Condorcet

Condorcet, Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de, was born in 1743 at Ribemont, in the French department of Aisne. Educated at the Jesuit College, Rheims, he thereafter studied mathematics with great success in Paris, at the College of Navarre. In 1765, through an essay on the "Integral Calculus," he was elected to the Academy. During the Revolution he used his pen on the side of the people, being appointed in 1791, by Paris, to the Legislative Assembly, of which, in 1792, he became president. He opposed the execution of the king, though willing that he should be punished, and in consequence fell under the suspicions of the extreme party, by whom he was condemned. Driven from place to place of concealment, he was at length arrested, and, on the 7th of April, 1794, thrown into prison of Bourg-la-Reine, where he was found dead on the following morning. By what means he met his death is not known. In his own day he was chiefly noted for his application of mathematical calculations to human conduct, and as to his philosophic views in general they were of the broadest and most advanced kind.