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attended by numerous friends, among whom he alone 

 retained his gaiety, enlivening the conversation with 

 sallies of pleasantry, in which their feelings would 

 hardly let them participate. Condorcet was, he knew, 

 to write his eloge for both Academies. A day or two 

 before his death he said to him, " Mon ami, vous ferez 

 mon eloge dans les deux Academies, vous n'avez pas 

 de terns a perdre pour cette double besogne." ('Grim. 

 Corr.') Yet sometimes the torment he endured over- 

 powered him ; and his unostentatious dislike of all 

 pretence, all acting, prevented him from concealing 

 his agony. "Nature," said he, "has left a suffering 

 being the relief of complaining." And if he ever 

 accused himself of importunately afflicting his friends 

 by his sufferings, he would say that he could hardly 

 " conceive how so feeble a creature was able to endure 

 so much without dying." The certainty of his end 

 approaching was announced to him, and he received 

 the tidings with the most absolute tranquillity. His 

 cheerfulness remained unbroken ; and the last words 

 he uttered were to a friend who attended his death- 

 bed : " Do you hear how my chest is filling ?" M. 

 Pouque, member of the Institute, communicated this 

 interesting anecdote to La Harpe. The words were 

 addressed to him. 



The fame which D'Alembert for a long course of 

 years enjoyed all over Europe, was certainly greater 

 than that of any other man of science in any age. 

 Voltaire's was little or nothing among philosophers ; 

 and prodigious though the reputation always was of 

 the poet and literary man, his opinions upon religious 

 subjects were so generally known, indeed so openly 

 declared, that his reputation, how great soever, was to 

 a certain degree of a party caste. D'Alembert, the 

 first philosopher of the age, was likewise advantage- 

 ously known among literary men, and estimated above 

 his deserts in letters on account of his admitted superi- 

 ority in science. During his life, too, though attached 



