Marquis de Condorcet on voting rights for women. Women's History Month 2003 by Sunshine for Women

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Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat

Marquis de Condorcet
(1743-1794)

Living in an era when to be a republican was considered to be a dangerous radical, many French Enlightenment philosophés supported Enlightened Despotism, a monarchial system in which an absolute monarch instituted Enlightened and progressive policies because they were in the best interests of his (or her) realm and by extension of the sovereign. At the same time, the philosophés explored the advantages and disadvantages of alternate forms of government in an attempt to discover ways in which men could govern themselves.

From history and from their daily lives, they knew that both monarchies and democracies could become tyrannies, executing their countrymen with little reason, imprisoning and torturing their subjects, and confiscating their property without cause. They also knew that history had occasionally thrown up a monarch who was a genuine asset to his realm, not a worthless adventurer, a debauched fop, or a weak man manipulated by his courtiers for their own gain, as was so often the case. At other times in history, monarchies had been a source of peace and stability inhibiting local noblemen from contesting with one another over a territory thereby pushing the nation into bloody local wars.

So the philosophés grappled with a series of interrelated questions. What form of government can be constructed in which the qualities of the ruler are not left to heredity, and hence chance, a form of government which insured that the ruler is neither an adventurer, a fop, nor a pawn in the political games of a small clique, but rather is someone who rules with wisdom and justice? What form of government can be instituted among men which quite literally protects one's life and liberty from arbitrary arrest and imprisonment (often with the threat of torture and death) and property from search and seizure? What form of government can be instituted among men that does not replace a single strongman, such as a king, with a equally bad committee that operates in its own interests or, perhaps, even worse, with mob rule?

To be a republican, then, was to advocate an untested political system, a system fraught with great potential for abuse. To be a republican was to be a dangerous radical. Such was the intellectual milieu in which Condorcet as an adult operated.

Like many other philosophés, Condorcet was a member of the minor nobility. His father, an unsuccessful cavalry captain, was killed just five weeks after his birth. Condorcet was raised until age nine without any education by his now-twice widowed, pious mother. Then his uncle, a bishop, chose a tutor for him and later sent him to the Jesuit school in Rheims. In 1758, Condorcet was sent to the College de Navarre, part of the University of Paris where he studied subjects other than religion and Latin, where he fell in love with mathematics and where he decided to devote his life to the study of mathematics. By 1763, he met Lagrange and Jean le Rond d'Alembert, the latter eventually became Condorcet's patron. Several works on mathematics followed, solidifying his reputation as one of the leading mathematicians of his time, although his works were often abstract and had few examples, making them difficult to understand. In 1769, at age twenty-six, Condorcet was admitted to the Academy of Sciences. His future in any field seemed assured.

Over the course of the next few years, Condorcet came into contact with the leading thinkers of his time, the French philosophés. Intending to go on the "grand tour" of Italy with D'Alembert in 1770, they got no further than the French home of Voltaire. Condorcet left Voltaire's home his devoted disciple. On his return to Paris, Condorcet became the trusted aid of Turgot while Turgot was Finance Minister to the king. Eventually Condorcet would meet and work with fellow Academician and America's Ambassador to France Ben Franklin, Ambassador Thomas Jefferson, and Tom Paine, all fellow philosophés.

When Turgot was dismissed by the king, Condorcet also left politics and returned to the Academy, to his beloved mathematics, and to humanitarian pursuits. A gentle man, Condorcet was extremely sensitive to the pain, physical and emotional, felt by others and "could not even kill an insect unless it was very harmful.1" When talk turned to the Rights of Man, Condorcet took up the cause of slaves, publishing 'Reflections on Negro Slavery' in 1781 and founding the Society of the Friends of the Negro in 1788. In the 1780s he also penned tributes to two of his now-deceased friends: Life of Turgot (1786) and Life of Voltaire (1789). As a further indication of his humanitarian concerns, Condorcet was opposed to the death penalty.

At age 43, Condorcet fell head-over-heels in love with Sophie de Grouchy, then aged 22: they were married in December 1786. They shared the same ideals and helped one another in their work. Their only child, daughter Eliza, was born in the spring of 1790. Condorcet, to put it mildly, was besotted by his wife and his daughter.

Perhaps spurred on by the Americans' meeting to draft a new constitution, during the 1780s, Condorcet concentrated on two political problems: developing intricate rules for voting which he hoped would cure some of the problems with a democracy and writing a Declaration of Human Rights.

In 1787, Condorcet wrote a series of essays entitled "Letters from a Freeman of New Haven to a Citizen of Virginia on the Futility of Dividing the Legislative Power among Several Bodies" about the ideal constitution and form of government. In this work, the first work I have uncovered which advocates voting rights for women, he touches on the political equality for women.

When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, he ran as a candidate to the National Assembly, but was unsuccessful. Still a staunch monarchist, Condorcet nonetheless advocated several progressive humanitarianism positions – abolition of slavery in the French colonies, the abolition of the death penalty, and giving women equal political rights with men. He expanded his earlier ideas of citizenship rights for women in a pamphlet on that topic alone entitled "On Giving Women the Right of Citizenship" (1790).

Finally elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1793, he became a moderate Republican when the king tried to flee the country. Perhaps because of his opposition to the death penalty under any circumstances, he voted against executing the king. After writing the first draft of French First Republic's constitution, he fell out of favor with the Jacobins, the faction that was the power behind the Terror. Condorcet went into hiding where he wrote the work he is best known for today, Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind. He also wrote a moving testament for his still-a-small-child daughter, 'Advice to My Daughter' (1794) in which he advises her how best to structure her life so that she has the greatest probability of finding happiness.

Fearing for his benefactor's safety, Condorcet left hiding and, within days, was captured. Two days later, he was found in his jail cell dead of causes unknown.

With that, here is the earliest reference to voting rights for women which I have uncovered: "Letters from a Gentleman. . . . "Condorcet's essay "On Giving Women the Rights of Citizenship" is really much better than the short parenthetical aside in "Letters", but I wanted to begin the story of European women's quest for suffrage at the beginning. Concorcet begins "On Giving" with the stirring words: "Habit can so familiarize men with violations of their natural rights that those who have lost them neither think of protesting nor believe that they are unjustly treated."

From 'Letters from a Freeman of New Haven to a Citizen of Virginia on the Futility of Dividing the Legislative Power among Several Bodies' (1787) from McLean and Hewitt pp. 298-299

'On Giving Women the Right of Citizenship' (1790) from Iain McLean and Fiona Hewitt pp. 333 - 339

'On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship' (1790) in The First Essay on the Political Rights of Women. Translated by: Dr. Alice Drysdale Vickery (Letchworth: 1912). (off-site)

Footnotes:

1 McLean and Hewitt, p. 7

References:

Iain McLean and Fiona Hewitt (translators and editors), Condorcet, Foundations of Social Choice and Political Theory [Aldershot, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 1994]