Produced by Meredith Bach, Irma Spehar and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images of public domain material generously made available by The Online Library of Liberty.) THE FIRST ESSAY ON The Political Rights of Women. A Translation of CONDORCET’S Essay “_Sur l’admission des femmes au droit de Cité_” (On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship). --_Collected Writings_, 1789. BY DR. ALICE DRYSDALE VICKERY. (WITH PREFACE AND REMARKS.) LETCHWORTH: GARDEN CITY PRESS LIMITED. =Price Twopence.= Preface. More than one hundred years have passed away since, in 1789, the Marquis de Condorcet wrote his “_Esquisse sur l’Admission des Femmes au Droit de Cité_,” and yet the problem of women’s enfranchisement still awaits an equitable solution. Those of us who are old enough to remember the inauguration of the popular movement for the extension of the franchise to women (which may be dated from the day in which our late noble leader, JOHN STUART MILL, addressed the House of Commons on this subject, in May, 1867), feel that our lives are passing away while wearily awaiting the dilatory educational development of mankind in this question. The essential principles of our claim have been reiterated again and again. We form one-half of the human race, and need recognition by the law as much as the other half of the race. But, as long as our law-makers are not directly responsible to us for their conduct in Parliament, they may, and do, safely neglect our interests, and pass laws which jeopardise our liberties and subordinate our just rights of person, property, and offspring to the supposed interests of the men whom they represent.