Born in 1743, at Ribemont, a town in Picardy, Condorcet belonged to a noble family highly connected both with the Church and the Army.
His father was a captain of cavalry4 and designed his son for the same aristocratic post. But he died when the child was four; and a devout5 mother vowed6 him to the Virgin7 and au blanc,
[Image unavailable.]
JEAN-ANTOINE-NICOLAS DE CARITAT, MARQUIS DE CONDORCET.
From an Engraving8 by Lemort, after the Bust9 by St. Aubin.
{269}
dressed him in white frocks like a little girl, so that the luckless Caritat could neither run nor jump as nature bade him, and owed to his mother’s piety10 a weakness in his limbs from which he never recovered.
His first schoolmasters were the Jesuits. What is one to make of the fact that they had as virgin soil the intellects of at least four of their mightiest11 and fiercest opponents—Voltaire, Diderot, Turgot, and Condorcet?
At eleven, Caritat was under their supervision12, with his home influence pressing him to their way of thought, with an uncle a bishop13, and Cardinal14 de Bernis a relative. At thirteen, he was sent to Rheims, to be more completely under their control. At fifteen, he came up to Paris, and began at the College of Navarre to study mathematics and to think for himself; and when once a mind has begun to do that, nothing can stop it.
His treatment of a particularly difficult theme brought him the acquaintance of d’Alembert, who first saw in the boy, who was to be to him as a son, a kindred genius, a future colleague at the Academy. Caritat was only seventeen when he introduced himself to his other great friend, Turgot, writing him a ‘Letter on Justice and Virtue16’ which already proclaimed this college student a thinker of a high order. An ‘Essay on the Integral{270} Calculus,’ which he presented at the Academy of Sciences when he was twenty-two, attracted to him the flattering notice of the famous mathematician17, Lagrange. There was in it not only the ardour of youth and a buoyant fecundity18 of idea, but a profundity19 of learning not at all youthful.
Caritat was now no longer a student, but still lodging20 in Paris. In 1769, when he was twenty-six, he entered the Academy of Sciences in opposition21 to the wishes of all his relatives, who never pardoned him, he said, for not becoming a captain of cavalry.
The man who ought, by the solemn unwritten laws of the family compact, to have been a heavy dragoon, was soon acknowledged as one of the finest original thinkers of his age, the friend of d’Alembert and of Voltaire, and something yet greater than a thinker—greater than any great man’s friend—a practical reformer and a generous lover of human-kind.
The character of Condorcet—he who with Turgot has been said to have been ‘the highest intellectual and moral personality of his century’—has in it much not only infinitely22 good, but also infinitely attractive. Perfectly23 simple and modest, somewhat shy in the social world which he himself defined as ‘dissipation without pleasure, vanity without motive24, and idleness without rest,’ among{271} his intimates no one could have been more gay, witty25, and natural. Though his acquaintances might find him cold, his friends knew well what a tender and generous soul shone in the thoughtful eyes. If he listened to a tale of sorrow coldly and critically almost, while others were commiserating26 the unfortunate, Condorcet was remedying the misfortune. Though he never could profess27 affection, he knew better than any man how to prove it; and if all his principles were stern, all his deeds were gentle. So quiet in his tastes that he had no use for riches, wholly without the arrogance28 and the blindness which distinguished29 his class, he had its every merit and not one of its faults; and he well deserved the title Voltaire gave him—‘The man of the old chivalry30 and the old virtue.’
In 1770, when he was twenty-seven, he went with d’Alembert to stay at Ferney. Voltaire was delighted with him. Here was a man after his own heart, with his own hatred31 of oppression and fanaticism32 and his own zeal33 for humanity, with better chances of serving it! The Patriarch did not add, as he might have added, that this young Condorcet had a thousand virtues34 a Voltaire could never compass—that he was pure in life and hated a lie; that he was wholly without jealousy35, without vanity, and without{272} meanness. Caritat soon worshipped at the feet of a master of whom his friendship with d’Alembert had already proclaimed him a pupil, while Voltaire enlisted36 his guest’s quiet, practical help for the rehabilitation37 of the Chevalier de la Barre, for the revision of the process of d’étallonde; and honoured him by becoming his editor and assistant in the critical ‘Commentary on Pascal’ which Condorcet produced later.
Because his humility38 was the humility of a just mind and his modesty39 of the kind that scorns to cringe, Condorcet’s admiration40 for his host did not blind him to his literary faults or make him meanly spare them; and while it was Condorcet who spoke41 in warm eulogy42 of his ‘dear and illustrious chief’ as working not for his glory but for his cause, it was also Condorcet who deprecated that production of Voltaire’s senility, ‘Irène.’ Sometimes the three friends would talk over the future of France—the two older men who had done much to mould that future and the young man who had much to do. ‘You will see great days,’ old Voltaire wrote afterwards to his guest; ‘you will make them.’
The visit lasted a fortnight, and was a liberal education indeed.
Three years later, in 1773, Condorcet received the crown of his success as a mathematician and{273} was made Perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences, where he wrote éloges of the savants who had belonged to it, with the noble motto for ever in his mind, ‘One owes to the dead only what is useful to the living—justice and truth.’
