Lagrange's Memoirs. 73 



6 ' ""£> 



to the embassy of England, and was to pass through Paris where he 

 purposed to tarry awhile. He proposed this journey to Lagrange. 

 Lagrange consented to it with joy, and as was right to expect, was 

 welcomed by D'Alembert, Clairaut, Condorcet, Fontaine, Nollet, 

 Marie, and other savans. Having fallen dangerously sick in the 

 course of a dinner, when Nollet had served to him only dishes pre- 

 pared a Pitalienne, be could not follow to London his friend, M. 

 Caraccioli who suddenly received the order of repairing to his post, 

 and was obliged to leave him in a furnished hotel, to the care of a 

 confidential person, directed to supply all his wants. 



This event changed his purposes. He dreamed of nothing but 

 of returning to Turin. He gave himself up to mathematics with a 

 new ardor, when he learned that the academy of Berlin was threat- 

 ened with the loss of Euler, who was intending to return to Peters- 

 burgh. D'Alembert spoke of this intention of Euler in a letter 

 to Voltaire, the 3d of March, 1 766 ; fen serais fache, added he, 

 c'est un homme peu amusant, mais untres-grand geometre. It was 

 of little consequence to D'Alembert that the homme peu amusant 

 should remove seven degrees from Paris towards the pole. He 

 could read the works of the great geometer in the Transactions 

 of the Academy at St. Petersburg, as well as in those of the one 

 at Berlin. What troubled D'Alembert was, the fear of seeing 

 himself called upon to replace him; and the embarrassment of re- 

 plying to offers which he was well resolved not to accept. Fred- 

 eric, in fact, proposed anew to D'Alembert the place of presi- 

 dent of his academy which he held for him in reserve after the death 

 of Maupertuis. D'Alembert suggested to him the idea of placing 

 Lagrange in the place of Euler; and if we believe the secret his- 

 tory of the court of Berlin (torn. II, p. 474), Euler had already 

 pointed out Lagrange as the only man capable of following in his 

 track. And in effect, it was natural that Euler, who wished to ob- 

 tain leave to quit Berlin, and D'Alembert who sought a pretext for 

 not going thither, should both, without corresponding with each oth- 

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

 which the labors of Euler had shed upon the Academy of Prussia. 



M. Lagrange was engag 



emy for the physico-mathematical sciences. We 



ofMauper 



tuis, should have received but half of the salary which the king wish- 

 ed to give, apart from every thing to D'Alembert. The reason is, 

 Vol. XXX.— No. 1. 10 



