideration of anti-abolitionist
arguments, and to a nal demonstration of the lack of moral and legal space
for the protestations of the slave-traders, and what he called in the Post-
Scriptum the apologists for their infamous brigandage, within a system of
laws based on universal consent and universal applicability, central to which
was the acceptance of the universal right to freedom(Reexions, p. 44). Every
mitigating counter-argument the comparable misery of Europes peas-
ants, conditions in the Bastille, the analogies with the corvee, the supposed
humanity and enlightened self-interest of the planters is made to retreat
before the indisputable fact of deprivation of the slaves inalienable right to
be a free human being. Gradualism meant in practice that Condorcets pro-
posals were designed to introduce reform by degrees, giving the planters
time to adjust to a new order requiring them to replace the exclusive use
of blacks with a combined and free racially mixed workforce, as well as to
give the slaves themselves time to adjust to the new conditions, and survive
152 Condorcet and Modernity
their emancipation. The carefully managed phasing-in of reform would
also give the government itself the time it needed to set up the new regula-
tory system, and to enact further appropriate legislation, as required. The
time-scale that Condorcet envisaged for the abolition of slavery (almost
abolished) in the French colonies by means of such measures was thirty-ve
to forty years (Reexions, p. 33). In the event, his calculation would prove
to be optimistic, though for different reasons.
In the Post-Scriptum to the second edition of the Reexions, Condorcet
noted the progress made in America towards abolition, and in particular
the changes to the regulations governing the importation of slaves agreed
at the 1787 Philadelphia Convention (Reexions, p. 57).
32
He also noted
the foundation in England of a Society for the Abolition of Slavery and
the establishment in Paris of a corresponding society whose sole purpose
is to seek the means to abolish the trade and to end the enslavement of
blacks (Reexions, p. 58). The allusion is to the Societe des Amis des Noirs,
founded in 1788 when, on his return from London, Brissot de Warville
presented to an informal meeting of friends, or of what his biographer calls
onze pionniers,
33
his Discours sur la necessite detablir ` a Paris une Societe
pour concourir, avec celle de Londres, ` a labolition de la traite et de lesclavage
des n`egres.
34
The founding meeting of the new pressure-group was followed
by the publication of forty-six pages of rules (eight chapters and sixty-
four articles), much of the text drafted by Condorcet and reecting his
obsession with the mathematics of voting procedures, together with a long
Preambule.
35
From the outset, as Brissots Discours (though not the rules)
makes clear, the new Society disclaimed any subversive intent. Its purpose
was to produce a draft bill for abolition, based on facts in which the interests
32
Condorcet never allowed Jeffersons or Washingtons ownership of slaves to compromise his admi-
ration for the American cause. In De linuence de la Revolution dAmerique sur lEurope, he noted
the on-going tolerance of slavery in America after the achievement of independence, but consoled
himself with the thought that all enlightened men were ashamed of its perpetuation, and that it
would not stain the American civil code for much longer (viii: 1112).
33
J.-L. Francois-Primo, La Jeunesse de J.-P. Brissot (Paris: Grasset, 1932), p. 219.
34
On important documentation relating to the Societe des Amis des Noirs, see vols. viix of La Revolution
franc aise et labolition de lesclavage: textes et documents, 13 vols. (Paris: Editions dhistoire sociale, 1968).
These four volumes reproduce thirty-two brochures published between 1788 and 1799.
35
The rules were to be reviewed annually by a special committee, composed partly of members of
the Society and partly of members of the Assembly. Procedures mirrored the pattern proposed for
constitutional amendments in the Assembly itself. The rst review was scheduled for March 1790.
The cost of membership was expensive (2 louis per year). General meetings took place on the rst
Tuesday of each month, and reciprocal membership rights extended to the British and American
societies. Detailed attention is paid in the rules to voting procedures, agendas, minutes, order of
speaking, duties of ofcers and conduct of members. There is no specic reference to the aims of
the Society. See BIF Condorcet MS 859, ff. 1489, 2509, 26074.
New constructions of equality 153
of all parties would be dispassionately weighed. The Club Massiac, alarmed
by the progress being made in England towards abolition, and represented
by powerful advocates such as Louis-Marthe Gouy, who did everything
they could to discredit the Society, including an (unsuccessful) attempt to
obtain the Kings disapproval of its activities. The economic and political
power of the traders and colons was considerable, and their opposition to
the activities of the new Society was implacable. Despite the hostility, by
February 1788 the Society had acquired a formal existence and, according
to the Tableau des membres, had attracted ninety-four subscribing members
by January 1789.
36
In Au corps electoral contre lesclavage des noirs, a short, impassioned
address written on behalf of the Society, Condorcet evoked graphically
the suffering of four hundred thousand men, delivered into slavery by violence
and treachery, condemned to a life of hopeless, unrelenting labour along with their
families, exposed to the harsh whims of their masters, deprived of all natural and
social rights, and reduced to the level of animals in the sense that, like animals,
their life and happiness are guaranteed only by the self-interest of others. (ix: 473)
The cause of abolition was now directly linked to the American prise de
conscience concerning the perpetuationof slavery inthe light of a Revolution
fought in the cause of rights and freedom. In Condorcets view, the defence
of rights was unsustainable unless it was conducted on behalf of all men,
whether in America or in France. How could France honourably defend
the rights of man against entrenched inequality if it condoned, even by its
silence, an abuse so contrary to reason and natural law as the servitude of
blacks (ix: 473)? Au corps electoral contre lesclavage des noirs was directed
at the forthcoming meeting of the Estates-General, and in it Condorcet
suggested that a proposal for the establishment of a special commission to
examine ways to end the slave trade be inserted in the cahiers de doleance
in preparation for the destruction of the slave trade,
36
Tableau des membres de la Societe des Amis des Noirs inLa Revolution franc aise et labolition de lesclavage,
vol. vi, p. 4; cf. Biondi, La Soci et e des Amis des Noirs, 1757; A. J. Cooper, LAttitude de la France
` a legard de lesclavage pendant la Revolution frangaise (Paris: Imprimerie de la Cour Royale, 1925),
p. 17. According to Mme OConnors copy, signed by Brissot de Warville, of an extract from the
minutes of the rst meeting of the Society, dated 19 February 1788, held in the rue Franchise, Clavi` ere
was elected President unanimously. In addition to Clavi` ere and Brissot, ve other names are listed
as being present, including Mirabeaus. Condorcet was presented for membership by La Fayette
on 8 April. He rose very rapidly to prominence and was nominated on 22 April to the Executive
Committee, and also to the Commission charged with drafting the rules. He became President on
13 January 1789, chairing nine general meetings between 27 January and 31 March 1789. He chaired
intermittently further meetings between 7 July and 4 December. Brissot is recorded as presiding over
the 15 March 1790 meeting, but Condorcet was still listed as President in a manuscript extract from
the register of the Societe des Amis des Noirs (BIF Condorcet MS 857, ff. 2758).
154 Condorcet and Modernity
for it would be too shameful for the human race to think that such abuses might be
necessary to the political life and prosperity of a great nation, that the well-being of
twenty-four million French people must necessarily be bought with the misery and
enslavement of four hundred thousand Africans, and that nature has only shown
men fountains of happiness poisoned by tears, and contaminated with the blood
of their fellow-men. (ix: 473)
An infringement of the rights of one part of humanity threatened those
of all. While denying that the Societe des Amis des Noirs was the enemy
of the plantation-owners, Condorcets principle that no man could be the
property of another remained intact. The Society had no wish to destroy
the planters wealth, but it did wish to legitimise its provenance.
In June 1789, coinciding closely with the publication of Gr egoires
Memoire en faveur des gens de couleur ou sang-meles de Saint-Domingue et
autres les franc aises de lAmerique,
37
Condorcet presented his third impor-
tant andhard-hitting statement onthe slave trade, Sur ladmissiondes deputes
des planteurs de Saint-Domingue dans lAssemblee nationale. This time he
addressed the thorny constitutional issue of the disproportionate represen-
tation of planter interests in the rst National Assembly, formed in the
aftermath of the failure to make progress at the meeting of the Estates-
General. Here, after juxtaposing in two contiguous columns a Profession de
foi du depute dune nation libre, listing six propositions relating to freedom,
justice, equality and rights, with a Profession de foi dun planteur on the
same propositions, Condorcet pressed for a reduction of the twenty-one
white planter-deputies, proposed by the planters delegates, to two repre-
sentatives mandated to speak only for the whites. He rejected outright the
view advanced by the planters that the colonies should be bound only by
legislation with which their representatives concurred: We will answer that
any man who violates one of the rights of humanity at that point loses the
right to invoke them in his own favour (ix: 483). He confronted accu-
sations of treason levelled against the Society, and rejected the view that
abolition of the trade would only be to the economic advantage of Frances
enemies. He dismissed theories about the supposed contentment of slaves
with their condition, as well as the property rights analogy that opponents
of abolition continued to make: In their mouths the sacred word rights is
an affront to nature, and a blasphemy against reason (ix: 485).
38
37
BN(R) L. K. 9/70.
38
On the obduracy of the whites with regard to the worsening situation in Saint-Domingue, Condorcet
listed the measures to be taken in Troubles des colonies in the Revision des travaux de la Premi`ere
Legislature. He urged the Assembly to dispatch troops to the colony, but only for the purpose of
bringing the rising to a peaceful end (x: 421). In fact, the French army did not reach Saint-Domingue
New constructions of equality 155
In the event, the Societe des Amis des Noirs published much, but achieved
relatively little, although it did send to Necker nominations for three
deputies to attend the Estates-General to defend the cause of colonial slaves,
the nominees being Condorcet, Brissot de Warville and Bourges.
39
Never-
theless, the Liste des ouvrages sur la traite et lesclavage, issued by the Society
in 1790, testies to a serious attempt to inuence public opinion: fty-nine
titles, including many translations of English pamphlets.
40
However, the
decrees of 511 August 1789, embodying the decisions taken on 4 August
relating to the abolition of feudal privilege, seigneurial rights, tithes and
the corvee, did not mention the slave trade, and there was no reference
to black rights in the Declaration des droits de lhomme et du citoyen.
41
On
15 December 1789 Condorcet published a long article in the Journal de
Paris condemning the trade in strong language. Colonial sensitivities were
inamed, and the article was denounced by Mosnera de lAunay on 28
December in the same journal. Caught between the crossre, the Consti-
tuante prevaricated, and the Club Massiac, acting supposedly on behalf of
the Saint-Domingue planters, emerged triumphant in the polemical skir-
mishes of May 1789. On 24 September the Constituent Assembly conceded
to the colonial assemblies all powers relating to the civil status of slaves,
free blacks and mulattos. Both Condorcet and Brissot de Warville were vio-
lently attacked for their subsequent attempts to reverse the 24 September
decree.
Condorcet was never to see a successful legislative outcome to his propos-
als, although he was encouraged by the decree of 24 March 1792, enacted on
to restore order until September 1792, by which time the Jacobins were in the ascendancy in the
Convention. The army was accompanied by three Jacobin commissioners to ensure that liberty,
equality and fraternity prevailed.
39
See Badinter and Badinter, Condorcet, p. 301. Popkin comments: This sad result was partly due
to the political ineptness of the Societys members in the government, and mostly due to genuine
French lack of interest in, or antagonism to, abolition, Condorcet: abolitionist, 42.
40
For further comment on this output, see Biondi, La Soci et e des Amis des Noirs, 17578. The
abolitionists case also found many interesting literary echoes, including Bernardin de Saint-Pierres
little-known philosophical drama Empsael et Zorade, ou les blancs esclaves des noirs ` a Maroc, written
in the 178992 period. The play represents an ironic reversal of the masterslave relationship and
reects Bernardins reactions to the situation in Mauritius, of which he had rst-hand knowledge.
A modern edition of this play has been edited recently by R. Little (Exeter: Exeter University Press,
1995).
41
InTroubles des colonies Condorcet observed: Does every slave whohas heardtalkof the Declaration
of Rights need books in order to understand that the voice of justice in the nation has spoken, and
that it remains only to destroy commercial interests? Doubtless it would be necessary to use every
resource of logic and eloquence to prove to a greedy slave-owner that slavery is a violation of natural
rights, which no authority and no precedent can legitimise. But do you really think that all this
palaver is necessary to persuade slaves of this same truth? And is it not the height of foolishness to
assume that, in order to see slavery as unjust oppression, the African colonial needs a philosopher
from Europe to make him see the point? (x: 420).
156 Condorcet and Modernity
4 April, according equality of natural rights to mulattos and free blacks.
42
For the rst time, he believed that reason and justice had triumphed, at least
in principle, over narroweconomic self-interest, and the day on which these
decrees had been passed could now be numbered among the most glorious
days of the Republic. However, the prospects for black equality and eman-
cipation quickly faded when, on 8 March 1790, the government decreed a
policy of non-interference in the slave trade, and placed the colonies under
the special protection of the nation, a testimony not only to the lobbying
power of the members of the Club Massiac, described with ill-concealed
sarcasm as men distinguished by their merits, honoured by the public,
and holding the highest ofces in the four most important countries of
Europe (vii: 1256),
43
but also to the surprising impotence of the Societe
des Amis des Noirs itself, which seemed unable to capitalise politically on
the subsequent disturbances in Saint-Domingue. These had accelerated
in October 1790 with the return of the young, Paris-educated mulatto,
Vincent Og e (a member of the Societe des Amis des Noirs) to the island to
start the wave of unrest that would come to a head in 1791 and result in
severe shortages of sugar and coffee in Paris.
44
Pressure on Condorcet and
the abolitionists mounted as blame for racial violence was laid at their door
by the Club Massiac. Following the events in Saint-Domingue of 22 August
1791, the Constituent Assembly witnessed a sharp confrontation between
42
An expeditionary force of 6,000 men was dispatched to the West Indies to enforce this decree.
43
Planter delegates had been sent to the 1789 meeting of the Estates-General, and six were allocated
seats (the rst time in European history when colonial representatives sat in a metropolitan legislative
assembly). Apolitically active groupof wealthy planters living inFrance, together withtheir merchant
allies, had been active in fact since 1788 in the Club Massiac. See A. Brette, Les gens de couleur libres
et leurs d eput es en 1789, La Revolution franc aise 29 (1895), 33445, 385407.
44
After the 4 March insurrection at Port-au-Prince, the Assembly conceded on 15 May equality with
whites to gens de couleur of free parents, but slavery was maintained. The massive revolt of slaves on
22 August 1791 that witnessed the emergence of Toussaint LOuverture inspired stormy debates in
the Assemblee constituante. One notes the subsequent feebleness of Brissots Discours sur un projet de
decret relatif ` a la revolte des noirs, presented to the Assemblee nationale on 30 October 1791. Biondi
reminds us (La Soci et e des Amis des Noirs, 1758) that one member of the Society, Bernard Sigismond
Frossard, even went so far as to dissociate the Society formally from the abolitionist cause in a speech
to the Convention on 12 December 1792, printed as the Observations sur labolition de la traite et de
lesclavage des n`egres ([Paris]: Imprimerie de Guefer, [1793]). Frossard was the author of La Cause
des n`egres et les habitants de la Guinee . . ., ou Histoire de la traite et de lesclavage des n`egres, preuves
de leur illegitimite, moyens de les abolir, 2 vols. (Lyon: Imprimerie de La Roche, 1789). The unrest in
Saint-Domingue was long-standing, of course. One of the most violent of the slave uprisings prior
to the Revolution, led by F. Macandal, had occurred between 1751 and 1757, and there had been
a particularly serious and well-reported revolt in 1769 when the Governor, the Prince de Rohan,
attempted to impose military rule. Condorcet commented on the reception in Paris of the news of
events in Saint-Domingue, and the resulting accusations levelled at the Societe des Amis des Noirs in
Troubles des colonies (x: 419).
New constructions of equality 157
Robespierre and Barnave
45
over the issue of abolition. In the event the
Assembly accepted the latters proposals, and on 24 September it decreed
that matters should be left in the hands of the colonial assemblies. In Trou-
bles des colonies Condorcet denounced this decree as an encouragement
to the whites to continue with black oppression, and bitterly criticised the
equivocations of fellow deputies (x: 421).
Attempts to restore order in Saint-Domingue failed, and many of the
planters despaired of Paris and turned to the British for help. In December
1793 the Assembly freed the slaves of Saint-Domingue who had fought
against the British, and in August of the same year L eger-F elicit e Son-
thonax was dispatched to the island to enforce legislation freeing all slaves
on the island. This historic decree was conrmed at the celebrated seances
of the Convention of 46 February 1794, a decree that owed proba-
bly more to panic and expediency caused by the military successes of
Toussaint LOuverture than to humanitarian concerns.
46
Nevertheless, the
1794 seances were a signal triumph for the abolitionists in a long and frustrat-
ing battle whose promising opening shots hadbeenredinCondorcets 1781
Reexions. Condorcets precarious position, necessitating his ight from
Paris at this crucial moment, prevented him from taking an active part in
the debate, although he returned to the issue eloquently in the Esquisse
where he predicted that the French constitution would one day extend its
principles of freedom, in spite of the resistance of tyrants and priests. At the
same time, as several commentators have noted, Condorcets liberalism in
the Esquisse was tempered by a measure of political paternalism reected,
to his discredit in modern eyes, in his assumption that progress with regard
to non-European cultures meant their absorption into European culture,
and their conversion to European values, an ideological neo-colonialism in
which these banks for brigands will become colonies for citizens, spread-
ing across Africa and Asia the principles and examples of European liberty,
enlightenment and reason (vi: 241).
47
Whatever the reservations, however,
45
Barnave had already succeeded on 8 March 1790 in persuading the Assembly to approve powers of
self-government for the colonies with a franchise based on property and the upholding of slavery.
This was soon followed on 28 May by an illegal proclamation of independence from France by
the Saint-Domingue planters. There was also a mulatto uprising in Martinique on 3 June. The
Og e-led mulatto rebellion was soon crushed by the planters, and Og e himself was executed in a
particularly barbaric way, but further disturbances, this time among the black slaves, were to recur
on 25 November.
46
On the resistance to emancipation, and the tactics used in the Assembly, see Troubles des colonies
(x: 41920). Cf. Davis, The Problem of Slavery, pp. 94, 112.
47
See, for example, Jurt (Condorcet: lid ee de progr` es, pp. 3934), who sees in the Esquisse un
n eocolonialisme fond e non plus sur l etatisme mais sur une id eologie lib erale tentant de se l egitimer
par lefcacit e economique de la mission civilisatrice. Cf. Merle, LAnti-colonialisme europeen, p. 197;
158 Condorcet and Modernity
Condorcets courageous record of opposition to powerful vested interests
in the name of justice, humanity and reason on the issue of black servitude
speaks for itself.
By the end of 1794 the Societe des Amis des Noirs was marginalised,
although it continued to exist under a slightly different name as the Societe
des Amis des Noirs et des Colonies, with different aims, under the leadership of
Charles-Bernard Waldstrom. The emancipatory measures of 1794 were to
prove fragile, moreover. The mantle of abolitionist leadership was assumed
by Gr egoire who would take the campaign on into the nineteenth cen-
tury, and whose reputation as an abolitionist would eventually overshadow
Condorcets.
48
The slave trade was reinstated in Guadeloupe by Napoleon
in 1802, but Frances richest colony of Saint-Domingue, inspired by the
charismatic leadership of Toussaint LOuverture, gained its independence
as the Republic of Hati in 1804, two years after Toussaints death in the
fortress of Joux. However, it was not until 1848, more than fty years after
Condorcets death, that his vision of freedom for all black people on all
French colonial territory was nally realised, a liberation by degrees, as
he had recommended in his Reexions, but not quite in the way he had
envisaged.
the emanci pati on of women
The challenge of eighteenth-century philosophes to the rationale of sexual
inequality was by no means clear-cut and uncompromising.
49
The thirty-
eighthletter of the Lettres Persanes is not sufcient toexonerate Montesquieu
from charges of ambivalence.
50
Entries relevant to women in the
Encyclopedie are surprisingly conservative.
51
Voltaires article Femme in
Baczko, Lumi`eres de lutopie, p. 204. This reservation is reasonably deduced from the argumentation
of the Esquisse, but is challengeable as another unfairly anachronistic application of modern-day
perspectives and hindsight.
48
Gr egoire wrote prolically on the issue, his defence of racial equality being based, unlike Condorcets,
on theological rather than political grounds. His major works include De la litterature des n`egres (1806)
and De la noblesse de la peau (1826).
49
See particularly L. Abensour, La Femme et le feminisme avant la Revolution (Paris: Leroux, 1932), pp. 3
45; A. Humphreys, The Rights of Women in the Age of Reason: 1. John Dunton to Catherine
Macaulay, Modern Language Review 41 (1946), 257; D. Williams, The politics of feminism in the
French Enlightenment, in P. Hughes and D. Williams (eds.), The Varied Pattern. Studies in the
Eighteenth Century (Toronto: A. M. Hakkert, 1971), pp. 33351; D. Williams, Condorcet, feminism
and the egalitarian principle, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 5 (1976), 15163; B. Brookes,
The feminism of Condorcet and Sophie de Grouchy, SVEC 189 (1980), 297361; R. Niklaus,
Condorcets feminism: a reappraisal, Condorcet Studies 2 (1987), 11940.
50
The case is argued by R. F. OReilly, Montesquieu: anti-feminist, SVEC 102 (1973), 14356.
51
See, for example, the entries Femme and Mariage.
New constructions of equality 159
the Dictionnaire philosophique has an anthropological rather than a socio-
political emphasis, and contains few feminist overtones.
52
Rousseauist doc-
trines on female education did little to advance the case for sexual egalitar-
ianism and civil rights,
53
and much of the initial momentum for feminist
aspiration in the middle years of the century tended to come from the pens
of novelists, playwrights, journalists, pamphleteers and minor essayists.
54
Prior to Condorcet in the second half of the eighteenth century, key ini-
tiatives came from Diderot and dHolbach among the philosophes of inter-
national reputation. Diderots essay Sur les femmes (1772) and dHolbachs
Des Femmes (1773) can be seen in retrospect as two key documents which
explored the interplay between political structures, legal codes, social cus-
toms and the cultural and physiological factors that conditioned women
to their role. Unlike black slaves, whose inequality derived ultimately from
the prot and loss imperatives driving the world of international trade,
female inequality for Condorcet was related more closely to nature, and
in particular to the nature of women, and to the cultural circumstances in
which they led their lives.
55
In this regard his analysis coincided with that
of other Enlightenment thinkers who addressed the issue of sexual inequal-
ity. Diderot, for example, had identied specically some of the problems
imposed on women by the deceptions inherent in a monogamous culture,
with its peculiarly western notions of love and delity, by the harsh legal
constraints of marriage, the dangers and burdens of motherhood and the
cruel neglect of old age. DHolbachs essay, Des Femmes, published in the
third volume of Le Syst`eme social, ou Principes naturels de la morale et de
52
In the entry Homme, Voltaire saw positive moral advantages accruing to women as a result of their
physical and social inferiority, and his initially sympathetic approach to the position of women in
the section Memoire pour les femmes in the entry Adult` ere is more than balanced by his comments
on female indelity in the rst part of the entry. There are Platonic comments on the wasted
political potential of women in the section dealing with salic law in the Essai sur les murs and in
the Dictionnaire philosophique entry Loi salique. See also Voltaires defence of the rights of women
to an intellectual life in the dedicatory epistle to Alzire, dedicated to Mme Du Ch atelet in which
the case for intellectual parity is not quite stated. Voltaires correspondence is very reticent on the
whole issue. Nevertheless, Condorcet saw Voltaire as an ally in the matter of womens rights: one of
the men who has shown most justice towards them, and who has understood them best (ix: 18).
53
For a comprehensive account of Rousseaus views on women, see particularly P. Hoffmann, La Femme
dans la pensee des Lumi`eres (Paris: Editions Ophrys, 1977), pp. 359446.
54
See Williams, The politics of feminism in the French Enlightenment, pp. 33943. Feminism was
not used as a term in France until 1837, and in England not until 1848, see Niklaus, Condorcets
feminism: a reappraisal, 119.
55
La colonisation fait seule le statut des Noirs; tandis que le fait qui prive les femmes de lactivit e
au sein de la cit e parat lui, ne pas appartenir ` a lhistoire mais bien etre inscrit dans la nature. Ce
serait ` a la faveur dun contrat de vente et dun int er et economique national que les Noirs devraient
rester esclaves; cest parce quelles sont femmes que les femmes ne pourraient pr etendre ` a lautorit e
en aucune communaut e politique, savante, domestique, C. Fricheau, Les Femmes dans la cit e de
lAtlantide, in Cr epel and Gilain (eds.), Condorcet mathematicien, p. 359.
160 Condorcet and Modernity
la politique, avec un examen de linuence du gouvernement sur les murs,
advanced the case for female equality on a number of levels.
Foreshadowing Condorcet, dHolbach illuminated the deeply political
nature of female inferiority, at the heart of which lay the question of edu-
cation. Des Femmes presents an impressively penetrating analysis of the
pressures to which women were made vulnerable. As with Diderot, the
feminist polemic merges with broader issues. The social system, with its
legal, moral, political, religious and educational extensions, has poisoned
at source the citizens happiness. Marriage itself has contributed, through
its legal and nancial provisions, to the atmosphere of moral decadence.
Even with Diderot and dHolbach, however, the natural law factor, now
stripped of some of its mystique and honed down to its biological core
arguments, still intruded to the detriment of natural equality and natural
rights considerations, particularly with Diderot. However, while the full
implications of egalitarian notions continued to cause a measure of intel-
lectual discomfort, the logical political direction of the growing debate on
womens status and rights had been indicated.
The next crucial step was to be taken in the following decade by Con-
dorcet, arguably the most outspoken French feminist to defend the prin-
ciple of absolute equality between the sexes since Poulain de La Barre in
the previous century, and author of the rst serious essay on the political
rights of women prior to the Revolution. Condorcet had rst raised the
issue of this supposed inequality between the sexes in the context of edu-
cation in the Discours sur les sciences mathematiques, an address given to the
Lycee on 15 February 1786 (i: 4789), the year of his marriage to Sophie de
Grouchy.
56
The main substance of his views on the civil status of women
is to be found, however, in the second eloquent and compellingly argued
letter of the Lettres dun bourgeois de New Haven ` a un citoyen de Virginie
sur linutilite de partager le pouvoir legislatif en plusieurs corps (Letters from
a freeman of New Haven to a citizen of Virginia on the futility of dividing
legislative power among several bodies), in the Essai sur la constitution et les
fonctions des assemblees provinciales, both of 1788, Sur ladmission des femmes
au droit de cite, written in June 1790 for the Journal de la Societe de 1789, the
notes for the Kehl Voltaire, Sur linstruction publique of 17912 and the 1795
Esquisse. As in the case of black servitude, in all of these essays Condorcet
showed that denunciation of an injustice was not enough. It had to be
supplemented by a rational demolition of the arguments propping up the
injustice, and above all by a programme of action calculated to remedy the
56
See Lagrave, LInuence de Sophie de Grouchy.
New constructions of equality 161
situation.
57
It was in the Lettres dun bourgeois de New Haven, one of his
most attractively written essays, that he rst formulated detailed proposals
for legislation relating to constitutional rights for women, and the essence
of these proposals reappeared in Sur ladmission des femmes two years later,
both texts anticipating the appearance in England of Mary Wollstonecrafts
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. With Strictures on Moral and Political
Subjects of January 1792.
The issue of equal civil rights for men and women extends over eight
substantial paragraphs in the Lettres dun bourgeois de New Haven, a text
that Condorcet almost certainly discussed with Paine.
58
In the opening
paragraphs of this part of the second letter (ix: 1420), the argument about
womens rights is framed by proposals of a more general nature relating
to the organisation of government, the parameters of executive power and
the modalities of decision-making. The second letter also incorporates a
comprehensive set of proposals relating to the reorganisation of constituen-
cies, representation in legislative assemblies, the mathematics of voting
procedures, taxation, security, foreign relations and war. The over-arching
principle informing all aspects of this important text is the prospective
establishment of a constitution based exclusively on those natural human
rights predating the pact of association and the civil order which gave them
formal political reality. From rights that were natural, in that they derived
from the nature of man as a morally conscious being, arose the civil right
to participate in decisions affecting the common interest, either directly or
indirectly through freely elected representatives: Do not men have rights
as sensitive beings, capable of reason and having moral ideas? Women must
therefore have exactly the same rights, and yet in no constitution that can
be called free have women ever enjoyed the rights of citizens (ix: 15). Citing
the American principle that taxation could only be legitimately imposed on
those voting for it, Condorcet argued that women, including unmarried or
widowed women, should theoretically have the right to refuse payment of
taxes. In the case of married women Condorcet accepted the existence of
a just and necessary inequality in the two-person society of marriage that
manifested itself on occasions when a married couple needed to speak with
one voice. The voice or vote of the married couple, however, need not
necessarily be that of the husband: It would appear much more natural to
57
Fricheau provides an interesting textual comparison of the sophisms identied by Condorcet in
contemporary justications of black servitude on the one hand, and the condition of women on the
other, Les Femmes dans la cit e de lAtlantide, pp. 3635.
58
E. and R. Badinter take the view that Paines inuence over the wording of the programme of reform
that Condorcet envisaged in the Lettres is quite clear (Badinter and Badinter, Condorcet, p. 234).
162 Condorcet and Modernity
share this prerogative, and on specic issues to give the major vote to either
husband or wife, depending on which is more likely to allow his will to
obey his reason (ix: 16).
After establishing the injustice of excluding women from full partici-
pation in the political process, Condorcet then examined the question of
the right of women to hold public ofce. The exclusion of women from
public ofce raised a double injustice, rst with regard to the electorate
whose choice was thereby restricted, and secondly with regard to women
themselves who were thereby deprived of an advantage enjoyed by others.
Condorcet sawno reason to exclude women frompublic ofce, and rejected
the traditional counterposition: But, you might say, would it not be ridicu-
lous for a woman to command the army or to preside over a court? Well,
do you think it necessary to forbid, by means of a specic law, everything
that might be an absurd choice or action? (ix: 1718). Women were not
perhaps suited to military duties, and pregnancy, birth and the nurturing
of children did make it difcult for them to carry out public duties without
some interruption, but the only real barrier to public ofce was their lack of
formal education, a deciency that was manageable. Condorcet dismissed
any case made for political exclusion based on assumptions of physical or
intellectual inferiority.
59
He was particularly concerned to discredit the lat-
ter prejudice, often expressed as an observation on the apparent absence
of women from the pantheon of great scientists and artists. He noted that
Voltaire thought that women possessed many talents, but that invention was
not one of them, and he observed drily in response that if public ofce was
open only to men capable of original thinking, then government depart-
ments and even academies would empty overnight. Many, if not most,
public duties did not require men of genius to carry them out, such men
being in any case better employed elsewhere.
Condorcets position shades at this point into angles of argument about
the female condition that link him to a level of feminist polemic to be
found in France only in the writings of radicals such as Olympe de Gouges,
Th eroigne de M ericourt and Etta Palme dAelders, whose voices were not
to be heard until a decade later. The apparent rarity of female creative
genius was not a fact of nature, or of divine ordination, but simply a con-
sequence of social and cultural pressures. The female mind was simply
awaiting liberation from opinion; What is more, the sort of constraints
whereby public views on morality grip the minds and souls of women
from childhood onwards, and especially at the point where genius starts
59
See also on this point the Fragment sur lAtlantide (vi: 632).
New constructions of equality 163
to develop, must harm progress in almost every eld (ix: 19). Moreover,
it would be untrue to say that no woman had ever broken free of these
socio-cultural and religious constraints, and Condorcet cited the examples
of Mme de S evign e and Mme de La Fayette, but surprisingly does not refer
here (though he does elsewhere) to one of the most distinguished female sci-
entists of the Enlightenment, Voltaires mistress and co-Newtonian, Mme
Du Ch atelet.
60
The unjustiable denial of the female franchise remained for Condorcet
one of the major charges to be levelled against ancient models of republican
government, its acceptance marking a crucial and real difference between a
republic and a constitution that is not free. At stake was nothing less than
the rights of half of the human race, rights forgotten by every legislator.