So far, Condorcet had been a mathematician alone. Knowledge might free and redeem43 the world—in time; but the time was long. Beneath that quiet exterior44, palpitating through his leisurely45, exact studies at the College of Navarre and the Scientific Academy, there throbbed46 in this man’s breast a vaster and fiercer passion than any passion for learning—the passion for human-kind. Where did young Condorcet come by that ruling idea of his that opened to him a field of labour which he must till all his days, unremittingly, before the night cometh when no man can work—that idea which should steel him to endure, exulting47, the cruellest torments49 of life and death—‘the infinite perfectibility of human nature, the infinite augmentation of human happiness’?
The friend of d’Alembert was Condorcet, the geometrician; the friend of Turgot was Condorcet, the reformer.
In August, 1774, Turgot was made Controller-General. He appointed Condorcet his Inspector50 of Coinage at a salary of 240l. a year, a payment which Condorcet never accepted.{274}
The pair had work to do, which only they could do, and do together. The vexed51 subject of Trade in Grain—‘for a moment,’ says Robinet, ‘the whole question of the Revolution lay in this question of Grain’—incited them to fierce battle for what they took to be the cause of freedom against the cause of that well-meaning commonplace, Necker. Condorcet attacked Necker with a rare, fierce malignity52, and wrote two stinging pamphlets on the subject which made him many enemies.
But there were other reforms waiting the doing, less in importance then and greater in importance now. To curtail53 the advantages of the privileged classes, to open for commerce the rivers of central France, to abolish the slave trade, Taille and Corvée, Vingtième and Gabelle, and to make the nobility share in the taxation—these were the tasks into which this noble put his life and his soul. That every reform meant loss to himself, that all his interests were vested in the privileges he sought to destroy, that every human tie drew him towards the old order, makes his work for the new, more excellent than that of his fellow-workers. They had nothing to gain; Condorcet had everything to lose.
In May, 1776, a Queen of one-and-twenty demanded that ‘le sieur Turgot f?t chassé, même{275} envoyé à la Bastille’; and, in part, she had her way, for her own ruin and that of France. Condorcet renounced54 his Inspectorship55 of Coinage; he would not serve under another master. Turgot’s death in 1781 was the first great sorrow of his life. His other friend, d’Alembert, won for him a seat in the French Academy in 1782; and in the next year he too died. Condorcet tended him to the last, with that quiet and generous devotion which says little and does much. D’Alembert left to him the task of providing annuities56 for two old servants, and Condorcet accepted the obligation as a privilege, and fulfilled it scrupulously57 in his own poverty and ruin.
He was now not a little lonely. His relatives still resented his choice of a profession; his best friends were dead; the great Master of their party had preceded them. From ‘social duties falsely so called’ Caritat had long ago freed himself. He was three and forty years old, occupied in writing that ‘Life of Turgot’ which is a declaration of his own principles and policy, in contributing to the Encyclop?dia, and in many public labours, when he first met Mademoiselle Sophie de Grouchy58.
If the supreme59 blessing60 of life be a happy marriage, then Condorcet was a fortunate man indeed. Mademoiselle was full twenty years younger than himself, very girlish in face and{276} figure, with a bright cultivated mind, and a rare capacity for love and tenderness. He found in her what is uncommon61 even in happy marriages perhaps—his wife was also his friend. From the first she shared his work and his love for his fellow-men, approved of his sacrifices, and was true not only to him, but to his example of unselfish courage and unflinching devotion, to the end of her life.
For the moment—for what a brief moment!—their world looked smiling enough.
Condorcet abandoned himself to his happiness, with the deep passion of a strong man who has never wasted his heart in lighter62 feelings. For a dowry—so essential to a French marriage—he wholly forgot to stipulate63. For the opinion of his friends, who considered a married geometrician as a sort of freak of Nature, he cared nothing; and when they saw his wife, and forgave him, their pardon was as little to him as their blame.
The two settled on the Quai de Conti in a house where Caritat had previously64 lived with his mother. At that H?tel des Monnaies Sophie held her salon65 (le foyer de la République, men called it), where she received, with a youthful charm and grace, not only her husband’s French political friends, but also Lord Stormont the English Ambassador, Wilkes, Garrick, Sterne, Hume, Robertson, Gibbon, Mackintosh, and Adam Smith.{277}
Large and shy, with a little awkwardness even in his manner, it was not Condorcet but his wife who was socially successful. She was the one woman in a thousand who estimated social success at its low, just value, and was great in knowing her husband to be much greater.
Only two years after their marriage, in 1788, Condorcet entered the arena66 as one of the earliest and most noteworthy of all champions of Women’s Rights. On the ground of their equal intelligence he claimed for them equal privileges with men, and ignored the very suggestion that their bodily weakness and inferiority are reproduced in their minds. He judged, in fact, all women from one woman. No nobler testimony68 can be borne to the intellect and character of the Marquise de Condorcet than to say that she deserved as an individual what her example made her husband think of her sex.
It is not a little curious to note that Condorcet, though so wholly faithful and happy himself in the relationship, thought the indissolubility of marriage an evil. In later years, he pleaded warmly for the condemnation69 of mercenary marriages by public opinion, as one of the best means of lessening70 the inequalities of wealth.
