430 D'ALEMBERT. 



avantage la pour rien ? En tout cas j'ai de la geome- 

 tric pour un an tout au moins. Ah ! que je fais a pre- 

 sent de belles choses que personne ne lira ! J'ai bien 

 quelques morceaux de litterature a traiter qui seroient 

 peut-etre assez agreables, mais je chasse tout cela de 

 ma tete comme rnauvais train. La geometric est ma 

 femme et je me suis remis en menage. Avec cela j'ai 

 plus d'argent devant moi que je n'en puis depenser. 

 Ma foi. on est bien fou de se tant connoitre par des 

 choses qui ne rendent pas plus heureux ; on a bien 

 plut6t fait de dire 'Ne pourrois-je pas me passer de 

 cela?' Et c'est la recette dont j'use depuis long 

 temps." 



It is to be considered that the abundance of income 

 which he thus speaks of was not much above one 

 hundred a year ; for we know from himself that a short 

 time before he had but ITOOfs., or 68, and the place 

 of Pensionnaire Surnumeraire, which he obtained by 

 election of the Academy in 1756, when he thus stated 

 his means of living, could not have exceeded lOOOfs. 



In the autumn of 1752, the King of Prussia, to whom 

 he had inscribed his Prize Memoir on the Winds, with 

 some tolerable Latin lines,* invited him to settle in 

 Berlin, offering a pension of 500/. a year, apartments 

 and a table in the palace, with the office of President 

 of the Academy, in the event of Maupertuis' death, 

 who was not expected to live. D'Alembert refused 

 this handsome offer, on the ground of his whole enjoy- 

 ment being the society of his friends in the Parisian 

 circle to which he belonged ; and of his somewhat ex- 

 cessive fear of any connection which should interfere 

 with, or put in jeopardy, the perfect freedom so essen- 

 tial to his happiness a feeling so strong in him, that 

 his friends used to say he was " the slave of his own 

 liberty." At this time he states, in the correspondence 



* Haec ego de Ventis, dum Ventorum ocyor alis 

 Palantes agit Austriacos Fredericus, et orbi, 

 Insignia lauro, ramum protendit olivae. 



