After the flight of the king in June, and his return in what was virtually captivity to Paris, Condorcet was one of the party, very small in numbers and entirely discountenanced by public opinion, then passing through the monarchical and constitutional stage, who boldly gave up the idea of a monarchy and proclaimed the idea of a republic. In July (1791) he published a piece strongly arguing for a negative answer to the question whether a king is necessary for the preservation of liberty.[28] In one sense, this composition is favourable to Condorcet's foresight; it was not every one who saw with him that the destruction of the monarchy was inevitable after the royal flight. This want of preparation in the public mind for every great change as it came, is one of the most striking circumstances of the Revolution, and it explains the violent, confused, and inadequate manner in which nearly every one of these changes was made. It was proposed at that time to appoint Condorcet to be governor to the young dauphin. But Condorcet in this piece took such pains to make his sentiments upon royalty known, that in the constitutional frame of mind in which the Assembly then was, the idea had to be abandoned. It was hardly likely that a man should be chosen for such an office, who had just declared the public will to be 'that the uselessness of a king, the needfulness of seeking means of displacing a power founded on illusions, should be one of the first truths offered to his reason; the obligation of concurring in this himself, one of the first of his moral duties; and the desire not to be freed from the yoke of law by an insulting inviolability, the first sentiment of his heart. People are well aware that at this moment the object is much less how to mould a king, than to teach him not to wish to be one.'[29] As all France was then bent on the new constitution, a king included, Condorcet's republican assurance was hardly warranted, and it was by no means well received. FOOTNOTES: [13] _Œuv._ i. 71. [14] _Ib._ i. 73, 74. [15] _Œuv._ i. 296. [16] _Ib._ i. 78. [17] _Œuv._ i. 89. Condorcet had 16 votes, and Bailly 15. '_Jamais aucune élection_,' says La Harpe, who was all for Buffon, '_n'avait offert ni ce nombre ni ce partage_.'--_Philos. du 18ième Siècle_, i. 77. A full account of the election, and of Condorcet's reception, in Grimm's _Corr. Lit._ xi. 50-56. [18] _Œuv._ iii. 109, 110. [19] His wife, said to be one of the most beautiful women of her time, was twenty-three years younger than himself, and survived until 1822. Cabanis married another sister, and Marshal Grouchy was her brother. Madame Condorcet wrote nothing of her own, except some notes to a translation which she made of Adam Smith's _Theory of Moral Sentiments_.