BERNOUILLI BERNSTORFF. 



515 



in this difficult post. After his return, he enjoyed 

 the highest favour at court, and soon became minis- 

 ter of foreign affairs. The political system of Europe 

 was changed at that time. France and Austria, 

 hitherto enemies, united in an offensive and defensive 

 alliance, which was succeeded by the seven years' war, 

 so unfortunate for France. B. has been designated 

 by several writers as the chief author of this alliance. 

 Puclos, however, asserts, that it was the intention of 

 B. to maintain the old system, which, since the time 

 of Henry IV., and especially since the time of Riche- 

 lieu, had made France the protectress of the less 

 powerful states of Germany, and the rival of Austria. 

 Oppressed by the misfortunes of his country, which, 

 in part, at least were ascribed to him,B. surrendered 

 his post, and was soon after banished from court. 

 His disgrace lasted till the year 1764, when the king 

 appointed him archbishop of Alby, and, five years 

 later, ambassador to Rome. Here he remained till 

 his death. In the name of his court, and against his 

 own opinion, lie laboured to effect the abolition of 

 the order of the Jesuits. When the aunts of Louis 

 XVI. left "France, in 1791, they fled to him for re- 

 fuge, and lived in his house. The revolution deprived 

 him of his fortune, and the means of indulging his 

 generous disposition. He was reduced to a state of 

 poverty, from which he was relieved by a pension 

 from the Spanish court. B. died at Rome, Nov. 2, 

 1794, nearly eighty years old. The easy poetry o 

 youth had procured him a place in the French aca- 

 demy. He himself is its severest critic. His verses 

 have been reproached with affectation, negligence, 

 and an excess of ornament and mythological images. 

 Voltaire called him Babet-la-Bouquetiere, from a fat 

 flower woman who sold her nosegays before the 

 opera house. Nevertheless, Voltaire had a great 

 esteem for his talents, his judgment, his criticisms, 

 and his character, as is evident from their correspon- 

 dence (published in 1799, by Bourgoing), which, in 

 every respect, is very honourable to B. Another 

 correspondence, between B. and Paris du Verney, 

 appeared in print in 1790. After his death, Azara 

 published his poem La Religion vengee (Religion 

 avenged), which, though it contains many beautiful 

 verses and sublime ideas, is deficient in fire and ani- 

 mation. A collection of B.'s works was published in 

 1797, by Didot. 



BERNOULLI ; a family which has produced eight 

 distinguished men, who have all cultivated the ma- 

 thematical sciences with success. The family emi- 

 grating from Antwerp on account of religious perse- 

 cutions, under the administration of the duke of Alva, 

 fled first to Frankfort, and afterwards removed to 

 Bale, where it was elevated to the highest dignities 

 of the republic. 



1. James Bernouilli, born at Bale, 1654, became 

 professor of mathematics there, 1687, and died 1705. 

 Thedifferential calculus, discovered by Leibnitz and 

 Newton, was applied by him to the most difficult 

 questions of geometry and mechanics : he calculated 

 the loxodromic and catenary curve, the logarithmic 

 spirals, the evolutes of several curved lines, and disco- 

 vered the numbers of Bernouilli, as they are called. 



2. John Bernouilli, born at Bale, 1667, was one of 

 the greatest mathematicians of his time, and the 

 worthy rival of Newton and Leibnitz. He was des- 

 tined for commerce, but his inclination led him to the 

 sciences, and, from the year 1683, he principally de- 

 voted himself to medicine and mathematics. To him 

 and his brother James, we are indebted for an excel- 

 lent treatise on the differential calculus. He also 

 developed the method of proceeding from infinitely 

 small numbers to the finite, of which the former are 

 the elements or differences, and called this method 

 the integral calculus. In 1690-92, he made a jour- 



ney to France, where he instructed the marquis de 

 PHopital in mathematics. At this time, he discovered 

 the exponential calculus, before Leibnitz had made 

 any communications respecting it, and made it known 

 in 1697. In 1694, he became doctor of medicine at 

 Bale, and, in 1695, went, as professor of mathematics, 

 to Groningen, where he discovered the mercurial 

 phosphorus or luminous barometer, for which he 

 received from king Frederic I. of Prussia, a gold 

 medal, and was made a member of the academy in 

 Berlin, afterwards of that in Paris, &c. After the 

 death of his brother, in 1705, he received the profes- 

 sorship of mathematics at Bale, which he held until 

 his death, January, 1, 1748. 



3. Nicholas Bernouilli, nephew of the former, born 

 at Bale, in 1687, studied law, but more particularly de- 

 voted himself to mathematics; in 1705, went to Gron- 

 ingen, to John B. ; returned, however, with him to 

 Bale towards the close of the year, and became there 

 professor of mathematics. He traveled through 

 Switzerland, France, Holland, and England, and, in 

 1713, became a member of the academies of science 

 in London and Berlin. On the recommendation of 

 Leibnitz, he went, as professor of mathematics to 

 Padua, in 1716, but returned to his native city in 

 1722, as professor of logic. In 1731, he became 

 professor of the Roman and feudal law in that place, 

 and died in 1759. The three following were sons of 

 the above-mentioned John B. 



4. Nicholas Bernouilli, born at Bale, 1695, became 

 professor of law there in 1723, and died in Petersburg 

 in 1726. 



5. Dame, Bernouilli, born at Groningen, Feb. 9, 

 1700. He studied medicine, in which he took the 

 doctor's degree, and, at the same time, was engaged 

 in mathematical studies, in which his father had 

 been his instructor. He visited Bale, Heidelberg, 

 Strasburg, Venice, and Padua. At the age of twen- 

 ty-four, he was offered the presidency of an academy 

 about to be established at Genoa, but, in the follow- 

 ing year, accepted an invitation to Petersburg. Ac- 

 companied by his younger brother, John, he return- 

 ed to Bale in 1733 ; became there professor ot 

 anatomy and botany ; in 1750, professor of natural 

 philosophy ; resigned this place, because of his ad- 

 vanced age, to his brother's son, the younger Daniel 

 B:, in 1777, and died in 1782. He was one of the 

 greatest natural philosophers, as well as mathemati- 

 cians, of -his time. At ten different times he received 

 a prize from the academy of Paris. In 1734, he 

 shared with his father a double prize, given by this 

 academy, for their joint essay on the causes of the 

 different inclinations of the planetary orbits. Most 

 of his writings are contained in the transactions of the 

 Petersburg, Paris. Berlin, c. academies, of which he 

 was a member. 



6. John Bernouilli, born at Bale, in 1710, went to 

 Petersburg in 1732, became professor of rhetoric at 

 Bale in 1743, and, in 1748, professor of mathema- 

 tics. He died in 1790. The two following were his 

 sons. 



7. John Bernouilli, licentiate of law and royal as- 

 tronomer in Berlin, was born at Bale, in 1744, and 

 died 1807, in Berlin, whither he had been invited in 

 the nineteenth year of his age. He had traveled 

 through all the countries of Europe, and lived after 

 1779, in Berlin, where he had become director of the 

 mathematical department of the academy. He is the 

 author of numerous works. 



8. James Bernouilli was born at Bale, in 1 759 ; 

 went to Petersburg, where he became professor of 

 mathematics, married a grand-daughter of Euler, but 

 died in 1789, in the thirtieth year of his age, of an 

 apoplexy, while bathing in the Neva. 



BERNSTORFF ; the name of a German noble family, 



