He inherited a vast fortune, renounced his title of baron, taking the romantic name of Anacharsis, travelled over Germany, Italy and England, preaching his extraordinary doctrines, and spending money with unbridled extravagance. The French Revolution filled him with delirious joy; it appeared to realise all his mad projects. On June 19, 1790, he presented himself at the bar of the Assembly to read an address in which he requested that all strangers residing in Paris might be admitted to the Grand Federation which was to take place on July 14 of the same year. He called himself “the Ambassador of Humanity” to France, and gave large sums to the “nation” for the fitting out of a regiment “to fight in the holy war against tyranny.” The events of August 10 seem to have shaken Clootz’s reason. Not content with attacking all the kings and princes of the earth, he delivered a violent tirade against the Almighty, declaring himself the personal enemy of God. He publicly abjured all religion. He complimented the Convention upon their victories near the Rhine, and requested the members to put prices upon the heads of the Duke of Brunswick and the King of Prussia. A decree of August 20, 1792, having granted him the title of citizen, he repaired to the Bar of the Assembly and delivered a long speech of thanks, and in the praise of regicide. After he became a member of the Convention he wearied his co-Deputies by long rambling speeches. He voted for the death of the King “in the name of the whole generation of mankind,” adding, “he personally condemned Frederick William of Prussia to death.” Robespierre was his secret enemy, and by his (Robespierre’s) influence Clootz was excluded from the club of the Jacobins and arrested, the only accusation against him being that he was rich and of noble birth. Clootz was condemned to death with his supposed accomplices. He received his sentence with calmness, and passed his remaining hours preaching materialism to his fellow victims. At the scaffold he requested permission to suffer last, as he wished to make some observations while watching the heads of his companions fall. He wrote several books, as strange in their contents as was his own character. CONDORCET, JEAN ANTOINE NICOLAS DE CARINTON, MARQUIS DE. Born at Ribemont, in Picardy, 1743. A member of a very ancient and noble family: being her only surviving son, his mother devoted him to the Virgin, making him wear girl’s clothes until the age of eleven. He became one of the most illustrious mathematicians and philosophers of France. He was not quite twenty-two when he presented his celebrated essay, “Sur le calcul intégral” before the Academy. He was elected member of the Academy of Science after composing an eulogy on the death of La Fontaine in 1771. During the next fifteen years he published many books of historical and philosophical interest. Turgot inspired Condorcet with a taste for political economy.