2-368-284 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The death of the Marquis de Condorcet, 1794 (1882-1884). Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794) was a French Enlightenment philosopher and sociologist. He was a proponent of educational reform, as well as a liberal free market economy and equal rights for all, regardless of race or sex, ideas well ahead of his time. Condorcet played a prominent role in the French Revolution, drafting a new constitution for France in 1793. Like so many others however, he fell foul of Maximilien Robespierre, and having been arrested after a period as a fugitive, was found dead in his prison cell on 28th March 1794. It is not known whether he took poison or was murdered by his captors because he remained too popular a figure to be publicly executed. He was symbolically interred in the Pantheon in 1989. A print from La France et les Français à Travers les Siècle, Volume III, F Roy editor, A Challamel, Saint-Antoine, 1882-1884.