His commentary on womens civil status and rights in the New Haven
letters ends on a somewhat wry note in which he anticipated a lack of
sympathy for his views on the part of his female readers:
I am talking about their right to equality, and not about their inuence; people
might think that I have a secret desire to diminish this, and ever since Rousseau
earned their approbation by saying that they were made only to look after us, but
were t only to torment us, I must not expect them to support me. But it is good
to tell the truth, even if one exposes oneself to mockery. (ix: 20)
Many of the points made in the second New Haven letter resurface in a
seminal article, written in June for the 3 July 1790 issue of the Journal de la
Societe de 1789, entitled Sur ladmission des femmes au droit de cite (On giv-
ing women the right to citizenship), the society in question being in effect
Condorcets circle of aristocratic liberal friends. The Admission, foreshad-
owing in many ways John Stuart Mills On the Subjection of Women, written
some eight decades later, reects a convergence of French Enlightenment
feminist thinking with Condorcets main corpus of proposals formulated
for the constitutional management of the Revolution. As in the NewHaven
letters, Condorcet re-established the case for civic equality between men
and women rst of all at the level of human nature itself, as in the case of
human rights generally, thereby colliding squarely with the Panglossian all
is for the best objections of the conservative camp. He argued that what
men and women had in common as dening human characteristics was
more relevant to a discussion of their respective rights and roles than their
obvious differences, and in the opening paragraphs of the Admission he con-
fronted natural law theorists defending the status quo with the over-riding
60
In fact, Condorcet conceded the hegemony of male genius in the elds of science and philosophy.
164 Condorcet and Modernity
requirements of natural rights. He observed that by invoking natural law
slogans in this context legislators and philosophers had calmly violated the
natural rights of half the human race by denying them the franchise. Here
Condorcet underscored the recent historical irony that had allowed France
to have a Revolution in the name of equality for a few hundred men, but to
forget the plight of twelve million women (x: 121).
61
To justify what must
otherwise be called tyranny, legislators had to demonstrate that the natural
rights of women were of a fundamentally different order from those of
men. To do that, argued Condorcet, it would be necessary to prove that
the nature of the two sexes differed in ways that rendered women incapable
of exercising their duties and responsibilities as co-equal citizens.
Responding to his own rhetorically charged points, Condorcet insisted
that mens rights crystallised in a functional relationship to certain natural
qualities inherent in their constitutional make-up as human beings. Since
the humanity of women could be identied with precisely the same natu-
ral human characteristics, it must necessarily follow that the natural rights
accruing to one sex could be legitimately claimed by the other. Either no
member of the human race possessed natural rights, or they all did. He who
denied the rights of another human being because of religion, race or gen-
der, denied his own rights (x: 122). Having secured the moral high ground,
Condorcet then examined and dismantled the principal anti-egalitarian
assumptions, re-working arguments already deployed in the New Haven
letters, but with extended examples. He now gave much more attention to
natural law objections to female equality based on physiological consider-
ations. In the Fragment sur lAtlantide he would return to this issue, and
reiterate his objections to the false logic of a syllogism that linked physical
disadvantage to a corresponding intellectual inferority. While pregnancy
and child-care might make it more difcult for women to become a Euler
or a Voltaire, he noted, somewhat mischievously, that there was nothing
to prevent them becoming a Rousseau or a Pascal (vi: 632), and in the
Fragment he would comment at some length on the historical evidence
supporting a reappraisal of female intellectual energies and achievements
(vi: 6336).
Emulating Voltairean methods of attack, Condorcet demonstrated in a
style laced with irony and an abrasive faux-naf candour, already employed
61
In 1791 the amboyant revolutionary activist, and founder-member of the Club des Citoyennes
Republicaines Revolutionnaires, Marie Olympe de Gouges, published the most famous of her political
pamphlets, Les Droits de la femme, dedicated to Marie-Antoinette. The pamphlet was issued as an
appendix to the Declaration des droits de lhomme et du citoyen and the text closely echoes Condorcets
earlier comments on the omission of women from the 1789 Declaration.
New constructions of equality 165
effectively in the Reexions sur lesclavage des n`egres, the hollowness of the
premises upon which doctrines of femininity were based.
62
Points made in
the New Haven letters reappear with enhanced rhetorical ourishes: those
human beings susceptible to pregnancy and menstruation were as capable
of fullling their civic responsibilities as those who were susceptible to gout
every winter and to colds throughout the year. If men enjoyed an apparent
intellectual advantage, this was not a consequence of nature andthe forces of
physiological determinism, but of unequal educational opportunities. The
argument that no woman had ever made a signicant scientic discovery, or
ever shown signs of genius in the arts, had logical force and coherence only
if full civil rights, including the right to vote, were to be limited to geniuses,
since the average male had no more intellectual claim to a privileged civil
status than the average female, and in many cases far less (x: 123).
In support of womens claims to intellectual parity, Condorcet reinforced
earlier examples of female achievement by pointing in the Admission to the
gifts of Elizabeth I, Maria Theresa and the two Catherines, who had all
proved that the necessary qualities of leadership and political courage were
not lacking in the characters of those women who were able, through
the arbitrary privileges of their birth, to escape the normal realities and
restrictions that governed womens lives, and actually wield power. The
issue was education, not nature.
63
Was it believable that Mrs Macaulay
could not have performed better in the House of Commons than many of
the elected members? Could she not have defended the Revolution and the
cause of freedom more convincingly than Burke had denounced it? Would
she not have been able to debate such questions as liberty of conscience
more sensibly than Pitt? Would not the rights of French citizens have been
better protected at the 1614 meeting of the Estates-General by Montaignes
adopted daughter than by Courtin, who openly believed in witches and
the occult? Was Mme Du Ch atelet less talented than Rouill e? Would Mme
de Lambert have authorised laws against protestants, thieves, smugglers
and blacks as absurd and barbaric as those enacted by the Guardian of the
62
For an excellent, comprehensive analysis of theories of femininity in this period, see Hoffmann, La
Femme, pp. 289352. On the physiological arguments, see especially pp. 175240.
63
In the Fragment sur lAtlantide, this point is central to the discussion on female genius: Women can
thus participate in the most important discoveries, even in those sciences in which those discoveries
are the fruit of profound meditation; genius in other sciences, as in the arts, does not presuppose that
sort of mental strength which seems to have been denied to them. But who knows whether, when
a different education has allowed women to reach their natural potential, that intimate relationship
between a mother or a wet-nurse and a child, which does not exist in the case of men, will not
become for women a unique way of making discoveries more important and more necessary than
one thinks to the growth of the human mind, to the art of perfecting it and to facilitating its progress?
(vi: 6334).
166 Condorcet and Modernity
Seals: Looking down the list of those who have ruled over them, we can
see that men do not have much right to feel proud (x: 1234).
Highlighting the copious evidence to the contrary, Condorcet acknowl-
edged the astonishing tenacity of the stereotypical myth that women were
governed by sentiment and impulse rather than by reason and logic, and
were therefore unpredictable, unreliable and possibly dangerous if given
political power:
Women are superior to men in the tender, domestic virtues; like men they love
freedom, although they do not share in all of its advantages; and in republics they
have often been known to sacrice themselves for it; in every nation they have
even demonstrated the virtues of citizenship whenever chance or unrest has caused
them to be brushed aside by mens arrogance and tyranny. People say that women
were never led by what is called reason, in spite of their great wit, wisdom and
an analytical ability that rivals that of the most subtle dialectician. This view is
wrong; it is true that they are not led by mens reason, but they are led by their
own. (x: 1245)
If women appeared to reason in a way that was different from that of
men, then again this was a contingent consequence of their moral and
social training, and symptomatic of their whole cultural and political
predicament:
It has been said that, while they were better than men, softer, more sensitive, less
prone to the vices relating to egotism and callousness, women did not really possess
an instinct for justice, that they obeyed their feelings rather than their conscience.
This observationis more accurate, but proves nothing. It is not nature that is behind
this difference, but education and social life. Neither has accustomed women to the
notion of what is just, but rather to the notion of what is honourable. Far removed
fromthe worldof business andfromall decisions that have tobe made inaccordance
with the strict rules of justice and positive law, the things which preoccupy them,
and on which they take action, are precisely those things governed by feelings and
a natural sense of honour. It is therefore unjust to persist in refusing women the
exercise of their natural rights for reasons whose validity depends only on the fact
that they do not enjoy those rights. (x: 125)
In 1792 Condorcet devoted much time to the consideration of ways in
which a new educational system could benet women, and he approached
the issue of extending educational opportunities to women in the light of
a simple working political principle: Inequality of education is one of the
main sources of tyranny (vii: 171). In Sur linstruction publique (On public
education) Condorcet made clear that, among other rights which must be
granted to women in a free constitution, the right to enlightenment was
among the most important, and was in fact the right that held the key to
New constructions of equality 167
political and social equality. It was difcult to see why one sex reserved
for itself certain subjects of knowledge, and why subjects that were useful
should not be taught to both sexes:
Public education, to deserve its name, must be extended to every citizen . . . More-
over, it cannot be established for men only without introducing blatant inequality,
not only between husbands and wives, but between brothers and sisters, and even
between sons and their mothers. Now, nothing could be more contrary to the
purity and well-being of domestic morality. Everywhere, and especially in families,
equality is the basis of happiness, peace and virtue. (vii: 21819)
To substantiate his argument that women could prot from a scientic
training, and could themselves make signicant contributions to knowl-
edge, Condorcet cited the cases of Professors Bassi and Agnesi who, despite
their sex, had occupied respectively the chairs of anatomy and mathemat-
ics at the University of Bologna with notable success (vii: 221). It was
the female state of conditioned and regulated ignorance that engendered
inequality andcorruptedthe relationshipbetweenthe sexes (vii: 223). Given
the lack of suitable educational facilities for women, and the inequitable
laws, with their origin in force and their perpetuation in sophistry, women
were compelled to live in a separately ordered socio-political reality. They
were confronted with different problems, and their intellectual capacity was
directed towards different ends. Condorcets educational proposals would
make provision for the admission of women to all professions for which
they showed talent (vii: 216).
Condorcet reduced the problem of male resistance to the granting of
civil rights to women in Sur ladmission to that of a prejudice masquerading
as the public interest. It was in his view just another argument of con-
venience without logical or moral merit, but possessing concrete political
force and substance. It was after all in the name of utilite that French indus-
try was groaning in chains, that the African negro was enslaved, that the
Bastille was full, that books were censored, that torture and secret trials were
accepted (x: 126). He did not hesitate to raise the political temperature of
the debate over womens status by grafting on to it the most agrant aspects
of contemporary injustice and cruelty. A transformation of the female con-
dition in France would not, he insisted, be against the true public interest.
Women would not be distracted from their domestic responsibilities in
order to carry out their duties as deputies. The enfranchised wife would
not abandon her husband and children, any more than the enfranchised
farmer would abandon his plough, or the enfranchised artisan his work-
shop (x: 128). On the contrary, the fabric of society would be strengthened
168 Condorcet and Modernity
as women found political and intellectual fullment, and lost their sense of
injustice.
Inthe case of women, Condorcet was just as concernedwiththe private as
with the public world, and it was with respect to the private world of women
especially that his political stance on their behalf generated a coherent set
of legislative proposals for the improvement of womens lives generally. The
necessity to protect at all costs the institution of the family, the sanctity of
marriage and its associated property and inheritance laws and the primacy
of the maternal role: these were all major weapons in the armoury of the
conservatives, permitting the invocation of natural law to conrm de facto
female dependency. Thus, arguing that marriage should be a civil contract
only, Condorcet pressed vigorously the case for divorce. The indissolubility
of the marriage laws spawned grave social problems: adultery, prostitution,
bastardy andpromiscuity. He proposedthat divorce shouldbe grantedupon
the recommendation of an advisory council consisting of relatives of both
parties, who would decide questions of alimony and custody of children.
Contemporary legal structures, class divisions and economic inequities all
underpinned the unhappiness of the citizen. Vicious and hypocritical sexual
attitudes were encouraged by that legal structure which, while preventing
divorce, upheld the harsh authority of parents to make unsuitable marriages
of convenience on behalf of unwilling daughters: I will then observe that
family upsets have their roots almost entirely in class distinctions, inequality
of wealth, the laws depriving children of the right to determine their own
lives without parental consent, and nally the indissolubility of marriage
(vi: 523).
Condorcet was an outspoken advocate of the right of women to plan
their pregnancies prudently, illuminating the issue of birth control in a way
that took him well beyond the horizons of his age (vi: 2568).
64
Condorcet
would return to the issue of birth control in quasi-eugenic terms that relate
the implications of unlimitedpopulationgrowthtothe prospects for human
happiness and even survival in the tenth epoque of the Esquisse where he
anticipates a future in which the primary obligation of men and women
towards their offspring is not merely to give them life but happiness, and
not the puerile notion of lling the earth with useless, unhappy beings.
64
See A. Chamoux and C. Dauphin, La Contraception avant la R evolution francaise, Annales:
Economies, Societes, Civilisations 24 (1969), 66284. Cf. J. Huxley, A factor overlooked by the
philosophes: the population explosion, SVEC 25 (1963), 8613. Writing in 1778, Auget de Montyon
could report that the use of birth control techniques, other than self-induced abortion (punishable
by death), was widespread, even among peasant women, see A.-J.-B. Auget de Montyon, Recherches
et considerations sur la population de la France (Paris: Mourard, 1778), p. 102.
New constructions of equality 169
There could be a limit to resources and in consequence a need to limit
population growth if that premature process of destruction so contrary to
nature and to the social prosperity of a proportion of those already living is
not to be the result (vi: 258). Here the warnings soon to come fromThomas
Malthus in his classic statement of the problem in the Essay on Population
of 1798 are clearly anticipated.
65
Meanwhile, to solve more pressing and
immediate problems facing women in this context, Condorcet proposed
the establishment of special hospitals for unmarried pregnant girls to which
they could go without incurring the usual penalties for their condition, and
he was concerned equally with the plight of their illegitimate children (viii:
4656). Nowhere does he advocate abortion.
As with political freedom, women had the right to sexual freedom, and
Condorcet saw the manipulation of sexual attitudes and fears historically
as one of the root sources of power, and of its abuse. He took the view
that women had been penalised for their sexuality by church and state
alike yet, as he observed in his notes for the Kehl Voltaire, the confessors
of kings had done more damage to the civil order than any royal mistress.
Rigidly enforced sexual codes for women were the surface manifestation
of an inhumane and decadent alliance between the temporal and the spir-
itual, producing always repressive political systems (iv: 21218). No virtue
was easier, or appeared easier, to practise than chastity, but chastity was
compatible only with the absence of real virtue and the presence of every
vice. From the moment that chastity was considered to have moral sig-
nicance, every scoundrel was assured of obtaining public esteem at little
expense. In countries which boasted strict sexual codes, every crime and
debauchery were sure to be prevalent (iv: 218).
For Condorcet, the relationship between the sexes was a key element in
the owering of a progressive political and moral order, yet because of the
fears, prejudices and distortions that existed and were exploited within that
relationship, reasonhadnot beenallowedtoprevail. Behindthe abstractions
of philosophical argument, Condorcet was able to perceive individual men
andwomen, andtheir problems, inanhonest, humanandabove all practical
way. His feminist sympathies, his view on human nature generally, on
mercantilism and free trade, on the slave trade, on religious minorities
and on political institutions and processes are all interlinked aspects of a
wide-ranging meditation on human progress and a comprehensive vision
65
See M. Baridon, Malthus, Condorcet et le probl` eme de la pauvret e, SVEC 311 (1993), 27585;
A. B ejin, Condorcet pr ecurseur de leug enisme r epublicain, Histoire, economie, societe 7 (1988),
34754; A. B ejin, Condorcet pr ecurseur de leug enisme, in Cr epel and Gilain (eds.), Condorcet
mathematicien, pp. 16873.
170 Condorcet and Modernity
of modernity.
66
To destroy the laws that militated against womens natural
rights was part of a mosaic of argument that attacked simultaneously the
commercial doctrines that were strangling Frances trade and economic
prosperity, guild regulations that denied the working man the fruits of
his labour, censorship that suppressed free thought, sexual attitudes that
debased human values,
67
all serving in the end only vested interests. In
a century which had perfected the use of galanterie and sentimentality to
disguise the chains of an uncompromising subjugation, Condorcet was
able to see woman as a free personality, an etre sensible no less capable of
rational thought and action than man, and with moral, intellectual and
political dimensions to her role as a citizen under a free constitution and
as an authentic agent of enlightenment (vi: 6323).
Condorcet injected explicitly feminist elements into his dream of human
progress and perfectibility, and of mans potential to order society rationally
and justly. Sur ladmission des femmes au droit de cite made a considerable
impact on contemporaries. Political leaders remained silent, however, in the
face of a challenge that was too radical. Nevertheless, the fact that the 1791
constitutionestablishedmarriage as a civil contract, andthe fact that divorce
was recognised by the Convention on 20 February 1792 with a decree which
also allowed women to appear in civil suits, marked small moments of
triumph for Condorcet. Surprisingly, however, the Projet de constitution that
he presented to the Convention on 15/16 February 1793 is silent on the key
constitutional issue of female suffrage.
68
The new order of the Revolution
was to be resolutely masculine, and after the Revolution the 1804 Civil
66
His feminism . . . is part of a consistent philosophical stance and the logical outcome of his
rationalism, Niklaus, Condorcets feminism: a reappraisal, 121.
67
Condorcet dismissed, for example, the moral argument linking immoral literature to immoral
behaviour the satellites of Cromwell did not have to carry indecent books in their saddlebags to
inspire them to commit atrocities (iv: 89). He also argued the case against police harassment of
prostitutes (viii: 46970), and he denounced the barbarous laws against homosexuals (iv: 561). See
Schapiro, Condorcet, pp. 1925.
68
Niklaus explains this lapse as the price [Condorcet] had to pay for participation in political life, along
with other men of principle commonly unwilling to compromise. Condorcets integrity, however,
should not be called into question (Niklaus, Condorcets feminism: a reappraisal, 122). With regard
to the tactical and pragmatic issues involved, Faur e draws attention to the relevance of the calculus
of probabilities: En l etat, les femmes ne poss edaient pas en nombre les moyens culturels n ecessaires
` a lexercice de la souverainet e nationale. Leur situation dignorance les exposait aux manipulations
politiques les plus grossi` eres. L egalitarisme que pr onait Condorcet supposait une th eorie reposant
sur la loi des grands nombres. Le petit nombre des femmes emancip ees, capables dexprimer en
toute ind ependance un point de vue, ne pouvait entrer dans ce calcul. De ce fait, la gent f eminine
etait priv ee de jouer sur les causes qui rendaient conjecturellement impossible son admission dans la
cit e rationnelle. Lamoureux du calcul des probabilit es qu etait Condorcet sopposait ` a une logique
purement juridique de l egalit e, indiff erente aux nombres, C. Faur e, La Pens ee probabiliste de
Condorcet et le suffrage f eminin, in Cr epel and Gilain (eds.), Condorcet mathematicien, pp. 3534.
New constructions of equality 171
Code would formally deny women the political rights that Condorcet
had claimed on their behalf, with the result that his great vision of the
common rights of men and women as the building-blocks of a modern
constitution was destined to remain yet another vision whose time had not
yet come. No legislature in 1790 was open to argument about equal civil
rights for women, andevenCondorcet couldnot envisage womenexercising
the rights of equal civil status until equal educational opportunities had
prepared them for it. Almost a hundred and fty years would have to pass
before proposals to admit women fully to membership of the civil order,
and in particular to extend to women the right to elect representatives
to the National Assembly, would acquire the legislative reality for which
Condorcet tirelessly campaigned.
chapter 7
Justice and the law
ci vi l laws and ci vi l ri ghts
Condorcet wrote prolically on the natural origins of justice and the law.
Surprisingly, however, he did not in the end bring his thoughts together
in a single systematically argued work dedicated exclusively to the subject
of legislation and the art of jurisprudence, although from the evidence of
manuscript fragments it is clear that he did plan such a work.
1
Had he
written it, he would certainly have paid some attention to the natural set-
ting against which the evolution of civil and criminal law codes could be
envisaged, and the relationship of this natural setting to the authenticating
principles of law-making and law-enforcement in modern nation-states.
As we have seen, natural communal life originated, in Condorcets view,
in the interaction of pain and pleasure experienced through the senses by
the individual organism with the external world to produce an awareness
of communal contexts and needs.
2
From this sensation-based awareness of
communal need the natural order retained a measure of authority in the
process of transition from nature to the civil order. The immutable laws
of nature, too often unrecognised by reason and universal law, were still
relevant to the formulation of moral and judicial codes.
3
The dispensations
of natural law continued to underpin those codes, and conferred ultimate
legitimacy on human rights and needs. Only by retaining the crucial link
between nature, human nature, rights, needs and the institutions of the civil
order could the law continue to embody the immutable laws of natural
1
BIF Condorcet MS 857, ff. 10451, 47, 634. Cf. Baker, Condorcet, p. 445 n. 88. For Condorcets
detailed proposals to amend the criminal code, see the Essai sur quelques changements ` a faire dans les
lois criminelles de France printed by Cahen, Condorcet, Appendix 1, pp. 54959.
2
On mans transition from nomadic individualism to the rst stages of civil society see the Esquisse (vi:
1114), and above pp. 467, 6971. Condorcet also reected on the relationship between justice and
laws in primitive times in the commentary to the preambule of Sur les moyens de traiter les protestants
franc ais comme des hommes sans nuire ` a la religion catholique (v: 4627).
3
See also Condorcets commentary on the relationship between nature and social/moral structures in
the Exposition et motifs du plan de constitution (xii: 366).
172
Justice and the law 173
justice, ensure the creation of an effective and equitable criminal code and
deploy the nations economic and human resources to maximum advan-
tage.
4
Only then could the law also ensure that a societys political life, the
exercise of power, the duties of public ofce, the role of the police, the
business of the courts, were dened and conned within an overarching
framework of natural rights: Thus it is not enough for society to be gov-
erned by law; that law must be just. It is not enough for individuals to obey
the law; the law itself must conform to what is required to maintain the
rights of each individual (iv: 620).
5
While the authority of the law derived from natural needs and rights,
this authority had soon been obscured as the early peuplades evolved, and
the seeds of error had been sown. The lesson of history in the context of the
law was simple for Condorcet: as with the constitution, the law required
subjection to constant vigilance if the seeds of error were not to ourish in
the modern world as they had so clearly ourished in the old.
6
To this end,
the role of public opinion in the process of political vigilance in the modern
state was crucial. Public opinion was often associated with the General Will
in an unmediated form in Condorcets thought through which rights and
needs could be given legitimate, practical expression in the absence of a
rationally and equitably ordered franchise. This could be in the form of
protest, dissidence or even insurrection. Free expression of public opinion
was the precious channel for public participation in law-making, and above
all in law reform, though only when informed and shaped by enlightened
leadership and example.
7
This last qualicationwas important, because Condorcet was quite aware
of the Janus-like features of the face of the people, and the difference
between the positive role to be played by informed public opinion and
the hideous tyranny that could be unleashed by mob rule. The voice of
the people had to be an authentic expression of natural need and will.
4
This last point regarding the impact of enlightened legislation on government policies is discussed
further in the Reexions sur le commerce des bles in the context of taxation, agriculture, education,
road and canal systems, and other aspects of public good infrastructure (xi: 1934).
5
As has been seen, the purpose of the civil order for Condorcet was rst and foremost the protection
of natural rights. He referred frequently to the danger posed to those rights by a badly dened and
inequitably applied legal code, see for example the Lettres dun citoyen des Etats-Unis ` a un Franc ais
(ix: 1001).
6
In his treatment of the growth of error in human affairs, Condorcet did not share Rousseaus reserva-
tions with regard to historical processes. This is not to say, however, that Condorcets historical vision
was not a profoundly Manichean one.
7
See also the Revision des travaux de la premi`ere legislature for Condorcets views on the reorganisation
of the National Assembly in order to achieve this (x: 3734). He noted in the Essai sur la constitution
et les fonctions des assemblees provinciales that the peoples participation in law-making would never be
a reality if not open to all (viii: 5567).
174 Condorcet and Modernity
In De linuence de la Revolution dAmerique sur lEurope he expressed a
profound fear of the tenacious hold of two thousand years of prejudice,
superstition, error and fanaticismover group mentalities, and he well appre-
ciated the ease with which, even in the ninth epoque, modern states could be
deected from the straight and narrow path traced by the immutable, but
fragile, laws of natural justice and natural morality.
8
Even an enfranchised
people, led astray by wrong policies, could match the worst excesses of
despots (xi: 2436). Nevertheless, enlightened public opinion could enable
legislators to recognise error, rediscover the natural bases of civil authority
and appreciate once again the relevance of the rights of man to the construc-
tion of the law, not as a theoretical set of propositions, but as an inescapable,
all-pervasive human reality. Enlightened public opinion reminded society
that the only true purpose of the law, and of political and social organi-
sation generally, was the protection of natural rights, and that the art of
law-making was the implementation of that purpose (vi: 1756).
Like many of his contemporaries, Condorcet saw the civil order as a
complex intersection of natural human realities and constitutional artice.
However, unlike Rousseau, he did not interpret that intersection in terms of
a clash of forces which were necessarily mutually destructive. The demands
of nature and those of society could be reconciled, and the rst step towards
reconciliation was to ensure that the law permitted the recognition of nat-
ural rights on a universal basis through a formal constitutional declaration.
Without such a declaration the legal and moral vacuumarising would allow
despotism to ourish, and Condorcet described the consequences of this
vacuum in the Idees sur le despotisme (ix: 14573). It was only in the light of
a declaration of rights that the people could properly assess their interests
with regard to the law: Everyone has an equal right to be informed about
all their interests, to know all truths (vi: 178). Only with the principle of
universality of rights embedded in the implementation of the law, reecting
the universality of human nature and human need, could the survival in
modern government of any respect for natural law be assured.
9
Condorcet
referred frequently to the relationship between the criminal code, natural
8
Condorcet commented at length on the ideal relationship between the law and morality in the Vie
de m. Turgot (v: 1956).
9
Lawyers had a vested interest in preserving a lack of uniformity and consistency in law codes because
they gave rise to more legal, fee-generating disputes. The problemwas particularly acute, for example,
in the context of weights and measures. See the Observations sur le vingt-neuvi`eme livre de lEsprit
des lois for one of Condorcets more detailed explanations of the advantages of a uniform and
simple jurisprudence (i: 37781). Cf. Alengry, Condorcet, pp. 74576; Schapiro, Condorcet, p. 119. Cf.
Bakers comments on Condorcets critical reactions to Montesquieus methodology, and in particular
Montesquieus approachto the invariability principle inlegislation(Condorcet, p. 222). For Condorcet,
Montesquieu had failed to dene with sufcient rigour the criteria for recognising a just law.
Justice and the law 175
law and natural rights (which could be infringed but never abolished by
the criminal code) in legal controversies in which he became involved, and
about which he wrote passionately in such pamphlets as the 1781 Reponse au
premier plaidoyer de m. dEpremesnil dans laffaire du comte de Lally (Reply
to Mr dEpr emesnils plea in the Comte de Lally affair) (vii: 258) and the
1786 Reexions dun citoyen non gradue sur un proc`es tr`es connu (Reections
of an unqualied citizen on a well-known trial) (vii: 14166).
In the introduction to the 1786 essay on the impact of the American Rev-
olution upon Europe, Condorcet distilled four fundamental natural rights,
fromwhich all laws would emanate. The civil and criminal codes governing
trade and commercial life, the establishment of the civil order, the insti-
tutions of government, the framing of the constitution, all stemmed from
the implications and constraints of the rst three rights, namely freedom,
property and equality before the law. The four basic rights were set out in
order of priority. The fourth right, that of participation in the enactment of
legislation, took Condorcet into more complex, controversial and certainly
more subtly argued, areas if only because it opened up the issue of the fran-
chise, with its exclusions and preconditions, and its assumptions relating to
public reason and public virtue. The accordance of the fourth right in the
form of participation in law-making and constitution-changing depended
for its success on an enlightened citizenry that understood its true needs
and the true nature of the liberty to which it aspired. Without enlightened
participation from below, the law would become the plaything of a corrupt
judiciary, ruthless magistrates and unbridled vested interests.
10
Enlightened
participation from below was for Condorcet the means to ensure that the
rights and needs derived from the nature of things and the nature of man
could survive in the legislation governing the civil order. Democracy was a
fragile and volatile commodity, to be handled with great caution.
The realignment of civil laws with civil rights was essentially concerned
with the quest for collective happiness, the ultimate justication for the
constraints on individual freedom in the civil order.
11
For Condorcet, how-
ever, the route forward in the establishment of a just code of laws did not
10
He dened the problem succinctly in 1788 in the Lettres dun citoyen des Etats-Unis ` a un Franc ais sur
les affaires presentes: In every civilised nation . . . there is no liberty and no enjoyment of natural rights
without enlightenment (ix: 105). In the Idees sur le despotisme he made it clear that the untutored
despotism of the people was to be feared, and he had much to say in that essay about the nature of
insurrection, law-enforcement and the art of controlling the blind forces of mob-rule (ix: 1614).
11
See Baker, Condorcet, pp. 21519; cf. Helv etius, De lesprit, pp. 322, 375. On Turgots opposition to
utilitarian doctrines, so inuential as far as Condorcet was concerned, see Baker, Condorcet, p. 443
n. 68. Utility was not the only criterion for legislation. In the Reexions sur lesclavage des n`egres
Condorcet insisted that there were situations when the states interests must give way to those of the
individual (Reexions, pp. 1516); cf. Lettres dunbourgeois de NewHaven ` a uncitoyen de Virginie (ix: 3).
176 Condorcet and Modernity
lie in an informal reconciliation of conicting interests, but in a formal
recognition of rights. This was the principle at the heart of the sixth arti-
cle of the Essai sur la constitution et les fonctions des assemblees provinciales
(viii: 496). Without that formally declared recognition, civil and criminal
law codes existed in a moral vacuum with the result that national character
risked being debased and individual morality undermined, a double danger
to which Condorcet drew attention in the Vie de m. Turgot:
By bringing men together, society increases the inuence of each on the happiness
of each; and while, strictly speaking, [civic] duties can be reduced to justice, that is
to say to a duty not to infringe the natural rights of others, fromthat inuence duties
of another kind must have emerged urging us to contribute to the happiness of
others. The reward for these virtues is to be found in our hearts and in the goodwill
of our neighbours . . . But in general these same private virtues, which embody
what we call customs, have not been put into practice in any nation. (v: 194, 195)
The moral nature of the civil order had not so far been fully realised
precisely because lawcodes had come into existence simply as an expression
of the despotic will of the strong over the weak, of men over women, of
fathers over children, of masters over slaves, of the rich over the poor: It
is the case that everywhere the law has attered humanitys vices instead of
repressing them. . . As a true mirror for vanity, the lawhas divided men into
orders, into classes, and has contradicted nature which tends to unite them
(v: 195). The law was thus rooted in vice not virtue, as Turgot had clearly
understood. Man was a sentient being, with natural needs developing as a
function of that sentience, to which the lawshould be a direct response. The
legislative provisions of the civil order should derive froman understanding
on the part of legislators of that crucial interaction between individuals
and institutions which together create the public realm where the public
and the private co-exist. This was the public political space in which the
pursuit of happiness was undertaken as a collective enterprise arising from
an awareness, shared between government and the governed, of the rights
and of the responsibilities of all parties to the pact of association.
The link between the individual citizen and the law was thus dynamic
rather than static, affective as well as jurisdictional. In the 1790 Disserta-
tion philosophique et politique, ou Reexions sur cette question: sil est utile
On the other hand, the objective of the law was to make citizens behave, not necessarily as they
would wish to behave as individuals, but as the general will and the rule of reason required them to
behave: The law can have only one objective: to govern the way in which the citizens of a state must
act on those occasions when reason requires them to conduct themselves, not in accordance with
their own opinion and will, but in accordance with the common rule (ix: 3). When the individual
submits his will to a law of which he personally disapproves, he is not acting against reason but in
accordance with it. Public participation in the evolution of the lawenabled individuals to understand
the relationship between the individuals will and that of the collectivity (vi: 2623).
Justice and the law 177
aux hommes detre trompes? (A philosophical and political essay, or reec-
tions on this question: is it useful for men to be deceived?) Condorcet also
developed views on the moral implications of political life in his biogra-
phy of Turgot, with its reiterated references to the ways in which the law
extended to the inner life of the citizen. Condorcet never failed to stress
the moral, sense-related dimension of the law, and the implications of this
for national, as well as individual character: Thus it is only because insti-
tutions are bad that people are so often inclined to steal (v: 362). The
diagnosis of this fatal degeneration of the law as a consequence of its link
with the nature of man having been lost since the time of the ancients is
also to be found in many of Condorcets eloges of great academicians, and
it was a recurring feature of his observations on the twenty-ninth book of
Montesquieus De lesprit des lois
12
of 1780 where he reected on the place of
truth in judicial processes (i: 363), and questioned Montesquieus reluctance
to raise the moral issue of justice or injustice with regard to the laws that
he discussed. The issue was particularly acute in respect of Montesquieus
apparent acceptance of the use of torture in judicial proceedings: Never
any analysis, discussion or precise principle (i: 365, 367).
13
If France was
still in a semi-barbarous state, it was in part because judicial punishment
was perceived as an act of vengeance rather than justice,
14
and Condorcet
condemned Montesquieu for accepting unconditionally the perpetuation
of legal systems that appealed to the worst in human nature (i: 3725).
