that they
are fighting for heaven and liberty, cover their unhappy country with
blood in order to cement the tyranny of the hypocrite Cromwell; on the
other, the contemporaries of Boyle and Newton establish with pacific
wisdom the freest constitution in the world.'[11] It is not wonderful
that his own revolution was misunderstood by one who thus loved English
Whigs, but hated English Republicans; who could forgive an aristocratic
faction grasping power for their order, but who could not sympathise
with a nation rising and smiting its oppressor, where they smote in the
name of the Lord and of Gideon, nor with a ruler who used his power with
noble simplicity in the interests of his people, and established in the
heart of the nation a respect for itself such as she has never known
since, simply because this ruler knew nothing about _principes_ or the
Rights of Man. However, Nemesis comes. By and by Condorcet found himself
writing a piece to show that our Revolution of 1688 was very inferior in
lawfulness to the French Revolution of the Tenth of August.[12]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Oeuv. de Condorcet_ (12 vols. 1847-49), ix. 489.

[2] _Ib._ i. 220.

[3] _Oeuv._ i. 201. See Turgot's wise reply, p. 202.

[4] Sept. 1770. Voltaire's _Corr._ vol. lxxi. p. 147.

[5] _Oeuv._ i. 41.

[6] _Oeuv. de Turgot_, ii. 817.

[7] _Oeuv._ i. 228.

[8] _Ib._ i. 232.

[9] _Oeuv._ i. 29.

[10] Letters to Condorcet (1774). _Oeuv._ i. 35.

[11] _Eloge de Franklin_, iii. 422.

[12] _Reflexions sur la Rev. de 1688, et sur celle du 10 Aout_, xii.
197.

II.

The course of events after 1774 is in its larger features well known to
every reader. Turgot, after a month of office at the Admiralty, was in
August made Controller-General of Finance. With his accession to power,
the reforming ideas of the century became practical. He nominated
Condorcet to be Inspector of Coinage, an offer which Condorcet
deprecated in these words: 'It is said of you in certain quarters that
money costs you nothing when there is any question of obliging your
friends. I should be bitterly ashamed of giving any semblance of
foundation to these absurd speeches. I pray you, do nothing for me just
now. Though not rich, I am not pressed for money. Entrust to me some
important task--the reduction of measures for instance; then wait till
my labours have really earned some reward.'[13] In this patriotic spirit
he undertook, along with two other eminent men of scien