Condorcet was a staunch member of the Jacobin club, and he spoke frequently at its meetings. Ile was elected one of the representatives foi Paris, at the dis solution of the Constituent Assembly ; and his political views accorded, in general, with those of the Brissotine faction. Ile was called upon to digest a plan of public instruction, which he completed in two memoirs, replete with exalted and enlarged sentiments, though tinged with the peculiar views of their author. Ile was select ed as the most fit person to draw up the manifesto which was addressed by the people of France to the powers of Europe, at the commencement of the war ; and he wrote a letter of expostulation to the king, as president of the assembly, which was marked by an unnecessary and an unceremonious severity. Condorcet is said to have vin dicated the proceedings of the inch when they insulted the king at the Thuillcries; and when he was thus for getful of his duty as a subject. he is reported to have been secretly soliciting the situation of tutor to the dauphin, which, on account of his open infidelity, the king refused to confer upon him. The enemies of Condorcet have accused him of being accessory to the murder of the Duke do la Rochefoucault, who was the near relation of his wife, and to whom he owed the most substantial ob ligations ; but it is difficult to discover, from the total want of information on the subject, whether he was in nocent or guilty of this heinous crime.
When the trial of Louis XVI. was the subject of dis cussion, Condorcet maintained that he could not legall? be brought to judgment ; yet, when sentence of death was pronounced upon him, he had not the courage either to defend or avow his former sentiments.
After the death of the king, the Gironde party em ployed Condorcet to frame a new constitution, which had the honour of obtaining the approbation of the con vention ; but it did not accord with the views of those whom it was intended to govern ; and, in the opinion of others, who were less interested in the decision, it was filled with a series of those politico-metaphysical absur dities, which had been long dazzling the inebriated minds of the republicans. The Mountain Party now began to gain an ascendency over Brissot and his friends. During the violent struggle for power which ensued, Condorcet had the prudence to decline an active part ; and, in con sequence of his moderation, he was not included in the number who were sacrificed along with Brissot in 1793, when the arrest of the Girondists was decreed. Ile con tinued, however, to support his party by his writings, and on this account he incurred the displeasure of Robe spieri e, who ordered him to be arrested in 1795. Hav ing contrived, however, to evade the vigilance of the of ficers under whose charge he was placed, he effected his escape, and remained in concealment at Paris during the space of nine months. Alarmed, how ever, lest a domi
ciliary v isit should be instituted for the purpose of appre hending him, he escaped unobserved through the barri ers, and sought refuge on the plain of Mont Rouge, in the house of a friend, who happened unfortunately to be at Paris. Ile was therefore compelled to spend two nights in the open fields, the victim of cold and hunger ; and on the third day, when his friend arrived, he had the morti fication of finding that he Burst not venture to afford him shelter. Again driven for safety to the woods and fields, Condorect was at last exhausted with fatigue and hun ger, and was forced to apply at a public inn for an omelette, which he greedily devoured. His ghastly appearance and keen appetite having roused thc sus picions of a municipal officer who happened to be present, and these suspicions being confirmed by the ambiguity and hesitation of his answers, he was imme diately st ized and thrown into a dungeon. for the pur pose of being convev"d next day to Paris. Ile was, however, found dead on the morning of the 28th 1794, in consequence, as wls supposed, of Laing taken poison, a dose of which ne always carried about with Condorcet was survived by his wife, with whom he had always lived on the most affectionate terms, and )y an only daughter, who was married in 1807 to Mr krthur O'Connor.
Condorcet left behind him some posthumous works, which he had been prevented front publishing by the disorders of the French revolution. His Esquisse d'un Tableau /zistorique de Jirogres de l'esprit hunzain appear ed at Paris in 1797, in one volume, and contained the same doctrine of the perfectibility of the human mind, which he had already supported in so many of his works. His other posthumous work is entitled Moyens d'ap prendre a conquer surement et avec facilite, and contains, in small compass, a very beautiful system of elementary arithmetic. It was adopted, by order of the French government, in all the national and private schools, and has been recently (1813) translated into English by Mr Elias Johnston, teacher of mathematics in Edinburgh. This little work is said to have been composed after Condorcet had concealed himself from his enemies, and to have been sent sheet by sheet to his wife.
Beside the works which have already been mentioned, Condorcet published, during his life, Letters to the King of Prussia. Ile was likewise engaged as a contributor to the Encyclopedic, and he assisted D'Alembert, Bossut, and La Lamle, in writing the mathematical part of that celebrated work. His articles may be distinguished by the signature (m. D. e.) Condorcet had the honour of being elected a member of the Institute of Bologna, and of the Academy of Sciences at Turin.