Condorcet Inventory Project

The project dates back to the early 1990s, to mark the bicentenary of the French Revolution and the bicentenary of Condorcet’s death in 1994. At that time, a multidisciplinary team – the Groupe Condorcet – was formed to work on his work, publish his manuscripts and distribute his correspondence. It was at this point that the idea of drawing up an inventory was first mooted. The Groupe Condorcet published many writings and organized numerous conferences before discontinuing its activities in the early 2000s. Nicolas Rieucau resumed the project in 2009, founding the Inventaire Condorcet team.

An inventory is a prerequisite for the critical and annotated edition of a work or series of documents. In the case of Condorcet, there is an entire work of prospecting, dating and identification to be developed, even before undertaking the scientific edition as such. At present, we are concentrating on the inventory of Condorcet’s manuscripts. Students are involved in encoding the letters (as well as “naming” the photograph files). Two interns work for two months of the year, supervised by a research engineer, Josselin Morvan. They then each spend 15 days on holiday. These students are also given the opportunity to have direct contact with the documents, as a visit is organized to the Archives de l’Académie des Sciences in Paris, where many of Condorcet’s papers are kept. This collaboration with students from the DEFI Master’s degree in information and communication at the University of Paris Nanterre is also an opportunity for them to immerse themselves in the world of research, and to learn about teamwork.