1814.] M. Lagrange. 411 



these occasions I asked him what he thought of the music : *' I 

 love it," savs he, " because it leaves me to myself. I listen to it 

 during the first three measures, hut I hear no more of it ; I give 

 myself up to reflection, nothing interrupts me, and in this way I 

 have solved many a difficult problem." Hence the finest music 

 must have been that during which he was inspired with the finest of 

 his thoi'ghts. 



Thr.ugh he had a venerable figure, indicating his excclleot cha- 

 racteristics, b.e would never allow his portrait to be drawn. More 

 than once, by a very cxcus^able piece of address, jiersons liave been 

 introduced during the meeting ol tlie Institute to take a sketch of 

 him without liis knowledge. An artist sent by the Academy of 

 Turin drew in this manner the outline from which was constructed 

 the bust that was exhihitcd for some months in the hal! of the Insti- 

 tute, and is at present in the library. A cast was taken of him after 

 his death ; and some time before, while he slept, a picture of him 

 was taken, which is said to resemble him very much. 



Gentle and even timid in conversation, he took a pleasure in 

 asking questions, either to draw out others, or to add their leflec- 

 tions to his own vast knowledge. When he spoke, it was always 

 in a tone of doubt, and his first words usuallv vverc, 1 do not know. 

 He respected the opinions of others, and was very far from laying 

 down his own as a rule. Yet it was not easy to make him change 

 them. Sometimts he even defended them with a degree of heat 

 which continued to increase till b.e was sensible of some alteration 

 in himself; then he immediately resumed his usual tranquillity. 

 One day, after a discussion of this kit)d, M. Lagrange having left 

 the room, Borda remaining alone with me, allowed these words to 

 escape him : '•' I am sorry to say it of a man like M. Lagrange, but 

 1 do not know a more obstinate person." M Borda had gone away 

 first, Lagrange might have said to me as much of our associate, 

 who was a man of excellent sense and considerable wit ; but who, 

 like Lagrange, did not easily abandon those opinions which he had 

 adopted after a mature examination. 



A gentle ^nd gcHjd-natured irony was often remarkable in the 

 tone of his voice ; but I never saw any person hurt at it ; because 

 it was necessary to have well understood every thing that went 

 before to perceive the true intention of it. 



Among all the master-pieces which we owe to his genius, his 

 Mecanique is certainly the most remaikable and the most impor- 

 tant. 'I'he Fonctions Analytiques hold only the second place, not- 

 withstanding the fruitfulness of the principal idea, and the beauty 

 of the devclopemcnts. A notation less eommodious, and calcula- 

 tions more embarrassing, though more luminous, will pi event ma- 

 thematicians from employing, except in certain diflicult and 

 doubtful cases, his symbols aiid names. It is sufiicient that he has 

 jiroved the legitimacy of the more expeditious processes of the 

 difierential and integral calculus. He lias himself followed the 

 ordinary notation in ilie second edition of Ids Mecanique. 



