D'ALEMBERT. 461 



to the party of the Free Thinkers by his habits in so- 

 ciety, he had never made himself obnoxious by any 

 public declaration of his opinions ; and was indeed 

 never publicly known to be an infidel till his corres- 

 pondence with Voltaire appeared after his death. 

 There was no name, therefore which carried such 

 weight among men as his ; and while he lived, though 

 cabals among politicians now and then interfered 

 against him, as when his academical pension was de- 

 layed, because, in a letter opened at the post-office, he 

 was found to have called the Due de Choiseul, Vol- 

 taire's protege rather than his protector ; yet in gene- 

 ral, full justice was done to his transcendent merits, 

 and his name was everywhere amply honoured. A 

 letter of Abbe Galliani may be cited as showing the 

 estimation he was held in even at Naples, where one 

 might have expected merit, such as his, would be slow 

 to penetrate. The Abbe thus gaily refers to a letter 

 some one had brought from the great man : " Elle 

 m'est si chere, me cause tant de plaisir, me rend 

 si glorieux, que c'est le meilleur present que j'eusse 

 pu recevoir de Paris. Si vous voyiez comme je me 

 rengorge endisant dans la compagnie, * Je viens de 

 recevoir une lettre de D'AlembertJ que je tire kmoitie 

 de ma poche, et que j'y laisse tomber sans en faire la 

 lecture a cause d'un certain petit bricole qu'il y a 

 dedans, qui n'est pas pour tout le monde." I cannot 

 refrain from continuing the quotation of this truly witty 

 letter : " Sur cela grands discours sur D'Alembert ; 

 grand etonnement lorsque je dis qu'il est petit de taille, 

 pantomime et polisson au possible. On veut partout 

 que vous soyez grand comme St. Christophe, et serieux 

 et barbeux comme le Mo'ise de Michel Ange.* On 

 finit par me demander tous a la fois, 'L'avez vous-vu?' 

 comme on demandait a Pape Panurge dans 1'Ile des 

 Papegais et des Papefigues. Non, en verite, un Mes- 



* I have corrected the manifest error of the books which make it 

 " Moine." 