15
12
See Williams, Condorcet and the art of eulogy, pp. 36380.
13
Catherine II rejected advice to retain torture for the crime of l`ese-majeste, and removed torture from
the judicial process altogether: A sovereign dared to do more than a philosopher ever dared to say
(iv: 571).
14
Judicial punishments had a deterrent purpose, but Condorcet also emphasised rehabilitation as an
element to consider in the treatment of criminals. On the advantages of making convicts work
productively instead of languishing in prison, see iv: 392. On the obligations of courts, and the
purpose of the criminal code in this respect, see also the Vie de m. Turgot (v: 18692).
15
Like Beccaria, Condorcet thought that punishment must be proportionate to the offence, and linked
to the nature of the crime rather than to the personal circumstances of the criminal. In his notes
for the Kehl Voltaire, he denounced the punishments reserved for offences that in his view were
moral rather than civil crimes such as adultery, bigamy, suicide and sodomy (iv: 326, 363, 561,
5636). Crimes which societies have the right to punish must be actions harmful to society. Their
punishment must be proportionate to the harm that they might do in the sense that it must not
go beyond the harm already done (BIF Condorcet MS 857, ff. 1415). None of these religious or
sexual crimes had any effect on public order. He was particularly concerned with the punishment for
infanticide and the operation of the medieval pregnancy laws that went back to the government of
Cardinal Bertrand, Henri IIs Chancellor (v: 564), and had much to say about the establishment of
hospices for women to alleviate the problem. Among the sexual crimes that fell into the moral rather
than criminal category, the exception was rape (v: 577). On Beccaria and the advances made by the
application of science to the law, see the Lettres au roi de Prusse (i: 315). Condorcet knew Beccaria
personally, the latter being a member of Sophie de Grouchys salon. For further commentary on
judicial punishments, see also the Vie de m. Turgot (v: 190) and the Fragments sur la liberte de la presse
(xi: 2557).
178 Condorcet and Modernity
the case for j udi ci al reform
In no other area, other than that of the constitution itself, was the moral
challenge to modernity more acute, and seemingly intractable, than in
the area of criminal codes and judicial reform. In the 1776 Reexions sur
le commerce des bles Condorcet set out the minimal conditions for good
legislation, illuminating simultaneously by inference the deciencies of
ancien regime legal structures and practice.
16
Laws affecting the life and
deathof every citizenmust be framedinways that are clearly understandable
to the citizen; the citizen should not have to be wealthy in order to have
recourse to the law to protect his property; the rights of the poorest citizen
to the ownership of his possessions should no longer be legally vulnerable;
no citizen should be deprived of the right to legal redress to resist the
chicaneries of those who threaten his ruination simply because recourse
to the law is beyond his means. Criminal procedures should no longer
be held in camera; due process should not be biased against the accused;
torture should be abolished as a means to establish guilt or innocence.
Sentences should be in accordance with a precisely framed penal code and
no longer dependent on judicial whim; cruel punishments should cease to
be regarded as an effective deterrence (xi: 1912). Condorcet envisaged a
system in which rank offered no protection from due process, in which the
right to judge others was not the exclusive prerogative of a corps; in which
judges were accountable, and court procedures transparent so that criminal
courts are the peoples consolation and no longer its dread. Condorcets
commentary on the law in the Reexions sur le commerce des bles, while
targeting particular injustices relating to the grain trade, reected also his
characteristic concern, not so much with the technicalities of jurisprudence
per se in isolation fromother aspects of political and social policy, but rather
with the tangible realities of the impact of the law on daily life.
17
The prospects for the admission of the concept of rights into French
legislation looked particularly bleak in 1775 when Condorcet published one
of his most important statements on unnatural legislation, the Reexions
sur la jurisprudence criminelle (Reections on criminal law). The Reexions
interlocked closely with observations on natural and unnatural laws which
16
His view of the legal system of the ancien regime was quite simply that it represented the victory of
force over justice and rights in the interests of the few. Only through the actions and writings of
the philosophes had that victory been tempered by the assertion of the authority of natural, universal
moral laws, see Sur le sens du mot Revolutionnaire (xii: 61819).
17
In particular, this operational perspective also informed the formulation of amendments to the
criminal code to be found in the Essai sur quelques changements ` a faire dans les lois criminelles de
France (see Cahen, Condorcet, Appendix 1).
Justice and the law 179
he would expound at greater length thirteen years later in the Essai sur
la constitution et les fonctions des assemblees provinciales. The overt point at
issue in the Reexions is the salt-tax, the gabelle, but the covert issue was
the nature of crime itelf. This attack on a set of laws which met all the
conditions of unnatural legislation set out in the Essai is conducted in the
form of a trenchant, deeply ironic commentary on quotations from eight
articles forming part of the judicial code relating to punishments under the
salt-tax laws, followed by a second commentary on six articles on aspects
of judicial procedure, and a third commentary on the role of magistrates
charged with the responsibility of convictions.
18
Like the laws relating to
the grain trade, the salt laws held particular interest for Condorcet as they
brought together issues of scal policy with those of policing, public order
and public happiness. They also illuminated the importance of the two
principal criteria for natural legislation: need and usefulness.
Two vital questions are asked in Condorcets reections on the restric-
tions relating to trade: what makes a good law, and what is the test of
good legislation? He noted that few professors of jurisprudence had been
willing to risk their reputations by identifying a specic model of good
law-making, or even of a good law-maker. He proposed, tongue in cheek,
to rise to that challenge in the Reexions, and to illustrate both good law-
making and a good law-maker in the form of the great Colberts gabelle.
19
What Condorcet actually believed to be one of the most agrant examples
of unnatural, ancien regime legislation is then declared to be one of the
masterpieces of the immortal Colbert,
20
whose great virtues and rare genius
made France happy, as we all know (vii: 5). The purpose of good legis-
lation was clearly to prevent crime as well as punish criminals, and what
worse crime was there than that of the enormous crime of faux-saunage,
21
and what better way of preventing a crime of human l` ese-majest e than the
18
On the public duty of magistrates to serve the interests of the people, and the danger of sectarian
zeal adversely affecting judicial zeal, see also the Eloge de Michel de LH opital (iii: 4823).
19
Although Condorcet refers to the gabelle as being Colberts law, it was in fact a feudal law that
had been introduced by Philippe VI in 1341, with supplementary ordonnances in 1343. Colbert had
rened its provisions in May 1680 to increase crown revenues for example, by restricting the legal
provenance of salt destined for the Paris region, which had the effect of broadening the categories of
faux-sel.
20
The others are the excise code, the tithe laws and the manufacturing regulations. These masterpieces
are familiar only to professionals; and among the writers who have praised this great minister are
some who have not read his works (vii: 5 n. 1).
21
The crime of faux-saunage involved not only the avoidance of tax through smuggling, but also
included the use of sel de devoir for the purpose of salting meat and other perishable food. The
gabelle was abolished by a decree of 21 December 1790, supplemented by decrees issued between
31 October and 5 November abolishing all internal customs barriers, making France for the rst time
an internally unied free trade area.
180 Condorcet and Modernity
salt-tax? Afootnote ensures that the irony is not missed with a sly denition
of faux-saunage as the illegal trade in the kind of salt to which the gabeliers
have not added dust, or any other rubbish (vii: 5 n. 2). That the salt-tax rep-
resented an example of retrogressive, self-defeating disproportion between
crime and punishment, of legislative inefciency, scal damage, cruelty and
inhumanity, and of a law uncoupled from natural principles of morality, is
the indignant sub-text of the Reexions. In the commentary on the seven-
teenth titre of article 3 of the provisions for punishment of faux-sauniers,
Condorcet cited verbatim the shocking penalties for salt-trafcking: nine
years of galley service and a 500 livres ne for a rst offence, hanging and
strangling for a second offence, the severity of the punishment depending
on whether the criminal was arrested armed or unarmed, transporting the
salt with a horse and cart, by means of a boat, or just peddling it on the
streets (vii: 67).
Adopting the innocent eye stance of Montesquieus Persians, or a
Voltairean Huron ingenu, Condorcet then observed that it was difcult
to understand how such laws could be enacted against human beings by
other human beings unless either the tax-farmers did not consider the
salt-trafckers to be human, or the farmers themselves were not human.
However, the reader should not jump to false conclusions. In fact, the
Condorcet persona assures us, Colbert had allowed his humanity to get
the better of his wisdom. The salt laws were not severe enough, and when
Colberts successor, Chamillard, discovered in 1704 that salt-trafcking was
on the increase, he found himself obliged to extend the death penalty for a
rst offence to any group of smugglers numbering ve or more. Condorcet
traces the trajectory of increasing severity of the penalties passed by suc-
cessive administrations, demonstrating simultaneously the corresponding
decrease in efcacy of such deterrents in preventing the proliferation of the
crime.
22
22
Condorcet used the salt-tax laws in the Reexions sur la jurisprudence criminelle to raise the whole
question of the relationship between crime levels and the severity of penal codes (in particular the use
of barbaric methods of capital punishment), and like Montesquieu he expressed scepticism. In the
Esquisse he noted the mildness of the penal systemoperated by the ancients. In Rome, for example, if
the death penalty had to be invoked, it could be carried out only after recourse to a formidable legal
machinery of judgement and conviction, in which the whole people played a role: [The Romans]
felt that in a free nation this mildness is the only way to stop political dissent from degenerating into
bloody massacres; they wanted to correct the savagery of their customs through the humanity of
their laws (vi: 96). The debt of modern jurisprudence to the Romans is acknowledged in the Esquisse
(vi: 967). The Greeks also, for all their concern with the prosperity of the polity sometimes at
the expense of the individual citizen had felt, like Enlightenment philosophes, the need to inspire
public horror at the spectacle of bloodshed, respect for human life and contempt for inhumanity in
judicial procedures. In Rhodes the death penalty had involved no public spectacle (vi: 4601). In his
Justice and the law 181
Wise legislators would abolish cruel laws which inspire pity for the
criminal, and coarsen the civil order without reducing crime levels. More-
over, responsibility for judicial measures taken against the faux-sauniers was
entirely in the hands of monopoly interests, that is to say, the tax-farmers
themselves, who would otherwise stand to lose most from any repeal of
the gabelle. A Panglossian rationalisation is disingenuously offered: This
arrangement might appear hard, but it makes people feel more keenly what
an abominable crime it is to sell salt cheaply to the people (vii: 7). Thus far
had France advanced from the feudal darkness. In similar vein, Condorcet
extended a Panglossian pseudo-justication of the legal provisions of the
gabelle for ning, imprisoning or strangling offenders in the cause of salt
to other articles of the code affecting the circumstances in which salt could
be sold in Brittany, the provisions for ogging and galley service in cases
of non-payment of nes, the need for nes to be paid before any appeal
against them could be heard, the penalties enacted against the families of
faux-sauniers and so on. In each commentary the most appalling features
of the gabelle are mercilessly exposed, the commentary on the seventh titre
of article 16, referring to the punishment of faux-sauniers under the age of
fourteen, being perhaps the most harrowing.
23
The Condorcet persona nally acknowledged that some people, under
the sway of thinkers like Montesquieu, Beccaria and Voltaire, might not
entirely share his admirationfor Colbert and the gabelle. They might say that
this legislation offended nature, reason and humanity; that its effect was to
kill off a lot of tax-evaders, but to perpetuate the offence, thus bringing the
tax-farmers into further public disrepute. They might see in the gabelle a law
that outed enlightened public opinion, and had been imposed without
public approval or consent. Enlightened minds might well think that those
who administer the gabelle were simply hired assassins, allowed to promote
their own interests in a way that clearly violated natural rights (vii: 212).
observations on the twenty-ninth book of Montesquieus De lesprit des lois Condorcet noted that
harsh laws should be mitigated, not in the spirit of moderation, but in the spirit of justice (i:
363). One crime that Condorcet picked out as being more effectively treated by the mildness of
custom rather than severe laws was duelling (iv: 397). Condorcet returned to the advantages of a less
severe criminal code in the Esquisse, where the issue is linked to the avoidance of political upheaval
(vi: 978).
23
Condorcets effective use of the language and style of Dr Pangloss is well illustrated in his precis of
article 6, relating to the punishment of minors for faux-saunage: Children will be imprisoned . . . in
a house of correction so that it will no longer cost the tax-farmers anything to feed them. From
this come two big advantages: the rst is that the tax-farmers have the right to keep in prison for as
long as they think t, on a diet of bread and water, the fathers of young faux-sauniers; the second
is that every child, used to the free and active life of the countryside, eventually dies in a house of
correction; all of which can only result in a major diminution of the race of faux-sauniers (vii: 13).
182 Condorcet and Modernity
To such arguments, three responses are offered in conclusion, of which
the rst two are mitigating statements of diabolical advocacy. The third,
however, was no mitigation at all, but signalled the entrance of the author
himself who proceeds to ll the moral vacuum created by the Condorcet
persona with deeply felt outrage. Many laws, like those relating to the
gabelle, Condorcet observes in his authorial voice, accord not with mans
nature and needs, but with one simple, expedient maxim: Let the weak
and the poor be sacriced to the peace of mind of the rich and powerful . . .
So let us leave our tax-farmers to enjoy the noble simplicity of Colberts
laws in peace (vii: 24). Thus has the whole human-natural setting for
true justice and good law-making in the ancien regime been subverted, and
replaced with the unnatural laws of privil`ege.The concept of what consti-
tuted a crime had been subverted,
24
and Condorcets mission as a social
scientist was designed to counter the effects of this historic subversion. The
sardonic closing statements of the Reexions sur la jurisprudence criminelle
gave the tax-farmers ominous notice that their time to enjoy the privileges
of Colberts law was running out. The covert broader inference was equally
unambiguous: the excesses of the gabelle, and of all ancien regime legislation
based on feudal privilege and narrow commercial self-interest, should only
serve to remind France of the claims that human nature and human rights
had over civil and criminal legislation.
the dupaty affai r
Among the pre-1789 writings that Condorcet devoted to establishing the
case for legal reform, and to a consideration of the practical measures that
24
Denition of crime. I dene crime in general as an external, physical act which causes serious,
obvious and immediate harm to one or several other individuals, committed deliberately and with
the intention of causing that harm. I say external and physical harm and not injury because in order
for an act harmful to another person to become a crime, the harm it does to him must infringe
his rights. I say that this harm is serious because minor harm cannot be the subject of criminal
procedures. A legal system which is too nit-picking would be a great evil; its laws would be less
respected, and in the hands of judges it would become a weapon with which they would be able to
strike down too many citizens; it would lead to tyranny. I say that this harmmust be clearly apparent,
otherwise the prejudices of every system would create a plethora of imaginary crimes. I say that the
act must be committed deliberately and with the intention doing harm. In other words, that the
guilty person should not only intend to do a particular physical act but should also intend the act to
be harmful, and for that the harm done must be the necessary and immediate consequence of the
act. In effect, as the law has been established only to maintain citizens rights, and as its sanctions
have as their objectives only 1. to deter crime by fear, and 2. to stop the person inclined towards
crime from giving in to his inclination, it follows that if one extended the law to acts committed
without any intention to harm, then those two objectives would be nullied, and the punishment
would be unjust (BIF Condorcet MS 857, ff. 1623).
Justice and the law 183
could be taken to remove the stain of inhumanity from the daily workings
of the French judicial system, two texts stand out. The rst is the Reexions
dun citoyen non gradue sur un proc`es tr`es connu which appeared on 11 June
1786. The well-known trial in question was the trial in Chaumont of
three individuals, identied in the text as Bradier, Simarre (or Simare) and
Lardoise, all accused of robbery with violence, and all sentenced on 11
August 1785 by the trial judge to galley service for life, in accordance with
the provisions of a 1670 ordonnance.
25
After a nal hearing of the case by
the Paris Parlement, they were condemned on 20 October to be broken
on the wheel. They escaped immediate execution only after the chance
intervention in dramatic circumstances of the President of the Bordeaux
Parlement, Charles Dupaty, who had been alerted to trial irregularities.
Dupaty duly published a report on these irregularities in March 1786 in his
Memoire justicatif pour trois hommes condamnes ` a la roue (A justicatory
statement on behalf of three men condemned to be broken on the wheel).
26
Condorcet knew and admired Dupaty, and he did not hesitate to associate
himself with the magistrates condemnation of these judicial events and the
campaign for reform that ensued. It was during this campaign that he met
Dupatys niece, Sophie de Grouchy.
The case of the three peasants was in his view yet another example of
the abuse of the court system by the parlements. In the Reexions dun
citoyen he resumes in solemn jurisdictional style Dupatys evidence regard-
ing the circumstances of the alleged crime, the lack of evidence against the
accused, details of judicial incompetence and the inadequacies of witness
testimony.
27
Thanks largely to Condorcets public support for Dupaty,
the sentence was suspended by Malesherbes,
28
and the case was referred
to the Rouen Parlement for further review. The three accused men were
nally acquitted on 18 December 1787. Dupatys Memoire was nevertheless
condemned to be burned by the public executioner on 12 August 1786, a
development resulting in the appearance of another pamphlet relating to
25
For a full account of this affair, see Badinter and Badinter, Condorcet, pp. 21014.
26
On the impact of Dupatys Memoire, see M. Marion, La Garde des sceaux Lamoignon et la reforme
judiciaire de 1788 (Paris: Hachette, 1909), p. 35; P.-A. Perrod, Une contribution de Condorcet ` a la
r eforme de la l egislation p enale, Condorcet Studies 1 (1984), 17186.
27
On the issue of the credibility of witnesses, Condorcet reminds the reader in a note at this point
of Roman legal practice of differentiating between the accounts of witnesses made on the spot
immediately after the commission of the crime, and declarations meditees (vii: 146 n. 1). For the
amendments designed to resolve this problem, see Section ii of the Essai sur quelques changements ` a
faire dans les lois criminelles de France (Cahen, Condorcet, Appendix i, pp. 5525).
28
See Condorcets undated letter to Malesherbes, BIF Condorcet MS 854, f. 417. The case was given
further publicity in July 1786 by Grimm, see Tourneux (ed.), Correspondance litteraire, vol. xiv,
pp. 41718. See also Perrod, Une contribution de Condorcet, 17186.
184 Condorcet and Modernity
the affair by Condorcet, namely the Recit de ce qui sest passe au Parlement
de Paris le mercredi 20 ao ut 1786 (The story of what happened in the Paris
Parlement on Wednesday 20 August 1786) (i: 5047). The notorious affair
of the trois rou es was a particularly dramatic example for Condorcet of
the deeply awed nature of ancien regime judicial practice with regard to
the rights of the accused to a competent legal defence, and of the glaring
lack of accountability with regard to court procedures and decisions. In a
typical gesture, after their marriage Condorcet and Sophie engaged the son
of one of the accused peasants as a servant in their household.
In the Reexions dun citoyen Condorcet, in response to the Dupaty affair,
sought to expose in the formof ve Questions aspects of the case that contin-
ued to affect adversely the reputation of French courts. The ve Questions
relate to the impartiality and independence of witnesses, the conditions
under which testimony is admissible, the recording of procedures (includ-
ing statements taken from the accused under interrogation), the right of
the accused to be confronted in open court with the nature of the alleged
crime along with the evidence of guilt and the right of the accused to legal
representation.
29
In the fourth Question Condorcet also addressed the issue
of judicial accountability, and the crowns responsibility, sadly neglected, as
a nal court of appeal: And people have groaned at the sight of a nation of
Montesquieus, Voltaires, Turgots, Malesherbes, and dAlemberts obliged
to ask once more, not for a system of laws worthy of an enlightened people,
but just for basic human rights (vii: 153).
30
The dangerous inference of the
last Question was that in France, unlike England or Prussia, the King was
unaware of what was going on in his courts in his name, but Condorcet was
careful to place the blame for that on the system rather than on the King.
In France sentences were carried out so briskly that there was not even time
to obtain the signed consent of the King, or even to inform him of court
decisions: I do not know if many condemned men would actually prefer
29
The right to legal representation, and the elaboration of appropriate mechanisms to ensure that this
right bcame a reality in law, occupied much of the rst section of the Essai sur quelques changements
` a faire dans les lois criminelles de France (Cahen, Condorcet, Appendix 1, pp. 5512). See also the 1790
Reexions sur laccusation judiciaire where Condorcet tried to put his views on the protection of the
rights of the accused into practice against a background of increasing instability, and of growing
threats to the rule of law. In particular, Condorcet wanted to ensure that the National Assembly did
not arrogate to itself the right to judge criminals even in the extreme, politically urgent, circumstances
of counter-revolutionary insurgence, and a sense of national crisis inamed by the siren voice of
Robespierre and the hypocritical language of a false philosophy (x: 3).
30
In the Reexions sur les pouvoirs Condorcet was less positive about other aspects of crown participation
in court procedures, e.g. in the case of lettres de cachet (ix: 2735). With regard to the reform of
appeal procedures after the Revolution, he would make specic proposals in June 1790 to change
the role, workings and composition of appeal courts in Sur les tribunaux dappel (ix: 16773).
Justice and the law 185
a quick death to two weeks or a month of anxiety, but also of hope (vii:
154).
31
Condorcet sawthe royal judicial prerogative as a useful constitutional
device to ensure that the accuseds right of appeal was a practical option,
and as a counter to the excesses to which permanent courts presided over
by permanent judges were prone.
32
Interestingly, prior to the Revolution,
the dispensation of justice was still for Condorcet an area in which the
monarch could exercise powers that would in effect provide a measure of
public accountability. If judges worked under the eye of a more vigilant
king, the people would have less to fear from judicial incompetence and
erratic judgements, harshness dressed up as a legal system.
33
Conversely,
there would be advantages for the monarch, who would necessarily become
better acquainted with the laws by which the people were policed in his
name: Those who would fear the additional pressures arising from these
details on a government already heavily burdened, would not be doing
justice to the Kings sense of humanity (vii: 156).
To the charge that humanitarian reform would lead to the guilty escap-
ing justice, Condorcet responded that this was already the case with the
rich and the powerful who had little difculty under the current system
in obtaining pardons or suspended sentences for the crimes with which
they were charged and found guilty. The effect of reform would be only
to provide the poor with the benets that the privileged already enjoyed,
34
and to deprive the parlements of the arbitrary power to hang or break on
the wheel without due process. Condorcet reected again on the lessons
to be drawn from the Dupaty affair, noting regretfully that this contempt
for the human race, for what it means to be a man, had not yet been
eliminated by a century of enlightened thinking. He noted further con-
temporary examples of comparably horric judicial failure, citing cases in
Lyon and Laon, and drawing particular attention to the on-going threat to
the children of Jean Calas, to the barbaric treatment of Lally
35
and to the
malignant repercussions of the La Barre case. The rhetorical temperature
31
As far as the death penalty was concerned, Condorcet remained an abolitionist, see the views
expressed, for example, in his notes for the Kehl Voltaire (iv: 3278, 406, 5023).
32
For proposed technical amendments to court procedures to help resolve this particular issue, see the
Essai sur quelques changements ` a faire dans les lois criminelles de France (Cahen, Condorcet, Appendix i).
On the responsibilities of the government with regard to state security and the preservation of public
order, see the Fragments sur la liberte de la presse (xi: 2557).
33
As an example of such judgements, Condorcet refers here to the court orders requiring the burning
of works by Rousseau and Raynal (vii: 154 n. 1).
34
The Turgot administration provided Condorcet with a model of legislative virtue from this point of
view, see the Vie de m. Turgot (v: 16, 689, 1812).
35
Voltaires was the only voice raised against the outrages of the trial of General Lally, see the Reponse
au premier plaidoyer de m. dEpremesnil dans laffaire du comte de Lally (vii: 2930).
186 Condorcet and Modernity
of Condorcets prose rises as he describes the horrors at Rouen where a man
suspected of murder had been tortured for six hours in the presence of his
wife and daughter, a sort of cruelty which has no precedent in the history
of the Caligulas, Neros and Domitians of this world (vii: 159), and the
insane savagery of the Caen Parlement which, with a judgement as awed
as that of the Chaumont court, had recently authorised the torture and
execution by burning of a young girl. The thrust of Condorcets attack on
rogue judges and compliant courts not only illuminated dramatically the
suffering of individuals, but also opened up the wider question of the harm
being done by the courts and their contempt for man to the stability of the
civil order: And these monsters, living out their turbulent lives under the
threat of the conspirators dagger, going from military sedition to provin-
cial insurrection, can still nd a feeble and horrible justication [for their
actions] in the madness of their arrogant pride, in the troubled nature of
their soul, and in the terrors of their imagination!
court procedures and the j ury theorem
The second, less impassioned, but arguably more important, text estab-
lishing the case for reform, is the sixth article of Part 2 of the 1788 Essai
sur la constitution et les fonctions des assemblees provinciales, subtitled Justice
et police, where the need to rebuild the legal system is even more urgently
pressed than in the Reexions dun citoyen. Without yet compromising the
defence of the monarchs judicial role, so central to his proposals in the
Reexions, Condorcet now emphasised the disdavantages of ancien regime
structures much more boldly, noting that France had a judicial systembuilt
during centuries of ignorance on the debris of its feudal past, in which the
courts were a threat to the property, freedom and security of its citizens,
venality and hereditary privilege governed the appointment of judges,
36
the exorbitant cost of legislation denied justice to the poor and the cruel
despotismof courts shed the blood of the innocent. When the lawoffended
so brutally the reason of all enlightened men,
then one cannot disguise the fact that these courts, these pretensions, these pro-
cedures, these laws, in a word the whole legislative system, are in need of great
reform, and that it is time for a new structure, built on reason, humanity and nat-
ural right to replace the remains of those gothic monuments built by our ancestors
on arrogant pride, superstition and contempt for mankind. (viii: 495)
36
In the Eloge de Michel de LH opital the appointment of judges was seen as the prerogative of an
aristocratic efdom (iii: 539).
Justice and the law 187
In Justice et police legal reform is seen as part of a broader constitutional
view of progress in which reform has important political implications, for
the new edice must be constructed not only on the rm foundations of
authentic legal principle but also on the will, participation and consent of
the people, acting through their elected representatives.
37
In this text Con-
dorcet gave much more emphasis than before to the role of representatives
in the provincial assemblies in the management of the machinery of the
law, and he was determined to place the case for reform of Frances legal
structure at the centre of an agenda for constitutional reforms at the meet-
ing of the Estates-General. Always aware of the need for tactical prudence
in the advancement of proposals for change, he was anxious not to alienate
the political guardians of jealously defended traditions and practices, and
he was careful to insist that no reforms should be enacted, even when clearly
in accordance with reason and natural law, without all cases for exemption
and special provision being given full consideration. As in the case of the
abolition of slavery, the pragmatics of gradualism were again uppermost in
Condorcets approach to the management of change: Reason must be rm
without being peremptory, systematic without being obstinate, inexible
and rigorously precise with regard to everything that endures, indulgent
and moderate with regard to everything that must continue only for as long
as it takes to bring in a new order (viii: 497).
However, tactical caution with regard to the implementation of reform
did not prevent Condorcet from making some proposals for change for
immediate enactment, the rst of which concerned judicial appointments.
He favoured a system whereby judges would be appointed by provincial
electors who, knowing candidates personally, would be better placed to
evaluate a local candidate in the light of basic requirements, namely his
integrity, his honesty and his education (viii: 498), thanremote ministers in
Paris acting onbehalf of a still more remote monarch. Judicial appointments
should not be in the hands of an exclusive corps, often with special interests
to protect, but rather made the responsibility of an electorate whereby the
public interest in seeing the best candidate selected would be assured, and
the danger of venality minimised: It is in the interest of electors, as it is
in the princes, only to make a good choice. If the prince must relinquish
that function, which he cannot in reality exercise by himself, it must be
necessarily given to men with the same interest and the same intentions as
he has (viii: 499).
37
On the involvement of the people in the enactment of legislation, see also the second of the Lettres
dun bourgeois de New Haven.
188 Condorcet and Modernity
Condorcet noted the practice in England and America of charging judges
with the task of explaining and interpreting the law, and juries with the task
of determining guilt or innocence. He thought that this clear separation
of functions, with juries nominated separately for civil and criminal courts
by provincial electors, as in the case of judges, would be a useful model
to follow. The underlying principle was always the authentication of due
process by the formal recognition of the location of the authority of the
law in the will of the people, expressed through their representatives in a
National Assembly. The removal from judges of the power to decide guilt
or innocence would ensure the emergence of respectable judges: A good
legislative systemmust make judges respected, but they must never become
feared; every judge with power soon becomes a tyrant (viii: 500). With the
adoption of elected juries, with jurists elected for xed periods of service,
rather than on a trial by trial basis, Condorcet felt that all the advantages
of the English and American systems could be acquired, and enhanced,
with the appointment of capable men who enjoyed public condence, and
whose decisions would benet from the accumulated experience of jurists
as different cases came before them. Their election by local assemblies
(provincial or district) would be a mark of esteem and honour, and a
guarantee of higher standards of appointment that wouldavoidthe arbitrary
and unpredictable workings of the English jury system.
In Justice et police Condorcet made detailed proposals relating to the
appointment of judges, the rules governing their powers, along with pro-
posals for administrative support, as well as a fail-safe system of measures
to ensure that judicial practice with regard to sentencing was in accordance
with reason and natural law, and that they were fully accountable. Quality
and accountability were paramount considerations in all these proposals:
For every court there must be a public part: two or three judges with deputies to
replace them when they are ill or when they die; sixty-four jurists, of which sixteen
could be challenged on grounds that need not be specied, and sixteen chosen at
random from among those not challenged would decide the outcome of the trial.
This number would sufce to establish all sizes of majorities needed for different
types of judgment, and is not so high, in relation to the area of each jurisdiction,
as to make it necessary to have recourse to the services of uneducated men. (viii:
502)
If Condorcets aim was to ensure as far as possible the ability of judges
to pass just and humane sentences, he was equally concerned to maximise
the probability of juries returning just verdicts. Just as the efciency of
Justice and the law 189
the franchise would depend on the enlightenment of the people, so the
efciency of the courts would depend on the enlightenment of juries. In
criminal cases he recommended that at least twelve jurists out of sixteen
must vote for a guilty verdict in order for a sentence to be carried out, and he
saw no particular advantage in the English insistence on unanimity. With
regard to voting on juries, Condorcet believed that the key factor was the
absolute size of the majority, not the proportion of the size of the majority in
relation to the total number of jurors. The theorem thus required precise
arithmetical reference to a number rather than generalised reference to
a two-thirds majority or a three-quarters majority, and Condorcet was
always careful to apply that principle in the context of constitutional pro-
cedures as well as procedures in the criminal courts. In his jury theorem
Condorcet saw a way forward for the French system of justice that would
end current reliance on discredited practices.
38
In applying to the problem
of securing a just and scientically based verdict from juries the theory of
probabilism and its application to voting, Condorcet was reecting once
again his condence in the relevance of social mathematics to the moral
and social realms. The impact on modern jury theory of Condorcets jury
theorem has been considerable.
39
In the context of criminal procedures he would seek to apply the calcu-
lus to the evaluation of evidence and the denition of what constituted
proof of guilt or innocence in French courts, issues which had rst come
to his attention in the light of the verdict in the La Barre case. The La
Barre verdict, and others, including the conviction of the three peasants
rescued from the capriciousness of the courts by Dupaty, had convinced
Condorcet of the urgent need to reform a system still dependent on torture
and the medieval niceties of eighth-proofs, quarter-proofs, and half-
proofs. Evidence needed to be weighed in terms of a much more meaning-
ful mathematical language than that, if the guilt of the accused was to be
credibly ascertained. The more meaningful language that he had in mind
was of course the language of probability theory. A probable event was one
in which the number of combinations in which it occurred exceeded the
number of combinations in which it did not occur. The greater the number
of combinations in the rst part of the equation in relation to the number
in the second part, the greater the probability, and so on until the equation
38
In the Reexions sur les pouvoirs the right to be judged according to the law by legally appointed
judges is presented as one of the key guarantees of justice (ix: 2756).
39
See for example L. S. Penrose, Elementary statistics of majority voting, Journal of the Royal Statistical
Society 109 (1946), 537.
190 Condorcet and Modernity
eventually transformed probability into moral certainty. The point was
stressedat some lengthinthe notes to the Kehl Voltaire.
40
However, the ner
arithmetical detail behind Condorcets application of probability theory to
the process of assessment of guilt or innocence by a jury had already been
set out in the theory of voting contained in the seminal 1785 Essai sur
lapplication de lanalyse ` a la probabilite des decisions rendues ` a la pluralite des
voix. The laws of probability, combined with the increasing enlightenment
of the individuals involved, and an unshakeable condence in the existence
of objective moral truth, convinced Condorcet that decisions taken by
majority vote would lead to the right course of action being taken, whether
in National Assemblies or in juries. The degree of rightness would vary in
accordance with the degree of enlightenment and the size of the majority.
