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founded on the fact that at this moment of fierce rivalshipand strife between the Girondists and Mountain , he ratherstrove to conciliate the latter than to drive the struggleto extremities. He had a high esteem for the talentsof Danton, and often remarked, with regard to thejacobins, that it were better to moderate than toquarrel with them. He was named at this time one ofthe committee to draw up a constitution, and his labourswere chiefly employed on this object.

Looking upon the king as the treacherous enemyof the new state of things in France , and therefore, ac-cording to his reasoning, of France itself, he did nothesitate to name Louis a traitor during the debate thatfollowed the monarch’s trial; hut he did not vote forhis death. “ All different degrees of punishment forthe same offence,” he argued, “ was an offence againstequality. The punishment of conspirators is death ;but this punishment is contrary to my principles, andI will never vote it. I cannot vote for imprisonment,for no law gives me the power; I vote for the heaviestpunishment established in the penal code that is notdeath.” He afterwards voted for the reprieve for theking until the peace ; but the struggle of the Giron-dists to save the monarch’s life was, as is known,useless.

In drawing up a constitution the philosopher thoughtmore of future generations than the present: he con-sidered France as ground cleared of all encumbrance,on which to raise an edifice of government designedin strict accordance to justice and the permanent wel-fare of mankind : to continue the metaphor, he gave noheed to the more than inequalities of soil,—the gulfsand chasms produced by the earthquake-revolution.His report of the labours of the committee, togetherwith the speech he made on presenting it, was, however,received at first with acclamation, and ordered to beprinted. The jacobins disapproved tacitly in the com-mencement, but by degrees they raised accusationsagainst Condorcet on account of the limited power