La Rochefoucauld and Condorcet

Led by the Graces, through a court he moved,
"All men revered him, and all women loved;"--
Happier than Paris, when to him there came
The three Celestials--Learning, Love, and Fame,
He found the art to soothe them all, and see
The Golden Apple shared amidst the Three.
Yet he, this man, for whom the world assumed
Each rose that in Gargettian gardens bloom'd,
Left to mankind a legacy of all
That from earth's sweetness can extract a gall.
With him, indeed, poor Love is but a name--
Virtue a mask--Beneficence a game.
The Eternal Egotist, the Human Soul,
Sees but in Self the starting-post and goal.
Nipp'd in the frost of that cold, glittering air,
High thoughts are dwarf'd, and youth's warm dreams despair!
He lived in luxury, and he died in peace,
And saints in powder wept at his decease!
Man loves this sparkling satire on himself;--
Gaze round--see Rochefoucauld on every shelf!
Look on the other;--Penury made him sour,
His learned youth the hireling slave of power;
His Manhood cast amidst the stormiest time,
A hideous stage, half frenzy and all crime:--
Upon the Dungeon's floor of stone he died,
With Life's last Friend, his Horace, by his side!
Yet he--this Sage--who found the world so base,
Left what?--His "Progress of the Human Race."
A golden dream of man without a sin;
All virtue round him and all peace within!
Man does not love such portraits of himself,
And thrusts the unwelcome Flatterer from the shelf.