D'ALEMBEET. 431 



with M. D'Argens, through whom Frederick's offer 

 was made, his income, as I have stated, did not exceed 

 1700fs. not quite 70/. a year. The scruple of deli- 

 cacy which he felt as to Maupertuis was at once re- 

 moved by the King desiring him to take the appoint- 

 ments independent of all connection with the Academy, 

 and assuring him that Maupertuis' wish was to have 

 him for a successor. But nothing could tempt him to 

 quit Paris. Ten years after this, he received a still 

 more flattering offer, and one which, to an ambitious 

 mind, would have presented more charms. The Em- 

 press of Russia, in 1762, desired him to undertake the 

 superintendence of her son's education the Czaro- 

 witch, afterwards the Emperor Paul. The appoint- 

 ments were 4000 a year, with residence in the palace. 

 But still he preferred Paris, " the air of which agreed 

 with his tastes and habits, notwithstanding the intoler- 

 ance he was exposed to." 



Indeed a great change had taken place in his man- 

 ner of life, before either the Prussian monarch or the 

 Russian became suitors for his favour. The society in 

 which he now lived was one to which he had, about 

 the year 1744, been introduced, and of which he soon 

 became an intimate and esteemed member. It fre- 

 quented the two houses of Mdme. Geoffrin and Mdme. 

 du Deffand, or rather the house of the former, and the 

 apartment which the latter occupied in the Convent of 

 St. Joseph. Mdme. Geoffrin had succeeded to the 

 coterie which used to assemble round Mdme. du 

 Tencin, D'Alembert's mother; and all accounts agree 

 in representing her as a person of extraordinary merit 

 sensible, clever, exceedingly amiable, of kindly dis- 

 position, and of the most active, but unostentatious 

 benevolence. His intimacy continued to her death ; 

 or rather, as we shall presently see, to the commence- 

 ment of her long illness. Mdme. du Deffand was a 

 woman of another caste very clever, extremely sati- 

 rical, extremely selfish, and of a cold un amiable charac- 



