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LXXXI. Some Particulars of the Life of Count Boveatn- 
VILLE, the French Circumnavigator. By M. DELaMBRE, 
Secretary to the French Institute*. 
Rous ANTONY DE BoUGAINVILLE was.born at Paris on the 
11th of November, 1729. He was the son of a notary at Paris, and 
-descended from an ancient family in Picardy. 
A celebrated navigator, a general officer, member of the Aca- 
demy of Sciences, of the Institute, and of the Board of Longitude, 
were so many titles which he owed to his own merit, and which 
were the recompense of a long series of illustrious actions. 
While at college he was distinguished by an ardent desire for 
knowledge. His professor one day was explaining the phases of 
the moon, and its various positions: in order to impress his ideas 
on the memory of his auditors, he quoted two Latin verses to - 
them. Young Bougainville was bold enough to consider them 
as of an inferior kind; and being challenged to make better, he 
answered almost instantly by four verses more accurate, more in- 
structive, and more poetical, than the distich which he had cri- 
ticised. 
On leaving college he was admitted an advocate in the Par- 
liament, by desire of his father; but in order to indulge his own 
inclination he inrolled himself in the musqueteers. Chance made 
him a neighbour to Clairaut and d’Alembert, and he attached 
himself warmly to these two geometricians; he visited them 
often, profited by their conversation and writings, and at the age 
of 25 he produced the first part of his Integral Calculus, to serve 
as a continuation of De ’ Hépital’s Infinitesimals. With that can- 
dour which was always one of the most striking traits in his cha- 
racter, he declared in his preface, that nothing in the whole work 
was his own, but the arrangement which he had endeavoured to 
give it. The committee of the Academy, however, attested that by 
explaining the methods of the various geometricians, he had made 
them his own by the clearness and intelligence with which he 
elucidated them. In addition to this flattering testimony he 
found also another recompense in the certainty of being useful 
to young geometricians, who were greatly in want of guides to 
enable them to penetrate into this hitherto obscure branch of the 
mathematical science. 
In 1755 he was made a major, and visited London as secre- 
tary of the embassy, where he was elected a fellow of the Royal 
Society. Next year he followed General Montcalm to Canada, 
with the title of captain of dragoons. And as a proof that so 
many and various functions did not make him neglect the sciences, 
* Magazin Encyclopédique 1813, p. $15. 
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