The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1803-03-28 00:00:00

CONDORCET.

Among the Girondists prosecuted by Robespierre
on the 31st of May 1793, Condorcet was the very
first on the list, and was obliged to skulk in the most
obscure corners, to elude the persecutions of the furi-
ous Jacobins. A lads, to whom he was known only
by name, became, at the instance of a common
friend, his generous protearess, concealing him in
her house at Paris, at the most imminent hazard, till
the latter end of April Mil, when the apprehen-
sion of general domiciliary visits so much increased,
and the risk of exposing both himself-and his patro-
ness became so pressing on the mind of Condorcet,
that he resolved to quit Paris.
Without either passport or civic card, he contrived,
under the disguise of a Provencal countrywoman,
with a white cap on his head, to steal through the
barriers of Paris, and reached the plains of Mont
Rouge, is the district of Bourg-la-Reine, where he
hoped to have found an asylum in the country-
honse of a gentleman with whom he had once been
intimate. l'his friend having unthrtunately at that
very time gone to Paris, Condorcet was under the
necessity of wandering about in the fields and
woods for three successive days and nights, not
veuturiv to enter into any inn unprovided with a
civic card.
};ithamted by hunger, fatigue, and anguish, with
a wound in his foot, he was scarcely able to drag
himself into a deserted quarry, where he purposed
to await the return of his friend. At length, hav-
ing advanced towards the road-side, Condorcet saw
him approach, was recognized, and received with
open arms : but, as they both feared lest Coador-
cet's frequent inquiries at his friend's house should
have raised suspicions ; and as, at any rate, it was
not adviseable for them to make their entrance to-
gether in the day-time, they agreed that Condorcet
should stay in the fields till dusk'. It was then, how-
ever, that impi udence threw him of his guard.
The forlorn exile, after having patiently borne
hunger and thirst for three days together without
so much as approaching an inn, now finds himself
incapable of waiting a few hours longer, at the end
of which :dl his staerings were to subside hr the
bosom of friendship. Transported with this happy
prospea, and foregoing all caution, which seemed
to have become habitual to him, he entered an inn
at Clamars, and called for an omelet. His attired
his dirty cap and long beard, his pale meagre coun-
tenance, and the ravenous appetite with which he
devoured the viaaals, could not fail to excite the
curiosity and suspicion of the company.
A member of the revolutionary committee,
who happened to be present, taking it for grant-
ed tlat this woe-begone figure could be no other
than some run-away from the Bicetre, addressed
and qpestioned-- him whence he came, whether
he could produce a passport, &c. to which inqui-
ries, Condorcet, having lost all self-command, an-
swered so unsatisfaaorily, that he was taken to
the house of the committee as a suspected person.
Thence, having undergone a second interrogatory,
during winch he acquitted himself equally ill, he was
concluded to Bourg-la-lleine an 4 as he very
inconsistent answers to the questions put to him by
the municipality, it was inferred that this unknown
person must have some very important reasons for
wishing to continue undiscovered.
Being sent to a temporary confinement till the mat-
ter should be cleared up, on the next morning he was
found senseless on the ground, without any marks of
violence on his body; whence it was conjedured that
he must have poisoned himself. It was well known
Condorcet had for some time before carried about
him the most deadly poison ; and, not long before
his fatal exit, he owned to a friend, that he had more
than twenty times been tempted to make use of it,
but was checked by motives of affeEtion•for his
wife and dau"hter.
It was during his concealment of ten months at
Paris, that he wrote his excellent History of the
Progress of Human Understanding.
Thus perished one of the most illustrious of the
French literati that the present age had produced. •