 Perhaps most remarkable about the couple is how they managed to maintain their optimism at the most perilous moment of their lives together. In 1793, despite their forced separation and the dangers they faced, she worked on her Letters, he on his Esquisse, both works that express unwavering faith in human progress and goodness. As A. Pons (preface, A. de G. Condorcet 1994, 10) remarks,