The Condorcet-Suard Correspondence

Abstract

LEONORA COHEN ROSENFIELD HAD A LONGSTANDING INTEREST in the French philosopher Condorcet, whom she saw as one of the great forerunners of a modern democratic thought. The last project she completed was the editing of a volume of Condorcet Studies, bringing together essays by leading European and American scholars illustrating the wide range of Condorcet's intellectual contributions.1 Another project she had hoped to undertake was the preparation of an edition of his correspondence with the journalist and translator J. B. A. Suard and his wife, Amelie Panckoucke. These letters, which have been known to scholars since Rene Doumic published excerpts from them in 1911-12, are now in the Bibliotheque nationale and have been consulted in most recent studies of Condorcet; some were published in whole or in part in L.A. Boiteux's publications about the Suards.2 Professor Rosenfield was convinced that this, the most extensive known unpublished collection of Condorcet's personal correspondence, deserved publication in an annotated edition that would make the material available to a wider audience and contribute to a fuller understanding of Condorcet's life and work. Thanks to the generosity of Professor Rosenfield's husband, Harry N. Rosenfield, who has given me the copies his