In 1790, the profound happiness of his wedded71 life was crowned by the birth of his only child, a daughter. Before that, the fierce whirlpool of{278} politics had drawn72 him into it, and he had addressed the electors of the States-General and appeared publicly as the enemy of sacerdotalism and aristocracy, with all his gospel based on two great principles—the natural rights of man and the mutable nature of the constitutions which govern him. He was made member of the municipality of Paris, and in that, his first public function, flung the gauntlet before his caste and broke for ever with an order of which the smug selfishness was admirably typified by a Farmer-General who said to him, ‘Why alter things? We are very comfortable.’
The fall of the Bastille, the insurrection of October, the journey of the Royal Family to Paris, he had watched with the calm of one who knows that such things must needs be, who realises the necessity of painful means to a glorious end. To the monarchy74 he was not at first opposed. If the King were but a man! But when in June, 1791, came the ignominious75 flight to Varennes, Condorcet rose in a fierce, still wrath76 and proclaimed the necessity for a Republic. ‘The King has freed himself from us, we are freed from him,’ said he. ‘This flight enfranchises77 us from all our obligations.’
Nearly all the Marquis’s friends broke with him, and he stood alone. Before his ripened78 views on royalty79 were fully80 known, it had been proposed{279} that he should be the tutor of the Dauphin, and to Sophie that she should be the gouvernante. Husband and wife were in different places when the proposals were made; but, though they had never spoken with each other on the subject, they declined the offers almost in the same words. If Condorcet’s friends misunderstood him and parted at the parting of the ways, his wife never did.
In 1791, he was elected member for Paris in the Legislative81 Assembly and became in quick succession its Secretary and its President. As its President, he presented to it his Educational Scheme, startlingly modern in its demands that education should be free and unsectarian.
By the order of the Assembly, in 1792, there was burnt in Paris an immense number of the brevets and patents of nobility—among them the patent of Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet—at the very moment when at the bar of the tribune Condorcet himself demanded that the same measure should be adopted all over France. Not one dissentient voice was raised against the scheme; who, indeed, should dissent82 from it when a marquis proposed it? A few months later he was elected Member of the National Convention for the Department of Aisne, and the extremist of the Legislative Assembly found himself all too moderate for the Convention.{280}
Then came the trial of the King.
There was never a time when Condorcet could be called either an orator83 or a leader of men. Though he had written most of its official addresses, he had appeared but little before the Legislative Assembly. Nervousness caused him always to read any speeches he did make, and a delicate voice robbed them of their effectiveness. His deeds and his character earned him a hearing and applause; and sometimes his complete self-devotion and the white heat of his enthusiasm discounted his manner and touched his hearers with something of his own deathless passion. But he was, as d’Alembert said, a volcano covered with snow, and that audience of his, coarse in fibre, mad for excitement, overwrought, uncontrolled, must needs see the mountain in flames, vomiting84 lava85 and death.
To be a great orator one must have in a supreme degree the qualities one’s hearers have in a lesser86 degree. The thoughtful reason and the lofty ideals of Condorcet found little counterpart in the parliaments of the Revolution. A Marat or a Danton for us! Or a Fouquier-Tinville even, drunk with blood, with his wild hair flung back, and his words shaking with passion; but not this noble, with the high courage of his caste, his ‘stoical Roman face,’ his stern truthfulness87, his{281} unworldly enthusiasms. Worse than all, Condorcet never was for a cause, but always for a principle; and since he followed no party blindly, he was in turn abused by all.
He proved in his own history that to be a great demagogue it is essential to be without too fine a scrupulousness88 and the more delicate virtues; that successfully to lead the vulgar the first requisite89 is not to be too much of a gentleman.
Condorcet, although he had broken with monarchy as a possible form of government for France, had still no personal feeling against the monarch73. Firmly convinced of his culpability90, he was equally convinced that the Convention was not legally competent to judge its King at all; and proposed that he should be tried by a tribunal chosen by the electors of the Departments of France. But to take the judging of its sovereign from the Convention was to take the prey91 whose blood he has tasted from the tiger. When the great moment came, Condorcet was at Auteuil; he hastened to Paris, and arrived at the Assembly a few moments before the King.
What a strange contrast was this Marquis—serene92 in strong purpose, with his ‘just mind justly fixed93,’ great in his compassion94 for his country and not without compassion for his King—to that poor Bourbon, ‘who means well had he any fixed{282} meaning,’ and whom Condorcet himself described in an admirable but rarely quoted description as standing95 before his judges, ‘uneasy, rather than frightened; courageous96, but without dignity.’
On January 15, 1793, to the momentous97 question if the prisoner at the bar were guilty, Condorcet answered, ‘Yes:’ he had conspired98 against liberty. On the 17th and 18th the vote was taken on the nature of the punishment to be awarded. Consider the judgment99-hall filled with the fierce faces and wild natures of men who, for centuries starved of their liberties, had drunk the first maddening draught100 of power. Consider that among them this noble alone represented a class they hated worse than they hated royalty itself, that if he had forsworn it, broken with it, denied it, he had still its high bearing, its maddening self-possession and self-control. We vote for death—shall you dare to know better? An Orleans sitteth and speaketh against his own kin15; why not a noble, then, who owes him nothing? Condorcet rises in his place and pronounces for exile—the severest penalty in the penal101 code which is not death. ‘The punishment of death is against my principles, and I shall not vote for it. I propose further that the decision of the Convention shall be ratified102 by an appeal to the people.’
