THE FRIENDSHIP OF CONDORCET AND TURGOT.* ONE of the stiff,
formal, polite, plain-spoken, ill-assorted, yet honest and unchangeable friendships of the eighteenth century, was that which existed between Condorcet and Turgot. Except in the aims that united them, they were as different as two men could be. Their correspondence, lately given to the public in a complete form, with an introduction and notes by M. Charles Henry, throws many new and in- teresting lights on the different characters of the two men. From a moral point of view, it raises still higher one's opinion of Turgot, the self-forgetting reformer, though at the same time helping one to understand his unpopularity with the Court and the world. It also shows him as a much more really philosophical person than Condorcet, who was con- sidered above all things a philosopher. As to Condorcet, the infidel mathematician, the violent Republican, the light touch of his letters shows him as rather different from the stern and cold patriot one fancies him. Here he appears as a man of the world—he was never a popular one—full of sharp sayings, full also of scraps of fairly disreputable gossip about the great people of his day. All this kind of talk, mixed with mathematical problems and political schemes, appears to have been enjoyed by Turgot with a sort of indul- gent indifference. His comments on the stories are very short, tolerant, and good-humoured. He passes over in the same cool way anything that seems unpractical in his cor- respondent's views of reform, while entering warmly into his mathematical arguments, and into any questions of science and morality. On this latter subject the friends differ a good deal. Sometimes, though never fully, Turgot describes his own difficulties in the provinces. On such burning questions as that of the corsees, and of free-trade in grain between the provinces, many curious scraps of information may be gathered from these letters.
The steady, incorruptible bourgeois Minister, stern, patient, sound and benevolent in his aims, self-sufficing, yet depressed by ingratitude and misunderstanding, and with very little of that surface cleverness and amenity which might have made a worse man more successful, is already a familiar figure to students of the eighteenth century. It is interesting to con- trast him with this other man of noble birth—Marie-Jean de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet—with his handsome, scornful face, his strange bringing-up. His mother was devote, " elle le voua it la Vierge et au blano," and dressed him as a girl till he was eight years old. The reaction from this extreme, in that century of change and of every kind of strange activity, added to a passion for mathematical science, made the young man an atheist, with belief in nothing but human perfectibility. He was as honest as Turgot in his schemes for the good of the race, but he bad not Turgot's broad and tolerant views ; and his almost fanatical irreligion led him to write to Turgot that "en general lea gens scrupuleux ne sont pas propres aux grandee choses." Turgot's answer is fine, with its fearless claim for justice as the foundation of everything that is great, as well in art as in human life.
This same fanatical irreligion, governing Condorcet's mind, made him take delight in so repulsive a work as a Corn.
• Correspondance ituidits de Condorcet et ds Turgot : 1770.1779. Publiei avec des Notes et flue Introduction, par Charles Henry. Paris: Perrin et Cie. (Librairie Acadernique Didier.) mentary on the Bible, written by Voltaire—" le vienx de la Montagne," as they called him—Madame du Chatelet, and M. de Saint-Lambert. He writes to tell his friend of this diverting book. Turgot answers like a reasonable man at least, though not like a believer; here showing some real claim to the misapplied name of philosopher. If such a com- mentary is to be written at all, he would have it written without passion, without all that we can imagine of terrible mockery. Such a commentary, he says, should not be a mere search for absurdities. The object should rather be to ex- tract from the text all that is useful, " comme monument historique precieux h beaucoup d'egards." This is at least enough to show that Turgot had the true scientific spirit, far enough indeed from being related to the Voltairian spirit which influenced men like Condorcet.
Turgot never speaks of the clergy in the fashion of these so-called philosophers. Indeed, he respected them ; for, as Intendant of Limoges, he found them ready to second him in all his plans for the good of the peasants. With Condorcet, on the contrary, cette canaille is a mild way of expressing his opinion of these insolent men who dare to preach sermons in which M. de Voltaire is insulted by name. To him it seems that a morality directed by priests is of necessity abject and cruel. The mildest thing he says of them is in comparing them to certain commissioners, employed in 1775 to draw up a report on the grain question in opposition to the policy of Turgot: " Ce sont d'odieux pedants. Je crois que j'aime encore mieux le elerge, qui apres tout n'est qu'insolent et ridicule."
