CONDORCET.

187

The manifesto of the duke of Brunswick was thefirst cause of the madness which was soon to makeFrance an example of the crimes that may be com-mitted by a people in the name of liberty. When firstthis manifesto spread indignation and fear throughFrance, Condorcet made himself conspicuous by aspeech proposing an address to the king to express thediscontent of the assembly at his lukewarm disap-probation of the actions of the emigrants, and his wantof energy in repulsing the offers of foreign potentatesto deliver him from the hands of his subjects and theshackles of the constitution which he had accepted.The subsequent dethronement of the king and establish-ment of a republic were events after his own heart.A commission had been named, during the first days of iAugust, to examine the question of the abolition ofmonarchy, and Condorcet was named reporter. Heconsidered it, in the first place, necessary to explain tothe people the grounds on which he went, and drew upa paper which he called “ Instruction preparatoire surl’Exercise du Droit de Souvrainete in which he ex-pounded, that as foreign potentates had denouncedevery Frenchman who defended the liberties of hiscountry as rebels to be punished by death, and as themonarch treacherously weakened their powers of defenceagainst the foe, so was it right and necessary that thenation should take the sovereignty into their ownhands. When the events of the 10th of August hadsealed the fate of the unhappy Louis, Condorcet pro-posed a declaration of the motives that led to his beingset aside, which, while it strongly accused the monarchand his court of betraying the cause of the people, wasanimated by a spirit of fairness, moderation, and dig-nity, that did honour to the cause which he espoused.

Condorcet ’s popularity was now at its height and hewas courted even by the jacobins and the mountain party.He w r as invited by several departments to representthem in the new convention. Madame Roland accuseshim of pusillanimity: perhaps her accusation is partly