Biography of M. Le Comte Lagrange, 249 



placing Lagrange in the place of Euler ; and if we believe 

 the secret history of the court of Berlin (torn II., p. 474), 

 Euler had already pointed out Lagrange as the only man 

 apahle of following in his track. And, indeed, it was 

 natural that Euler, who wished to obtain leave to quit 

 Berlin, and D'Alembert who sought a pretext for not going 

 thither, should both, without corresponding with each 

 other, have cast their eyes upon the man most fit to sustain 

 the glory which the labours of Euler had shed upon the 

 Academy of Prussia. 



M. Lagrange was engaged with the title of director of 

 the Academy in the physico-mathematical department. 

 We cannot fail to be astonished that Euler and Lagrange, 

 placed successively in the place of Maupertius, should 

 have received but half of the salary which the king wished 

 to give, apart from every thing to D'Alembert. The rea- 

 son is, that this prince, who, in his leisure, cultivated 

 poetry and the fine arts, had no idea of the sciences, which 

 he thought himself obliged, notwithstanding, to protect as 

 a king : the reason is, that in reality he placed little value 

 upon geometry, against which he sent three pages of verse 

 to D'Alembert himself. D'Alembert delayed answering 

 him until the end of the siege of Schweidnitz, because ce 

 serait trop d'avoir a-la-fois VAutriche et la geometric sur les 

 bras; and, notwithstanding the immense reputation of 

 Euler, we see by the correspondence with Voltaire, that 

 Frederic designated him only by the qualification of his 

 geometre horgne, dont les oreilles ne sont pas faites pour sentir 

 les delicatesses de la poesie : to which Voltaire added ; nous 

 sommes un petit nomhre d' adeptes qui nous y connaissons, le 

 rest est ptrofane : a remark more witty than fair, and which 

 Euler, in speaking of geometry, might have been able to 

 retort against Voltaire and Frederic. We see plainly that 

 Voltaire who had so worthily lauded Newton, sought in this 

 expression to flatter Frederic. He entered out of courtesy 

 into the ideas of a prince. For Frederic wished to put at 

 the head of his Academy an individual only, who had at least 

 some reputation in literature, under the fear that a geometer 

 would not take sufficient interest in the direction of literary 

 works ; and at the same time, that a man of letters would 

 not be more out of place at the head of a society, composed 



