Marcel Claessen wrote:
> I would like us to receive a pointer to  Yuri Tulupenko's indication for
> the Condorcet quote "Today Reason burns the innumerable volumes which
> attest the vanity of a caste. Other vestiges remain in public and private
> libraries. They must be involved in a common destruction".  I cannot
> believe that Condorcet meant the deliberate  PHYSICAL destruction of
> papers relating to the history of the noble families of  France. Might he
> not have meant the end of the ancient regime's governmental authority
> based on the genealogical papers of the aristocrats, "destructed" by the
> revolutionary rule of popular/democratic consent?

On June 19, 1792 Condorcet called on the Legislative Assembly to decree the
PHYSICAL destruction of the documents "which attest the vanity of the
caste". The project was unanimously adopted by the Assembly.
Condorcet's speech was published in the official gazette, Le Moniteur.
Google Books offers, in full view, a reprint of the gazette for 1789 - 1799,
_L'ancien Moniteur. Seule histoire authentique et inalteree de la revolution
francaise_ (Paris, 1862). The official text of Condorcet's speech is found
on page 702. The following short url points directly to the page:
http://tinyurl.com/ythwxd

Hayek may have used some other publication where Condorcet's infamous speech
is quoted, for example, Chateaubriand's _Etudes Historiques_. It's luckily
online at
http://www.poesies.net/chateaubriandetudehistoriques.txt
(Search the text for "C'est aujourd'hui que dans la capitale la raison...")

Yuri Tulupenko