Jesuitic connections, tenets, and zeal. lady, not being interfered with at first, devoted her son by some formal act to the special service of the Virgin, and, the better to guard his consecrated infancy, had him clothed like a girl. Till his twelfth year he was constantly disguised in a white frock and petticoat, and had little misses for his only playmates-a probation sufficient, in M. Arago's opinion, to account for some peculiarities both in the physique and the morale of his manhood. The abstinence from all rude, boyish sports, we are told, checked the proper muscular development of his limbs; the head and trunk were on a large scale, but the legs were so meagre that they seemed unfit to carry what was above them, and in fact he never could partake in any strong exercises, or undergo the bodily fatigues to which healthy men willingly expose themselves. On the other hand, he had imbibed the tender-heartedness of a delicate damselretaining to the last, for example, a deep horror for inflicting pain on the inferior animals. M. Arago quotes more than one letter in which he signifies that tyrannical man makes free with the life of sheep and bullocks merely in consequence of the want of foresight on the part of those victims;-the inference would be that he never ate beef or mutton-but of such practice the history affords no trace. As to insects, says M. Arago, " he never would kill them, unless, indeed, they occasioned him particulur inconvenience;" but this, we suspect, might be said of every man in the world except Caligula and the entomologists.

When he had reached his twelfth summer, the episcopal uncle protested against the petticoats, and the gracility of his lower fabric was for the first time revealed to common eyes when he removed to the Jesuit seminary at Rheims. The mother wished him to prepare for a clerical career, but the Caritats strongly disapproved of this, and it was settled that he should follow the paternal profession of arms, of which, as the Bishop observed, many of the most illustrious ornaments, Condé, for instance, had been trained under the Company of Jesus. At this school, Condorcet made rapid progress-in mathematics especially-and being transferred in 1758 to the College of Navarre at Paris, he there also carried off the highest prizes year after year, and became decidedly the most distinguished of its alumni. One of his prizeessays was read in the presence of D'Alembert, who prophesied that the youth would by and bye be an honor to the Academy.

D'Alembert had never, it seems, lost sight of him, and to his encouragement and advice he now owed much; but his talents were early ripened, and in fact within the next three years he placed his reputation as a man of science as high as it ever was to be. It is no wonder that most exalted anticipations were formed, and we think it quite possible that if he had adhered steadily to his first line of study he might have left a name worthy of ranking with the Lagranges and Laplaces; but there are, we believe, few who now, measuring his actual attainments, place him in the first class of mathematicians: Arago evidently does not. He had the advantage of appearing at a season very favorable for the exercise of ingenuity, when the Calculus was in rapid development, and there was something for any sharp eye to discover. These eras are the Californias of science : a new source of wealth is opened which the first comers gather-and then follows a period of severer toil and slender gains until a fresh and unwrought region is again disclosed. Condorcet was an eager adventurer, but he found grains rather than lumps, and above all, he did not persevere. His chief efforts were directed to extending the scope of the Calculus-to bring it to bear upon cases in which it had previously proved unmanageable. Unfortunately, however, his most ambitious formula are precisely those of which the value is most doubtful. He never attempted to apply them himself, and we believe they have not proved of the slightest service to the world. It may, we think, be

M. Arago, whose conclusions as to the affairs of stars and their satellites few will question, extols the good nature of Voltaire as shown in these documents: we admire the politeness, the good sense-the far-seeing impervertible adroitness of the venerated chief. He had long before this time commended the saying of a monarch who practiced what he preached-L'esprit des hommes puissans consiste à répondre une politesse à une impertinence ;-but this was not a mere matter of manners. He was too wise not to appreciate the importance of such a resident at Paris as he had hit on in Mr. Secretary Condorcet-a sharp, cool-headed man-thoroughly imbued with écrasez l'infame, but certain, unless his own authorly self-love were involved, to see more clearly than even an Argus at a distance could do, what would be the practical effect of any specific publication at any specific time on the mind of the Parisians. In every one instance, accordingly, when Condorcet suggests a pause or an alteration, the great leader complies and that with such apparent frankness and simplicity of tone that we have no doubt many contemporary astronomers put the same interpretation that M. Arago does now on these astutest of rescripts. On the other hand, as M. le Marquis became more and more deeply engaged in the warfare of the Encyclopedists, it was not seldom the part of "le Vieux de la Montagne "-as by a curious coincidence the founders of the future Mountain called him-to whisper caution from his remote citadel. When he himself in these latter days was resolved to issue anything that he knew and felt to be pregnant with combustion, he never dreamt of Parishe had agents enough in other quarters, and the anonymous or pseudonymous mischief was printed at London, Amsterdam, or Hamburgh, from a fifth or sixth copy in the handwriting of some Dutch or English clerkthence by cautious steps smuggled into France and then disavowed and denounced by himself, and for him by his numberless agents, with an intrepid assurance which down to the last confounded and baffled all official inquisitors, until, in each separate case, the scent had got cold. Therefore he sympathized not at all with any of these, his subalterns, when they, in their own proper matters, allowed themselves a less guarded style of movement. On one occasion Condorcet's imprudence extorts a whole series of really passionate remonstrances to him and his