On Saturday, January 19, 1793, the execution{283} of the King having been fixed for the Monday, Condorcet implored103 his colleagues to neutralise the fatal effect of their decision on the other European Powers by abolishing the punishment of death altogether. With the Terror then struggling to the birth in her wild breast, one of the greatest children of his country begged for the suppression of that penalty as the most ‘efficacious way of perfecting human-kind in destroying that leaning to ferocity which has long dishonoured104 it. Punishments which admit of correction and repentance105 are the only ones fit for regenerated106 humanity.’
In the roar of that fierce storm of human passions, the quiet voice was unheeded, but not unheard. There were those who looked up at the speaker, and remembered his words—for his ruin.
How far, up to this point, Condorcet realised his danger is hard to say. A Louis, with the fatal blindness of kingship, might believe to the last that his person really was inviolable, that from the tumbril itself loyal hands would deliver his majesty107 from the insult of a malefactor’s death. But a Condorcet?
The immediate108 result of his part in the King’s trial was that his name was struck from the roll of the Academies of St. Petersburg and Berlin. That insult touched him so little that there is not a single allusion109 to it in his writings.{284}
In the month succeeding the King’s death, a Commission of nine members of the Convention, of whom Condorcet was one, laid before it their project for the New Constitution of the Year II., to which Condorcet had written an elaborate Preface. The project was not taken. Hérault de Séchelles made a new one. In his bold and scathing110 criticism upon it—his ‘Appeal to the French Citizens on the Project of the New Constitution’—Condorcet signed his own condemnation.
On July 8, 1793, Chabot denounced that ‘Appeal’ at the Convention. This ex-Marquis, he said, is ‘a coward, a scoundrel, and an Academician.’ ‘He pretends that his Constitution is better than yours; that primary assemblies ought to be accepted; therefore I propose that he ought to be arrested and brought to the bar.’ On the strength of this logical reasoning and without evidence of any kind against him, the Convention decreed that Condorcet’s papers should be sealed and that he should be put under arrest and on the list of those who were to be tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal on the coming third of October. He was further condemned111 in his absence and declared to be hors la loi.
If it is doubtful whether Condorcet realised the probable effect of his opinion and vote in the matter of the King’s trial, he had realised to the{285} full the jeopardy112 in which the ‘Appeal’ would place him. But he looked now, as he had looked always, not to the effect his deeds might have on his own destiny, but to their effect on the destiny of the race. If the unit could but do his part for the mass, then, having done it, he must be content to be trampled113 under its feet, happy, if on his dead body some might rise and catch a glimpse of a Promised Land.
But yet he must save himself if he could.
For seven years, through storms of which the story still shakes men’s souls, he had known in his own home, first on the Quai de Conti and then in the Rue48 de Lille, the deep, calm joys of his happy marriage. When the troubles of life come only from without, through the fiercest of such troubles man and wife may be happy still. It is those evils alone which rise from their own characters which can wholly destroy the beauty of life. In the serene tenderness of the woman who kept for ever, it is said, some of the virgin freshness of the girl, who united to strength gentleness, and to courage quietness, who was at once modest and clever, simple and intelligent, Condorcet was given a rich share of the best earth has to offer.
Their salon, of course, was no more. The beating of the pitiless storm had driven their Englishmen to covert114 in happier England. But{286} it is only when one is discontented with one’s relatives that there is crying need of acquaintances. These two still had each other and their child. Condorcet had much to lose.
To go to the Rue de Lille would be courting death. He escaped first to his country home at Auteuil. From there, two friendly doctors took him to a house in the Rue Servandoni, belonging to Madame Vernet, the widow of the sculptor115, and asked her to shelter a proscribed116 man. She only inquired if he was good and virtuous117. When they answered, ‘Yes,’ she consented at once. ‘Do not lose a moment, you can tell me about him later.’ Regarding the value of the works of her husband there have been many opinions, but as to the value of her work there can be only one. Perfectly aware that she was endangering her life for a fugitive118 whom she had never seen, and who had not the slightest claim upon her generosity119, she sheltered him for nine months, providing him all the time with every necessary of life and without the smallest hope of repayment120. When he did leave her at last, he had to steal away from her self-sacrificing care by a subterfuge121, like a thief. Strong, simple and energetic, high in courage and devotion, Madame Vernet is one of the unsung heroines of history.
Condorcet’s condition was destitute122 indeed{287}. As an outlaw123 all his money had been seized. For himself that might have been bearable; even to the fate he foresaw too clearly he could be indifferent—for himself. One Sarret, to whom Madame Vernet was privately124 married and who lived in the house, speaks of the fugitive’s gentleness, patience, and resignation. He had given to his country his talents, his time, his fortune, his rank; and when she turned and rent him, he had for her nothing but compassion and the strong hope of a day that would dawn upon her clear and fair, after the storm was past.
