D'ALEMBERT. 457 



to have been, what indeed they were, a deviation. 

 His intercourse with Voltaire and with Frederick II. 

 have been mentioned, and it was nearly all that can 

 be said to have variegated the tranquil and uniform 

 tenor of his way. 



To Voltaire at Ferney he paid a visit in the autumn 

 of 1756 ; and it is plain from all Voltaire's letters that 

 this occurrence gave the greatest satisfaction to " the 

 Patriarch." The tenor of their correspondence was 

 one of uninterrupted confidence and mutual esteem. 

 That D'Alembert occasionally sacrificed somewhat of 

 his wonted independence to his profound admiration 

 of his friend, is certain. A mathematician like him 

 should never have given to Voltaire's ignorant and 

 ridiculous assertion that Leibnitz and Descartes were 

 two charlatans (' Corr. Vol.' CEuv., XVI. 77) so tame 

 a reply as merely to say, that he had not read the 

 collection of Leibnitz' works, but readily believed it 

 to be " un fatras oil il y a bien peu de choses a ap- 

 prendre" (Ib., 80). Though Voltaire may only have 

 spoken of that great man's universality, an objection 

 which it little becomeseither himself or his correspondent 

 to make, yet the first geometrician of the age ought 

 never to have left the subject without a protest in 

 favour of the founder of modern Analysis. There is, 

 however, something very touching in the ease with 

 which D'Alembert bowed before the errors and the 

 ignorance of genius, contrasted with the sturdiness of 

 his resistance to all the attempts of mere station or 

 private friendship to influence his opinion. Mdme. 

 du Deffand, then the patroness of his mistress and his 

 own, in vain besought him to slide in a word on behalf 

 of her friend the President Renault when the * Dis- 

 cours' was preparing. D'Alembert peremptorily re- 

 fused to say one syllable of that feeble and correct 

 chronologer in the ' Discours,' and would only, under 

 the head of " Chronology," go so far as to say, that 

 he had written one of the three chronological abridg- 



