ctory
than he would have been to find out the squaring of the circle.[17]
Destiny, which had so pitiful a doom in store for the two candidates of
that day, soon closed D'Alembert's share in these struggles of the
learned and in all others. He died in the following year, and by his
last act testified to his trust in the generous character of Condorcet.
Having by the benevolence of a lifetime left himself on his deathbed
without resources, he confided to his friend's care two old and faithful
servants, for whom he was unable to make provision. This charge the
philosopher accepted cheerfully, and fulfilled to the end with pious
scrupulosity. The affection between Condorcet and D'Alembert had been
warm and close as that of some famous pairs of antiquity; a natural
attraction of character had clothed community of pursuit and interest
with the grace of the highest kind of friendship. Even Condorcet's too
declamatory manner only adds a certain dignity to the pathetic passage
with which he closes the noble _eloge_ on his lost friend.[18] Voltaire
had been dead these five years, and Turgot, too, was gone. Society
offered the survivor no recompense. He found the great world tiresome
and frivolous, and he described its pursuits in phrases that are still
too faithful to the fact, as 'dissipation without pleasure, vanity
without meaning, and idleness without repose.' It was perhaps to soften
the oppression of these cruel and tender regrets that in 1786 Condorcet
married.[19]

Events were now very close at hand, in comparison with which even the
most critical private transactions of Condorcet's life were pale and
insignificant. In the tranquil seasons of history, when the steady
currents of circumstance bear men along noiseless, the importance of the
relations which we contract seems superlative; in times of storm and
social wreck these petty fortunes and private chances are engulfed and
lost to sight. The ferment was now rapidly rising to its intensest
height, and Condorcet was the last man in France to remain cold to the
burning agitations of the time. We have already seen how decidedly ten
years ago he expressed his preference for political activity over the
meditative labours of the student. He now threw himself into the
Revolution with all the force of an ardent character imbued with fixed
and unalterable convictions. We may well imagine him deploring that the
great ones whom he had known, the immortal Voltaire, the lofty-souled