But in the knowledge that he had brought ruin and disgrace on what he loved best in the world, Condorcet sounded one of the great deeps of human suffering. As the wife of an outlaw, Madame de Condorcet was not only penniless, but could not even sleep in the capital. Wholly dependent on her was her little girl of three years old, a young sister, and an old governess. She was herself still young and brought up in a class unused to work, in the sense of work to make money, for generations. But there was in her soul the great courage of a great love. The talents which had once charmed her salon she now turned to a means of livelihood125. When her house at Auteuil was invaded by Republican soldiers, Madame softened126 their hearts and earned{288} a pittance127 by taking their portraits. Twice a week, disguised as a peasant, she came on foot from Auteuil to Paris, passed through the gates with the fierce crowds thronging128 to the executions in the Place de la Révolution, and by painting miniatures of the condemned in the prisons, of proscribed men lying hidden in strange retreats, or of middle-class citizens, made enough to support her little household. Then, sometimes, she would creep to the Rue Servandoni, and for a few minutes forget parting, death, and the terrors of the unknown future, in her husband’s arms. He might well write, as he did write but a little while before he died, that even then he was not all unhappy—he had served his country and had had her heart.
He spent the long days of his hiding almost entirely129 in writing. He began by an exposition of his principles and conduct during the Revolution, and gave an account of his whole public career. He was writing it when, on October 3, 1793, he was tried, in his absence, before the Revolutionary Tribunal, with Vergniaud, Brissot, and others, accused of conspiring130 against the unity131 of the Republic, declared an emigrant132, and condemned to death.
On the 31st of the same month came the fall of the Girondins. Though not himself a Girondin{289} they had been once his friends, and in their ruin he saw the immediate presage133 of his own; and his own meant that also of Madame Vernet. He went to her at once. ‘The law is clear; if I am discovered here you will die as I shall. I am hors la loi; I cannot remain here longer. She answered that though he might be hors la loi he was not outside the law of humanity; and bade him stay where he was.
His wife, in her peasant’s dress, came to him then for one of those brief moments, stolen from Heaven. She knew him well. That ‘Justification’ of his conduct, his Apologia, that looking back on deeds and sacrifices meant to bring the Golden Age to men and which had brought, or so it seemed, the hell of the Terror—this was no fit work for him now. Look ahead! Look on to that new country which your pure patriotism134 and your self-devotion,—ay, and this Terror itself—shall have helped to make—that warless world of equal rights and ever widening knowledge, the beautiful dream of a sinless and sorrowless earth, which may yet be realised, in part.
On the manuscript of the ‘Justification’ there is written in her hand ‘Left at my request to write the History of the Progress of the Human Mind.’
In the very shadow of death, Condorcet told the story of men’s advance toward life, of the{290} evolution of their understanding from the earliest times until now. Calm, just, and serene, with not an intemperate135 line, not an angry thought, the ‘Progress’ reads as if it had been written by some tranquil136 philosopher who had seen his plan for man’s redemption adopted, and had received for his labour honours, peace, and competence137. Its fault, indeed, is its too sanguine138 idealism. Condorcet, like many enthusiasts139, thought his own way of salvation140 for man the only way; he believed his own magnificent dream to be the only possible Utopia.
Beneath the guillotine and in social convulsions for which history has no parallel, he looked through and past them, in that last great chapter, in the exalted141 spirit of noble prophecy, to that Golden Age which must surely come!
But ‘The Progress of the Human Mind’ is something more than a splendid hope, more than the greatest and most famous of its author’s works. It bears highest testimony to the character of him who in the supreme hour of his individual life could thus forget himself, and in the midst of personal ruin, foresee with exultant142 joy the salvation of the race.
It remains143 for ever among the masterpieces which men cannot afford to forget.
During his hiding Condorcet also wrote ‘The{291} Letter of Junius to William Pitt’ in which he expresses his aversion to Pitt, and an essay, never printed, ‘On the Physical Degradation144 of the Royal Races.’ He also planned a universal philosophical145 language.
In December, 1793, he wrote ‘The Letter of a Polish Exile in Siberia to his Wife’—a poem in which another exile bade farewell to the woman he loved.
The death-shadows were creeping closer now.
In March, 1794, he finished ‘The Progress of the Human Mind.’ But before that he had decided146 to leave Madame Vernet; her danger was too great. Early in January he had begun writing his last wishes, the ‘Advice of a Proscribed Father to his Daughter.’ The little girl was the child of too deep a love not to be infinitely dear. To what was he leaving her? Throughout these cruel months, the last drop in his cup of bitterness had been the strong conviction that his wife would share his own fate, was doomed147, like himself, to the guillotine. ‘If my daughter is destined148 to lose everything,’—even to himself he could not frame the dread149 thought in plainer words. But if even that thing must be, then he left Madame Vernet the guardian150 of his child, begging that she might have a liberal education which would help her to earn her own{292} livelihood, and, in particular, that she might learn English, so that if need came she could seek the help of her mother’s English friends.
To the little girl herself he left words of calm and beautiful counsel, which are in themselves a possession. Some of that ‘light that never was on sea or land’ lies surely on those tender and gracious lines, something of the serene illumination that shines from a dying face.
In the early morning of April 5, 1794, the Marquis de Condorcet laid down his pen for the last time.