The formulae of probability relating to Condorcets jury theorem and
the mathematics involved in the assignment of values to the input of
individuals, the ratio of majorities to minorities in the number of votes
cast, and the calibration that can be applied to the probability that the
majority has drawn the correct conclusion from the evidence observed,
have received close critical attention from a number of social scien-
tists.
41
When applied to jury decision-taking correctly the formulae would
ensure theoretically that the probability of an innocent person being exe-
cuted was no higher than the probability of drowning when travelling
on a cross-channel ferry. However, as McLean and Hewitt have pointed
out,
42
the stress laid on the key prerequisite for enlightened individu-
als to participate in the process of decision-making meant that it could
not function democratically. The dilemma posed by this lack of demo-
cratic virtue in the jury theorem was conrmed explicitly in a letter
that Condorcet wrote to Frederick the Great in 1785 in which he told
Frederick in rather obsequious terms that the happiness of the people,
who were still largely uneducated, depended more on the enlightenment
of their rulers than on the nature of the states constitutional arrangements
(i: 306).
40
Cit. McLean and Hewitt, Condorcet, pp. 323. In applying social mathematics to the legal and
philosophical areas McLean and Hewitt comment on its inappropriateness: Condorcet was subtle
mathematically, but not philosophically. He was a Platonic realist, believing in objective moral truths
(p. 32).
41
For a clear and succinct analysis of the mathematical detail of Condorcets jury theorem, particularly
with regard to the calculation of the thresholds of probability, see especially, McLean and Hewitt,
Condorcet, pp. 356. Cf. D. Black, The Theory of Committees and Elections (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1958), p. 164; B. Barry, The public interest, in A. Quinton (ed.), Political Philosophy
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 122.
42
McLean and Hewitt, Condorcet, p. 36.
Justice and the law 191
the regulati on of publi c li fe
In his relentless attack on the legacy of feudalism in the French judicial
system, arguably the most urgent of all the campaigns of the Enlightenment
philosophes, Condorcet pressed for the end of practices which undermined
public condence in the decisions of the court, weakened the authority of
the state, applied the full rigour of the penal code only to the poor and
ensured that the probability of a just verdict being reached was unacceptably
low: The only thing which gives a verdict authority, and the police force a
motive to support it, is the assumption that the soundness of the verdict is
probable. Now, by establishing one lawfor the richandone for the poor, you
expose the police on the contrary to the risk of supporting a verdict whose
unsoundness is probable (viii: 504). Condorcet questioned in particular
the legitimacy of remaining pillars of feudal justice, still protected by the
provincial assemblies, which were based on crown privileges such as rents,
seigneurial tithes on produce, seigneurial rights to the use of mills and
other facilities and equipment, perquisites of ofce, bridge and road tolls
and other forms of feudal taxation. Condorcet did not consider all these
examples to be necessarily harmful to the public good, and thought in fact
that the abolition of some anomalies might actually do more harm than
good. Most feudal legislation, however, clearly contravened natural lawand
natural rights, and merited a careful review.
43
To that end he proposed the
establishment in each province of an elected tribunal charged with detailed
re-evaluation of all feudal legislation (viii: 51012).
If the rst part of Justice et police is primarily concerned with the means
to restore justice to the French legal system, much of the second part
is concerned with the regulation of law and order. In addition to law
and order, the term police in this context also encompasses private and
communal issues relating to public safety and welfare:
It seems to us that by police we must take to mean that part of the legal system
which governs 1. the enjoyment of what we all hold in common, of what by its
very nature has no private owner; 2. the exercise of the right to property and to
liberty in those circumstances in which it does not affect the right to property or
liberty of others. (viii: 512)
By communal property, and the laws relating to this, Condorcet had in
mind here the peoples rights with regard to, for example, well-regulated
43
Condorcet does not present here a blanket condemnation of all aspects of feudal law, but among
the laws he thought could be immediately abolished without complication were, for example, the
requirement to obtain seigneurial permission to marry, the conditions attached to the purchase and
inheritance of property and the arcane laws affecting rights of ownership.
192 Condorcet and Modernity
amenities such as roads, canals, access to and maintenance of all forms of
public space. Police involved the precautions that must be taken to protect
communal well-being and security, and in this respect the laws relating to
police differed in scope and application from the laws relating to justice.
Both sought to protect the individuals natural rights, but the latter were
concerned with rights that derived from the natural order of things and
from the nature of man, while the former were more concerned with rights
arising from the nature and conditions of civil life in a social order derived
fromthe pact of association. Justice guaranteed the exercise of natural rights;
police related to the rules and conditions under which those rights were to be
enjoyed. Police would thus include, for example, measures to protect public
health arising from the poorly planned location of factories, to control the
diversion of streams and rivers affecting private property, to mitigate the
adverse effects of the demolition of buildings, and so on. The monitoring
of environmental threats to public well-being was thus as central to the
concept of police as issues of law and order and the prevention of crime:
If an activity, in itself innocent, might expose to some kind of harm, not
those engaged in it (for their lives and limbs are their own), but others who
are not doing anything dangerous, then freedomis not infringed when that
activity is banned (viii: 51314).
Public well-being, safety and the preservation of law and order were for
Condorcet aspects of the individuals right to live in a civil society gov-
erned by wise legislation. This required the state to provide as a rst step
an effective police force to prevent crime, to assist the victims of crime, to
identify the perpetrators and to bring them before the courts. Secondly, the
state was required to pass laws (prohibitions), drafted in response to need
and in the light of proven usefulness, which would ensure public safety
and public order: So you see that regulations regarding law and order are
necessary and, at the same time, that, as they tend to restrain natural liberty,
we must demonstrate and prove the need for them, if they are to be just
(viii: 514). The enforcement of law and order need not threaten individual
liberty, provided that the line of political accountability for that enforce-
ment was clear.
44
Regulations relating to law and order were the direct
responsibility of government, and their enforcement was the responsibility
of judges elected by local communities, and monitored by a police authority
also elected by the local community: A power divided in this way cannot,
under any form of constitution, injure either the rights of the nation, or
44
On the risk of the police becoming an instrument of oppression, see the Essai sur la constitution et
les fonctions des assemblees provinciales (vii: 51623); Sur letat des protestants (v: 474).
Justice and the law 193
the rights of any part of the legislative (viii: 516). The apparent tensions in
the social order between law and order provisions and the right to freedom
arose in Condorcets view mainly from ignorance of principles that might
otherwise reconcile them in ways analogous to the resolution of apparent
tensions and contradictions in the scientic world.
In practice, those tensions had not yet been fully resolved, and their
resolution would in Condorcets view require reforms in the management
of justice and police as fundamental as those he advocated for the reform of
the criminal code itself. Here, as in other areas of justice and the law, feudal
ordonnances still survived to the detriment of rights. Condorcet was also
worried by the dangers to liberty posed by the policing of the people intimes
of national emergency, when security regulations, passed provisionally to
meet a challenge to public order, tended to assume an illegal permanency.
45
Such regulations currently required the approval of provincial authorities
and of the Kings representative, but Condorcet felt that this was an insuf-
cient safeguard, and proposed that any policing laws passed in these unusual
circumstances should remain in force only for a maximum statutory period
of one month. In cases of urgent national emergency requiring extreme
security measures to be taken, Condorcet wished to see the promulga-
tion of any special policing regulations to be the direct responsibility of
the community assembly, and enforceable only for a period of a few days
(viii: 51819).
Most of Condorcets observations on the continuing subversion of jus-
tice and the rule of law in Justice et police are made in the context of urban
rather than rural life. However, in the closing part of Justice et police he
drew particular attention to the plight of rural France and the baneful
legacy of feudal legislation. The focus narrows to one specic aspect of
rural life which Condorcet uses as an illustration of the need for reform of
the law drawn from everyday life in the countryside, namely the hunting
laws and the rights and privileges retained by the land-owning aristocracy
over the lives, possessions and produce of their tenant-farmers. Reform of
the hunting laws was an example of the need on occasion, not for imme-
diate abolition of past legislation, but of the need to balance an ancient
right of the aristocracy with a new concept of rights in the name of justice
for all. Condorcet found in hunting a legitimate right that did not offend
natural law in itself, but where new legislation was needed to mitigate its
more damaging effects. The hunting laws deprived farmers of the right to
45
As with the constitution, Condorcet thought that no law should be permanent. In Sur la necessite
de faire ratier la constitution par les citoyens he suggested twenty years as being the maximum life
for laws governing the constitution before becoming subject to review (ix: 415).
194 Condorcet and Modernity
fence land, to crop grass, to work the elds at certain times of the year, not to
produce anything that might affect the taste of wild game which they were
compelled to preserve for hunting purposes. However, the case for reform
which Condorcet advances at this point is less concerned with justice and
individual rights and much more concerned with physiocratic considera-
tions relating to the modernisation of agriculture and the improvement of
the national economy.
46
As far as the individual was concerned, the case
for reform of the hunting laws was related to the need to protect the right
to property, and the right to enjoy freely the produce of property, one of
Condorcets four basic natural rights.
The narrow specicity of the issue sets this section of Justice et police
apart; to some extent it appears almost as a self-contained essay in its own
right. In fact, it enabled Condorcet to bring together themes that had
a broader relevance to the problems of regulating public order, and his
closing, summative commentary on the hunting laws, far from being a
distraction from the main lines of the preceding commentaries, brings into
sharp focus the social, economic and moral issues with which Justice et
police is concerned in general. His proposals would leave an ancient, but
in this case defendable, right intact, while resolving the problem of the
harm that right did to the rights of others, without any danger to public
order, and without having to fear the spread of a spirit of idleness, banditry
and savagery among the people (viii: 522). Justice et police offers in the
discussion of its concluding example of an ancient privilege in need of
attention from modern legislators a model of how to manage change with
minimal damage to individual freedom, and maximum advantage to the
public interest. It was an ideal which Condorcet would seek to apply in all
aspects of his thinking on the management of change.
46
The hunting laws amounted in Condorcets view to an arbitrary form of local taxation on which
he estimated the annual return to be in the region of 40 million livres, a cost to the farmers and to
the state that was increased further by the nancial burden of administering these laws, a huge loss,
particularly in the neighbourhood of the capital where land has a very high value, not to speak of
the cost of the guards who, as useless as those who guard farms, would together form a ne army,
and cost more than the highest paid soldiers (viii: 520).
chapter 8
Representative government
reform of the assembli es
Condorcets ambition to construct what he described in the Esquisse as the
edice of a society of free and equal men (vi: 72) was probably kindled
in the years following Turgots death in 1781, at a time when he was start-
ing to reect seriously on Turgots achievements, and on the lessons of his
own experience of public service during Turgots ministry. The Vie de m.
Turgot provided Condorcet with an early opportunity to set out in gen-
eral terms some of the operational principles of representative government
he admired in Turgots record of achievement as provincial intendant for
Limoges, and subsequently as Controller-General of Finance. In the brief
interval between the publication of the rst volume of his biography of
Turgot and the convocation of the Estates-General in 1789 he would work
intensively on the further renement of those principles. By 1788 he had
completed a comprehensive reassessment of ancien regime governmental
structures in a treatise, most of which was written at a time when royal
assent to a meeting of the Estates-General still seemed only a remote pos-
sibility. The treatise in question is the monumental Essai sur la constitution
et les fonctions des assemblees provinciales (Essay on the constitution and
functions of provincial assemblies), and it would be overtaken by events
almost as soon as it reached the printer. A presentation copy was sent
to Frederick II, together with an accompanying letter, dated 2 May 1785,
in which Condorcet famously declared his hatred for despotism. Despots
have harmed the cause of humanity, and their power must be opposed in
the name of human rights. At the same time, in this interesting letter he
expressed a more accommodating view of enlightened despotism, reecting
not only a need to be diplomatic when addressing the King of Prussia,
but also the distance he still had to travel in the mid-1780s on his journey
towards democracy and republicanism (i: 3058).
1
1
See also Correspondance inedite, ed. Henry, p. 145; Baker, Condorcet, p. 218.
195
196 Condorcet and Modernity
In the hastily composed Post-Scriptum Condorcet noted with some trep-
idation the implications for his freshly minted Essai of the news of the
impending, in his view dangerously premature, convocation of the Estates-
General.
2
The Essai had been conceived with a view to examining the steps
which needed to be taken in order to modify the constitution of provincial
assemblies in ways that would harmonise their activities with those of a new
National Assembly in which quality and equality of representation would
be the constitutional centrepiece.
3
The fundamental reforms required to
bring about this harmonisation of provincial and national assemblies neces-
sitated a period of cautious and judicious public reection which would
now be alarmingly curtailed:
It would have been desirable, no doubt, for the nation to have had time to inform
itself of its rights and true interests . . . A National Assembly, prepared for by a pro-
cess of public education, would just have inspired the hope of certain restoration,
and not a crisis whose outcome is uncertain. Today, we have barely a few months
to disperse the cloud of error built up by several centuries of ignorance, habit, and
prejudice, and destroy the sophisms on which private passions and interests have
based their mistakes. (viii: 656)
The Post-Scriptum is in fact a tactical preface in which Condorcet sought to
reconcile the Essai with the urgent challenge presented by the forthcoming
meeting of the Estates-General.
In the summation of the fundamental precepts with which Condorcet
believed the Third Estate must arm itself in readiness for the meeting, the
most crucial were those relating to the political implications of the rights
to freedom, to equality and to property, so overlooked by all those nations
which dare to boast of being free.
4
Legislation, old and new, must be
measured rationally and objectively against the yardstick of those implica-
tions, of which the rst was the degree to which the exercise of political
2
La Fayette had audaciously initiated a proposal to convene the Estates-General on 21 May 1787, see
M.-J. La Fayette, Memoires, correspondance, 6 vols. (Paris: Fournier, 18378), vol. ii, p. 177. On the
complexities of Condorcets position regarding the meeting, see Badinter and Badinter, Condorcet,
pp. 2512. The fact that much of the pressure for the convocation also came from the Paris Parlement
strengthened Condorcets scepticism about the prospects for success. He was always aware that
freedom had other enemies apart from absolute monarchists.
3
In general, enlightened men are honest, but you could not say that honest men are generally enlight-
ened. Choose men who combine honesty with enlightenment, but do not judge enlightenment by
honesty, and remember that it is easier to deceive people about honesty than it is to deceive themabout
enlightenment. Seek in your deputies rst honesty, then common sense, followed by enlightenment,
courage and nally zeal (ix: 255).
4
On the responsibilities of deputies with regard to rights, see the Lettres dun gentilhomme ` a messieurs
du tiers-etat (ix: 2467). Condorcet offered detailed advice on policies to be followed by the provincial
representatives at the Estates-General in the Reexions sur les pouvoirs (ix: 25781).
Representative government 197
authority served the interests only of those submitting their individual will
to it:
Man did not enter into society in order to be crushed between opposing powers,
becoming their victim in times of unity as well as dissent, but to enjoy peacefully
all his rights under one authority created specically to uphold them, and which,
with no power to infringe them, does not have to be counterbalanced by another
power . . . A declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen, drafted by
enlightened men, is the true brake on all powers, and the only one which does not
put public order or individual security at risk. (viii: 6589)
With a concluding rhetorical ourish of maxims from which to derive
a prole of the ideal representative to advance the public interest at the
Estates-General, the Essai sur la constitution et les fonctions des assemblees
provinciales was relaunched, in retrospect, as it were, through its mislead-
ingly titled Post-Scriptum.
The nine articles and two appendices that constitute the rst part of
this treatise relate directly to the processes and principles of representation,
and encapsulate Condorcets most substantial statement on the theory of
representative government, its mechanisms and its purpose. It was here also
that Condorcet set out in non-mathematical terms his theory of voting,
together with his criterion for judging voting systems, known today as the
Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives. Condorcet was not of course the
only political thinker to reect on the problem of ancien regime approaches
to representation, especially in the light of the unsatisfactory response from
Lom enie de Brienne
5
to the negative outcome of the 1787 Assembly of
Notables, called to ratify Calonnes proposals for reform.
6
The main lines
5
Brienne had proposed a modied version of Calonnes proposals that prioritised the representation
of Third Estate deputies. This was not ratied by the Third Estate deputies, and the Assembly of
Notables dispersed on 25 May 1787 as a result of the deadlock. The widely held view that Condorcet
supported the Brienne proposals enthusiastically is erroneous, despite the evidence for his support for
these proposals in the Sentiments dun republicain sur les assemblees provinciales et les Etats-Generaux
(ix: 125), see J.-P. Joubert, Condorcet et les trois ordres, in Cr epel and Gilain (eds.), Condorcet
mathematicien, pp. 3089, 310.
6
Jean-Joseph Mounier was Condorcets most prominent rival in the race to devise a new constitution,
and his roles as secretary of the July 1788 Assemblee de Vizille (source of the formal request to the King
to call the Estates-General), as founding member of the Committee of Twelve and, fromJanuary 1789,
as an elected deputy to the Estates-General itself, certainly gave him a higher public prole. Mounier
was the moving force behind the reconstitution of the Communes as a National Assembly on 17 June
1789, whose task it was to work on the constitution. The Tennis Court Oath was also stage-managed
by Mounier, but his monarchist sympathies were to prevent him from following the course of the
Revolution to its logical conclusion. With the news of Neckers exile, he started to denounce the
forces that threatened absolute royal power, and he attempted in his own draft of the bill that went
before the National Assembly in September 1789 to ensure that Louis XVIs royal powers to convene
and dissolve the Assembly were safeguarded. Mouniers bill was defeated in favour of Condorcets
198 Condorcet and Modernity
of argument in the Essai relating to the creation of provincial, city and
communal assemblies, with representatives elected by property-owners and
dispensing with the separation of orders, were drawn from a line of con-
stitutional thinking already partly envisaged in dArgensons Considerations
sur le gouvernement ancien et present de la France (composed in 1737 and
published imperfectly in 1764), developed in the 1750s by the physiocrats,
by the marquis de Mirabeau, and further rened in the Memoire sur les
municipalites by Turgot (in collaboration with Dupont de Nemours) in
1773. Condorcets seminal treatise is more rigorously argued than most
others of the period, and many of its themes and proposals would resurface
in the remarkable series of addresses and essays on constitutional reform,
and its management, that owed from Condorcets pen in the two years
following the initial appearance of the Essai.
In addition to the consideration of ways to ensure the selection of rep-
resentatives, much of the rst part of the Essai is also concerned with a
detailed elaboration of the process of enlightened decision-making to be
adopted by those representatives, and with the practicalities upon which
the truth of decisions depended.
7
The theory of voting elaborated here,
with its emphasis on the merits of majority decision-making by an enlight-
ened electorate, reects yet again the degree to which probabilistic theory
constitutes the over-arching principle behind Condorcets whole approach
to political change. Elections, procedural rules, order of deliberation, quora
and majorities, conditions of eligibility, tenure of public ofce, modalities
of public accountability, legislative constraint and responsibility, standard-
isation of the day-to-day operation of government in the provincial assem-
blies, and above all the intricacies of their relationship with the crown, are all
examined with great clarity and precision of detail, suggesting that this was
a text designed to keep the aws of Frances constitution sharply in focus.
8
Of the nine divisions of Part 1, the rst, third, fourth, fth and seventh,
dealing respectively with the conditions of the franchise, eligibility of those
standing for election as representatives, the composition of assemblies, the
proposals, and he resigned. By May 1790 Mounier had been forced into exile in Switzerland, and was
not to return to France until 1801. Napoleon appointed himPrefect in 1802. He thus left the eld clear
for Condorcet to full his role as reformer of the constitution at an early stage of the deliberations.
7
The appeal to the enlightened reader is explicit: This expression an enlightened man is understood too
often to mean a man who shares our own views, but it has a less arbitrary meaning. An enlightened
man is one who, irrespective of any of his views with which we might disagree, is acknowledged, even
by his opponents, to have a profound and extensive understanding of particular areas of knowledge,
and for having studied the principles and methods relating to them (viii: 124).
8
In the Introduction Condorcet stresses repeatedly the importance of clarity: I have done everything
I can to make the reading of this work easy . . . I have carefully avoided anything that assumes prior
knowledge; I have tried to be clear (viii: 1201).
Representative government 199
election process and the creation of a representative National Assembly, are
central to any interpretation of Condorcets programme for constitutional
regeneration, to his theory of representation and above all to his under-
standing of the political applications of the key principles of freedom and
equality, enshrined in the concept of droit de cite (right to citizenship).
9
the franchi se and the balance of representati on
While Condorcet recognised as a natural right the participation of citizens
in the formulation of the rules by which they submit their individual will
to the will of all, a participation exercised through powers of decision-
making delegated to elected representatives, the exercise of droit de cite
was subject in practice to specied conditions and exclusions, the primary
condition of eligibility being that of property-ownership, property-owners
being the only true citizens (viii: 128). Never at any point in the Essai did
Condorcet envisage the possibility of a universal franchise on any other
basis.
10
In most countries, with the notable exceptions of America and
a few small republics hidden away in the Swiss mountains, droit de cite
was constrained as a right by autocrats invested with the power of veto,
and in no country, even the most enlightened, was every citizen eligible
unconditionally to exercise this right. Minors, monks, prisoners, the insane,
foreigners, vagabonds and those whom one can legitimately suspect of
having a corrupted will (viii: 130) were rationally justiable exclusions, as
was the individual who did not own property, provided that property meant
more than just the ownership of land. Even with an appropriately exible
denition of property-ownership, Condorcet accepted that a privileged
class of citizens would be created, but it would be a recongured class,
not composed exclusively of rich landowners, which would actually reduce
inequality in some measure:
all men owning a property sufcient for their needs are in the privileged class,
and most of those fall into the wealthy category. At the same time, this privi-
leged class also includes the well-educated, and you would nd very few with no
education at all. This distinction itself creates equality between men of modest for-
tune and the great landowners and those whose wealth is in cash or investments;
thus real equality is more certain than would be the case if no distinction existed
at all. (viii: 135)
9
See also Sur la forme des elections where happiness as well as rights is seen to be the benecial
consequence of a reformed electoral system (ix: 287).
10
The disadvantages of a system based on universal franchise had already been identied in 1781 in the
Reexions sur lesclavage des n`egres (Reexions, pp. 2325). See also the Lettres dun bourgeois de New
Haven (ix: 11).
200 Condorcet and Modernity
After the Revolution, Condorcet would begin to have doubts about the
way in which the property qualication would be applied, particularly
after Si ey` es made his controversial distinction in 1789 between active and
passive citizenship.
In the case of church property, Condorcet questioned the implications
of access to the franchise by the clergy. Property destined for public use
belonged only to the citizenry in general, and in principle clergy living
in church property were enjoying a benet that fell within the orbit of
remuneration in place of a pension or fee which did not necessarily con-
fer the status of property-owner, only the enjoyment of publicly owned
premises (viii: 13940). There was, however, no question yet of the disen-
franchisement of the clergy, and Condorcet saw in 1788 no inconvenience
in allowing clergy, or other representatives of public bodies with territorial
possessions, to exercise the vote, provided that they all enjoyed that right
only as the current stewards of a public property whose ownership belonged
to the public alone. Their interest did not entirely coincide with that of
property-owners, but Condorcet thought that the dangers of conict were
minimal, as long as those enjoying such benets did not regard them as
personal property, or as property protected by privilege.
An electoral system which denied the franchise to citizens who did not
belong to the property-owning class did not necessarily cause injustice since
Condorcet envisaged the basis of the systemto be a reectionof that broadly
recognised communality of civic interest inherent in the pact of association,
whereby the interests of the property-owning and non-property-owning
classes were made to interlock. Acceptance of communality of interest
between the two classes was dependent, however, on the existence of a sys-
tem of representatives that would ensure the election of deputies of high
political and moral calibre. This was a crucial caveat, and Condorcet com-
mented at great length on the qualities needed by deputies in the light of
their primary role as protectors of the public interest. A property-based suf-
frage that depended on a differentiation between either men and women,
11
or between different types of property, was an absurdity sustained only by
the inertia of tradition, and equalled in absurdity only by differentiation
11
In the Essai, as elsewhere, Condorcet rejected surviving feudal practice that prevented women from
exercising their rights to direct and indirect suffrage, and also fromholding public ofce, anexclusion
contrary to justice, though authorised by more or less general practice. The reasons why it is thought
necessary to keep them out of public ofce, reasons moreover which could be easily destroyed,
cannot justify depriving them of a right that would be easy for them to exercise, and which men
enjoy, not because they are men, but because of their merits as reasonable, sensitive human beings,
qualities which they share with women (viii: 141). Under current legislation for representation in the
provincial assemblies, female owners of seigneuries could enjoy the benets of the franchise indirectly
through representatives, whereas female owners of propriete territoriale had no such right.
Representative government 201
based on privilege. While the same inertia ensured that some citizens were
disadvantaged with regard to the franchise, it ensured that others, such
as monks, with their right, not only to vote, but also to be deputies,
12
were unjustiably privileged. In accepting property-ownership as the key
qualication for suffrage in the Essai, and in other statements prior to the
Revolution, such as those contained in the New Haven letters, Condorcet
was following in the steps of Turgot and the physiocrats: In advanced coun-
tries, territory makes the state. Thus property is what must make citizens
(ix: 12).
Fromthe clarication of conditions of eligibility to exercise the franchise
in the choice of representatives to an elected assembly, Condorcet turned
in articles 3 and 4 to the issue of eligibility to stand for election to assem-
blies, and also to public ofce, the qualications needed in representatives
(literacy, for example), the problem of ensuring an appropriate balance of
representation of interests between the orders, and the timing of elections.
13
Most of article 3 is in fact devoted to an examination of the role in assem-
blies of orders, and the vexing auxiliary issues arising from the allocation
of seats in accordance with the privileges of inherited rank. Condorcet saw
in this arrangement only a device to introduce into assemblies representa-
tives whose interests lay principally in the protection of their position, and
whose presence was thus diametrically opposed to the interests of electors.
A pattern of representation based on orders institutionalised inequality in
the civil order, and as such was a clear affront to healthy politics. Reforms
under consideration to allocate a xed number of seats to each order sim-
ply to prevent over-representation of the two upper orders would not be
needed, in Condorcets view, once a reformed franchise was in place: What
does it matter if men from the upper classes have all the seats, if they have
them only because citizens from all classes think that they deserve to have
12
On this point Condorcet differentiated monks fromecclesiastiques, the latter being isolated individu-
als, and the former always a corps. Monks were disqualied on educational grounds: The expertise
required in really useful assembly members is incompatible with the position and education of
monks. So far we have had more good books on philosophy from the cloisters than good books on
politics (viii: 142).
13
In Section 4 of Sur la forme des elections, Condorcet commented on the timing of the interval between
choosing electors and the actual election of representatives. Correct timing of these separate processes
would prevent corruption and intrigue (ix: 2901). In Section 5 he also stressed the importance of
ensuring that holders of public ofce were not themselves eligible for election (ix: 2912). Condorcet
was later to attack the decrees relating to taxation that restricted eligibility to vote in an address to
the National Assembly given on 5 June 1790, Sur les conditions deligibilite (x: 8791). He would
object in particular to the way in which the proposed conditions would exclude enlightened persons
who were not rich. In the Lettre sur le marc dargent, published in the Patriote franc ais on 14 August
1791 he dened the minimum amount of taxation to qualify an individual as citoyen actif as being
the equivalent of a direct tax on three days work (BIF Condorcet MS 861, ff. 3913). Cf. Cahen,
Condorcet, pp. 2679.
202 Condorcet and Modernity
their condence ? (viii: 154). The talent and honesty of representatives mat-
tered more than birth and a nominally egalitarian redistribution of seats to
the orders: We want a man able to understand and defend our interests,
and nobody is stupid enough to be unaware of how much weight is given
to opinions and proceedings by the birth, wealth and personal integrity
of representatives. Condorcets 1788 proposals on the place of the aristoc-
racy in a reformed system of representation was by no means hostile, his
defence being based on the viewthat seats in an assembly not lled through
elections, whether occupied by aristocrats, clergy or Third Estate, always
threatened the peoples interests.
14
Only by opening all assembly seats to
the electoral process, and thereby to the discipline of public accountability,
could that threat be lifted. On this point Condorcet was very conscious of
the English electoral vice (viii: 157 n. 1),
15
but concluded that the decien-
cies of the English system derived from the way in which elections were
organised, rather than from the fact that all Parliamentary seats were lled
by elected members.
After examining at some length the history of the representation of the
three orders in the provincial assemblies on the basis of a xed allocation
of seats, Condorcet returned to his defence of aristocratic representation
sanctioned by public approval through elections rather than royal preroga-
tive.
16
The advantages of rank and wealth would not be entirely neutralised,
14
Condorcet dened what he meant by peuple in a note in the Reexions sur ce qui a ete fait, et sur ce qui
reste ` a faire: The correct meaning of the word people means the totality of citizens having no public
duties and no ofcial titles. In a broader sense, it means the same totality, less a more numerous,
separate class of people. Thus the word people means those who are not nobles in a country with a
privileged nobility; it means ordinary citizens in a country where equality reigns; it means people
who are not senators in a country with a hereditary senate, and it also means everywhere that class
of citizens deprived of the advantages of education, and of the possibility of becoming enlightened
(ix: 446 n. 1).
15
If there resulted, from the need to enfranchise the people, a real [system of] dependency, as in
England, where the seats of the nations representatives are allocated directly by men who can have
no understanding of either the functions or the duties of those representatives, where the importance
of those seats obliges people to buy themwithbase, demeaning behaviour, andat extravagant expense,
then we would no doubt be right to feel wounded by this servitude, out of patriotism more than
vanity (viii: 156). In Sur la forme des elections Condorcet commented that English voters had no other
wish but to please and obey in a system driven by sophistry and self-interest, reected particularly
in the sale of votes (ix: 32930). See also Sur le choix des ministres (x: 623) on the problems in
the House of Commons and the factional degradation of English political life. Condorcet did not
see the merits of an adversarial, two-party system in the light of the true purpose of constitutional
government which was, in his view, to ensure agreement rather than conict between opposing
groups. The retention of the East India Bill seemed to be a good example of the way in which such
a system protected abuse with regard to the nomination of ministers. Cf. Sur letendue des pouvoirs
de lAssemblee nationale (x: 33).
16
In the Fragment de lAtlantide Condorcet again stressed the link between high quality of represen-
tation, a good electoral system and an educated citizenry (vi: 6012). The deciencies in deputies,
to which electors should be alerted, are listed in the Lettres dun gentilhomme ` a messieurs du tiers-etat
(ix: 2559).
Representative government 203
but this did not necessarily lead to venal self-interest. In 1788 Condorcet
saw in fact no reason to exclude the nobility from assemblies, for to do so
would simply deprive the state of the personal and professional contribu-
tions of a well-educated section of the population (viii: 163).
17
Until the day
of universal education and enlightenment dawned, it was in the national
interest for aristocratic representatives to be absorbed into a unicameral,
wholly elected assembly regulated by sane legislation.
18
Condorcets posi-
tion on representation in 1788 was therefore that an assembly, in which
the number of seats for each order was recalculated, and in which seats
continued to be allocated by order, might redress the mathematical balance
of aristocratic representation, but would not necessarily advance the inter-
ests of the Third Estate. The resulting numerical supremacy of the Third
Estate would, on the contrary, actually work against Third Estate interests,
the Third Estate being composed necessarily of men of lower standing.
19
Limiting the number of aristocratic representatives, but concentrating their
presence in an exclusively dened block of seats, would only reinforce a
sense of class solidarity, and ensure the connement of aristocratic talent
and energy to the advancement of class interests. This would necessarily
distort the balance of real power exercised in the conduct of assembly busi-
ness. By abandoning the traditional pattern of representation by orders,
natural and acquired inequalities of talent would be minimised. Moreover,
aristocratic representatives, chosen for their personal qualities rather than
imposed on the asssembly by virtue of their rank, would not be disdavan-
taged in a more stabilised forum in which their number was restricted only
by the outcome of elections to all assembly seats (viii: 1645). An elected
17
Condorcet was less sympathetic to the cause of aristocratic representation after the terms for the
convocation of the Estates-General had been announced.
18
On the merits of unicameral systems of government, see also the 1789 Examen sur cette question: Est-il
utile de diviser une assemblee nationale en plusieurs chambres? Condorcet had little faith in defences of
bicameral systems based on the theory that the second chamber offered protection from error and
corruption in the rst chamber (ix: 34550), although he did see some merit in the second chambers
right to veto, depending on how the chamber was composed. If the second chamber in England, for
example, was composed of members such as Locke, Hume, Smith and Price, then its role could be
justiedas a check onthe theoretically limitless power of a single chamber. However, while Condorcet
acknowledged this danger in the unicameral system, he thought that it could be minimised by the
acceptance of a new constitution guaranteeing a Declaration of Rights monitored by the provincial
assemblies. The unicameral system ensured that all deputies received the same information, and
understood the full context of deliberations. Above all, it prevented vested interests consolidating as
inuential pressure-groups. Condorcet commented further on the workings of the bicameral system
in England in the Reexions sur la Revolution de 1688 et sur celle du 10 ao ut 1792 (xii: 20910). His
hostility to bicameral government ran directly counter to the views of monarchists such as Mounier,
Malouet, Lally-Tollendal and Clermont-Tonnerre.
