156 MEMOIR OF LEGENDRE. 



I might still furtlier speak of important labors publislied by M. Legendre on 

 tlie integrals, styled by liim culeriun, from the name of Euler, wlio bad first 

 occupied himself with them, labors which occupy a large space in his exercises 

 on the integral calculus, and wliich he partially introduced, while he improved 

 on them, in the second volume of liis theory of elliptical functions. I might also 

 show how, parallel with the employment of cUiptic transcendents, he opened the 

 way to the numerical realization of a vast class of integrals by the tables which 

 he has given for calculating the new transcendent, designated by him under the 

 iiame of the function grand gamma ; l)ut although M. Biuet has shown that the 

 labors accessory to those which M. Legendre has given to the public on these 

 subjects alone, would constitute no inconsiderable title for a distinguished 

 geometer, I should fear to wearj^ the attention of my auditors by dwelling at 

 greater length on topics of this nature. 



Like Euler, his model, and like many other great geometers who preceded 

 him, M. Legendre prosecuted his labors to the last without having to regret any 

 enfeeblement of his faculties; the volume of our memoirs, which immediately 

 preceded his death, contains one of his studies upon a difhcult question of the 

 theor}^ of numbers. He was then 80 years of age. 



So vigorous an organization could scarcely be broken up without great suffer- 

 ing. Tiie malady which terminated the life of our colleague was long and 

 painful, but he endm-ed it with firmness, without indulging any illusion as to its 

 fatal issue, and with a resignation which, as was said by M. Poisson at his grave, 

 must have been rendered difficult by the happiness of liis home, the tenderness 

 and fond solicitude which there suiTounded him. Always characterized by a 

 spirit of self-renunciation, he had often expressed the wish that in speaking of him no 

 mention should be made except of his labors; but" the same silence is not imposed 

 on us as regards the noble actions which the faithful companion of his life, the 

 depositary of his thoughts and purjwses, continued to perform in his name after 

 his death. 



M. Legendre had not forgotten what, in his youth, he had owed to the learned 

 and estimable men who had divined and fostered his talents. ^ladame Legendre 

 continued to testify the interest which her husband had exhibiteil towards pupils 

 of the Polytechnic school, who happened to be scantily endowed with the gifts 

 of fortune, and paid in succession the charges of several of them. Having 

 become possessor of the last editions of those works which M. Legendre had 

 printed at his own expense, she distributed them liberally, in order that they 

 might more promptly subserve the advancement of science ; and the year before 

 her decease she presented, through the Bureau of public instruction, 40 copies 

 of the Theory of elliptical functions to the principal libraries of France, a 

 donation for which thanks were addressed to her by the worth}' minister M. 

 Fortoul, in the name of the state. At her own death, in 1856, she devised to 

 the commune of Auteuil, for a vicarage and school, the country house in which 

 she had last lived with M. Legendre. 



Full of devotion and admiration for the memory of one whose name it had 

 been her happiness and pride to bear for 64 years, she preserved to her last day 

 an unaftVcted and religious respect for all that had pertained to him. The 

 survivor of M. Legendre for 25 3'ears, she died at a somewhat more advanced 

 age than he, from the eftects of a long and cruel malady, against which she 

 exerted the force and resignation of wiiich he had given her the noble example. 

 She had lost all her lamily, allied to that of our celebrated painter llobert Leievre, 

 and having never had children, she expired at the age of 82, surrounded by the 

 pious care of persons wliom the graces of her mind and her constant amiability 

 habitually assembled around her, and ^ho have preserved for her memory a 

 filial attachment. With her, comjjletely disappeared a name in which France 

 will never cease to pride itself. 



Lagrcange was the reformer of analysis. By rendering more evident some of 