ways the same "Tolerate the whispers of age! How often shall I have to tell you all that no one but a fool will publish such things unless he has 200,000 bayonets at his back?" Each Encyclopedist was apt to forget that, though he corresponded familiarly with Frederick, he was not a king of Prussia; and by and bye not one of them more frequently exemplified this mistake than Condorcet-for that gentleman's saint-like tranquillity of demeanor, though it might indicate a naturally languid pulse, covered copious elements of vital passion. The slow wheel could not resist the long attrition of controversy, and when it once blazed, the flame was all the fiercer for its unseen nursing. You mistake Condorcet," said D'Alembert to one of the philosophical dames; "he is a volcano covered with snow."

Among the inedited essays is one on the constitution of scientific bodies, which our secretary (still a young man) was good enough to compose for the enlightenment and direction of the Spanish government of that day. Chiefly noticeable in our eyes as a specimen of French presumption, M. Arago lauds it for profound wisdom and dexterous logic, especially in arguing against any inquiry about the religious tenets of members. Here the biographer finds nothing but cause for admiration in his hero's brave contempt for the whole system of opinion as well as law beyond the Pyrenees. He condescends, on the other hand, to allege consideration for the rooted prejudices of Spain as a sufficient excuse for Condorcet in advocating the admission into the proposed new Academy of a class of noble amateurs. would have been merely absurd," he says, "to plan a Spanish institution from which Dukes of Osuna and Medina-Celi were to be hopelessly excluded." M. Arago, while on this topic, reports a saying of Louis XIV., which we are tempted to repeat:-" Do you know why Racine and M. de Cavoye, whom you see down there, like so well to be together? Racine, with Cavoye, fancies himself a gentleman; Cavoye, with Racine, fancies himself a genius."

It

Our readers would not much thank us for entering into other points of Condorcet's programme, on which Arago enlarges with a zest and sometimes with a bitterness that must have been prompted by feuds less remote than those of D'Alembert and Buffon. The pure mathematicians were in those days little disposed to acquiesce in the high pretensions of zoologists, geologists, or any of

the kindred classes now so esteemed the Patriarch of Ferney countenanced them. "A grand reputation," he says in one of these letters to Condorcet, "is not to be acquired more easily than by demonstrating how the globe was constructed, or describing a new species of bug."

We understand better the importance which Voltaire's immediate disciples attached to their Academies than the revelation of the same sort of feeling in Condorcet's new biographer. In those days the philosophers had a serious battle to fight, and it was of vast consequence that the troops should know each other, have confidence in their officers, and omit no art to inveigle follies or neutralize influences. At present, as against the great original objects of hostility, the battle has been fought out and won-or if anything in the nature of a prejudice ecclesiastical, aristocratical, or monarchical, still shows a sign of life, there are facilities enough for assailing such obstinate remnants elsewhere than in assemblies professedly devoted to the advancement of scientfic researches. At all events, it was sufficiently so in France when M. Arago wrote this Life. Here no motives of the class now alluded to have ever been even suspected; nor, until rather recently, were any of the educated classes of Englishmen apparently much given to those appetites for garrulous congregation and pompous exhibition that have from Julius Cæsar's time to President Buonaparte's distinguished the theatrical nation so near to us in locality and in everything but thought, sentiment, taste, and manners. We are at a loss to account for the change so visible, and not doubting that there is a mixture of good in almost every novelty, we own we on the whole continue to regret this one. You hear and read eternal vituperation of the Royal Academy in Trafalgar Square; but, whatever may be the defects in its construction, we could wish to see certain great features of its practical system imitated by bodies which assume to be of statelier importance, and, unlike it, reserve their chairs for Cavoyes. The R. A.'s work each at home in his own studio; once a year they allow each other and all the world to see what they have been doing, and the Exhibition is opened with a dinner, to which they invite such grandees as have acquired a reputation for what our antique friend Sir Thomas Urquhart calls an emacity" in the department of modern master-pieces, or for being likely, in case of any parliamentary caviling, to indicate a just recollection of the turtle and the fraternal

These seem sensible arrangements. What good could come of meeting one night every week in the season to parade sketches and models? Does anybody suppose that a really fine statue or picture would gain by such a process? Does anybody doubt that at the end of the year there would be a fierce and degrading clamor about stolen hints? The system of hebdomadal manifestations and speechifications, with the autumnal interludes of provincial starring and mountebanking before women and weavers, will never, we hope, be emulated by our Michael Angelos, Bramantes, and Raphaels. The inevitable waste of time, worry of temper, lowering of tone, craving for excitement, exacerbation of shabby grudges and coddling of childish vanity, would not be atoned for by an endless chorus of newspaper applause, nor even by a profuser participation in the scientific honors of knighthood.

The camaraderie of the learned bodies was, as we have said, a matter of serious business in the earlier period of Condorcet ; and the female society in which he and his friends mingled, was animated by the same spirit and conducive to the same ends. From the more bustling whirl of fashionable life he soon withdrew utterly. "I had no relish," he neatly says, " for dissipation without pleasure, vanity without motive, idleness without repose."