At ten o’clock on that day he slipped out of the house in the Rue Servandoni, unknown to Madame Vernet, and in spite of the passionate151 protests of Sarret, her husband, who followed him out into the street, praying him to return. Condorcet was in his usual disguise; many months’ confinement152 indoors, and the old weakness in his limbs, made walking a difficulty. He was at the door almost of the fatal prisons of the Carmes and the Luxembourg; but no persuasions153 could make him return. He had heard rumours154 of a domiciliary visit to be made immediately to Madame Vernet’s house and, were he found there, she must be ruined. Sarret implored in vain. The fugitive reached the Maine barrier in safety and turned in the direction of Fontenay-aux-Roses.{293} At every step his pain and difficulty in walking increased. But at three o’clock in the afternoon he safely reached the country house of his old friends, the Suards.
Madame Suard may be remembered as the very enthusiastic and vivacious155 little lady who once visited Voltaire, who has left behind her entertaining ‘Letters,’ and who has recorded Voltaire’s warm love and admiration for her friend Condorcet. ‘Our dear and good Condorcet,’ Madame Suard had called him. She and her husband (who was a well-known journalist and wit) had been his intimate friends in prosperity; how could he do better than come to them in his need?
It must in justice be said of the Suards that the accounts of their conduct are confused. But the generally accepted, as well as the most probable, story does not redound156 to their credit. True, they had many excuses; but there has never been any act of treachery for which the treacherous157 have not been able to adduce a plausible158 reason.
Condorcet asked for one night’s lodging, and M. Suard replied that such hospitality would be quite as dangerous for Condorcet himself as for them. Still, they could give him money, some ointment159 for a chafed160 leg due to his long walk, and a copy of Horace—to amuse his leisure! Further, we will not lock our garden-gate to-night{294} so that in case of urgent need you can make use of it! With this, they sent him away.
Madame Vernet, searching for him in that neighbourhood a little while after, declared that she tried the garden-gate and found it rusty161 and immovable. Her own door, in lawless Paris, was open night and day that, if he should return to her, she should not fail him. Whether he attempted to make use of the Suards’ timid hospitality is not known. One would think of Condorcet that he did not.
The day of April 6 he spent in sufferings and privations which can only be guessed.
On April 7, a tall man, gaunt and famished162, with a wound in his leg, went into an inn of Clamart and asked for an omelette. Mine host, looking at him suspiciously, inquired how many eggs he would have in his omelette. The Marquis, with no kind of idea of the number of eggs a working-man, or any man for that matter, expects in his omelette, said a dozen. M. Crépinet, the innkeeper, was a shrewd person as well as one of the municipals of the Commune. A queer workman this! Your name? Peter Simon, was the answer. Papers? I have none. Occupation? Well, on the spur of the moment, a carpenter. His hands, whose only tool had been a pen, gave him the lie. Crépinet, pleased with his own{295} sharpness, had this strange carpenter arrested and marched toward Bourg-la-Reine.
How in these supreme moments Condorcet felt and acted, is not on record. But in the great crises men unconsciously produce that character which they have formed in the trivial round of daily life, and he who would be great at great moments must be a great character by his own fireside and in the dull routine of his ordinary work. The strong, quiet Condorcet was surely strong and quiet still—‘the victim of his foes,’ as he had said, ‘but never their instrument or their dupe.’ On that weary way, a compassionate163 vine-dresser took pity on his limping condition, and lent him a horse.
On the morning of April 8, 1794, when the jailor of the prison of Bourg-la-Reine came to hand over the new prisoner to the gendarmes164 who had arrived to take him to Paris, the Marquis de Condorcet was found dead in his cell. With a powerful preparation of opium165 and stramonium prepared by his friend Cabanis, the celebrated166 physician, and which Condorcet had long carried about with him in his ring, he had ‘cheated the guillotine.’ It was remembered afterwards, that when he left the Suards’ house, he had turned saying, ‘If I have one night before me, I fear no man; but I will not be taken to Paris.{296}’
That he who gave his life to the people should have defrauded167 them, as it were, of his death, strikes the one discord168 in the clear harmony of this true soul.
Better that a Condorcet, like many a lesser man, should have mounted the guillotine as a king mounts his throne, proud to die for the cause for which he had lived, and hearing through the blasphemy169 and the execrations of the rabble170 below, the far-off music of a free and happy people.
For many months the woman who loved him had no news of his death. She hoped against hope that he had escaped, and was in safety in Switzerland. To support her little household she took a fine-linen shop in the Rue St. Honoré, and in the entresol set up her little studio where she continued her portrait-painting.
In January, 1794, for the good and safety of their child, she had heroically petitioned the municipality for a divorce from her husband, and obtained it—six weeks after his death. When the certain news of that death reached her, both her health and her strong heart faltered171. But Doctor Cabanis, who afterwards married her young sister, saved her—for further effort and longer work.
Full of courage and resignation she rose up again, wrote a preface to ‘The Progress of the Human Mind,’ educated her child, and when in 1795{297} some of her fortune was restored, immediately began paying the pensions which d’Alembert had asked Condorcet to give his old servants.
In later days she had a little salon in Paris, saw her daughter happily married, and died in 1822. In every stupendous change which France experienced between the fall of Robespierre and the death of Napoleon Bonaparte, she remained faithful to the principles to which her husband had devoted his genius and his life.
Through all, the Marquise de Condorcet had been, and had counted herself, a happy woman. Wrung172 with such sorrows as do not fall to the lot of many of her sex, she had had a blessing which is the portion of far fewer of them; she had inspired a great devotion, and had been worthy67 of it.
To Condorcet is meted173 now in some sort the same judgment as was meted to him in life.
