CONDORCET (Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat de).... Lot 126

CONDORCET (Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat de). Autograph letter signed to Noël-Gabriel-Luce Villar. [Lisieux], "le 25" [September 1783]. One p. in-12, address on spine with red wax armorial seal; tear to address leaf and crack to text leaf due to opening with damage to a few letters. "M. l'abbé BOSSUT [mathematician Charles Bossut, 1730-1814, contributor to the Encyclopédie] having left, allow me, Sir, to ask you for NEWS FROM M. D'ALEMBERT; please send it to me at La Roche-Guion [château of the Duchess of Enville, Marie-Louise Nicole de La Rochefoucauld]. Imagine that I have no news of him, the death of my uncle who was bishop here [Jacques-Marie Caritat de Condorcet, died September 21] forced me to leave La Roche-Guion immediately. My letters of three or four days have remained absolutely behind, I'm all worried and distraught. Please tell M. d'Alembert all about my misfortunes. J'ETAIS BIEN TRANQUILLE, COMPOSANT L'ELOGE DE VAUCANSON [the mechanic Jacques Vaucanson, 1709-1782, who was a member of the Académie des sciences], lorsqu'il m'a fallu partir en poste accourir ici pour entendre parler... of convoy, commissaries, seals c c Finally, imagine that I'm writing to you from a main building, while in the one opposite my uncle, exposed in the chapel, is the object of the piety of all the Capuchins and the curiosity of all the poliçons of the country. It's not worth writing about. So, I'll end by kissing you very tenderly. de Condorcet, for I suspect you are unaware of my griffonage." ECCLESIASTIC ACQUIRED TO NEW IDEAS, L'ABBE VILLAR (1748-1826), was a Father of Christian Doctrine who taught first in his native Toulouse and then at the college in La Flèche, where he became rector. Constitutional bishop of Mayenne from 1791 to 1798, he was a deputy to the Convention (1792) where, like Condorcet, he was a member of the Committee for Public Instruction. He was then a member of the Conseil des Cinq-Cents (1795) and the Corps législatif (December 1799), and appointed Inspector General of Studies (1800). A member of the Institut (1795), he presided over the organization of the Académie française in 1803, taking Condorcet's seat. CONDORCET (Jean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat de). See also n° 44 above.