Precepteurs ignorans de ce faible univers.--Voltaire.
(Ignorant teachers of this weak world.)
Nous etions a table chez un de nos confreres a l'Academie, Grand Seigneur et homme d'esprit.--La Harpe.
(We supped with one of our confreres of the Academy,--a great nobleman and wit.)One evening, at Paris, several months after the date of our last chapter, there was a reunion of some of the most eminent wits of the time, at the house of a personage distinguished alike by noble birth and liberal accomplishments.Nearly all present were of the views that were then the mode.For, as came afterwards a time when nothing was so unpopular as the people, so that was the time when nothing was so vulgar as aristocracy.The airiest fine gentleman and the haughtiest noble prated of equality, and lisped enlightenment.
Among the more remarkable guests were Condorcet, then in the prime of his reputation, the correspondent of the king of Prussia, the intimate of Voltaire, the member of half the academies of Europe,--noble by birth, polished in manners, republican in opinions.There, too, was the venerable Malesherbes, "l'amour et les delices de la Nation." (The idol and delight of the nation (so-called by his historian, Gaillard).) There Jean Silvain Bailly, the accomplished scholar,--the aspiring politician.It was one of those petits soupers for which the capital of all social pleasures was so renowned.The conversation, as might be expected, was literary and intellectual, enlivened by graceful pleasantry.Many of the ladies of that ancient and proud noblesse--for the noblesse yet existed, though its hours were already numbered--added to the charm of the society; and theirs were the boldest criticisms, and often the most liberal sentiments.
Vain labour for me--vain labour almost for the grave English language--to do justice to the sparkling paradoxes that flew from lip to lip.The favourite theme was the superiority of the moderns to the ancients.Condorcet on this head was eloquent, and to some, at least, of his audience, most convincing.That Voltaire was greater than Homer few there were disposed to deny.
Keen was the ridicule lavished on the dull pedantry which finds everything ancient necessarily sublime.
"Yet," said the graceful Marquis de --, as the champagne danced to his glass, "more ridiculous still is the superstition that finds everything incomprehensible holy! But intelligence circulates, Condorcet; like water, it finds its level.My hairdresser said to me this morning, 'Though I am but a poor fellow, I believe as little as the finest gentleman!'""Unquestionably, the great Revolution draws near to its final completion,--a pas de geant, as Montesquieu said of his own immortal work."Then there rushed from all--wit and noble, courtier and republican--a confused chorus, harmonious only in its anticipation of the brilliant things to which "the great Revolution" was to give birth.Here Condrocet is more eloquent than before.
"Il faut absolument que la Superstition et le Fanatisme fassent place a la Philosophie.(It must necessarily happen that superstition and fanaticism give place to philosophy.) Kings persecute persons, priests opinion.Without kings, men must be safe; and without priests, minds must be free.""Ah," murmured the marquis, "and as ce cher Diderot has so well sung,--'Et des boyaux du dernier pretre Serrez le cou du dernier roi.'"(And throttle the neck of the last king with the string from the bowels of the last priest.)"And then," resumed Condorcet,--"then commences the Age of Reason!--equality in instruction, equality in institutions, equality in wealth! The great impediments to knowledge are, first, the want of a common language; and next, the short duration of existence.But as to the first, when all men are brothers, why not a universal language? As to the second, the organic perfectibility of the vegetable world is undisputed, is Nature less powerful in the nobler existence of thinking man?
The very destruction of the two most active causes of physical deterioration--here, luxurious wealth; there, abject penury,--must necessarily prolong the general term of life.(See Condorcet's posthumous work on the Progress of the Human Mind.--Ed.) The art of medicine will then be honoured in the place of war, which is the art of murder: the noblest study of the acutest minds will be devoted to the discovery and arrest of the causes of disease.Life, I grant, cannot be made eternal; but it may be prolonged almost indefinitely.And as the meaner animal bequeaths its vigour to its offspring, so man shall transmit his improved organisation, mental and physical, to his sons.Oh, yes, to such a consummation does our age approach!"The venerable Malesherbes sighed.Perhaps he feared the consummation might not come in time for him.The handsome Marquis de -- and the ladies, yet handsomer than he, looked conviction and delight.
But two men there were, seated next to each other, who joined not in the general talk: the one a stranger newly arrived in Paris, where his wealth, his person, and his accomplishments, had already made him remarked and courted; the other, an old man, somewhere about seventy,--the witty and virtuous, brave, and still light-hearted Cazotte, the author of "Le Diable Amoureux."These two conversed familiarly, and apart from the rest, and only by an occasional smile testified their attention to the general conversation.