Since he never gave himself blindly to any one faction174, all factions175 have distrusted and condemned him. To the Royalist he is a Revolutionist; to the Revolutionist he is an aristocrat. The thinker cannot forgive him that his thought led him to deeds and words; the man of action cannot forget that he was thinker and dreamer to the end. While the Church can never pardon his persistent176 hostility177 to theology, his vehement178 opposition to Roman Catholicism, as the religion{298} ‘where a few rogues179 make many dupes,’ the unbeliever is impatient with his serene faith in human kind, his unshattered trust in the goodness, not of God, but of man.
Far in advance of his time—in some respects of our time too—in his views on the rights of men and of women, on the education of children, and in his steady abhorrence180 of all limitation of what Voltaire called ‘the noble liberty of thinking,’ he is still condemned for an unpractical idealism, and for his passionate conviction that all errors are the fruit of bad laws.
But he at least stands out clearly to any impartial181 observer as one of the very few whose lofty disinterestedness182 came unscorched through the fire of the Terror.
In private life, stern to duty and yet tenderer than any woman in his quiet, deep affections, patient and strong with the fine endurance of steel and with the capacity (that capacity which is as rare as genius) for the highest form of human love, he showed a great character beside which even his great intellect seems a small thing and a mean.
In the breadth and the generosity of his self-sacrifice for the public good, he remains for ever one of the noblest, not only of the Friends of Voltaire, but of the sons of France.
The End
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
imprisonment
|
|
| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
aristocrat
|
|
| n.贵族，有贵族气派的人，上层人物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
devoted
|
|
| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
cavalry
|
|
| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
devout
|
|
| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
vowed
|
|
| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
virgin
|
|
| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
engraving
|
|
| n.版画；雕刻（作品）；雕刻艺术；镌版术v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的现在分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
bust
|
|
| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
piety
|
|
| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
mightiest
|
|
| adj.趾高气扬( mighty的最高级 )；巨大的；强有力的；浩瀚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
supervision
|
|
| n.监督，管理 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
bishop
|
|
| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
cardinal
|
|
| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
kin
|
|
| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
virtue
|
|
| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
mathematician
|
|
| n.数学家 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
fecundity
|
|
| n.生产力；丰富 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
profundity
|
|
| n.渊博；深奥，深刻 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
lodging
|
|
| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
opposition
|
|
| n.反对，敌对 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
infinitely
|
|
| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
motive
|
|
| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
witty
|
|
| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
commiserating
|
|
| v.怜悯，同情( commiserate的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
profess
|
|
| v.声称，冒称，以...为业，正式接受入教，表明信仰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
arrogance
|
|
| n.傲慢，自大 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
distinguished
|
|
| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
chivalry
|
|
| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
hatred
|
|
| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
fanaticism
|
|
| n.狂热，盲信 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
zeal
|
|
| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
virtues
|
|
| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
jealousy
|
|
| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
enlisted
|
|
| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
rehabilitation
|
|
| n.康复，悔过自新，修复，复兴，复职，复位 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
humility
|
|
| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
modesty
|
|
| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
admiration
|
|
| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
eulogy
|
|
| n.颂词；颂扬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
redeem
|
|
| v.买回，赎回，挽回，恢复，履行（诺言等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
exterior
|
|
| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
leisurely
|
|
| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
throbbed
|
|
| 抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
exulting
|
|
| vi. 欢欣鼓舞，狂喜 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
rue
|
|
| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
torments
|
|
| （肉体或精神上的）折磨，痛苦( torment的名词复数 )； 造成痛苦的事物[人] | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
inspector
|
|
| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
vexed
|
|
| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
malignity
|
|
| n.极度的恶意，恶毒；（病的）恶性 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
curtail
|
|
| vt.截短，缩短；削减 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
renounced
|
|
| v.声明放弃( renounce的过去式和过去分词 )；宣布放弃；宣布与…决裂；宣布摒弃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
inspectorship
|
|
| n.检查员的地位 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
56
annuities
|
|
| n.养老金；年金( annuity的名词复数 )；（每年的）养老金；年金保险；年金保险投资 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
scrupulously
|
|
| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
grouchy
|
|
| adj.好抱怨的；愠怒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
supreme
|
|
| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
blessing
|
|
| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
uncommon
|
|
| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
lighter
|
|
| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
stipulate
|
|
| vt.规定，（作为条件）讲定，保证 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
previously
|
|
| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
salon
|
|
| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
arena
|
|
| n.竞技场，运动场所；竞争场所，舞台 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
worthy
|
|
| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
testimony
|
|
| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
condemnation
|
|
| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
lessening
|
|
| 减轻，减少，变小 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
wedded
|
|
| adj.正式结婚的；渴望…的，执著于…的v.嫁，娶，（与…）结婚( wed的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
monarch
|
|
| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
monarchy
|
|
| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
ignominious
|
|
| adj.可鄙的，不光彩的，耻辱的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
wrath
|
|
| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
enfranchises
|
|
| v.给予选举权( enfranchise的第三人称单数 )；（从奴隶制中）解放 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
78
ripened
|
|
| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
royalty
|
|
| n.皇家，皇族 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
legislative
|
|
| n.立法机构，立法权；adj.立法的，有立法权的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
dissent
|
|
| n./v.不同意，持异议 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