19
In Section 9 of Sur la forme des elections Condorcet emphasised the role of higher enlightenment in
the process of election (ix: 298). The construction of a system that would permit electors to assess
judiciously the merits of candidates is also discussed in Section 12. On the inequality of talent, see
also the Eloge de Bernoulli (ii: 5778).
204 Condorcet and Modernity
assembly would mean that the quality of representatives, including aristo-
cratic representatives, would rise as a result of increased competition for
seats.
On the question of exclusion from assemblies of public ofce-holders
or members of certain professions, Condorcet was again concerned to
ensure that quality of representation would not be adversely affected, and
that assembly duties would not take representatives away from duties that
requiredtheir physical presence elsewhere, or whichwere incompatible with
representation of the people. He had in mind the case of parish priests, sol-
diers and magistrates, because assemblies, whose purpose is to be useful
to the common cause, must not start off by providing different classes of
the nation with an example of that contempt for their everyday duties and
activities which is one of those faults which, while not being unique to the
French, the French take further than other people (viii: 171). The need
to reconcile the demands of private interests, public duties and assembly
responsibilities in establishing the rules for inclusion and exclusion from
assemblies was important, but Condorcet did not wish to see the principle
of exclusion extended too far, as in the case of America where all ministers
of religion were excluded from Congress, or of the Republic of B ale where
the rules of exclusion affected the University: I think that we must never
consider this procedure. The only spirit which must inspire any represen-
tative assembly is the public spirit, and we must work on the assumption
that no profession is incapable of inspiring a spirit entirely opposed to that
(viii: 173). Condorcets proposals on representation ran directly counter to
those advanced in the same year by Si ey` es in Quest-ce que le tiers etat? It
was in the interest of the people, though not of the privileged ranks, to
resist proposals simply to transfer the advantages of a system of reserved
(i.e. non-elected) places to the Third Estate on the illusory assumption
that aristocratic representatives were sui generis corrupt and incapable of
transcending their class interests.
Condorcet also cast doubt on the principle of differing nancial criteria
for assembly membership. The only possible justication for such criteria,
the effect of which was to restrict certain seats to the wealthy, would be
the wish to limit the choice of candidates to those whose privileged educa-
tional background would in theory ensure an enlightened and nancially
disinterested approach to their responsibilities. In practice, Condorcet felt
that this would be more securely achieved by establishing a single, modest
threshold of nancial eligibility both to exercise the franchise as well as
actually to become a representative, this minimal threshold to be based
simply on ownership of a property sufcient for their needs. Moreover,
Representative government 205
while great wealth could assure the privileged of an education, it could not
guarantee that they would receive a good education. Still less convincing
was the viewthat great wealth made a representative less vulnerable to venal
temptation: A poor but honest man cannot be corrupted, but a rich rascal
is not sheltered from seduction (viii: 175).
On the composition and modalities of provincial assemblies Condorcet
offered detailed but simple proposals.
20
In his scheme each provincial
assembly would have two orders of membership in the form of deputies
and ofcers. Whatever the actual number of deputies agreed to, it should
be divisible by three, so that over and above natural attrition caused by res-
ignation, retirement or death, a third of the membership would be replaced
each year.
21
Condorcet was anxious to ensure that assembly rules would pre-
vent excessive length of membership for deputies and unreasonably long
tenure of ofce in the case of ofce-holders, perpetuity, as elsewhere in
political life, being potentially harmful to the public interest.
22
The math-
ematics determining tenure of representation and ofce-holding, together
with a denition of the functions of specied ofcials, were separately
calculated for the three different levels of assembly in question, namely
district, provincial and community. The general principles underpinning
these provisions were explicitly articulated: the establishment of maximum
constitutional equality between deputies; the restriction of the allegiance
of representatives to the requirements of law and reason, not class inter-
est; the eradication of private interest; the primacy of the public interest
in all affairs of state. The practicality of Condorcets proposals depended
upon the integrity of the whole process being protected by legislation, the
political virtues of direct and indirect levels of suffrage and representa-
tion being further reinforced by the application of the calculus to voting
procedures.
23
It was in the context of elections to primary assemblies at district level
that Condorcet stressed the crucial link between quality of representation
and the peoples awareness of their political responsibilities: Thus the
20
See also the comments on composition in Sur la forme des elections (ix: 2948, 31018). Condorcet
returned to the need for simplicity in procedures in Section 18.
21
Of the representatives due for re-electionor replacement, those who gained the votes of three-quarters
of the assembly would be assured of a three-year term.
22
In the Lettres dun bourgeois de New Haven Condorcet settled on two years as the ideal length of
tenure (ix: 22).
23
Condorcet elaborated his theory of elections in 1789 in Sur la forme des elections, and again in 1792 in
the Fragment sur les elections. Cf. the 1785 Essai sur lapplication de lanalyse ` a la probabilite des decisions
rendues ` a la pluralite des voix. On the sensitive issue of the responsibility of deputies in the National
Assembly for the promotion of the interests of their departements, see the Lettres dun gentilhomme
` a messieurs du tiers-etat (ix: 24659).
206 Condorcet and Modernity
maintenance of a free and just representation depends on the people them-
selves, on those with a stake in it, and the law must take precautions against
the negligence of landowners, and against the ways in which they can
become victims of corruption (viii: 185).
24
Freedom as a working political
principle was achievable only through reform of the primary assemblies,
where the performance of representatives could be monitored most effec-
tively by voters, and the liberating experience of communal participation
in the exercise of government could be realised to some degree: In short,
it is the primary assemblies which truly represent a body of citizens large
enough to make all sectional or local interests fade before the general inter-
ests of humanity (viii: 186). The primary assemblies were allocated an
unprecedented role by Condorcet, reecting a view of political power as
a force that owed de bas en haut rather than in the reverse direction. On
this point he parted company explicitly in 1788 with Montesquieu on the
destabilising dangers of this relocation of power to monarchical systems,
and was prepared to set aside Montesquieus checks and balances approach
to the role of sectional and class interests in the civil order. Montesquieu,
in Condorcets view, was too concerned with nding reasons for the status
quo, rather than reasons for what should be. The interests of the nation
did not in fact coincide with the voice of self-interest of a few classes who
unfortunately have the right to make themselves heard. The governance
of a just society by enlightened, high-quality representatives would require
an engagement of the public will in the mechanisms of governance. This
could only be realised through a radical restructuring of assembly com-
position and electoral procedures, necessitating in turn the neutralisation
of the traditional interplay of interests between the three orders, and also
between the orders and the monarch.
a theory of voti ng
Condorcet concentrated in article 5 on the problem of eliminating error in
the expression and interpretation of the peoples will with regard to the elec-
tion of representatives, and on the implications of probability theory and in
particular social choice theory for the renement of decision-making. This
is arguably for social scientists the most interesting and important part of
the Essai.
25
Condorcets preference was for a system that required deputies
24
Condorcet stressed frequently the need for government to work with the grain of the peoples
wishes and motivations, the duty of government being essentially to facilitate the aspirations of an
enlightened people.
25
Black comments on the failure of mathematicians to understand the Essai (p. 162), but see also
McLean and Hewitt on the reactions to the mathematics of Condorcets voting theory by Lhuillier,
Representative government 207
to register their votes formally and condentially with the use of billets
rather than by open acclamation in order to ensure that views could be
expressed in cold silence without votes being inuenced by the pressure of
other deputies. This would produce a more accurately established result.
26
Condorcet pays particular attention to specic applications of majority vot-
ing to the framing of motions, the complexities of quorumconventions and
the order of assembly business.
27
That Condorcets thinking on the power
of majorities, and the pre-eminence of the common interest as determined
by those majorities, here and elsewhere in his socio-mathematical writings,
reects an element of anti-individualism, has been rightly pointed out by
some modern commentators.
28
As in the case of the jury theorem, the mathematical explanation of
inverse probability that underpins Condorcets theory of voting in the wider
constitutional context is not to be found in this treatise but rather in the
1785 Essai sur lapplication de lanalyse ` a la probabilite des decisions rendues ` a la
pluralite des voix.
29
It is mainly to the Essai, a ground-breaking investigation
into the relationship between voting procedures and collective outcomes,
that Condorcet owes his modern standing as the founder of social choice.
30
His theory of voting and political decision-making constitutes one of the
Morales and Daunou (Condorcet, pp. 4954). The mathematics were not claried until the 1980s (by
Michaud and Young). Condorcet returned to the issue of majorities, and the problem of whether
majorities are always necessarily right, in the ninth epoque of the Esquisse (vi: 1757). The issue
resurfaced in Des conventions nationales, a speech given to the Societe des Amis de la Verite on 1 April
1791 in which he reviewed the position of minorities in the National Convention (x: 1967). On the
issue of the constitutional protection of minorities, see Dippel, Projeter le monde moderne, 116.
26
See also Sur la forme des elections where Condorcet reasserted the main purpose of elections, namely
to ensure that the will of the majority is manifested, and that votes are cast only in accordance with
reason and conscience (ix: 330). On the testing of the public will by means of voting in assemblies,
see also the commentary to article 42 of Sur les moyens de traiter les protestants franc ais comme des
hommes, sans nuire ` a la religion catholique (v: 5212). Condorcet discusses the implications for the
rights of minorities, e.g. the rights of women and children, arising frommajority-vote decisions in the
Dissertation philosophique et politique, ou Reexions sur cette question: Sil est utile aux hommes detre
trompes? (v: 34950). In these proposals relating to electoral procedures, conditions of eligibility
and quorum issues, Condorcet paid homage to Turgots Recherches historiques et politiques sur les
Etats-Unis de lAmerique septentrionale.
27
Cf. Examen sur cette question: Est-il utile de diviser une assemblee nationale en plusieurs chambres?
(ix: 3378).
28
See, for example, G.-T. Guilbaud, Les th eories de lint er et g en eral et le probl` eme logique de
lagr egation, Economie appliquee 5 (1952), 50184; Dippel, Projeter le monde moderne, 166;
Rothschild, on the other hand, takes another view: The best decision procedures or the ones
that are in some sense natural are for Condorcet those that correspond to the decision-making of
a single individual. The individual weighs up different grounds for choice, he discovers newgrounds,
he changes his mind, he tries to be as scrupulous as he can (Economic Sentiments, p. 205).
29
By probability of decisions, Condorcet meant the probability that a decision is correct. The phrase
belongs squarely to Condorcets era of probabilistic reasoning (McLean and Hewit, Condorcet, p. 35).
References are to the facsimile reproduction of the Essai (New York, Chelsea Publishing Co., 1972).
30
McLean and Urken, Did Jefferson or Madison understand Condorcets theory of social choice?,
445.
208 Condorcet and Modernity
most sustained elements to be found in the whole corpus of his writings,
and as late as 1793 he noted in Sur les elections that he had still not completed
his work on the theory and on the problems of public policy which arose
from it (xii: 639). The mathematical nature of his theory reected a con-
viction that the moral and political sciences were as open to mathematical
reasoning as were the physical sciences. In this remarkable and substantial
treatise, dedicated to Turgot, he sought to resolve the problem of control
over a series of numeric variables. In the context of a legislative assem-
bly these variables relate to the number of members of the assembly and
the majority needed for decisions to be taken on the one hand, and what
Kavanagh has called the psychological probability that rational individu-
als will arrive at a just decision with adjustments in one set of variables
compensating for deciencies in the other.
31
The general principles behind
the application of the calculus of probabilities to the social and political
sciences would be readdressed in 1793 in the Tableau general de la science qui
a pour objet lapplication du calcul aux sciences politiques et morales. As in the
jury theorem, the key consideration is not the size of the electorate, or the
proportion of electorate size to majority size, but rather the absolute size of
the majority. In authenticating the general will, which is the primary object
of Condorcets voting theory, modern commentators have drawn attention
to the differences between Condorcet and his more illustrious predecessor
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the theory of the general will that was set out
in Du contrat social (Book 4, ch. 2) almost three decades earlier.
32
While
Condorcet was reticent about his debt to Rousseau, it is almost certain that
Rousseau loomed large in his thinking.
33
McLean and Hewitt rightly stress
the crucial importance of understanding that the probability that a voters
opinion is correct postulated by Condorcet relates to judgements rather
than interests: Aggregating individual judgements to a social judgement is
another matter entirely, and both Rousseau and Condorcet are clear that
that is their subject.
34
Condorcet claries his understanding of the role
of voting procedures in ascertaining the general will in Sur les assemblees
31
Kavanagh, Chance and probability, 16. Kavanagh claries some of the social and political implica-
tions of the calculus of probabilities in a more modern context with regard particularly to the work
of Emile Borel and Adolphe Quetelet.
32
McLean and Hewitt, Condorcet, pp. 378; Kavanagh, Chance and probability, 16.
33
With regard to Rousseaus inuence in this context, see also B. Grofman and S. Feld, La volont e
g en erale de Rousseau: une perspective condorc etienne, in Cr epel and Gilain (eds.), Condorcet
mathematicien, pp. 1016.
34
McLean and Hewitt, Condorcet, p. 38. See also Black, The Theory of Committees, p. 163; K. J.
Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values (New York and London: Wiley, Chapman and Hall, 1951;
repr. 1963), pp. 936; P. Jones, Intense preferences, strong beliefs and democratic decision-making,
Political Studies 36 (1988), 729.
Representative government 209
provinciales (viii: 601) where it becomes clear that he means that the out-
come of voting should be the revelation of an opinion which corresponds
as closely as possible to the opinions of individuals who must themselves
of course be educated and hence enlightened. This is not the Rousseauist
position, although the general framework of Rousseaus discussion of the
general will in Du contrat social is clearly relevant to Condorcets subsequent
elucidation of the theory.
35
The extension of the jury theorem, set out at length in the Discours
preliminaire to the Essai, to the broader question of collective decision-
making rules involving more than two alternatives presented Condorcet
with a more complex problem. His solution involved a method of ranking
the options, and would result in a methodology that combined a theory
of social choice with probability mathematics whose revolutionary impli-
cations have only recently been teased out by social scientists.
36
A rank
order count system had already been mapped out by Jean-Charles Borda
in his Memoire sur les elections au scrutin of 1784,
37
and in the Discours
preliminaire of the Essai sur lapplication de lanalyse Condorcet discusses
Bordas system of evaluating the votes given to candidates in accordance
with their ranking positions. Giving Borda due credit for his system,
Condorcet thought that it had the merits of clarity and avoided the conven-
tional plurality methods drawback of presenting as the plurality decision
an opinion which was in fact contrary to it (Essai, pp. clxivclxxix).
However, Bordas systemwas not entirely satisfactory, and could result in
preference being given to a candidate whose probability of merit is below
that of another. In article 5 of the Essai sur la constitution et les fonctions
des assemblees provinciales Condorcet restates the problem and its associated
paradoxes in these terms:
What does it actually mean to be elected? Is it not to be judged preferable to ones
competitors? Why make that judgement dependent on the view of the majority?
It is because we think that a proposition declared valid by fteen people has a
higher degree of probability than a contrary judgement declared valid by only ten.
Thus, in an election the person who really represents the will of the majority must
be the one whose superiority over his competitors is the most probable, and is
consequently the one who gains a majority vote higher than any of the others.
Now, it is possible, with only three candidates, that one of them will have more
35
On this point see Arrow, Social Choice, pp. 816; Rothschild, Economic Sentiments, pp. 1834.
36
Urkens work has been particularly illuminating, see The CondorcetJefferson connection. With
regard to the mathematical aspects, McLean and Urken draw attention to Condorcets debt to Jacob
Bernoullis Ars conjectandi (Did Jefferson and Madison understand Condorcets theory of social
choice?, 445).
37
An English translation of this text can be found in McLean and Hewitt, Condorcet, pp. 11419.
210 Condorcet and Modernity
votes than either of the other two, but that one of the latter, even the one with the
fewest votes, is considered in reality to be superior to the other two. This seems
paradoxical, but you will have the feeling that it could be true if you reect on
the fact that a person voting for one of the candidates is certainly making known
that he believes that candidate to be superior to either of the others, but he is not
making known his view on their respective merits, that at this point his judgement
is incomplete, and that in order to know the true will on the matter, it is necessary
to complete that judgement. (viii: 1934)
The dilemma crystallises in the case of three candidates A, B and C
ranked by ve electorates of differing size, giving an order in which each
voters preferences between each pair of candidates can be inferred result-
ing in a win for C as the candidate scoring the largest total number of
votes and a clear loser in third place of candidate A.
38
Modern analyses
of Condorcets application of the formulae of mathematical probability to
the three-candidate electoral model have shown, however, how the values
assigned to the component elements in the formulae of probability could
lead to an irrational outcome.
39
Condorcet recognised the dilemma in the
Essai sur lapplication de lanalyse where he considers the example of an
election in which three candidates present themselves (pp. lvilxx). For
the solution he had to move away from probabilism. Rationality could be
restored with the elimination of the candidate with the greatest plurality
of votes cast against him. Thus candidate A would be seen as an irrelevant
alternative to be dispensed with in any comparative calculations relating
to the voting outcome for candidates B and C. Condorcet claried further
the criterion of Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives in 1788 in two
appended notes to the Essai sur la constitution et les fonctions des assemblees
provinciales, subtitled respectively Sur la mani` ere de connatre le vu de la
pluralit e dans les elections (viii: 55978) and Sur la forme des d elib erations
prises ` a la pluralit e des voix (viii: 578608).
40
With the calculus of probabilities nowenriched by requirements of sim-
ple reason, the way was now open for Condorcet to address the problem
of cycles in voting patterns. In the Discours preliminaire of the Essai sur
lapplication de lanalyse he had recognised that cycles in the pattern of
voter preferences were dangerous to democracy, undermined the general
38
The statistical basis to the three-candidate model, and an analysis of outcomes, is set out by McLean
and Hewitt, Condorcet, pp. 3940.
39
See Black, The Theory of Committees, pp. 16971; H. P. Young, Condorcets theory of voting,
American Political Science Review 82 (1988), 1238.
40
It should be noted that Condorcet prefers the term plurality to the term majority (rarely used).
On this point, see Sommerlad and McLean, The Political Theory of Condorcet, 1 (1989), p. xiii.
Representative government 211
will and threatened the integrity of the decision-making process. The prob-
lem was acute in cases where more than three candidates were presented
to an electorate rendering the principle of Independence of Irrelevant
Alternatives inapplicable. Young has expounded convincingly the formu-
lae that Condorcet evolved to break the problem of cycles by showing how
Condorcets ranking rule evolved into a maximum likelihood rule agree-
ing the maximum number of pair-wise votes, summed over all pairs of
candidates.
41
In the rst mathematical appendix to the Essai sur la con-
stitution et les fonctions des assemblees provinciales Condorcets elucidation
of the principle of Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives is restated in
more coherent terms than previously, this time in the context of the three
candidate contest between Pierre, Paul and Jacques and six electorates
of varying numbers. After reviewing critically the awed outcomes of plu-
rality voting and voting by successive elimination, as well as the score
value system advocated by Borda, he then proceeds to demonstrate the
advantages of the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives condition over
systems based on traditional plurality voting procedures, and more recently
on Bordas ranking system: The conventional method is deceptive because
you make an abstract generalisation of what should be counted; the new
method is deceptive because you give consideration to judgements which
should not be counted (viii: 570). Voting outcome judgements between
Paul and Jacques are irrelevant to the evaluation of the outcome between
Paul and Pierre, and here Condorcet rejected Bordas view of the relevance
of the full ranking order to comparisons between any two of the three
candidates. Interestingly, Condorcets argument now omits reference to
probability; it pertains entirely to social choice. The differing Borda and
Condorcet approaches to voting procedures still fuel erce debate among
social scientists today.
42
The Essai sur la constitution et les fonctions des assemblees provinciales
(see especially article 5) contains the essence of Condorcets voting the-
ory expressed in non-technical terms. Its scientic rationale is embedded
in the Essai sur lapplication de lanalyse and also in the two mathemati-
cal appendices attached to the Essai sur la constitution et les fonctions des
assemblees provinciales referred to above, and modern interpretations of this
aspect of Condorcets thinking on representative government have sought
41
Young, Condorcets theory of voting, 1236. A ranking rule is not to be confused with a choice rule,
the former producing the best rank-order of candidates and the latter a winner, see McLean and
Hewitt on the implications of this differenciation (Condorcet, p. 42).
42
On the modern debate see Arrow, Social Choice; M. Dummett, Voting Procedures (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1984); and R. Sugden, The Political Economy of Public Choice (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1981).
212 Condorcet and Modernity
to integrate these coterminous texts more coherently. Later renements to
the rationale behind Condorcets voting theory, and his thoughts on the
practicalities involved, including his remarkable anticipation of the advent
of arithmetical machines to facilitate the computation of votes in the
Tableau general de la science, are to be found in Sur la forme des elections
(1789), Sur les elections (1793) and the preamble to the Plan de constitution
(1793).
from estates- general to nati onal assembly
Articles 7 and 8 of the Essai sur la constitution et les fonctions des assemblees
provinciales raise the crucial question of a modern National Assembly with
all its implications for ancien regime governmental practices.
43
In both sec-
tions the key points of the previous six are consolidated as fundamental
principles of political management which Condorcet was to revisit fre-
quently in later years. The preconditions of legitimacy for such an Assem-
bly are articulated in article 7 in uncompromising terms,
44
the opening list
of desiderata exposing starkly the inadequacies of the forthcoming, and for
Condorcet unwelcome, meeting of the Estates-General:
Even if there existed a National Assembly which could be regarded as being truly
constitutional, in other words [a National Assembly] which had received that
public or tacit approval of the nation which alone allows it to deserve that title, if
that constitution seemed to be faulty, if it was necessary to change it, reform it, or
at least confront issues, which might cause a section of the citizenry to lose faith in
it, with the authority of a new vote of condence, an assembly of representatives,
convened for the purpose of deciding on that change, would have the legitimate
power to do so, provided that its members had been elected with the specic
intention of charging them with that function, and provided that no civil rights
had been infringed by any inequality in the way in which their representatives had
been elected, or in the form of representation. (viii: 222)
The issue of consent for a National Assembly was critical, and Condorcet
made the political reality of that consent dependent on two linked condi-
tions: rst, that a National Assembly should meet with relative frequency
43
On the American example, see the Eloge de Franklin (iii: 399400). Condorcet returned to the
essential role of a National Assembly in a healthy constitution on 7 August 1791 in the Discours sur les
conventions nationales, a speech given to the Amis de la Constitution (x: 191206). Here he discussed
also how the peoples right to demand the convocation of National Assemblies ensured vigilance
against political abuse.
44
Condorcet returned to the question of the authority of a National Assembly in the Examen sur cette
question: Est-il utile de diviser une assemblee nationale en plusieurs chambres? where he examined more
closely the bases for popular condence in the decisions of such an assembly (ix: 33544).
Representative government 213
so that each citizen qualied to exercise the franchise had the opportunity
to make a judgement on the Assemblys record, and secondly that public
approval or disapproval of that record should be freely expressed.
45
Condorcets proposals for the replacement of the Estates-General with
a new National Assembly were informed by two over-arching principles:
the formal assurance of legitimacy for any new constitutional modica-
tions, and the unqualied right of the people to revise the whole frame-
work, as well as the individual terms, of the constitution.
46
Condorcet was
deeply suspicious of any constitutional arrangement which, by virtue of
its establishment, asserted claims to permanency. Constitutions must have
the capacity for self-renewal and evolution in response to the dynamics
of progress and enlightenment, and Condorcet was convinced that if the
new Assembly did not have that capacity then future generations would be
condemned to suffer indenitely the accumulating consequences of aws
unintentionally, but fatally, embedded in the constitution by its founders,
a principle as contrary to the natural rights of men as it is dangerous in its
consequences, since it means giving representatives absolute authority over
those they represent, and at the same time making a sectional interest the
judge of its own case (viii: 224). It was therefore essential for citizenship in
the modern age to be a concept that integrated the spirit of constitutional
respect with the spirit of constitutional change: Todays legislators are just
men who think only to give their fellow men, their equals, laws that are as
transitory as they are (ix: 375).
For the legitimacy of a National Assembly to be realised, Condorcet
referred the reader back to the discussion in article 1 relating to the free
choice of representatives, nominated by a property-owning electorate under
a formally regulated system in which exclusions relating to age, sanity, civil
status, etc., were precisely dened and rationally justiable,
47
and in which
the balance of representation between the orders was corrected in the inter-
ests of quality and equality. The purpose of a National Assembly would
be to know the will of the nation. Reviewing the history of the Estates-
General, Condorcet noted that since the reign of Philippe-le-Bel no formal
constitution had ever been exposed to the will of the people, and that
45
The question of the frequency of meetings of assemblies, and the need to consult the people on
when to convene, would arise again in 1791 in Condorcets other great essay on social choice, the
Lettres dun bourgeois de New Haven. Here Condorcet commented positively on the role of referenda
in the democratic process (ix: 30). Cf. Reexions sur les pouvoirs (ix: 2801).
46
On the problemof forming newconstitutions see the Lettres dun gentilhomme ` a messieurs du tiers-etat
(ix: 2235).
47
On the question of exclusions (see also above, pp. 1612, 199, 204), Condorcet now added to the list
those whom one could legitimately suspect of having a corrupted will (viii: 130).
214 Condorcet and Modernity
therefore legitimacy grounded in consent had never been a feature of the
Estates-General. The way forward was to devise such a constitution built
on a revised system of representation involving, as in the case of provincial
assemblies, a radical redenition of the qualications to exercise the fran-
chise, a carefully calculated process of direct nomination of candidates to a
unicameral assembly, in which all seats would be lled by election, with no
division of representation between orders. Articles 7 and 8 contained the
seeds of a revolutionary reconguration of political life in which principles
of universality, equality and consent would replace feudal privilege, tradi-
tion and the personal authority of the monarch as the driving force in the
machinery of representation, and in that of government itself:
While it does not take effect immediately, this [system of] representation is
nonetheless real and legitimate; the will which declares representatives to be elected
emanates from the universality of the citizenry in a systematic way. Mandated by
citizens, and charged by them to choose their representatives, these electors carry
out their functions, have the right to have a vote, and to form a will. (viii: 2278)
Representation in the form of three formally separate orders had its
historical origins, inCondorcets view, inthe impositionof the will of victors
over the conquered, consolidated subsequently by the churchs arrogation
to itself of secular prerogatives and politico-judicial authority in times of
ignorance and superstition. Separate orders had generated a belief in the
separation of rights, a belief that for Condorcet explained in part the lack
of unity and purpose in the defence of the common cause characteristic
of ancien regime provincial assemblies. Modernity required uniformity and
universality of rights and especially the liberation of assemblies from the
contradictions inherent in the pursuit of self-interest on the part of the
orders. The business of a reformed National Assembly would no longer
be dictated by the ebb and ow of inter-order conicts and cabals, but
would relate exclusively to the advancement of the public interest, the
enactment of laws based on reason, and the pursuit of public happiness and
enlightenment. High on Condorcets list of priorities for the new model
of representation, with its pyramidic structure of direct elections to district
assemblies by property-owning citizens (votants), indirect elections by
districts to provincial assemblies (by electeurs) and a crowning process of
indirect election to a National Assembly by the provincial assemblies, was
the promotion of national unity and national purpose:
But today, when it is a matter, not of reaching agreement with powerful chiefs,
not of disarming a dangerous resistance, but of knowing the will of the nation, of
consulting it on its needs, we must admit to the body representing it only those
Representative government 215
men who can be motivated by no other interest, and in whom[the nation] believes
it can conde its own [interest], in short, of representatives of the citizens chosen
by the citizens. (viii: 2334)
With this model of representation in mind, Condorcet turned his atten-
tion again to the question of size. A National Assembly that was too small
would be weak in moments of crisis, because, on those occasions when
courage is needed, eachmust fear compromising himself personally. Onthe
other hand, an assembly that was too large could become detached from
the general will, and cease to be effectively representative (viii: 235). In
proposing an assembly made up of four deputies elected by each provincial
assembly, requiring a quorum of two-thirds (representing ve-sixths of the
provinces) for the purpose of assembly deliberations and decision-making,
Condorcet felt that the chances of having a body capable of conducting
the affairs of the nation in an orderly, calm and mature fashion, and of
reaching decisions quickly with minimal dissension, expressing the true
will, the considered will of the majority (viii: 236), would be optimised.
Ideally, the assembly would be composed of honest, enlightened repre-
sentatives deserving of public condence, and whose functions would be
legitimised by the collective will of educated citizens. Condorcets model
for a National Assembly was thus characterised by a clear line of account-
ability through direct and indirect suffrage, with representatives elected
on the basis of the empirical evidence of their record.
48
Membership of a
National Assembly would not be left to chance; the most enlightened men
from each province would be charged with electing representatives to it
(viii: 237), and chance would also be removed from the process whereby
members of provincial assemblies were elected by district and community
assemblies. At the same time, freedom of choice must be unconditional,
and this implied that voters and electors must be trusted to choose wisely:
In response we would say that clear and serious reasons are needed to limit that
freedom, and not leave it intact, a principle for which I shall be reproached for
repeating, but on which I can be allowed to insist since it has made little impact so
far, not only on the majority of representatives, but even on political writers who
are always . . . less hostile to freedom. (viii: 238)
Condorcet urged acceptance of his proposals for the election of four
deputies fromeach province even if his other proposals for the restructuring
of provincial assemblies were to prove unacceptable. He added a further
48
The issue of ministerial accountability in the National Assembly was treated in the Reexions sur les
pouvoirs (ix: 27881).
216 Condorcet and Modernity
renement that the four deputies should be chosen by a prescribed number
of electors chosen by each arrondissement. No order would be permitted to
mandate its representatives inthe choice of the four deputies; electors would
not be seated separately by order, would record their votes by private billet,
and the electoral procedures as set out in article 5 would be followed. As far
as the provincial assemblies were concerned, the iniquities of the prevailing
system of representation by order would persist, and the public interest,
not to mention rights, would continue to be frustrated by prejudice and
privilege, but the provincial state of affairs could at least be alleviated, and
the quality of representatives raised in provincial assemblies: the advantage
of being able to count on a choice [of good candidates] will be retained
(viii: 240).
Condorcet felt that many of his proposals for a reformed representation
in the provincial assemblies were in fact equally relevant to a new National
Assembly. His plan to replace the rarely convoked Estates-General with a
permanently sitting National Assembly was designed with the same hard-
nosed pragmatism. He saw little point to prolonged speculative argument
over the historical legitimacy of current structures with a view to their
retention in a modied form: These are old ruins from which we can all
imagine at will the outlines of a palace or a temple, but in which it is
very hard to rediscover the traces of ancient foundations which have been
destroyed so often, and reconstruct the building they really supported
(viii: 253). The quest for a return to a lost, irretrievable and illusory golden
age of representational virtue would lead only to controversy and confusion,
andexpose public opiniontothe manipulationof sophists. The way forward
lay in a new construction for the future, not in the refurbishment of old
ruins:
Thus a new form, more representative in a real sense and more legitimate per se,
is one in which public peace will be more certain . . ., one which is closest to the
true interests of government as well as to those of the nation, interests which in
the heart of true patriots cannot be set aside by class interests.
Condorcet never underestimated the difculty of breaking with past
practices in the matter of political representation, and was always conscious
of the fact that the legacy of the past could never be completely discarded.
His faith in the eventual triumph of modernity, appropriately managed,
never wavered, and the progressive evolution of representative government
was central to that triumph. The model for a revitalised national forumwas
already available in the form of the American Congress, and Condorcets
Representative government 217
frequent allusions to the American constitution in the Essai conrmthat his
vision of electoral reform went well beyond a mere ne-tuning of Frances
provincial assemblies. His unfailing condence in the potential political
integrity of the people, and the potential virtue of enlightened public opin-
ion, is perhaps a little surprising in view of the extremes of political vice in
both areas that he witnessed in the post-Girondin phase of the Revolution.
But his optimism in 1792 and the early months of 1793 was anchored as
rmly to his faith in the redeeming power of education and enlightenment
as a means to make men into citizens (iii: 383), to his belief in their essential
goodness and to his condence in the onward march of progress itself as it
was in 1788.
