Condorcet and Borda in 1784. Misfits and Documents Éric BRIAN 1 This issue on the history of social mathematics is a fine occasion for promoting the digital library accumulated by the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris (www.gallica.fr ) and for displaying beyond the circles of Condorcetian erudition the Condorcet-Borda file related to the mathematics of elections. The two names are well known. Their works, associated with the years 1781 (Borda) and 1784 (Condorcet), are often mentioned, but are less well known. (See Iain McLean’s and Arnold Urken’s articles in this issue for the latest commentaries on this matter.) Some fables also run through the collective memory of science. Some authors have commented upon the near-coincidence of the two dates of publication and the physical proximity of the two academicians who were both at the Paris Academy of Sciences. Some have imagined a dialogue, if not a controversy. Studies published during the two last decades provide some insight into this seeming connection. The relevant literature runs from French-style erudition to specialized publications in the history of social choice theory. Large sections from the documents we are presenting today have been edited and commented on in the mid-1990s (Brian, 1994; Bru and Crépel, 1994; McLean and Hewitt, 1994; McLean and Urken, 1995). In France, the intensity of scholarship increased following the collective works produced in the context of the bicentennial commemoration of the French Revolution and of Condorcet’ s death (RS, 1988; Crépel et Gilain, 1989; MEFRIM, 1996; Chouillet et Crépel, 1997). More recent works on Condorcet may be considered in this light, too (Schandeler et Crépel, 2004; Crépel and Rieucau, 2005). The last of these is a very recent dissertation carried out as a systematic philological inquiry in order to analyse the density of the philosophical references made by Condorcet in his works on the mathematics of elections (Mammone-Rinaldi, 2008). It should be mentioned, too, that this kind of work on the 1 Directeur d’études at EHESS (Centre Maurice-Halbwachs, ENS, 48 bld Jourdan, F-74014 Paris), eric.brian@ens.fr (First publication : June 2008 ; revised version : November 2008).