 In 1786 at age forty-two, Condorcet married the twenty-two year old Sophie de Grouchy (1764–1822), with whom he forged a loving relationship, similar political convictions, and a solid intellectual partnership. Like her husband, de Grouchy was committed to bringing about major judicial and political reforms in France; and her own experiences at a convent left her with a similarly fierce dislike of the Church and a commitment to secular values. The two met through their common interest in the defense of three peasant victims of judicial error and legal abuse, the roués de Chaumont, whose cause had been taken up by de Grouchy’s uncle, the magistrate Charles Dupaty, president of the parliament of Bordeaux (see Perrod 1984). In addition to collaborating frequently in Condorcet’s writings, his wife translated the works of Adam Smith and Thomas Paine, and she hosted a leading salon at l’Hotel des Monnaies, Condorcet’s residence following his appointment in 1775 as Inspector-General of the Mint. The salon was attended by many foreign visitors—including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin’s grandson, Thomas Paine, Charles Stanhope, 3rd earl of Stanhope, and the Marquis de Beccaria (author of the treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764), which opposed torture and the death penalty)—along with the writer Pierre-Auguste Caron de Beaumarchais, the playwright and pamphleteer Olympe de Gouges (author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen), and the writer and hostess Madame de Staël. During the early years of the Revolution the Condorcet salon was an important venue for followers of the Girondin, and it hosted meetings of the previously mentioned Cercle Social, one of the revolutionary clubs most supportive of women’s participation and women’s rights. After 1789, Condorcet also frequented other salons associated with the Girondins such as those of Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud and Mme (Marie-Jeanne) Roland (Williams 2004, 13).