49
Articles 8 and 9 address specic aspects of political management such as
the prerogatives of representatives (not to be confused with the traditional
privileges of the two higher orders), assembly responsibilities, including
taxation, public works, the administration of state property such as hos-
pitals, schools, factories and also churches, and the arrangements for the
inspection and maintenance of public facilities. In article 10 Condorcet
re-emphasised the need for national uniformity in the structure and proce-
dures at all levels of provincial assembly business, and this article contains
closely detailed commentary on the physical and logistical implications of
ensuring such uniformity relating, for example, to the need for territorial
dimensions of all communities to be such that citizens were within a days
travelling distance from the site of communal assemblies, half a day for
district assemblies, a whole day for the provincial body (viii: 273). Physical
access of the people to assemblies was essential to the maintenance of lines
of communication between representatives, voters and electors,
50
and here
49
Gr ace ` a elles, Condorcet avait apport e dans les derni` eres ann ees de sa vie une dimension escha-
tologique ` a sa th eorie sociale. Cette dimension, qui deviendra si importante au XIX si` ecle, rassemble
largement ses id ees sociales des ann ees pr ec edentes (Dippel, Projeter le monde moderne, 167).
Cf. A. Cento, Condorcet e lidea di progresso (Florence: Parenti, 1956), pp. 93105.
50
Condorcet distinguished carefully between votants and electeurs, the former being those with the
right to vote at the lowest tier of the electoral process, and the latter being those for whom they vote
who then, as electors, vote other representatives into public ofces, if they are not themselves already
ofce-holders, see Sommerlad and McLean, The Political Theory of Condorcet, 1 (1989), p. xii. On
Condorcets interpretation of the practical way in which the people could exercise their sovereign
power, see Jaume, Individu et souverainet e. Jaume observes: Pour concilier la repr esentation avec
lexercice immediat de la souverainet e, il faut pallier labsence de canaux l egaux par o` u doivent monter
les vux de lopinion publique, et par lesquels seffectuerait une information en retour suivie de
la sanction populaire . . . Au lieu de lid ee unanimiste dun Peuple-un qui oppose sa volont e aux
repr esentants, Condorcet d ecrit un m ecanisme qui fait appel ` a lopinion de chaque citoyen en restant
toujours soumis ` a la r` egle majoritaire (p. 300). See also L. Jaume, Le Discours jacobin et la democratie
(Paris: Fayard, 1989).
218 Condorcet and Modernity
Condorcet already had in view the administrative reorganisation of French
territory into a new departmental conguration to help facilitate this key
requirement.
51
The transformation of the process of representation had physical as well
as constitutional implications: Those who would regard uniformity of
constitution in the assemblies, in legislation, in taxation, in measurements,
etc., simply as a kind of metaphysical ideal which seduces the academic
mind, but which in practice is not worth all the obstacles which have to be
overcome in order to realise it, are not offering us very profound thoughts
(viii: 274).
52
Access to assemblies, compactness of constituencies, dened
responsibilities and functions were all viewed as ways of enabling the citizen
to acquire an experience of equality and political engagement characterised
by inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness. Uniformity of administrative
practices and structures on a national scale would liberate all orders of cit-
izens from self-interest and narrowly based allegiances, and reinforce the
commitment of voters, electors and representatives to the advancement of
the public good. Assembly members and ofcials, even the wealthiest,
53
should be remunerated appropriately. Effective representation, in which
the individual deputys commitment to truth, justice and the public inter-
est prevailed, required measures that would protect that deputy from the
pressures that might otherwise compromise the strength of his commit-
ment to the public interest.
54
It was for this reason, for example, that
Condorcet inserted a proposal to abolish the religious ceremonies that tra-
ditionally accompanied assembly business. Religious symbolism, pageantry
and above all sermons read out to assemblies were potent weapons of per-
suasive and prejudicial inuence which strengthened the grip of a privileged
and unaccountable order on assembly business. Condorcet was convinced
that the public display of religious ceremonial and symbolism in a political
51
Condorcets views on this point reected the inuence of the 1775 Plan de municipalites by Turgot
and Dupont de Nemours (published in 1787). See C. Wolikow, Condorcet et le projet de Grandes
Communes (178693), in Chouillet and Cr epel (eds.), Condorcet, pp. 2423.
52
Detailed proposals for the rationalisation of French territory for electoral purposes were set out in
the Lettres dun gentilhomme ` a messieurs du tiers etat (ix: 24953) where Condorcet sought to prevent
the growth of enclaves, or pockets of inuence.
53
If his wealth means that he could do without it, let him make good use of it, and let him regard
the means given to him to do a little more good as a reward. Refusing to accept it could be based
on pride and imposture as much as real generosity. He would be establishing a prestigious way of
distinguishing the rich, which is always a bad thing. He would be creating a slight prejudice in his
favour, which would be another bad thing. Service without remuneration is not always a sign of
unselshness (viii: 2756).
54
Condorcet further examines the question of what those who agree to submit to the decisions of their
representatives require from them in return in the Examen sur cette question: Est-il utile de diviser une
assemblee nationale en plusieurs chambres? (ix: 3356).
Representative government 219
arena undermined secular authority in the civil order, and that the need to
obtain the blessing of the church on the conduct of affairs of state debased
the political authority of assemblies. Such fears might not be taken seri-
ously by some, but those who know their history will recall [its lessons]
easily (viii: 277). Article 10 concludes with a rueful acknowledgement of
the enormity of the challenge any move to reform Frances creaking mech-
anisms of representation that lay ahead. Not least among the obstacles to
be surmounted was that of human nature itself, a problem that Condorcet
never underestimated. He was always aware that most people were usually
more preoccupied by the privileges that divided them than by the rights
that united them, even when the rights are important, and the privileges
frivolous.
The Essai sur la constitution et les fonctions des assemblees provinciales
was overtaken quickly by events when Necker agreed on 26 August 1788
to recommend to Louis XVI that the Estates-General should meet (the
meeting was scheduled initially for January 1789, but postponed until
May).
55
Neckers concession more or less coincided with the completion
of Condorcets Essai. In the Resultat du conseil of 27 December 1788 that
followed the second Assembly of Notables, hastily convened to nalise the
terms under which the Estates-General should conduct business, the Royal
Council agreed to double the representationof the Third Estate, and to free-
dom of the press. However, while the key demand made by Condorcet and
Si ey` es that the representation of the Third Estate should equal that of the
combined representation of the two other orders was accepted, the critical
issue of how votes were to be counted remained unresolved. Arrangements
for elections were promulgated by the Royal Council on 24 January 1789,
but the decreed provisions fell short of Condorcets proposals on a number
of points.
56
All French male citizens were invited to elect representatives,
but female citizens were excluded; the bailiwick and senechaussee would
form the basic electoral constituency, the number of representatives being
related to territorial size and population. The Third Estate would elect 500
deputies, the nobility and clergy 250 each. Representatives could not be
mandated, but the orders would continue to sit separately in the electoral
assemblies in each bailiwick. With regard to the clergy, all benet-holders
55
Controversy about the meeting was soon provoked by the newly reinstated Paris Parlement which
decreed on 28 September 1788 that the Estates-General should meet strictly in accordance with its
1614 modalities.
56
Condorcet wrote to Mme Suard on 31 December 1788: The new arrangements fall well short of
what we are entitled to have, Correspondance inedite de Condorcet et Mme Suard, ed. Badinter,
Letter 183.
220 Condorcet and Modernity
and rural clergy had the right to attend bailiwick assemblies, other clergy (in
chapters, other religious communities and towns) being represented indi-
rectly. All ef-holders in the Second Estate would be summoned to attend
(female ef-holders sending a proxy), andattendance at the bailiwick assem-
blies would be open to all with purchased or inherited nobility over the
age of twenty-ve, French-born or naturalised, and domiciled within the
bailiwick. Nobles and clerics possessing efs outside their place of residence
could attend more than one assembly through proxies. Asystemof indirect,
multi-stage elections was offered to the Third Estate with males over the
age of twenty-ve, French or naturalised, involved at all stages, provided
that they were domiciled locally, and that their names were recorded on the
tax registers. The Third Estate could choose its representatives from any
of the three orders, the clergy and nobility being conned to members of
their own orders.
57
Provision was made for the cahiers des doleances to be
drawn up at the general assembly of the bailiwick. A designated number of
representatives would be elected to the Estates-General by secret ballot.
58
As the emergence of the Third Estate as an autonomous political force
gained momentum in the autumn of 1788 and spring of 1789, months
57
The mathematics were as follows: in rural communities two representatives per village with up to
200 households, three for villages with 200-300; in towns assemblies of guilds and corporations could
elect one representative per 100 members, wealthier guilds and professions being allowed double.
Other citizens could elect two representatives per 100 inhabitants through municipal assemblies. All
would then form a single municipal assembly to elect four representatives to the general assembly
of the bailiwick. Provision was made for a higher number in the case of larger towns and cities.
Condorcet commented at length in 1789 on the principles behind the consolidation of village
communities for electoral purposes, and the problem of nding suitable representatives from such
communities, in Sur la formation des communautes de campagne (ix: 4339). In this essay Condorcet
also set out his own calculations for constituency numbers at province, district, city, town and village
levels. His rationale related not only to electoral efciency; he also referred to the importance of
reorganising rural communities for other, highly practical reasons, e.g. nancial advantages, ability
to deal with natural disasters, reduction of counterproductive inter-village rivalries, containment of
the power of great landowners, better judicial arrangements, and above all the transformation of
isolated people into citizens.
58
The ballot was open and by acclamation at all other levels of the electoral process. Special provision
was made for elections in Paris in accordance with regulations issued on 28 March, 13 April and
2 May 1789. With regard to the Third Estate in Paris, no guild representation was permitted. Sixty
districts were established to draw up cahiers, and elect representatives to a municipal assembly of
about 400 members. The municipal assembly then elected twenty representatives to the Estates-
General. In addition to the age, residence and nationality requirements, Parisians were required
to pay a capitation tax of 6 livres (see Jones, Intense preferences, strong beliefs and democratic
decision-making). For Condorcets views on the importance of Paris as a constituency, see the
Adresse ` a lAssemblee nationale, pour que Paris forme partie dun grand departement (ix: 395401). Paris
remained the centre of enlightenment, the sentinel guarding the rights of all, common ground for
all the provinces, the model of respect for legal authority, the boulevard of freedom. Condorcet was
to become increasingly concerned by the threat to national unity caused by tensions between Paris
and the provinces, however, see Sur le prejuge qui suppose une contrariete dinteret entre la capitale et
les departements (x: 13363).
Representative government 221
marked by the rst stirrings of insurrection and by the widespread pro-
liferation of inammatory treatises and pamphlets from Si ey` es, Target,
Desmoulins and others, Condorcet followed up the publication of the Essai
sur la constitution et les fonctions des assemblees provinciales with a rapidly
penned series of supplementary essays on aspects of representation reform.
Most of these essays appeared in the late autumn and winter of 17889,
some written in response to the decree of the Royal Council and in antic-
ipation of the meeting of the Estates-General, the majority in response to
the actual proceedings of the Estates-General, to the birth of the National
Assembly on 17 June 1789, and to the events of 14 July.
59
Eleven major essays
relating directly to constitutional and representational matters were issued
by Condorcet in that year: the Sentiments dun republicain sur les assemblees
provinciales et les Etats-Generaux,
60
Sur la forme des elections, the Examen
sur cette question: Est-il utile de diviser une assemblee nationale en plusieurs
chambres?, the Reexions sur ce qui a ete fait et ce qui reste ` a faire, the two
Lettres ` a m. le comte Mathieu de Montmorency, the three Lettres dun gentil-
homme ` a messieurs du tiers etat, the Reexions sur les pouvoirs et instructions
` a donner par les provinces ` a leurs deputes aux Etats-Generaux, the Adresse ` a
lAssemblee nationale pour que Paris forme partie dun grand departement, Sur
la formation des communes, Sur la necessite de faire ratier la Constitution par
les citoyens and Sur la formation des communautes de campagne.
Inthe Sentiments dun republicain (The Feelings of a Republican), written
from the standpoint of an outside spectator of the French political scene
just after the arrangements for the meeting of the Estates-General had been
promulgated in December 1788, Condorcet noted the progress that had
been made in the provincial assemblies with the adoption of many of the
reforms proposed originally by Turgot, and reformulated in his own Essai.
The meeting of the Estates-General was ill-timed, in his view, because
it would effectively negate the post-Turgot prospect of a new, authentic
National Assembly, and simply revive and relegitimise the old structures.
He was thus deeply apprehensive about the outcome of the Estates-General,
and in the Sentiments he sounded a warning note so that this meeting of
the Estates-General, so ardently desired, should be useful to the people and
not bad for them (ix: 130). The enthusiasm of the privileged orders for
the convocation of the Estates-General by bailiwick and not by province,
59
In addition, Condorcet found time to write on the declaration of rights and nancial issues, and to
complete his annotations to Rouchers translation of Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations as well as to
work on the Voltaire biography and complete works projects, together with a number of eloges.
60
This essay was presented as the Suite des Lettres dun citoyen des Etats-Unis ` a un Franc ais, sur les affaires
presentes.
222 Condorcet and Modernity
and in accordance with the rules for the allocation of seats to the separate
orders, was a symptom of aristocratic resistance. Of particular concern was
the danger to any proposal relating to a declaration of rights posed by the
Second Estate.
61
In short, the meeting of the Estates-General was simply
a device, supported by the newly reinstated parlements,
62
to safeguard the
First and Second Estates from the rightful claims to just representation
of the Third Estate, and it had been timed to take place before the new
provincial structures could be consolidated, before the people had time to
become fully aware of their rights, and the government to prepare properly
its proposals for reform.
Condorcet anticipated a negative outcome: a turbulent, unenlightened
assembly in which they will seek to persuade us that the provincial assem-
blies are unconstitutional (ix: 134). The precipitate convocation of the
Estates-General was for Condorcet nothing less than a betrayal of the public
interest, and the pressure that continued to emanate from the parlemen-
taires to convene the meeting only fuelled his anxieties further. The Estates-
General was not a truly national body, its structures were legitimised only
by the personal authority of the King, its meetings were irregular and it
was bereft of even the tacit approval of the people. Since the occasion of its
last meeting society had moved on: during which time men have emerged
from the most primitive darkness into the dawn of a day which at last is
about to enlighten them. The 1614 modalities were no longer acceptable
to enlightened minds, and it was now essential for the general will, such as
it is, to determine the nature of a new National Assembly. At this point, he
reiterated the conditions for reformed representation that he had already
detailed in the Essai, relating specically to equality of representation in a
unicameral system, territorial reorganisation of constituencies and revised
voting procedures.
63
61
On this point Condorcet noted the need for each order to have the right of veto in anticipation of
this danger: Perhaps the clergy will demand intolerant laws, but it will only be able to get them
with the consent of the other two [orders] (BIF Condorcet MS 858, f. 25).
62
Condorcets hostility to the inuence of the parlements continued to be constant and intense. In
the Vie de Voltaire he noted their negative role in Voltaires moves to free the serfs of the Jura, the
rehabilitation of La Barre and the reform of the education system (iv: 1501).
63
The most detailed elaboration of proposals relating to these issues was soon to be formulated
in the second of the Lettres dun gentilhomme ` a messieurs du tiers-etat, where Condorcet also explored
the sensitive question of the investment of authority in such an assembly prior to the formation
and public acceptance of a new constitution (ix: 2813). The powers of assemblies were dened and
categorised in the Reexions sur les pouvoirs under the sub-heading Pouvoirs. While the notion of
balance of power in constitutions in Montesquieus terms was a fantatical and even dangerous idea,
Condorcet was condent in his calculations relating to equality of representation, see for example,
Sur la formation des communautes de campagne (ix: 4336).
Representative government 223
Condorcet anticipated little conict with the crown at this stage in his
thinking on representation. The threat of despotism came not from mon-
archs but from an ambitious aristocracy, against whom monarch and peo-
ple were joined: The interest of sovereign and people are necessarily the
same: to escape the yoke with which the aristocracy threatens them both
(ix: 138).
64
At a time of transition, during which national unity and pur-
pose threatened to disintegrate, Condorcet worried about growing threats
to the monarchy, still for him at this time the repository of national unity
and purpose, which were already detectable in the volatile situation prevail-
ing in the provinces, with their increasingly insistent demands for regional
independence.
65
The new edice of representation which Condorcet had
constructed in the Essai had been predicated on the consolidation of a
France forged as one nation under a reformed constitutional monarchy,
and he saw any claims for exclusion from crown authority on the part of
provincial assemblies with regard to legislation, taxation or electoral pro-
cedures as attacks on national unity. Provincial exclusions were a shameful
proposition, and a betrayal of the public interest by those claiming to be
its defenders.
Electoral reformandthe devising of a systemthat wouldaccurately reect
the general will form the substance of the twenty-four sections of Sur la
forme des elections (On the formof elections).
66
In the light of the decision to
retain the format of separate orders for the meeting of the Estates-General,
the issue of unicameral government in a National Assembly became cru-
cial, and Condorcet devoted a lengthy defence of the unicameral system,
together with an analysis of the dangers of bicameral and tricameral sys-
tems, inthe 1789 Examen sur cette question: Est-il utile de diviser une assemblee
nationale en plusieurs chambres? (An examination of this question: is it use-
ful to divide a National Assembly into several chambers?). The proposal
from monarchists such as Mounier, Lally-Tollendal and others to establish
a second chamber in the formof a senate or National Council was dissected
in the second Lettre ` a m. le comte Mathieu de Montmorency, dated on the
titlepage 6 September 1789 (ix: 377). Condorcet had always rejected the
principle of bicameralism, as is clear from the New Haven letters where
he had tried to inuence Jefferson and others on this point in the drafting
64
On the need for agreement rather than conict with the King, see also Sur le choix des ministres
(x: 601).
65
Condorcet had in mind here the turbulence in Rennes and Nantes.
66
The aristocracy would not rest, according to Condorcet, until everything that favoured progress had
been abolished, including all memory of mans rights, after which the silence of the grave would
prevail.
224 Condorcet and Modernity
of the newAmerican constitution (see above p. 24). In his viewthe power of
the executive and the legislative could be controlled more efciently by an
appropriately regulated franchise and scientically calculated voting rules
for a qualied majority, rather than by the creation of a second chamber.
His views prevailed on 10 September 1789 when the Constituent Assembly
rejected a bicameral legislature.
Condorcets 17889 essays on representation revisit in increasingly tense
constitutional circumstances many of the issues addressed presciently in
the Essai sur la constitution et les fonctions des assemblees provinciales. The
Essai can be ranked among the most penetrating and historically relevant
analyses of a failing machinery of government, and of ways to repair that
machine, to emerge in the years immediately prior to the demise of the
ancien regime.
chapter 9
The economic order
Condorcet did not write extensively or systematically on economics,
although he is the author of a number of pioneering works devoted to
specic economic issues relating to taxation reform, public nance, debt,
insurance, annuities, tariffs and free trade. In these texts he had much to
say about nancial reforms and the creation of a revitalised infrastructure
to underpin a stable and productive economic order. The Reexions sur
le commerce des bles (Reections on the grain trade), published in 1776, is
the most substantial. Written in defence of Turgots policies, the Reexions
represents Condorcets most sustained analysis of the benets of free trade
but, as with so many of his economic writings, the elucidation of economic
principle is narrowly focussed, intersects with social and moral issues and
is conned to a single, though centrally important, aspect of contemporary
public policy, in this case the management of periodic bread shortages and
the desperate plight of the poor arising from harvest failure. The historical
specicity of the Reexions, and indeed of the majority of Condorcets eco-
nomic writings, has ensured that his achievements as an economist have
been largely obscured until the late 1980s.
1
With the exception of the Reexions, the Lettre dun laboureur de Picardie
` a m. N
,
magistrat de la ville de
en Suisse (xii: 16977). The Lettre also contains an appeal to the Swiss
to recognise the legitimacy of the action taken against the King. Condorcet was also concerned by
the activities of the Kings regiment stationed in Coblenz, poised to invade Paris and restore the
monarchy. Cf. Discours sur lofce de lempereur (x: 287).
24
Suspension of royal powers was for Condorcet the only way to ush out the treason of a conspiring
court seeking to conceal its true aims beneath a cloak of constitutional legitimacy. With regard to
the general threat from emigre forces, Condorcet suggested that the King could be required to sign
a formal statement dissociating himself from emigre conspiracies (x: 568).
262 Condorcet and Modernity
Condorcets disillusionment with Louis XVI had started to crystallise
more than a year earlier with the attempted escape of the royal family from
the Tuileries, and their subsequent arrest on 20 June 1791. Most of the
deputies in the National Assembly preferred to accept the line that the
King had been abducted. Condorcet did not share that view and, as has
been seen, the event converted him nally to republicanism. The people
must now resist siren calls from the Tuileries conspirators to support the
royalist cause, and the King must be held to account:
So, out of superstitious respect for the constitution, must we leave the King and his
perdious counsellors in peace to destroy French liberty, along with that constitu-
tion? Must we just quietly accept the sophisms of a party that has nally dropped
its mask, and confuse the summoning of the sovereign, possessing the indefeasable
right to institute reforms, with a criminal violation of the constitution? Certainly
not, and as irrefutable evidence of the treachery of the King and his accomplices is
mounting up, who can still reproach those who, already convinced of that treach-
ery, but unable to get their hands on any proof, were able to anticipate its impact,
and had the fairness and impartiality to leave the task of judgement to others?
As his rhetorical turn of phrase suggests, his views were now strongly inu-
enced by Paine, to whomhe had become particularly attached in the spring
of 1791.
25
Suspension of royal powers on 10 August 1792, accompanied by decrees
authorising the establishment of a National Convention and the framing of
a new constitution, marked a watershed for Condorcet both as a legislator
and as a political theorist, as can be seen in the proliferation of essays and
addresses that owed from his pen in the remaining months of 1792. In
the Reexions sur la Revolution de 1688 et sur celle du 10 ao ut 1792 (Reec-
tions on the 1688 Revolution and on that of 10 August 1792), composed
within a month of the events of 10 August, he assumed the role of defender
of the Revolution, whose cause was no longer a private matter for France
but concerned the whole of Europe, whose solidarity with the Revolution
Condorcet would from now on seek to ensure (xii: 2089).
26
In Aux
Germains Condorcet contemplated the dismantling of all ancien regime
25
See A. O. Aldridge, Condorcet et Paine: leurs rapports intellectuels, Revue de litterature comparee
32 (1958), 4765. Cf. Badinter and Badinter, Condorcet, p. 338.
26
Condorcet observed in the Discours sur lofce de lempereur that the actions of Europes rulers had
served only to make their subjects more conscious of the achievements of the Revolution. Moreover,
they were exposing their soldiers to the noble courage of a patriotic force an additional source
of subversive example and inspiration (x: 28790). On 19 November 1792 a decree of secours et
fraternite was passed, offering to help oppressed peoples to recover their freedom. For an informative
comparative analysis of the views of Condorcet and Paine on the glorious Revolution of 1688, see
Aldridge, Condorcet, Paine and historical method.
Managing the Revolution 263
autocracies: The edice is still standing, but the foundations have been
steadily undermined; shake it a little, and the debris will be scattered all
over the ground (xii: 152). The fall of kings is traced in quasi-apocalyptic
tones that evoked betrayal, vice and mediocrity. Their survival lay only in
the acceptance of new constitutions, either semi-free like those of Eng-
land
27
and Sweden, or on the lines of the 1791 French model. Condorcets
numerous, in the event counterproductive, addresses to other European
nations, in which he sought to convince them of the peaceful intentions
of Frances revolutionary government, were not well received in foreign
embassies.
28
In the face of an increasingly dangerous war situation and widespread
resentment at Louis XVIs retention of the veto over Assembly decrees,
29
by
the summer of 1792 Condorcet was prepared for the nal reckoning with
Louis XVI. The King, having broken one oath, could never be trusted to
keep another. His replacement by the ve-year-old dauphin under a regency,
proposed by Danton and Brissot, was not in Condorcets view practical.
For him there could no longer be any possibility of a constitutional com-
promise between the monarchy and the Revolution. The human race was
no longer the inalienable patrimony of a fewdozen families who wished to
rule only over slaves and corpses, as he put it graphically in La Republique
franc aise aux hommes libres (xii: 11314). The vote to abolish the monarchy
was passed unanimously at the rst meeting of the National Convention on
27
With regard to England, Condorcet claried the iron logic of the Revolution in February 1792
in the Lettre de Junius ` a William Pitt. Here he defended, again in Paine-like terms, the right of a
subject people to punish a conspirator who called himself king (xii: 324). The blood that had been
shed in France in defence of that right was regrettable, nevertheless: The French Revolution has
certainly been much bloodier than one would have wished in the cause of the happiness and prompt
emancipation of humanity. The French have sometimes stained their victories with atrocities and
acts of brigandage; in other words, ferocious and bloodthirsty men have lived among them, greedy,
ambitious men, Tartuffes of patriotism. While accepting that the Revolution had not always been
the model of virtue, Condorcet saw the violence as the work of foreign agents rather than as an
outcome of the revolutionary process itself. English counter-revolutionary propaganda was simply a
means to distract the English from the inspiring spectacle of a neighbouring people reclaiming their
rights. Condorcets denunciation of the English enemies of the Revolution in the Lettre de Junius
included a staunch defence of Tom Paine and Joseph Priestley, as well as strictures against Edmund
Burke (xii: 328). On Condorcets illusions about possible English support for the Revolution, see
Badinter and Badinter, Condorcet, p. 521.
28
See Cahen, Condorcet, pp. 4425.
29
Condorcet was far from being a fanatical opponent of the royal veto in principle before the Rev-
olution. He was mindful perhaps of the merits of the presidential veto retained in the American
constitution. However, he always opposed the way in which the royal veto was applied. On the
dangers arising for France as a consequence of the Kings retention of the veto, particularly with
regard to the decree on emigres and recalcitrant priests refusing to take the oath of loyalty, see the
Revision des travaux de la premi`ere legislature (x: 40918). The threat from emigres and the problem
of their protectors feature prominently in Condorcets analysis of the war situation in the Revision.
264 Condorcet and Modernity
21 September 1792, to be followed closely on 25 September by the procla-
mation of the indivisibility of the Republic.
Condorcets personal declaration of war on the monarchy had already
been made in his 4 September address, Aux Franc ais sur la guerre (x: 5757),
although this address was not to save him from continuing accusations
from Robespierre of monarchist deviance. The problem of translating the
ideals of the Enlightenment into practical legislative action had preoc-
cupied Condorcet with particular urgency ever since the meeting of the
Estates-General, and it continued to inform his political thinking in the
debate surrounding the 1791 constitution. The need to create a constitution
inspired by those ideals became even more urgent after the proclamation
of the First Republic and his election to the Convention. The task facing
the creators of the new institutions of the Republic was set out in some
detail by Condorcet in November 1792 in De la nature des pouvoirs politiques
dans une nation libre (On the nature of political power in a free nation) (x:
589613).
30
The Opinion sur le jugement de Louis XVI (Opinion on the trial of Louis
XVI) was composed in November 1792, two months after the proclamation
of the First Republic, and against a background of lively debate on the
Kings trial which started to gather pace after the authority of the National
Convention to pass sentence had been conrmed on 7 November. The
Opinion reects Condorcets thoughts on howactually to put into effect the
fundamental right of the ruled to depose a ruler perceived to have broken
the terms of the pact of association. Interestingly, Condorcet also uses
the occasion to draw attention to the benets of his probabilistic theory of
voting, andto advocate the applicationof his jury theoremto the problemof
reaching a just decision on the Kings guilt or innocence. The arrangements
for putting Louis XVI on trial represented a crucial moment of transition
from theory into practice, and Condorcet did not underestimate the need
to ensure constitutional legitimacy and a strict adherence to the principles
of enlightened justice in the eyes of Europe, and also of posterity (xii: 269).
31
He recognised the difculty that the Convention faced in persuading others
of the benets of holding a trial that would seek to end the superstition of
kingship, and in the Opinion he weighed the issues involved in trying a
conspiring king carefully. Could Louis XVI be judged for crimes for which
there was no specic provision in the legal code? Was his person inviolable
30
It was this essay that marked, according to Coutel, the moment when enlightenment became
revolutionary, see Condorcet, p. 37.
31
Condorcet was to become increasingly concerned with the issue of revolutionary justice and its
departure from legal and moral normalities in the name of state security, see Sur le sens du mot
Revolutionnaire (xii: 6213).
Managing the Revolution 265
by virtue of the sacerdotal nature of sovereignty? Was he accountable as a
king or as an individual conspirator, and therefore subject to due process
like any other citizen? What were his crimes, and who were his accusers?
Which body had the authority to try him? Condorcet rehearsed the answers
to these key questions in a punctilious, dialogic manner that laid bare the
emptiness of royal claims to immunity. The time had come, Condorcet
concludes at the end of this long self-interrogation on the fate of a monarch,
and of monarchy, to teach kings that if the law is silent on the matter of
royal crimes this is the consequence of an abuse of royal power, and not an
expression of the will of the people. The 1791 constitution was a contract
which the King could not refuse to accept without renouncing his throne,
and conceding his claim to immunity from prosecution (xii: 287).
32
Nevertheless, Condorcet was not convinced that the King could, or
should, be tried by the National Convention sitting as a judicial tribunal,
because the Convention would then be acting both as judge and jury.
Impartiality was essential, and most of the second half of the Opinion is
devoted to an elaboration of the conditions in which due process in this
case could take place, including questions relating to where the trial should
be held, how judge and jury should be appointed, sentence conrmed and
appeal procedures agreed. The King was jugeable and Europe, as well as
France, must be presented in his trial with a model of enlightened justice.
Few of these conditions were met. On 3 and 1011 December 1792, Louis
XVI was interrogated before the National Convention, and his defence
was heard on 26 December. On 14/15 January 1793 he was found guilty
of his crimes by a unanimous vote, a proposal from the Girondins for
an appeal to the people being subsequently rejected.
33
While voting to
conrm the Kings guilt in the matter of treason, Condorcet opposed the
death sentence on principle,
34
and in the Opinion he urged moderation in
the determination of punishment (xii: 302). On 19 January 1793 Condorcet
32
Condorcet examined the 1791 constitution, its legitimacy and its relationship to the ideals of the
Revolution in the Discours sur lofce de lempereur (x: 2834).
33
By no means unanimously. The vote was 424 against, 283 in favour. See above pp. 402.
34
In Condorcets view, abolition of capital punishment was one of the most signicant steps that could
be taken on the road to an enlightened society. Humanity could only benet from the elimination of
this tendency towards savagery which has long dishonoured it. I think that the example of murders
commissioned in the name of the law is far more dangerous to public morality than the constitution
of a state which allows men to retain a greater part of their natural independence. Punishments that
allowfor correction and repentance are the only ones that can be appropriate for a regenerated human
race (xii: 300). See also Chapter 7. A key proposal in the 1793 Plan de constitution is the abolition
of the death penalty for crimes other than those which threatened national security, public order and
the freedom, sovereignty and welfare of the people. Even then it should be used sparingly and only
when absolutely necessary (xii: 3834). On Condorcets earlier views on the injustice of the death
penalty, and the case for abolition, see also the 1774 Remarques sur les Pensees de Pascal (iii: 6467)
and his letters to Frederick II of 2 May and 19 September 1785 (i: 305, 315).
266 Condorcet and Modernity
abstained in the vote to suspend the death sentence, and Louis XVI was
executed two days later.
35
Condorcet had no more to say on the matter, but
he would pay dearly for his abstention, despite the fact that he had voted
with Robespierre and the Montagne on 28 December to reject the appeal
to the people.
36
a bluepri nt for the fi rst republi c
The problem of Louis XVIs trial was for Condorcet part of the much
broader problem of the constitution itself, and of managing the changes
that became inevitable after the 1789 Declaration of Rights, and increas-
ingly urgent after the Kings reluctant acceptance of the 1791 constitution.
Condorcet had welcomed the 1791 constitution and defended it robustly,
but unlike Le Chapelier, for example, he did not see it as the end of the
process of revolution.
37
A constitution was for Condorcet an arrangement
for ordering the civil order that was continuously open to change, the
right to change constitutions being inalienable, as he reminded delegates
elected to the rst National Assembly in the 1790 Reponse ` a ladresse aux
provinces, ou Reexions sur les ecrits publies contre lAssemblee nationale (Reply
to the address to the provinces, or reections on writings published against
the National Assembly).
38
Condorcets thinking on the evolving role of the
new National Assembly was inevitably linked to the future of the French
monarchy, and his position claried under the pressure of a revolution-
ary process that would transform the liberal philosophe and constitutional
monarchist of 1789 into a republican. He came to accept republicanism as
a crucial stage in the broader process of constitutional perfectionnement and
progress.
39
35
See Patrick, The Men of the First French Republic, p. 332.
36
Condorcet had, however, criticised Robespierre in the Chronique de Paris (5 December 1792) for
the latters theory about the right to murder without prior judicial procedure people condemned
by mob hysteria. See A. Mathiez, La Revolution franc aise (Paris: Colin, 1933; repr. Paris: Collection
10/18, 1972), vol. ii, p. 60.
