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 c