Marquis de Condorcet

Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis of Condorcet, was a French mathematician, philosopher, and political economist whose work spanned the rational optimism of the Enlightenment. He argued for constitutional government, education for all, women's equality, racial justice, and welfare provisions alongside free-market principles - a sweep that later earned him the label "last witness" to that age. When revolution came, he entered politics. But in 1793 he opposed the constitution drafted by Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles, and the Convention Nationale, led by the Jacobins, ordered his arrest. He went into hiding. On 29 March 1794, he died in prison - the rationalist snared by the machine he'd tried to steer.