orator
|
|
| n.演说者，演讲者，雄辩家 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
vomiting
|
|
| 吐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
lava
|
|
| n.熔岩，火山岩 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
lesser
|
|
| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
truthfulness
|
|
| n. 符合实际 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
scrupulousness
|
|
| n.一丝不苟；小心翼翼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
89
requisite
|
|
| adj.需要的，必不可少的；n.必需品 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
culpability
|
|
| n.苛责，有罪 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
prey
|
|
| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
serene
|
|
| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
compassion
|
|
| n.同情，怜悯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
courageous
|
|
| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
momentous
|
|
| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
conspired
|
|
| 密谋( conspire的过去式和过去分词 )； 搞阴谋； （事件等）巧合； 共同导致 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
judgment
|
|
| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
draught
|
|
| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
penal
|
|
| adj.刑罚的；刑法上的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
ratified
|
|
| v.批准，签认（合约等）( ratify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
implored
|
|
| 恳求或乞求（某人）( implore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
dishonoured
|
|
| a.不光彩的，不名誉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
repentance
|
|
| n.懊悔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
regenerated
|
|
| v.新生，再生( regenerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
majesty
|
|
| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
immediate
|
|
| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
allusion
|
|
| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
scathing
|
|
| adj.（言词、文章）严厉的，尖刻的；不留情的adv.严厉地，尖刻地v.伤害，损害（尤指使之枯萎）( scathe的现在分词) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
condemned
|
|
| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
jeopardy
|
|
| n.危险；危难 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
trampled
|
|
| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
covert
|
|
| adj.隐藏的；暗地里的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
sculptor
|
|
| n.雕刻家，雕刻家 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
proscribed
|
|
| v.正式宣布（某事物）有危险或被禁止( proscribe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
virtuous
|
|
| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
fugitive
|
|
| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
generosity
|
|
| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
repayment
|
|
| n.偿还，偿还款；报酬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
subterfuge
|
|
| n.诡计；藉口 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
destitute
|
|
| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
outlaw
|
|
| n.歹徒，亡命之徒；vt.宣布…为不合法 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
privately
|
|
| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
livelihood
|
|
| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
softened
|
|
| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
pittance
|
|
| n.微薄的薪水，少量 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
thronging
|
|
| v.成群，挤满( throng的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
conspiring
|
|
| 密谋( conspire的现在分词 )； 搞阴谋； （事件等）巧合； 共同导致 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
unity
|
|
| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
emigrant
|
|
| adj.移居的，移民的；n.移居外国的人，移民 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
presage
|
|
| n.预感，不祥感；v.预示 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
patriotism
|
|
| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
intemperate
|
|
| adj.无节制的，放纵的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
tranquil
|
|
| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
competence
|
|
| n.能力，胜任，称职 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
sanguine
|
|
| adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
139
enthusiasts
|
|
| n.热心人，热衷者( enthusiast的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
140
salvation
|
|
| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
141
exalted
|
|
| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
142
exultant
|
|
| adj.欢腾的，狂欢的，大喜的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
143
remains
|
|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
144
degradation
|
|
| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
145
philosophical
|
|
| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
146
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
147
doomed
|
|
| 命定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
148
destined
|
|
| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
149
dread
|
|
| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
150
guardian
|
|
| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
151
passionate
|
|
| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
152
confinement
|
|
| n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
153
persuasions
|
|
| n.劝说，说服（力）( persuasion的名词复数 )；信仰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
154
rumours
|
|
| n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
155
vivacious
|
|
| adj.活泼的，快活的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
156
redound
|
|
| v.有助于；提；报应 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
157
treacherous
|
|
| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
158
plausible
|
|
| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
159
ointment
|
|
| n.药膏，油膏，软膏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
160
chafed
|
|
| v.擦热（尤指皮肤）( chafe的过去式 )；擦痛；发怒；惹怒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
161
rusty
|
|
| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
162
famished
|
|
| adj.饥饿的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
163
compassionate
|
|
| adj.有同情心的，表示同情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
164
gendarmes
|
|
| n.宪兵，警官( gendarme的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
165
opium
|
|
| n.鸦片；adj.鸦片的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
166
celebrated
|
|
| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
167
defrauded
|
|
| v.诈取，骗取( defraud的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
168
discord
|
|
| n.不和，意见不合，争论，（音乐）不和谐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
169
blasphemy
|
|
| n.亵渎，渎神 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
170
rabble
|
|
| n.乌合之众，暴民；下等人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
171
faltered
|
|
| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
172
wrung
|
|
| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
173
meted
|
|
| v.（对某人）施以，给予（处罚等）( mete的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
174
faction
|
|
| n.宗派，小集团；派别；派系斗争 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
175
factions
|
|
| 组织中的小派别，派系( faction的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
176
persistent
|
|
| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
177
hostility
|
|
| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
178
vehement
|
|
| adj.感情强烈的；热烈的；(人)有强烈感情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
179
rogues
|
|
| n.流氓( rogue的名词复数 )；无赖；调皮捣蛋的人；离群的野兽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
180
abhorrence
|
|
| n.憎恶；可憎恶的事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
181
impartial
|
|
| adj.(in,to)公正的，无偏见的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
182
disinterestedness
|
|
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |