Zagajewski Clip (1/12/20)

Rue Servandoni, right by the Luxembourg Gardens. One of my favorite Parisian streets, or rather side streets; quiet, almost always empty. One building bears a plaque informing us that the Marquis Nicolas de Condorcet spent the last months of his life in hiding here; he’d been sentenced to death by the Revolution. In the end, he left his hiding place, was recognized, denounced, arrested, and shortly afterward died in prison under uncertain circumstances. In the months preceding his arrest he worked on his final project, Esquisse d’un tableau historique des progrès de l’esprit humain. The Revolution’s thugs were out to get him, and he writes on progress! He listened for footsteps echoing in the quiet side street, but retained his faith in progress. He kept one ear open for his persecutors’ footsteps, while the other heard the ever-advancing music of the future. He witnessed the terror unleashed by the Jacobins, but never lost his faith in human perfectibility. I don’t know what to admire more, the courage or the blindness of the philosopher hiding in a house on Servandoni Street.