Perhaps the most interesting letter in the whole cor- respondence is one of December, 1773, in which Turgot makes his confession of faith with regard to the book of Helvetius, Be rEsprit, of which Condorcet had expressed his admiration. Condorcet valued the candid portrait which Helvetius had given of himself, and quoted Madame de Beauveau that it was also the portrait " d'une foule d'honnetes gens." He thought that many people were only capable of improvement through the ways and by the principles of Hehetius. For himself, the book would do him no harm : he could still love his friends ; he need not be absorbed in self-study; he could work at his geometrical pro- blems without a selfish motive beyond them. To him, the greatest danger of the book seemed to be that the author's strong declaiming against despotism of all sorts might bring on a persecution of all clever people. That the absolutely selfish materialism of Helvetius, which came to some minds of that day as a revelation of the deepest truth about human nature, was odious to the higher minds even among those who, like Turgot, had turned from Christianity, is finely proved by the letter in which he argues out the question with Con- dorcet : Is this book, De l'Esprit, a good or a bad book ? Turgot is not afraid that Condorcet himself will ever write a book of illogical philosophy, of tasteless literature, of dis- honest morality : he therefore speaks his mind without reserve. He points out how Helvetius—with many a disciple even now—holds up pleasure as the prize, motive, and object of all talent, courage, and virtue. He is ready to agree that many " passably " good people are only good for interested reasons. Bat, to carry out his own doctrine, Helvetius ought to make it clear that men have a real interest in being good. On the contrary, he pours floods of ridicule and contempt on all honest feeling and all private virtue. Justice and morality are nothing to him. A vague kind of public virtue is all that he admires. True morality brings down the accusation of hypocrisy. His doctrines are purely selfish. He knows so little of human nature as to ignore every real affection, and to say that self-interest is the one and only principle by which men are moved to any action. This Turgot indignantly denies: the most corrupt of men, he truly says, are influenced at times by moral feeling. Even they sometimes have to conquer something which opposes what they consider their interest. Even they are troubled by remorse, and capable of being moved by a novel or a tragedy. And he adds that if the hero of this novel or tragedy were to be guided by the principles of Helvetius—that is, by their own—they would be indignant with the author. One may remark in passing, that the capacity for being touched by fictitious emotion proves nothing in favour of the person thus touched,—rather perhaps the contrary. But Turgot had not studied psychology, and the drift of his argument is perfectly right and true.
He has much more to bring against Helvetius, finding fault with his views on great men, and even with his cry against intolerance and despotism. In all this he finds him showy, shallow, exaggerated, and unfair. Dishonest, too, for he was so little of a true and consistent philosopher as to pay court to the Due de Choiseul, begging him to do him the honour of standing godfather to his child. On this point Turgot's scorn shows itself very loftily. In the end, after a long argument on the views of Helvetius, on his declamations and his incon- sistencies, he freely confesses the anger and the sadness caused him by the popularity of such a writer. " Jene vole dans tout cela que de in vault& de resprit de parti, une tete exalt& ; je n'y vois ni amour de rhamanite ni philosophie."
Turgot ends his letter with kind expressions of friendship and with almost an apology for his strong language, expressed with a grace which startles and charms us now and then in a man of his grave character. Condorcet is partly convinced; he cannot, indeed, deny many of the accusations brought against Helvetius, and he would be very sorry if all his opinions on human nature were really founded on truth. On the subject of morality, here, as always, Condorcet's views are much wider and less strict than those of his friend.
These two or three letters may be called representative as well of the character of their writers as of the spirit and the guiding interests of the time. There can be little doubt which is the finer nature of the two; and yet we find much throughout the book to show that Condorcet was not unworthy of Turgot's friendship. His admiration for Turgot was of a most active sort. He was ready and eager to help him in every way, from sending a basket-maker to Limoges from Picardy—who turned out very troublesome, greedy, and use- less—to giving any personal assistance the Intendant might want in carrying out his useful projects of navigation, drain- ing, machinery. When Turgot becomes Minister, Condorcet, though poor, asks for nothing except to be useful. He offers his services in arranging weights and measures, and will claim no pay till his work has deserved it. All Turgot's plans for the good of the country are eagerly seconded by him. Here and there, a touch of real respect and affection breaks out in his letters : " Toutea lee semaines j'apprends que vous avez fait un hien on empeche un maL" In the Limoges days : "Adieu, Monsieur, vous Ines loin de toutes lee tracasseries, vous faites du bien, et il n'y a que vos amis qui perdent a votre absence."
There is little change in the tone of Turgot's letters after his fall, except that he writes more cheerfully and more affectionately. He is touched by Condorcet's kindness to les yens disgracies in coming to visit him, and in trying to dis- tract him by the help of the science he had always loved. In one of the latest letters, he expresses himself with special warmth towards this friend who had been entirely true to him : "Je ne sale encore quand je retournerai it Paris. line des choses qui me le font plus desirer, eat resperance de vous voir souvent, et try jouir de votre amitie, qui me sera touts ma vie precieuse." He died a few years later, in 1781. Con- dorcet, one of the Revolution's own children devoured by her, had a sadder fate : found dead on his prison floor, after months of wandering and starvation, in the gloomy spring of 1794.
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