Another philosopher who had as little turn for the tumult and glitter of the beau monde was by twenty years his senior, but among the most intimate, and, ere long, the most influential of his friends, M. Turgot. He was of a far more important family than Condorcet, but, being a third brother, hardly better off at the outset in point of fortune. Turgot was brought up at the Sorbonne, and inspired all his teachers there with the confidence that he would be one of the most distinguished lights of the Gallican church. The first performance that attracted notice beyond the walls was a Discourse on the Evidences of Christianity; it was extravagantly lauded by the clerical party, and moved in a correspoding proportion the bile of the wise men. But, whereas Dr. Chalmers appears, after being for several years a parish minister, to have first imbibed a real belief in revealed religion while preparing an article on the evidences for Sir D. Brewster's Encyclopædia, there seems reason to infer that a similar course of study had ended in

a

very different manner with Turgot. Shortly afterward, to the confusion of his professors and heavy disappointment of his

relations, he announced that he had changed his mind, and would not enter into holy orders. He alleged to them modest distrust of his own qualifications, but to intimates said candidly-"I cannot walk through all the days of my life with a mask on my face." He turned to the law-in due time obtained promotion-and for a course of years acted vigorously with the government minority in the parliament of Paris, and in opposition to the refractory majority, which was headed by one of his own elder brothers, the President Turgot. This conduct led to the Intendancy of the Limousin, in which office he soon made himself remarkable by some excellent administrative reforms, but in the sequel still more so by the audacity of his proposals and plans for sweeping changes in the whole department of taxation and internal economy. He was among the first that adopted in France the new science of political economy, and he pushed its doctrines to extremes that never found favor with Adam Smith himself. Among the rest, he was a strenous church reformer-indicating more and more distinctly his opinion not only that all church property should be fairly taxed for state purposes, but that the property itself ought to be redistributed, small sees united, the emoluments of great ones cut down, monastic establishments of all sorts got rid of, and decent provision being made for existing lives-the general surplus considered and dealt with as at the command of the financial minister of the crown. These suggestions were in the beginning accompanied by constant professions of Turgot's sincere respect for religion and the church, whose real interests were, he continually reiterated, nearer to no man's heart than to his own. The true sentiments of the reformer, however, could hardly escape detection-provincial eyes are close watchers, and of all men Turgot was the most awkward in everything but the use of his pen. None had less command over his countenancenone could less bear the trouble of affectation in small habits and daily things. The clergy about him soon understood the man, and they, as rural churchmen usually are, were too much in earnest to control their indignation. People at a distance, even the shrewdest of the Anti-clericals, seem to have been taken in at first. When the Intendant was about to visit Switzerland, D'Alembert gave him an introduction to Voltaire, in which he takes pains to assure the Patriarch that he might receive him with confidence

"You will find him an excellent Cacouac,

though he has reasons for not avowing itla Cacouaquerie ne mene pas à la fortune." To which Voltaire replies by-and-bye-"I have been charmed with Turgot-if you have three or four sages like this among you, I tremble for l'infame." After having performed his kotow at Ferney, he redoubled his zeal in the ecclesiastical direction, but still observed as to his caconaquerie a prudent reticence, which Voltaire now appreciated and often recommended to the Parisian conclave as exemplary. "Your friend Turgot is admirable," says he to Condorcetno man understands better how to shoot the arrow without showing the hand.”

"

We may pause for a moment to say that in general Condorcet's letters to Voltaire, like all the rest of the sect, are characterized by a humility of submission, an extravagance of adulation, worthy of the Cadis and Muftis of a Commander of the Faithful. But behind his back, in their epistles to each other, it is somewhat different. All alike-the grave D'Alembert, the austere Turgot, and the snowy Condorcet-are in raptures when Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse communicates to them, and insists on their handing over to their prime patroness, whom Arago styles 'la respectable Duchesse d'Enville," the intelligence she, Mademoiselle, had just received from Geneva of a visit paid to Ferney by a "Messaline de cette ville," with some alarming consequences. It is like the merriment of a set of young monks on discovering a lapse of father Abbot. Again, Condorcet, when on a tour, writes to Turgot that he had been gratified in a country-house with the perusal of a Commentary on the Bible by Emilie (Mad. du Chatelet-" Venus Newton ") in ten volumes; and adds that he thought he could detect here and there the assistance both of the "Vieux de la Montagne" and "son jeune amant "—i. e., St. Lambert. To which Turgot answers that he had himself many years ago seen "Emilie's Bible," but that it was then in four volumes. "However," adds he, "there is no doubt that between le Vieux and son jeune amant Emilie was likely enough to expand her dimensions." joke, when we recall the circumstances of her death in child bed, on which occasion her disconsolate husband, whom Lord Brougham calls "a respectable man" (they are all honorable men), finding Voltaire and St. Lambert in tears together, said, "Gentlemen, you best know which has the most reason to weep

A cruel enough

I have at least this consolation, that I had no hand in the misfortune." Such were the