37
See, for example, the 1789 essay, Sur la necessite de faire ratier la constitution par les citoyens, et sur
la formation des communautes de campagne (ix: 41416). Isaac-Ren e-Gui Le Chapelier was President
of the National Assembly on the night of 4 August 1789 when feudal privileges were abolished. For
an understanding of what Le Chapelier and his political allies thought about the implications of the
Revolution for the constitution, see I. Birchall, When the Revolution had to stop, in Cross and
Williams (eds.), The French Experience, pp. 458.
38
In this address he envisaged the maximum lifespan of any constitution to be twenty years, with
a rolling ve-year review to make interim adjustments in the light of changing circumstances (ix:
5326).
39
See Dippel, Projeter le monde moderne, 1645; Coutel, Condorcet, pp. 5182.
Managing the Revolution 267
With his election on 26 September 1791 to the National Assembly (of
which he would assume the presidency on 5 January 1792), Condorcet had
entered the mainstream of national revolutionary politics. Since May 1791
he had been working closely with Du Ch atelet and Brissot de Warville,
and also with Paine, whom he had come to admire more than Si ey` es.
40
Between January and June 1792 he concentrated his energies on the Revision
des travaux de la premi`ere legislature, in effect a retrospective analysis of the
events of 1789, and of the progress made by the National Assembly in
the rst three months of its existence, together with an assessment of the
problems inherited from the Constituent Assembly, including that of the
King (x: 2878). The Revolution would take time to consolidate its gains,
and he noted in the Revision that its mission was still endangered by pock-
ets of resistance and anarchy. Typically he urged moderation in the use
of force against dissident groups, stressing the fragility of the civil order
at a moment of complex transition in which all citizens were conscious
of having recovered their rights, but were unsure of the constitutional
implications arising from the implementation of those rights.
41
Resistance
to the decree of 19 June 1790 abolishing titles of hereditary nobility, for
which Condorcet had voted, showed in his view how little the aristocracy
understood the political realities of the world in which they now lived.
The counter-revolutionary activities of a rebellious aristocracy and a fanat-
ical priesthood, uprisings in the colonies, food shortages, the threat of
emigres-led military invasion, the disruptions to Assembly business, and
the activities of counter-revolutionaries
42
all added urgency to the need to
resolve the issue of a new relationship between the King and the National
Assembly. Condorcet had much to say in the Revision on the manage-
ment of the day-to-day formalities of that new relationship, with detailed
40
Paine left France in July 1791. His rst visit to France took place in 1781 (9 March25 August),
and arose in connection with the need to raise funds for the American insurgents. It is possible
that Condorcet rst met Paine at Franklins house in Paris at that time, see Badinter and Badinter,
Condorcet, p. 233. Cf. Vincent, Thomas Paine, p. 163; Introduction, p. 24. Paine became a frequent
visitor to the H otel de La Monnaie in later years, and Condorcet was able to converse in English
with him. For unpublished evidence of this, see BIF Condorcet MS 848, f. 25.
41
With regard to the sense in which the people ratify a constitution, and the issue of its ratication
on their behalf, see Sur la necessite de faire ratier la constitution par les citoyens, et sur la formation des
communautes de campagne (ix: 41719).
42
Condorcet justied the extreme measures taken against the counter-revolutionaries in Sur le sens
du mot Revolutionnaire where he remarked on the irony of the appeal to the Declaration of Rights
made by those who had sought formerly to crush those rights (xii: 618). By March 1793 Condorcets
attitude towards the threat of counter-revolution had hardened considerably. He was convinced that
the disturbances in the Vend ee and elsewhere were offering useful lessons to true republicans as the
royalist party lifted its mask and revealed its true face as the supporter of Frances enemies (BIF
Condorcet MS 864, ff. 398403).
268 Condorcet and Modernity
recommendations on protocol, the conduct of Assembly members in the
Kings presence and the circumstances in which dialogue should be con-
ducted.
43
Behind such administrative minutiae lay an intention to stiffen
the resolve of deputies, to remind them of their ideals, responsibilities and
aspirations and to maintain the political momentum of the Revolution in
times of crisis and irresolution (x: 4245).
With his election on 11 October 1792 to the Comite de constitution,
together with Si ey` es, P etion, Vergniaud, Paine, Brissot, Gensonn e, Bar` ere
and Danton, work on the drafting of a newconstitution began. The plan for
the 1793 constitution was a project that Condorcet would bring to fruition
with the help of Paine, the Reverend David Williams, Si ey` es, Barr` ere and
others, and in its nal version it would reect, perhaps more than any
other document, Condorcets vision for the ideal management of the civil
order, and of the Revolution itself, in accordance with the principles of the
Enlightenment as enshrined in the Declaration of Rights. That vision owes
much also to the 1787 American constitution which Condorcet had read
carefully.
44
Work on the new constitution took place against a background
of conicting interpretations of sovereignty and citizenship, originating
with Montesquieu and Rousseau, the Rousseauist school being represented
by Robespierre and his followers, and the Montesquieu school by Si ey` es.
The latter located sovereign power in an assembly of elected representa-
tives, the former in the direct expression of the public will. Neither school
of thought, in Condorcets view, took sufcient account of the need to
educate the citizen in the exercise of political responsibility and the duties
of citizenship, and he would seek to steer a course between the two. In this
lay much of his originality as a political theorist.
45
The opening paragraph of the Exposition des principes et motifs prefacing
the 1793 Plan de constitution (Draft constitution) neatly encapsulated the
enormity of the problems faced by the architects of what was eventually to
provide the basis, in much revised form, for the 159 articles of the still-born
constitution of 1793, the so-called Girondin constitution:
To give a territory covering twenty-seven thousand square miles, inhabited by
twenty-ve million people, a constitution founded exclusively on rational and just
43
In the sub-section entitled D ecret sur le c er emonial, Condorcet stipulated that to ensure the end
of idolatry, the chairs of the King and the Assembly President should be of equal height, the terms
sire and majesty should not be used and hats should be kept rmly on heads (x: 399402).
44
See Rosenblum, Condorcet as constitutional draftsman.
45
On the impact of Montesquieu and Rousseau upon Condorcet, see J. Ehrard, LEsprit des mots.
Montesquieu en lui-meme et parmi les siens (Geneva: Droz, 1998), pp. 295306. See also C. Kintzler,
Condorcet. LInstruction publique et la naissance du citoyen (Paris: Le Sycomore, 1984), pp. 17590;
Coutel, Condorcet, pp. 3847.
Managing the Revolution 269
principles, ensure that citizens have the full enjoyment of their rights; put the
different parts of this constitution together in a way that ensures obedience to
the law and the submission of individual wills to the general will, but leaves the
sovereignty of the people, equality between citizens and the exercise of natural
freedom entirely unaffected: this is the problem we have to resolve. (xii: 335)
The need for national unity and the case for the creation of a single, indi-
visible republic is then set out at length, and the whole project of a new
republican constitution was conceived as an invitation to citizens to engage
actively in public affairs, and accept the responsibilities laid on them by
the Declaration of Rights with which the new constitution was to form an
ideological continuum. The new constitution would involve the realisa-
tion of freedom, not merely its proclamation, and for this it needed public
participation at the consultative stage as well as public consent to its nal
recommendations.
In the Exposition Condorcet examines the role of community and pri-
mary assemblies, as well as that of a National Assembly, in putting con-
stitutional reform into practical effect, ways of interpreting the general
will, modalities of debate in separate assemblies, risks to public disorder,
quality of representation, delegation of provisional responsibilities and the
establishment of a single National Assembly as the repository of supreme
executive power, an authority in continual activity (xii: 33855). With
regard to the longer-term process of law-making, as opposed to the day-
to-day business of public administration, the Exposition offered guidance
on the ways in which the transition from despotism to liberty, and from
constitutional monarchy to republic, could be managed under the aegis of
a single-chamber assembly. Every aspect of the Plan reects Condorcets
concern to ensure as far as possible that the public will and active public
collaboration in constitutional change were given their due, the linkage
between government and governed being assured in the Plan by means of
an intermediary body, a national council of elected ofcials . . . of equal
rank, each charged with the day-to-day administration of particular parts of
the councils business; all general resolutions, all determinations of policy
would be taken on the basis of a report from the ofcial to whom the
task of implementation would subsequently go (xii: 368). The National
Council would make deputies closely and continuously aware of the public
mood, and keep them well informed of facts and circumstances relevant
to assembly deliberations and policies. Its purpose was to exercise consti-
tutional vigilance, to act as the guarantor of the public will and to ensure
the retention of public condence. All forms of political heredity were
rejected.
270 Condorcet and Modernity
The common thread running through the substantial body of proposals
in the Plan is the principle of indivisibility of the Republic, which gives
coherence to a whole range of recommendations regarding the reform and
independence of the Treasury,
46
the revitalisation of public works pro-
grammes, schools, hospitals, industry and agriculture, the geographical
reconguration of communes and departments, the rationalisation and
standardisation of judicial procedures, the abolition of the death penalty
(though retained for cases where the security of the state was in danger) and
the reform of public administration at national and local levels. The indi-
visibility of the Republic represented for Condorcet a revolutionary policy
rather than a revolutionary slogan, a policy of national unity in all contexts
of national life that was urgently required at a time when Frances enemies
threatened invasion and counter-revolution.
47
Condorcets Plan was thus
directed towards the forging of the French nation, the making of a single
people conscious of its cohesion and national identity. Federalism and the
right to secession were explicitly proscribed. Interestingly, there is in all
this no undercurrent of the racial and cultural dimensions to indivisibility
which Herder was injecting into the reawakening of German nationalism
and nationhood at this time.
Other areas of the Plan raise general questions of political principle con-
cerning the place of rights, freedom, equality and the nature of authority
in a reformed constitution, conforming more closely to reason, justice,
and even to truly enlightened politics (xii: 385). Recommendations on the
franchise and other aspects of the electoral process in the Plan are devised
with a viewto the achievement of a practical compromise between freedom
and equality on the one hand, and the urgent needs of a country at war,
and endangered by the conspiracies of a large emigre population on the
other. In this respect, the conditions of eligibility to vote, for example, were
a particularly sensitive issue, and Condorcet devised them carefully with
46
Condorcet identied corruption and disorder in the management of public nances as a key factor
in the downfall of past republics (xii: 3723). The Treasury was to be made accountable to the
Legislative. This is the only area of government in which Condorcet accepted the principle of checks
and balances between different branches.
47
In the Discours sur lofce de lempereur Condorcet, offering a positive assessment of Frances position,
noted that times of crisis and revolutionary upheaval exposed the weaknesses of ministers rather than
those of the nation as a whole: But thoughtful men might ask whether stormy and revolutionary
times have ever been times of weakness for nations, whether elds will lie fallow because the gibbet
no longer threatens to ravage people, or because tithes are no longer payable, whether the people
will be less industrious because unequal taxes have been abolished, or because the poor man will
no longer be forced to make advance payments on those taxes? They might ask what France has
lost, apart from gold and the nobility, and whether or not France still has men and a fertile soil
(x: 287).
Managing the Revolution 271
the volatile war situation in mind.
48
The number of deputies to be elected
would be calculated as a ratio of the population in each department. Voting
by acclamation was rejected, and for security reasons it was proposed that
the names of voters should be attached to the lists of candidates (a simple
indication). In the next stage of voting for individuals (a vote indicating
preference), however, votes would be cast anonymously, so as to make it
the freest expression of the will of those casting the votes (xii: 404). In
the Plan Condorcet proposed, moreover, a constitution in which politi-
cal participation would become an educational, as well as liberating, civic
experience for the citizen, an experience that was indispensable to the cre-
ation of a constitution based on reason, freedom and equality, the political
maturity of the state being dependent ultimately on the educated mind of
the individual citizen. Condorcet also had in mind here quality of repre-
sentation, and in seeking to ensure that a new constitution would be less
open to corruption and intrigue, he hoped that the Plan, if implemented,
would encourage men of talent and virtue to present themselves for elec-
tion to the Assembly, as well as to the proposed National Council.
49
With
regard to voting rules, Condorcet envisaged a universal male suffrage (no
echo here of the Admission des femmes au droit de cite), with a pyramidal
system of elections, with primary assemblies at its base electing members to
departmental assemblies from which national deputies would be elected.
Safeguards against tyranny were to be found in the right of anyone to have
a referendum on any piece of proposed legislation that was suspect.
50
The 1793 Plan de constitution, completed by the end of December 1792,
51
was drafted with the intention of consolidating and stabilising the Revo-
lution, and of assuring ordinary citizens that the Revolution was working
in their interests. These were the people at whom the Plan was primarily
addressed (xii: 411). If the allies of the Plan were to be drawn fromthe ranks
of ordinary citizens, however, in Condorcets view its opponents were to be
48
With regard to the war situation itself, Condorcet had drafted an address to the nation sometime
between March and the end of May 1793 appealing for national unity in the face of danger: Citizens.
There are tyrants to ght, rebels to suppress, a spirit of royalism which seeks to turn men away from
republican liberty by sowing the seeds of disorder and unhappiness everywhere. These are your real
enemies, these are the people against whom we must march together, we should be arguing only
about our zeal for equality and about our sacrices for the country (BIF Condorcet MS 864, ff.
1318). The manuscripts of two other addresses drafted in the spring of 1793 seeking to rally the
nation, and particularly the Parisians, have also survived (BIF Condorcet MS 864, ff. 51927).
49
Withregardto procedures for electionto the National Council andthe qualities neededincandidates,
see xii: 4023.
50
Condorcet accepted the impracticality of this particular proposal, and addressed the problem in a
different way elsewhere, see McLean and Hewitt, Condorcet, pp. 448.
51
For an incomplete rst draft of the 1793 Plan de constitution, see BIF Condorcet MS 864, ff. 40440.
272 Condorcet and Modernity
found among the vain, the ambitious and the avaricious, whose interests
would not be served by the restoration of order and the implementation of
a reformed constitution. To these groups could be added all those who had
lost faith in the Revolution and regretted the founding of the Republic, as
well as those who were plotting to destroy the Republics indivisibility in
the interests of foreign powers. These shameful hopes would be frustrated
by the acceptance of a constitution based on the sovereignty of the peo-
ple, universal equality and national unity. The Plan, embodying a renewed
Declaration of Rights, thus concludes with a mixture of deance, hope,
exhortation and trepidation alerting the reader to the pressure of the events
surrounding its composition that must have concentrated the minds of the
Comite de constitution as they attempted to salvage something from the
wreckage of the 1791 constitution. It reects a determination to formulate a
revitalised set of political principles and an improved constitutional frame-
work within which the government of the First Republic could control
an uncertain and volatile political situation, strengthen the links between
government and people and protect the Revolution from its enemies.
On behalf of the Comite de constitution Condorcet, now in poor health
and virtually inaudible, presented the Plan to the National Convention
on 15 and 16 February 1793. The opening ourish, afrming that the new
constitutional proposals were founded on the rights of man, recognised
and declared, liberty, equality and the sovereignty of the people, and pro-
claiming the unity and indivisibility of the Republic (xii: 423), is followed
by the 380 articles of the draft constitution itself.
52
The basic principles
were clear. To Montesquieus separation of powers Condorcet preferred the
limitation of powers. The peoples consent to delegate their power to their
representatives would always be conditional. Their will was paramount
as an operating principle, and the new proposals aimed to maximise the
expression of that will, particularly in the primary assemblies whose mem-
bership would be open to all male nationals over the age of twenty-one,
and all male non-nationals with one year of residence. The electricity of
power was channelled through the electoral process itself, much emphasis
52
These are not numbered consecutively but are divided into thirteen titres, each with a varying
number of sub-sections: De la division du territoire (seven articles), De letat des citoyens, et des
conditions necessaires pour en exercer les droits (ten articles), Des assemblees primaires (fty-six articles),
Des corps administratifs (twenty-ve articles), Du conseil executif de la republique (sixty-one articles),
De la tresorerie nationale, et du bureau de comptabilite (thirteen articles), Du corps legislatif (fty-four
articles), De la censure du peuple sur les actes de la representation nationale, et du droit de petition (thirty-
three articles), Des conventions nationales (sixteen articles), De ladministration de la justice (seventy-
two articles), De la force publique (twelve articles), Des contributions publiques (eleven articles), Des
rapports de la Republique franc aise avec les nations etrang`eres, et de ses relations exterieures (ten articles).
Managing the Revolution 273
being placed on referenda and public initiatives. Executive power would be
conned to an elected Executive Council of seven members, of which the
presidency would change every two weeks to avoid the dangers of repub-
lican monarchy. Ministers would be accountable to an elected national
tribunal. At a more localised level, a grand commune structure was pro-
posed to ensure an appropriate balance of representation between urban
and rural France. While the Plan owes much to the thinking of others,
its originality resides in the way it sought to translate theories of universal
suffrage, democratic voting procedures and popular consent into practice,
and to formalise in law the rights, responsibilities and duties of citizens liv-
ing in an enlightened Republic. It offered contemporaries a fresh vision of
government in which the governed were engaged in constructive dialogue
with their political representatives. The adversarial processes embraced by
Robespierre and Si ey` es were to be replaced by transparent decision-making,
informed and scrutinised by the public will. The Plan offered nothing less
than a sovereignty of the people expressed as a set of specic constitutional
modalities rather than left as a vague abstraction to be interpreted at the
will of governments. Such a radically democratic vision did not meet with
the approval of the jacobin Montagnards for whom it was tainted fatally by
girondist revisionism.
53
The Jacobins saw in the electoral and voting pro-
posals, in particular, a dangerous threat from provincial assemblies to their
power-base in Paris.
Debate in the Convention started on 17 April, and a week later a newPro-
jet de Declaration des droits naturels, civils et politiques des hommes, amended
by Robespierre, was promulgated, initiating a more detailed public discus-
sion of Condorcets Projet de constitution franc aise.
54
On 10 April Condorcet
commended the merits of the Plan in a powerfully argued essay, Ce que
53
See Jaume, Le Discours jacobin, pp. 31921; M. Pertu e, La Censure du peuple dans le projet de
constitution de Condorcet, in Cr epel and Gilain (eds.), Condorcet mathematicien, p. 325. The
people could not legislate, the peoples power being conned in practice to the power to elect and
to censure. In an appendix Pertu e cites the relevant provisions for this in Titre viii: De la censure du
peuple sur les actes de la representation nationale et du droit de petition.
54
The main provisions of the newDeclaration of Rights included the adoption of common happiness
as the aim of the civil order; the rights of man (now dened as equality, liberty, security and
property); personal rights (equality before the law, freedom of expression and of the press, equality
of opportunity, freedom from arbitrary arrest, freedom of worship, assembly and petition, the right
to trial, the right to resist oppression, freedomof trade and industry); abolition of slavery; sovereignty
as the possession of the people, public assistance (a sacred debt); a state education system; the right
to insurrection when the government violates the peoples rights, the most sacred of rights and
the most imprescribable of duties. As far as Condorcet was concerned, the powers of any new
constitution were conditioned, and constrained, by an accepted Declaration of Rights whose articles
were inviolate. On the issue of rights in the context of the church and freedom of worship as part
of the Declaration of Rights, see also the Revision des travaux de la premi`ere legislature (x: 3934).
274 Condorcet and Modernity
les citoyens ont droit dattendre de leurs representants (What citizens have the
right to expect from their representatives). Here he stressed the need for
reinforcement of republican ideals, and offered a close analysis of the advan-
tages of the newconstitutional proposals.
55
Again Condorcet demonstrated
here his understanding of the psychology of power. The successful manage-
ment of constitutional transition depended on the pragmatic recognition of
the fact that the calculations of personality and the primacy of self-interest
on the one hand, and the inchoate, often irrational, pressures emanating
from the collective will of the governed on the other, had to be taken fully
into account by the wise legislator as far as this was possible, and especially
in the critical weeks following the execution of Louis XVI. In reasserting
constitutional control, however, the Plan makes clear to representatives in
every aspect of the process of political management that it illuminates the
crucial difference between being the servants of the public will and the
puppets of the mob (xii: 55668). The Plan also advocates a centralisation
of executive power, in line with jacobin ideas, as the only way to ensure
that the principles of the Revolution could be implemented.
56
Condorcet
was always conscious of the need for caution in the government of a people
unaccustomed to liberty, and the maintenance of public order was high on
his agenda, here as elsewhere in his political writings. In Ce que les citoyens
ont droit dattendre de leurs representants of 10 April 1793 his analysis of the
destabilising elements in play since the crisis provoked by the royal ight
to Varennes leads the reader only in one direction, namely the replacement
without further ado of the monarchy with a republic (xii: 567).
The general principles were clear, but the elaboration of those principles
was too charged with technical qualications and administrative minutiae,
detailed even down to the format of voting slips, to capture the imagination
of deputies. The Plan was essentially the work of a political scientist rather
than a politician, and unsurprisingly its reception was disappointing. The
press reports of its contents were cursory, and the reactions of deputies
negative, as Condorcet himself acknowledged on 17 February 1793 in the
Chronique de Paris. The Convention authorised publication, but invited
counter-proposals. On the day after Condorcets presentation of the Plan, a
new Comite de constitution was set up, dominated this time by Robespierre,
55
In this essay Condorcet also listed the additional measures with regard to national security (and the
movement of emigres) that needed to be taken to coincide with the adoption of the new constitution
(xii: 5528). These included recruitment of high-quality soldiers committed to the national cause,
the need to apply the latest technology in the conduct of the war, the rationalisation of food prices,
the protection of property and the control of ination.
56
On the links between the sovereignty of the people, the power of the majority in the National
Assembly and the common interest, see Dippel, Projeter le monde moderne, 1657.
Managing the Revolution 275
Saint-Just, Collot dHerbois and their supporters. They lost little time in
denouncing publicly what was now seen as a girondist constitution, to
be strangled at birth. Condorcets disappointment, after four months of
exhausting work, must have been acute. Fearing an indenite postpone-
ment of reform, Condorcet demanded in a speech to the Convention on
13 May 1793 that the primary assemblies should be convened for the fol-
lowing November to make a decision to accept or reject the proposals. He
reiterated the need for a new republican constitution to heal Frances inter-
nal wounds, and assured the Convention that the adoption of the Plan
would signal to the people the end of seditious conspiracies, and nally
shatter the counter-revolutionary dreams of foreign kings (xii: 584). The
Projet de decret was Condorcets last rallying call to the cause of his vision of
the new constitution, and in it he set a ve-month deadline for the accep-
tance or rejection of the by now much-reviled Plan,
57
urging submission
of the Plan itself to the people as quickly as possible. These demands were
applauded, but ignored.
On 4 April the Convention established a six-member commission, to
which Condorcet was not nominated, to examine all counter-proposals
received, and the debate, in effect marking the end of the road for Con-
dorcets Plan, would continue until May. On 10 May Condorcet nally
broke his silence in the Convention with a brief Discours sur la convocation
dune nouvelle Convention nationale (Speech on the convocation of a new
National Convention) (i: 58397) drawing attention to the dangers to the
Republic of the current constitutional vacuum. This was Condorcets last
speech to the Convention. In the subsequent phases of the debate over the
new constitution Condorcets proposals were by-passed. His Projet de con-
stitution franc aise was too closely identied with the discredited Gironde,
and with the purge of the Girondins on 2 June it was referred to a working
party of the Comite de salut public, chaired by H erault de S echelles, and
charged with the creation of a newdraft within a week. Ahurried report was
accordingly produced reducing the number of articles to 180, and revising
much of the surviving text to accommodate Robespierres views. While the
redraft contains echoes of Condorcets wording, its contents were far less
democratic, and crucially it abandoned Condorcets key proviso relating to
the regular review of the constitution, and the requirement for the peri-
odic renewal of its mandate from the people. An amended Declaration of
57
The Projet de decret contained three articles: the rst proposing the convocation of the primary
assemblies for 1 November, the second establishing membership of a new National Convention that
the assemblies would elect, and the third proposing 15 December as the date for the new National
Convention to come into being (xii: 594).
276 Condorcet and Modernity
Rights was appended, and it was in this form that the 1793 constitution was
eventually presented to the Convention on 10/11 June, given perfunctory
consideration and approved on 24 June. It would never be implemented.
58
Condorcet was outraged, and towards the end of June he circulated
anonymously a lengthy clandestine letter, Aux citoyens franc ais sur la nou-
velle constitution (To French citizens on the new constitution) express-
ing his dismay (xii: 65375). The H erault de S echelles revisions had been
accepted, after a feeble discussion, and with a few amendments compla-
cently accepted, by representatives under pressure, and intimidated by
armed soldiers in the atmosphere of terror that ensued from the arrest
of twenty-seven Girondins on 2 June.
59
The democratic credentials of
the revised Plan were, in Condorcets opinion, non-existent, its proposals
involving nothing less than the ruination of the integrity of the Conven-
tion, with the proposed abolition of press freedom, the close surveillance
of the postal service and other measures denying freedom of thought and
expression. He continued to defend his own Plan de constitution franc aise,
dismantling the H erault de S echelles revisions point by point, but the battle
was lost. The Revolution now seemed to him to have come full circle since
1789: Ah! What a deadly resemblance there is between what is happening
today and the last months of the Constituent Assembly! (xii: 673). On the
eve of his denunciation by Chabot on 8 July, Condorcets great vision for
constitutional renewal lay in ruins.
60
58
A decree of 10 October 1793 put the whole project on ice, and it would remain so until 18 April
1795 when a Comite de constitution was elected under the Thermidorian Convention, the so-called
Commission des onze.
59
This is Condorcets gure. The purge of the Girondins in fact encompassed the arrest of twenty-nine,
including Clavi` ere and Lebrun, to the accompaniment of popular demonstrations led by Hanriot
and the Paris National Guard. Condorcet protested against these events (a general perdy) in an
address entitled Les Deputes du departement de lAisne ` a la Convention nationale: aux citoyens du
departement (xii: 57180). Aux citoyens franc ais became the pretext for Chabots attack.
60
On the disparaging views of John Adams about Condorcets Plan, see C. F. Adams (ed.), The Life
and Works of John Adams [with a Life of the Author], 10 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1856),
vol. vi, p. 252. Cf. Rosenblum, Condorcet as constitutional draftsman, 2023.
Conclusion: the human odyssey
In Condorcets growing disenchantment with the gilded, sclerotic order of
the ancien regime, and in the arrangements that he advocated in an aston-
ishingly wide range of contexts for Frances translation to modernity, we
can detect a rich, intricately woven synthesis of the great Enlightenment
narratives of reason, tolerance, humanity and hope. His deeply pragmatic
vision of a regenerated civil order, in which the long-neglected conditions
of the pact of association would be reinstated in formal constitutional
terms in accordance with the needs, rights and aspirations of a rapidly
mutating society marks him out from the generality of eighteenth-century
French political thinkers. The last of the second generation of philosophes,
Condorcet belonged to a new breed of social planners and political scien-
tists, of policy-makers conscious of the potential power of political arith-
metic as an instrument of efcient and enlightened governmental admin-
istration and rational forward planning, and for whom the sole purpose
of the pact of association was the advancement of public happiness. To
this end, he made a unique historical contribution to our understand-
ing of what constitutes the public realm, collective liberty and what ordi-
nary citizens can legitimately hold in common in terms of political public
space.
Condorcet was certainly an egalitarian, but it would be misleading to
regard him as a precursor of socialism. In his numerous blueprints for
managing a difcult present, and a probability-assured, but by no means
risk-free, future, property remains sacrosanct, taxation is not progressive,
freedom of commerce and international trade is defended unreservedly,
and if the citizen has the right to resist oppression, that right was in his
view best exerted through the legalities of an agreed constitution before
the ultimate right to insurrection could be invoked. The inauguration of
modernity did not necessarily imply for Condorcet the violent overthrow
of public order, although as an elected deputy he was obliged to witness
fromwithin the heart of revolutionary government a blood-letting that was
277
278 Condorcet and Modernity
to threaten the very foundations of public order throughout Europe. He
wished to engineer the downfall of tyrants, and to encourage everywhere the
desacralisation of monarchy, but for him power could never be legitimised,
or justice served, by the blade of the guillotine. He thus deplored the advent
of a Terror which cast a malevolent shadow over the ideals of 1789, and
darkened the dawn of the First Republic, though he would never accept
that the darkness was anything but a passing phase, a storm.
Condorcets mathematically driven pragmatism, and his clear-sighted
understanding of what could, and could not, be achieved, has not always
served his reputation well. His solutions often took the formof a calculation
of compromises between the imperatives of his political conscience and
a recognition of the hard realities to be confronted whenever power is
brokered. His gradualist approach to reform, particularly in the context of
colonial slavery, the criminal code, feudal privilege and civil rights are all
examples of areas in which Condorcet is charged with ambivalence, and
even betrayal of principle, by some of his modern critics.
1
He preferred
change to be implemented slowly, cautiously and rationally if it was to be
meaningful and lasting. He thought long-term, and to see his conviction
that reform and progress were not always for tomorrow as a stain on his
political reputation is to make a harsh judgement. Condorcets diagnosis
of the aws in the civil order, and his prescriptions for their cure, were on
the contrary profoundly moral, and informed by an ineradicable faith in,
and understanding of, the moral nature of the political process.
The release of men and women from the prison of ignorance, poverty,
superstition, prejudice, error and the constraints of self-interest required an
essentially moral understanding of the purpose of the polity. Morality was
for Condorcet an uncompromisingly secular matter, far removed from the
articial hegemony of religious dogma, and it provided his strategies for
reform with their ideological centre of gravity. Condorcet was as much an
exponent of moral science as he was of social science, and the two aspects
of his thought cannot easily be separated, or even fully understood, in
isolation from each other. His interest in the essentially moral nature of
the war against the enemies of progress becomes clearly apparent in the
Discours de reception he gave to the Academy on assuming his seat.
2
Further
interesting evidence of the moral direction in which his political thinking
was moving in the early 1780s can also be found in the fragment of an early
1
On Condorcets political inconsistency and the hiatus between principles and policies in his thought,
see Rothschild, Economic Sentiments, pp. 2069.
2
See Baker, Condorcets notes. In fact, traces of the newmoral orientation are evident in a manuscript
fragment dating probably from around 1772, BIF Condorcet MS 855(1), ff. 111, 1338.
Conclusion: the human odyssey 279
draft of the introductory chapter of the Esquisse
3
where he announced his
intention to chart mans intellectual and moral journey through history,
and make a projection of the next stage of that journey into the world of
the generations to come.
Like Voltaire, Condorcet distrusted systems, and unsurprisingly it is dif-
cult to position his political writings neatly within the compass of a generic
school or movement. Turgot was much admired as a model of enlightened
statesmanship, but in the end Condorcet was nobodys political disciple.
As Coutel has rightly pointed out, his politics cannot be reduced to a
simple catechism,
4
and this is probably why in later hagiographies of the
Revolution his work and achievements, impervious to easy categorisation,
are still underestimated. The fact that he is still emerging from the shad-
owy margins of great political discourse might be taken as evidence of
ideological incoherence
5
and lightness of theoretical weight. It is certainly
true to say that theoretical issues were for Condorcet representations of
practical problems whose solution lay in their being translated into projets
de loi. Ideas were to be given life as constitutional realities rather than as
philosophical propositions. His mission was about ways actually to trans-
form the world, and in this the principles for political action, as opposed
to political reection, which underpin his analysis are clear, and they are
frequently reiterated as realisable objectives in the formulation of policy:
equality, universality, indivisibility, accountability, consent, secularisation,
perfectibility, tolerance, usefulness and above all reason: Nations which are
truly free are governed by reason alone (x: 386).
As Condorcet made clear in the essay on constitutional law that he
issued in November 1792, De la nature des pouvoirs dans une nation libre
(x: 589613), these organising points of reference represented the political
distillation of the values of the Enlightenment, and their elucidation and
promulgation lay behind the activities of the Societe de 1789 (x: 6976).
6
Of these, the notion of rights, their public declaration and constitutional
protection, is really the hub around which Condorcets political universe
revolves, and few of his essays do not return to the need to enshrine rights
as the centrepiece of any reformed civil order. He knew, however, that
rights had little meaning without an accompanying recognition on the
part of the state to recognise in law the existence and inviolability of those
3
BIF Condorcet MS 865, f. 219. See Bakers comments, Condorcet, pp. 354, 476 n. 12.
4
Coutel, Condorcet, p. 31.
5
On other aspects of the unifying features of Condorcets thought, see K. M. Baker,LUnit e de la
pens ee de Condorcet, in Cr epel and Gilain (eds.), Condorcet mathematicien, pp. 51524.
6
See Groethuysen, Philosophie, p. 96; Alengry, Condorcet, p. 839.
280 Condorcet and Modernity
rights. Rights co-existed, moreover, with responsibilities collectively and
individually, and it was his awareness of the vital importance of this that
led Condorcet to give so much emphasis to the effective engagement of the
citizens in the processes by which they were governed. It was only by means
of this engagement that the subject could become a citizen in the sense of
being a participating agent in the exercise of the states sovereign authority.
The metamorphosis of subjects into citizens had always collided with
the paradox, illuminated though not resolved by Rousseaus great Legisla-
tor who, in order to change others, must somehow rst have been changed
himself. Condorcet addressed the paradox directly in 1791 in the fourth
Memoire sur linstruction publique in the context of an understanding of
the Republic as the common property of all, in which the achievement
of true political liberty was made conditional upon the achievement of
public enlightenment. Enlightenment would thus become a strategic pro-
gramme for government action in its own right in the form of legisla-
tive strategies for a public education system seamlessly linked to broader
strategies of constitutional reform. In Condorcets educational proposals for
legislation the Republic would accept the duty to provide a civic appren-
ticeship to enable the individual to engage in the process of government,
and to assume the responsibilities that this implied, thereby resolving the
LycurgianRousseauist paradox.
7
It was precisely because of its failure to
address effectively the issue of civic participation that the 1791 constitu-
tion had failed in Condorcets eyes. Conversely, much of the originality of
his own Projet de constitution franc aise is to be found in the proposals to
diminish the political distance between rulers and ruled, that embody spe-
cic, practical provisions for realisable modes of civic interaction with the
National Assembly.
8
These proposals were all predicated on the establish-
ment of a national system of public education that would create the con-
ditions in which the spirit of citizenship could ourish, and the lifeblood
of the polity be thereby reinvigorated.
Condorcets thinking on the processes and policies involved in the mod-
ernisation of both the state and the political mentality of its citizens crys-
tallised as a profession of faith in human progress and perfectibility, and
here we get to the heart of Condorcets commitment to the Revolution and
to republicanism. Perfectibility for Condorcet, while being a sure guarantee
of progress, did not connote providentialism, predestination or determin-
ism. There is nothing chimerical about Condorcets version of utopia in
7
On this point, see also the Eloge de m. Franklin (iii: 383). Cf. Coutel, Condorcet, pp. 56.
8
See Jaume, Le Discours jacobin, p. 310.
Conclusion: the human odyssey 281
the tenth epoque of the Esquisse.
9
It assumed its characteristically secular,
concrete meaning in Condorcets work in terms of the rational application
of the energies of the human mind. The creation of social and political
conditions favourable to the release of those energies was crucial to the art
of enlightened political management, and was for Condorcet central to the
responsibilities of legislators as they sought to ensure the triumph of truth
over error. Truth, however, was an ever-changing commodity, and this had
implications that were as important for the world of politics as they were
for the world of science. Part of Condorcets originality was to recognise
this in his urgent insistence on the fact that constitutions too were always
in a state of becoming, and that legal provision for their uid evolution
through time must always be in place. Management of the legacy of the
political past was for himalways co-terminous with the management of the
political future.
The logic of perfectibility sustained Condorcets optimism (vi: 5789)
and reinforced that unprecedented condence in the human enterprise
which illuminates the Esquisse so brightly. This treatise represents the most
comprehensive elaboration of Condorcets understanding of the dynam-
ics of historical change. The tortuous navigation of nine epoques takes the
reader from the primitive past of human socialisation, the birth of literacy,
the rise and fall of the scientic enlightenment of Greece to that of Renais-
sance Europe, and to the challenges and achievements of the post-Cartesian
world. Condorcets account of the achievements of the nine epoques culmi-
nating in the triumphant birth of the rst French Republic offers us an epic
account of displacement, change and movement, a narrative of progress,
10
though subject to certain provisos:
But is this not only on the condition that we exert all our strength? And do we not
need to study carefully in the history of the human spirit what obstacles are still to
be feared, and the means we have to overcome them, so that the happiness promised
[by the Revolution] can be bought at a lower price, so that [the Revolution] can
spread further and more rapidly, and be more all-embracing in its effects. (vi: 234)
Inthe tenthepoque, Des progr` es futurs de lesprit humain (Onthe future
progress of the human mind), three of these obstacles are identied: the
problem of political inequality between nations, the problem of social and
economic inequality betweenclasses and the problemof natural inequalities
between individuals. With regard to the rst problem, Condorcet explored
9
Baczko refers to Condorcets utopie anti-utopique, Lumi`eres de lutopie, p. 192.
10
The notion of narrative in Condorcets account of progress has been explored briey by F. Palmeri,
Ferguson, Condorcet and Enlightenment narratives of progress, SVEC 303 (1992), 4623.
282 Condorcet and Modernity
the evidence for an assumption that the distance travelled by European
nations could also be travelled by others still in the grip of autocratic
servitude. Could it be that nature dictates an inexorable state of inequality
between peoples, condemning some to eternal darkness and political stasis,
and blessing others with a capacity for improvement? On the second point,
among the civilised nations, were class inequalities, exacerbated by the
initial move from nature to the civil order, a natural, inherent characteristic
of sociability, or were they a consequence of the imperfections of the social
art, and therefore manageable? On the third point, was perfectionnement
at the individual level even achievable? In answering these three questions,
we will nd in past experience, and by observing the progress made so
far by science and civilisation, by an analysis of the onward march of the
human mind and of its intellectual development, the strongest reasons for
believing that nature has placed no limits on our hopes and expectations
(vi: 238).
Condorcet stressed repeatedly the historical and symbolic importance of
the French Revolution as a beacon of light holding back the darkness that
might still engulf the men and women of the tenth epoque. The achieve-
ment of the Revolution in France, building on the effects of the political
earthquake that had already shaken the world of tyrants in 1776 in the form
of the successful insurrection of the American colonists, convinced himthat
other, less fortunate, nations would soon be able to accept the invitation to
the voyage into a future of light too (vi: 241). Colonisers and missionaries
would be replaced by men interested only in spreading useful knowledge
essential to happiness, in making former slaves aware of their true inter-
ests and their rights, and encouraging everywhere a fanaticism only for
truth. The pace of progress in their case might be uneven, and accompa-
nied by storms, but it would be certain (vi: 2412). The unenlightened
world outside Europe and America would thus benet from having a path
already cleared and well marked, and would be spared the painful process
of trial and error that Europeans have had to endure. No nation would be
left stranded on the wilder shores of its past, or becalmed in an imperfect
present:
So the moment will come when the sun will shine only on a planet of free men,
knowing only reason as their master, where tyrants and slaves, priests and their
stupid, hypocritical accomplices will exist only in history and on the stage, where
our interest in them will be conned to grief for their victims and dupes, to
the maintenance of a vigilance, born of horror at their excesses, that will stand
us in good stead, and to learning how to recognise and smother beneath the
weight of reason the rst signs of superstition and tyranny, should they ever dare
to reappear. (vi: 244)
Conclusion: the human odyssey 283
In surveying the storms which could potentially cause havoc, the mind
of the public administrator and revolutionary legislator takes precedence
over that of the philosophe. As we have seen, navigating a safe route towards
modernity was for Condorcet essentially a matter for strategic planners,
rather than philosophers, and in the tenth epoque the invitation to the voy-
age avoids the speculative excesses of more conventional utopic discourse.
Condorcet accepted that the natural causes of inequality might well be in
the last resort ineradicable, but he insisted that the impact of this on the
everyday life of the citizen could at least be controlled, and its destabil-
ising effects mitigated, in an astonishingly broad range of contexts which
included far-sighted draft bills relating to civil rights, the slave trade, public
health initiatives, canal-building, the grain trade, public works, social insur-
ance, pension schemes, the redeployment of capital and taxation reform:
and we will still owe these measures to the application of the calculus
(vi: 248).
11
In all this, Condorcets application of the calculus of probabil-
ities to social engineering remains central to the armoury of weapons that
he put at the disposal of modern governments. The intellectual lineage of
the tenth epoque of the Esquisse reaches back to the Essai sur lapplication
de lanalyse ` a la probabilite des decisions rendues ` a la pluralite des voix, and
other works relating to probability theory, in ways that have yet to be fully
explored, and has only recently even been recognised, thanks to the work
of social scientists like McLean, Urken and others, and economic historians
like Rothschild.
With Condorcet the mathematical physicist, the political theorist, the
economist, the exponent of actuarial science, the defender of rights and the
founding theorist of positivismcannot be separated. His startlingly original
extension of the arithmetical mechanisms of the calculus of probabilities to
social planning and to social choice, creating thereby a science of society,
and harnessing science to human needs, represents what is arguably his
most signicant contribution to modernity. Only through the application
of the calculus could the full potential of the sciences be fully realised in
the service of man. The sciences would otherwise be virtually useless to
the advancement of the human enterprise: crude and limited, due to a
lack of instruments ne enough to discern ephemeral truths, and machines
capable of reaching to the depths of the mine where some of their riches
are hidden (vi: 260). It is through the lter of probability theory as set out
in the 1785 Essai sur lapplication de lanalyse, and its extended application
11
For other examples, see D. G. Troyanski, Condorcet et lid ee dassurance vieillesse; A. Tzonis, Un
Memoire sur les h opitaux de Condorcet, Dix-huiti`eme si`ecle 9 (1977), 10914; R. Niklaus, Id ealisme
philosophique dans les Cinqmemoires sur linstructionpublique, inCr epel andGilain(eds.), Condorcet
mathematicien, pp. 2628; Greenbaum, Health care and hospital building.
284 Condorcet and Modernity
in the 1788 Essai sur la constitution et la fonction des assemblees provinciales,
that the tenth epoque of the Esquisse has to be read and understood.
That Condorcets view of the next stage in mans great journey was
anchored to a hard-nosed specicity is nowhere more clearly illustrated than
in the case he presents in the Esquisse for educational reform. In the Esquisse
his comments on education and public enlightenment underline the fact
that the march of the human spirit was about the welfare of the individual
citizen, and they address directly the key third question posed at the start
of the tenth epoque concerning individual perfectibility (vi: 248). Here in
the crucial context of universal public instruction Condorcet unveils the
prospect of a regenerated society, illustrating once more the degree to which
his probability-basedprojectionof mans future happiness was anexpression
of his condence in the resilience of the individual human spirit, and in
the innite potential of the human mind and of human inventiveness. The
Esquisse is for this reason not only about an intellectual journey through
landscapes of historical change, but also about a moral journey into the
self, a quest for knowledge, but also self-knowledge and self-liberation,
empowering the individual to assume control over his condition, and break
for ever the chains of mental servitude,
to be no longer the dupe of those common errors which torment our lives with
superstitious fears and illusory hopes, to defend ourselves against prejudice just
with the power of our reason, and to escape at last from the conjuring-tricks of a
quackery which ensnares our money, our health and our freedom of opinion and
conscience while claiming to enrich us, cure us and save us. (vi: 249)
Universal education, science, enlightenment, moral renewal, freedom,
equality and happiness interlock in the Esquisse, and underpin the organ-
ising principle behind a treatise built upon the assumption that man had
an open future into which he could advance with condence, but not
complacency.
Once universal education of the whole mass of the people had been
achieved, enabling men to govern themselves by their own enlighten-
ment, natural inequalities between individuals would be compensated by
a revolution in social relationships in which knowledge would no longer
be a divisive prerogative of the few facilitating oppression of the many.
12
12
F. Vials Condorcet et leducation democratique (Paris: P. Delaplane, 1902; repr. 1970) still offers
an authoritative account of Condorcets educational philosophy, but see also C. de Boni, The
French Revolution and education: the contribution of Condorcet, Ponte 43 (1987), 96112; C. Duce,
Condorcet on education, British Journal of Educational Studies 19 (1971), 27282; F. P. Hager, State
and education in Helv etius, Rousseau and Condorcet: a comparison, SVEC 303 (1992), 26971;
Kintzler, Condorcet.
Conclusion: the human odyssey 285
Natural inequalities could not, and maybe should not, be abolished, but
the exercise of power and its relationship to the pact of association could be
better understood, and its civil inconveniences better accommodated, by
an educated citizenry. It might then be possible for that rst, crucially fate-
ful, contract between rulers and ruled to be renegotiated fruitfully on the
basis of a full awareness of rights and responsibilities, and a better-informed
recognition of the imperatives of mutual self-interest:
Fromthis must come a true equality since any difference in enlightenment or talent
can no longer raise a barrier between men whose feelings, ideas and language allow
them to understand each other; some might feel the need to be educated by others,
but not to be led by them; some might wish to confer responsibility for ruling
them on the more enlightened, but not forced to surrender that responsibility
condently but blindly. This is when higher enlightenment becomes an advantage
even to those who do not share it, when it exists to serve them and not to work
against them. (vi: 24950)
Condorcet described in the Fragment sur lAtlantide, ou efforts combines
de lesp`ece humaine pour le progr`es des sciences the way in which the fruits
of scientic progress, together with the reorganisation of humanitys intel-
lectual resources, would lay the foundations of a society of men devoted
exclusively to the quest for truth (vi: 597). In the Esquisse the emphasis is
upon the process of becoming, on the voyage rather than the destination.
Only in the Fragment does the City of Light itself, through whose gates
in Condorcets view man would one day pass, become fully visible.
13
The
prospect of a new Atlantis opened up limitless, though not cloudless, hori-
zons. Condorcet understood with prescient clarity the possible price to be
paid for Utopia. He noted, for example, the crisis for future generations
of exponential population growth, combined with the pressures on soci-
ety arising from an extension of the human lifespan, and the double-edged
consequences of anincreasingly sophisticated technology. Science promised
secular salvation, but its very success raised the spectre of a march really
in the reverse direction, or at least a sort of uctuation between good and
evil (vi: 257).
14
13
On the argumentation of the Fragment, see C. Coutel, Utopie et perfectibilit e: signications de
lAtlantide chez Condorcet, in Chouillet and Cr epel (eds.), Condorcet, pp. 99107; K. M. Baker,
Scientism, elitism and liberalism: the case of Condorcet, SVEC 55 (1967), 12966. On the nature
of Condorcets utopianism in a wider context, see P. Villani, De l age dor ` a lAtlantide. Mythe de
lorigine et utopie chez Condorcet, in D. Armogathe et al. (eds.), Analyses et reexions sur Condorcet,
Esquisse dun tableau historique des progr`es de lesprit humain: lhistoire (Paris: Ellipses, 1989), pp. 3544.
14
See D. R. Lachterman, The conquest of nature and the ambivalence of man in the French Enlight-
enment: reections on Condorcets Fragment sur lAtlantide, in D. C. Mell et al. (eds.), Man, God
and Nature in the Enlightenment (East Lansing, MI: Boydell and Brewer, 1988), pp. 3747.
286 Condorcet and Modernity
In the end, Condorcet concluded that the prospect of an abrupt rever-
sal, or even termination of the human odyssey was too remote a factor to
take seriously into account, and thoughts of dystopia were dispelled with
an assumption, informed by the calculation of probabilities, that scientic
advances would ultimately enable man to balance the equation of ever-
expanding demands and ever-diminishing resources. Human advancement
was ultimately limited only by the lifespan of the planet and of nature. The
pace was variable, the route open to detours, but progress was assured pro-
vided that the laws of Newtonian cosmology continued to apply, and that
the powers of the analogous mental universe remained unaffected by any
general upheaval or changes which would not permit the human race to
survive, apply the same intellectual skills, and nd the same resources at its
disposal (vi: 13). The qualication is crucial, and it rescues Condorcets pre-
dictions from accusations of unconditional optimism and naivety.
15
Nev-
ertheless, the reassurances of the Esquisse with regard to mans ability to
meet the challenge of survival are reinforced explicitly, and at length, in the
Fragment where he reafrms the dependability of the unending scientic
enterprise as a reliable indicator of probability with regard to a successful
outcome to mans engagement with his future (vi: 626).
In confronting even the hypothesis of a closed future, and of an inter-
ruption to the odyssey, Condorcet would always reassert the liberating
promise of an open destination, although the requirement that the moral
distance travelled by the human mind should coincide with the distance
travelled in other contexts was always to be an indispensable condition of
that promise. In that requirement he located much of the responsibility of
contemporaries towards the generations yet to be born:
But, even if we postulate that the journey might one day come to an end, there is
nothing to be feared fromthat, with regard to either human happiness or unending
humanperfectibility, if we assume that before that time comes the progress of reason
has kept pace with the progress of science and art, and that the ridiculous prejudices
of superstition have stopped covering morality with strictures that corrupt and
degrade it, instead of rening and elevating it. Men will then know that they have
obligations with regard to those not yet born; these [obligations] do not consist in
giving them life but in giving them happiness; their purpose is the well-being of
man and of the society in which men live, of the families to which they belong,
and not in the infantile notion of lling the earth with useless, unhappy people.
So there could be a limit to the total amount of food and resources available, and
15
On this point, see P. Malville, Le malheur dans lhistoire, in Armogathe et al. (eds.), Analyses
et reexions, pp. 8293; L. Loy, Condorcet contre loptimisme. De la combinatoire historique au
m eliorisme politique, in Cr epel and Gilain (eds.), Condorcet mathematicien, pp. 28896.
Conclusion: the human odyssey 287
consequently [there might have to be a limit] to population size if this untimely
destruction of the lives of people in the future, so contrary to nature and to the
prosperity of society, is not to arise. (vi: 2578)
Like all odysseys, Condorcets evoked the conventional elements of a
dramatic Manichean narrative in which a heroic humanity was locked in a
struggle for modernity of mythic dimensions against powerful adversaries.
With the help of science, and the application of scientic principles in the
form of social arithmetic, man would eventually reach a safe harbour, and
the nal act of the drama wouldsee the emergence of a neworder, freedfrom
all these chains, protected from the imperial sway of chance, as well as from
the enemies of progress, marching resolutely along the path to truth and
happiness. Contemplation of the grandeur of that historic voyage towards
modernity might well have lled Condorcets mind in the last dark weeks
before the Revolution he venerated would tragically and brutally claim his
life. The secular Elysium
16
to whichhe invites us inthe poignant concluding
words of the Esquisse seems in the end to offer a personal sanctuary fromthe
unspeakable rigours of his own bleak circumstances in those last, desperate
days of his life, [presenting] to the philosopher a sight which consoles him
for the errors, crimes and injustices which still stain the earth, and of which
he is often the victim (vi: 2756). It was a poignancy that Condorcets rst
editors did not fail to note in the Avertissement des editeurs de lan III: This
is the only homage to a wise man who, with the blade of death hanging over
him, calmly considered how life for his fellow men could be improved; it is
the only consolation that those of us who were the objects of his affection,
and knew how virtuous he was, can have (vi: 819).
16
Condorcets isles of the blest are further explored by R. Winegarten, Visions of Elysium. Condorcet:
liberal or revolutionary?, Encounter 71 (1990), 2433.
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Name index
Abad, R. 227, 237
Adams, John 24, 25
Aelders, Etta Palme d 162
Aiguillon, Emmanuel Armand, duc d 14
Alembert, Jean Le Rond d 11, 12, 21, 23, 94,
108
Alengry, F. 33
Antoine, R. 150
Argenson, Ren e-Louis de Voyer, marquis d 198
Bacon, Francis 95, 97, 100, 113
Baczko, B. 147
Badinter, E. and R. 28, 161
Bailly, Sylvain 23
Baker, K. M. 18, 19, 23, 26, 33, 37, 46, 72, 74, 97,
107, 174, 232
Barbier, A. A. 43
Bar` ere, Bertrand 268
Barnave, Antoine Pierre 157
Barry, B. 190
Bayes, Thomas 108
Bayess Theorem 108
Beccaria, Cesare 2, 66, 181
Benot, Y. 35, 142
Berkeley, George, Bishop 100
Bernoulli, Daniel 108
B ezout, Etienne 11
Black, D. 190
Bolingbroke, Henry, Lord 100
Bonaparte, Napoleon 158
Borda, Jean-Charles 209, 211
Bossut, Charles 21
Bouguer, Pierre 94
Brissot de Warville, Jean-Pierre 26, 31, 34, 35, 41,
146, 155, 263, 267
Discours sur la necessite 152
Burke, Edmund 3
Reections on the Revolution 31
Cabanis, Georges 13, 43
Cahen, L. 14, 28, 33
Calas, Jean 77, 121, 185
Callens, S. 7
Calonne, Charles-Alexandre de 26, 197
Chabot, Francois 35
denounces Condorcet 42, 276
Chalaye, S. 147
Choiseul, Etienne-Francois, duc de 14
Choiseul-Goufer, Marie-Gabriel, comte de 23,
95
Chouillet, A.-M. 33
Clavi` ere, Etienne 42
Clugny, Jean Etienne Bernard de 18, 19, 230
Colbert, Jean-Baptiste 20, 17982, 228
Collins, A. 100
Collot dHerbois, Jean-Marie 39
Condillac, Etienne de 12, 74, 99
Traite des sensations 99
Condorcet, Antoine de 10
Condorcet, Eliza 25, 28, 43
Condorcet, Jean-Antoine Nicolas de Caritat de
birth 10
death 423
denounced as a Girondin 35
early years in Paris 1113
education 1011
election to Academie des sciences 22
election to Comite de constitution 40
election to Comite des Vingt-Quatre 29
election to Legislative Assembly 33
election to National Convention 38
inuence declines 39
journalist, activities as 267, 31
political prole, beginnings of 278
presidency of the Comite dinstruction
publique 31
presidency of the National Assembly 35
recognition 49
service under Turgot 18, 202
testament 43
Treasury, appointment to 30
vision of future 24, 27787
301
302 Name index
Condorcet, Sophie 13, 15, 24, 31, 42, 43, 160, 183,
184
Coutel, C. 4, 33, 264, 279
Danton, Georges-Jacques 37, 39, 263
Descartes, Ren e 93, 94, 95, 98, 100
Diderot, Denis 17, 159
Dippel, H. 74, 217, 228
Du Ch atelet, Emilie 163, 165
Dupaty, Charles 2, 1836
Memoire justicatif 183
trial of three peasants 1836
Enville, mme d 37, 38
Etallonde, Jacques-Marie, chevalier d 15, 49,
121
Faur e, C. 170
Fermat, Pierre de 107
Fleury, Andr e-Hercule, cardinal de 125
Fouchy, Grandjean de 11, 15
Franklin, Benjamin 12, 23, 101, 139
Frederick II 190, 195, 259
Fricheau, C. 159, 161
Galileo 95
Garat, J.-D. 43, 105
Gaudry, Marie-Magdaleine 10
Gouges, Olympe de 162
Gouy, Louis-Marthe 153
Gr egoire, Henri, abb e 146, 158
Memoire en faveur des gens de couleur 154
Grouchy, Sophie de, see Condorcet, Sophie de
Guilhaumou, J. 33
Helv etius, Claude-Adrien 74, 2418
H erault de Seychelles, Marie-Jean 276
Holbach, Paul Thiry, baron de 14, 122, 159
Des Femmes 159
Hume, David 13, 97, 100, 107
Treatise on Human Nature 100, 107
Huygens, Christian 108
Jaume, L. 217
Jaur` es, J. 31
Jefferson, Thomas 1, 23, 24, 53, 139, 140
Kaplan, S. 227
Kavanagh, T. M. 208
K eroudon, Georges Girault de 11
La Barre, Jean-Francois, chevalier de 1, 16, 77,
121, 185
La Fayette, Marie-Joseph, marquis de 24, 27, 37
Champ de Mars massacre 37
Declaration des droits de lhomme et du citoyen
53
protestants 122
Lagrange, Joseph-Louis 11, 108
Lalande, Joseph-J er ome 11
Lally, Thomas-Arthur, comte de 49, 185, 223
Lambert, Anne-Th er` ese, marquise de 165
La Place, Pierre-Simon, marquis de 1089
Memoire sur la probabilite 109
Memoire sur la probabilite des causes par les
evenements 108
Recherches sur lintegration des equations
differentielles 108
Lauriol, C. 122
Lebrun-Tondu, P.-H. 42
Lespinasse, Julie de 12, 13, 22
Locke, John 97100, 106
Essay concerning Human Understanding 98
Lom enie de Brienne, Etienne de 26, 197
Louis XIV 123, 124, 125
Louis XV 14, 123, 124, 227, 229
Louis XVI 14, 32, 33, 35, 36, 80, 137, 219, 229, 253
authority wanes 36, 37, 254
Condorcets disenchantment with 901,
2604
execution 265
ight to Varennes 86
oath of allegiance 80, 259
trial of 401, 42, 80, 2646
McLean, I. S. and Hewitt, F. 4, 23, 25, 52, 105,
190, 207, 208, 209, 210
McLean, I. S. and Urken, A. B. 209
Machault dArnouville, Jean-Baptiste de 227
Madison, James 24, 25, 53, 80
Mailhe, Jean 40
Maillet du Pan, Jacques 29
Malesherbes, Chr etien-Guillaume de
Lamoignon de 26, 183
Malouet, Pierre-Victoire 29, 143
Memoire sur lesclavage 142
Malthus, Thomas 169
Marie-Antoinette 36, 38
Maupeou, Nicolas de 14, 16
Maurepas, Jean-Fr ed eric Ph elypeau, comte de 14
Mazzei, Filippo 24, 53
Recherches historiques sur les Etats-Unis 24
M ericourt, Th eroigne de 162
Michelet, Jules 28
Mill, John Stuart 163
Miller, J. 227
Mirabeau, Honor e-Gabriel de Riquetti, comte
de 12, 30
Mirabeau, Victor de Riquetti, marquis de 198
Miromesnil, Armand-Thomas Hue de 14
Name index 303
Moivre, Abraham de 108
Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, baron de 76,
158, 177, 180, 181, 20612, 268, 272, 273
Montmorency, M. de 27
Morris, Governor 24, 25
Mounier, Jean-Joseph 223
Necker, Jacques 3, 19, 28, 219, 228, 240, 2418,
253
La Legislation et le commerce des grains 19, 228,
232, 243
Newton, Isaac 94, 97, 106, 286
Niklaus, R. 170
Nollet, Jean-Antoine, abb e de 11
Nora, P. 33
OConnor, General Arthur 44
Og e, Vincent 156
Paine, Thomas 3, 12, 24, 26, 31, 267, 268
Rights of Man 31
Pascal, Blaise 100, 107, 108, 118, 120
Poniatowski, Stanislas 53
Popkin, R. 155
Poulain de La Barre, Francois 160
Price, Richard 3, 108
Quesnay, Francois 228, 230
Rabaut de Saint-Etienne, Jean-Paul 137
Robespierre, Francois-Maximilien-Joseph de 3,
28, 39, 42, 157, 273, 275
attacked by Condorcet 35
hostility to Condorcet 356, 38
quarrel over portrait 36
Roland, Marie-Jeanne Philipon, mme de 13
Rosenblum, V. 56, 65
Rothschild, E. 207, 226, 231, 283
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 4, 93, 135, 159, 174, 208,
209, 268, 280
Sabatier, Antoine 17, 122
Schandeler, J.-P. 5
Schapiro, J. S. 47
Si ey` es, Emmanuel-Joseph 3, 27, 29, 30, 39, 267,
268, 273
Quest-ce que le tiers etat? 204
Sirven, Pierre-Paul 121
Smith, Adam 12, 13, 100, 226, 233
Sommerlad, F. and McLean, I. S. 104
Sonthonax, L eger-F elicit e 157
Suard, Am elie 13, 17
Talleyrand, Charles-Maurice 29
Terray, Joseph-Marie 14, 228, 229
Todhunter, I. 107
Toussaint LOuverture, Pierre Dominique 157,
158
Trudaine de Montigny, Daniel-Charles 12, 20,
21
Turgot, Anne-Robert-Jacques 1, 3, 12, 13,
14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 49, 74, 101, 105,
123, 140, 198, 201, 221, 22732, 233, 245,
248
as model legislator 1718, 279
Lettre au Contr oleur-General sur le commerce
des grains 230
see also under Condorcet (service under
Turgot)
Urken, A. B. 283
Vergennes, Charles Gravier, comte de 14
Vergniaud, Pierre-Victurnien 13
Voltaire, Francois-Marie Arouet de 1, 12, 14, 15,
16, 17, 18, 27, 77, 94, 119, 121, 158, 163, 164,
180, 181, 279
Waldstrom, Charles-Bernard 158
Williams, Reverend David 268
Wollstonecraft, Mary 161
Subject index
abolitionism 142, 143, 1457, 1501, 158
American War of Independence 23, 51, 2513
anarchy 255, 256
Condorcets views on 36, 173, 2578
aristocracy 76
Condorcet loses support 37
birth control 1689
bread riots 256
canals 201
Cercle Social 31, 67, 89
Champ de Mars massacre 37
church 11921
see also under intolerance
civil order 6980
army, role of 778
class divisions 856
community, early form of 701
custom 74
history of 6975
justication 52
moral nature of 176
natural man 69, 70, 71, 74
natural order 6971, 74
need for 74
pact of association 703, 79, 130, 176, 200
self-interest 74
sensation, origins in 47, 70, 74, 118, 172, 177
clergy 32, 35, 76
Civil Constitution of 138
Condorcets anti-clericalism 122
Club des Impartiaux 29
Club des Jacobins 29, 30
Club Massiac 140, 141, 143, 153, 155, 156
clubs and salons 1314
Code Noir 145
Comite de constitution 268, 272, 274
Comite du salut public 42
Constituent Assembly 253, 257, 276
reform of 2537
constitution
of 1791 33, 80, 259, 261, 266, 272, 280
of 1793 268, 275
Condorcets project of reform 26871
Polish constitution 53
right to change constitutions 64, 67
corvee 19, 21, 26, 155
Declaration of Rights 28, 53, 253
see also under National Convention
despotism 7580, 223
of the English 756
of the mob 7880
divorce 131, 168
economics 22549
Edict of Nantes 123, 131
education 1667, 2845
report on 32
of women 1667
emancipation, see under slave trade, womens
rights
emigr es 345, 257, 270
England, see under despotism, franchise,
progress, science
enlightenment 1003, 174, 175, 280
epistemology, see under Locke
equality 46, 623, 65, 83
Estates-General, meeting of 25, 26, 27, 52, 67,
72, 75, 140, 153, 187, 195, 196, 213, 219, 221,
222, 264
Condorcets reservations 2213
feminism 1636, 170
Feuillants 29
franchise 197, 199206
English system 202
property qualication 199201
reform of 64
theory of voting 198, 20610
see also under womens rights
304
Subject index 305
freedom 51, 5961, 65
freedom of the press 255
free trade 229, 243
general will 82, 173, 208
Girondins 13, 30, 32, 35, 39, 41, 265, 273
dismissal of ministers 36
purge of 42, 276
gradualism 33, 135, 1467, 14852
grain trade 2267
Grain War 1920
Hati, see under Saint-Domingue
happiness 52
see also under public happiness
hunting, laws on 1934
intolerance 129, 137
judiciary 77
reform of 1878
juries 188
jury theorem 18890
justice 46
reform of judicial procedures 18790,
1914
law, origins of 173
natural law 1723
reform of 17894
marriage 168
mean values, theory of 111
minorities 82
monarchy 889
defence of 868
disenchantment with 25960
English monarchy 75, 202
position of Louis XVI 36
Montagnards 30, 35, 39, 272, 273
Condorcet votes with 41
National Assembly 21314, 21516
National Convention 258
Projet de Declaration des droits naturels 273
nature, see under civil order (natural order)
oppression, right to resist 67
parlements 14, 16, 185, 222
Caen Parlement 186
Paris Parlement 16, 21, 124, 183
Rouen Parlement 14
perfectibility 2817
physiocrats 74, 201, 230
planters 139, 141, 155
representation of 154
probability theory 16, 223, 10412, 2834
doctrine of chance 107
history of 1079
see also under social arithmetic
progress 92
scientic progress 926
see also under Condorcet (vision of the future)
protestants 92
Condorcets family links 123
defence of 12437
see also under La Fayette
public good 112
public happiness 256
see also under happiness
public health 20
public opinion 1734
public order 1479
see also under anarchy
republicanism 2601
Condorcets conversion to 14, 31, 323
see also under Condorcet
Revolution 278, 37
Condorcets early role 28
defender of 34, 282
rights 31, 4950, 545, 56, 65, 68
declaration, importance of 48, 52, 534, 174,
176, 254, 269, 279
Declaration des droits (1789), rights dened in
5564, 65, 66
Declaration des droits de lhomme et du citoyen,
links with 67, 155
enlightenment, links with 46, 48
origins 457
political rights 47
Projet de declaration des droits naturels 50, 55,
64
rights and the civil order 48
rights and duties 54
rights and the law 49, 5764, 178
rights and property 612
rights and representation 57
roads 20
Saint-Domingue 26, 139, 156, 157
see also under planters, slave trade
science, see under England, probability theory,
progress, social arithmetic
slave trade 13958
Convention decree of emancipation 157
see also under abolitionism, planters,
Saint-Domingue
social arithmetic 2, 23, 97, 100, 1045
306 Subject index
social guarantee 667
social mathematics, see under social arithmetic
social pact, see under civil order (pact of
association)
Societe de 1789 29, 279
Societe des Amis des Noirs 25, 27, 140, 141,
1525
membership 153
sovereignty 806
of the people 84
taxation 30, 78
salt-tax 17982
see also under corvee
tyranny 80
unicameralism 24
universal language 96
utilitarianism 74, 167
womens rights 22, 15871