446 D'ALEMBERT. 



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 Empress 

 of Russia, in 1762, desired him to undertake the super- 

 intendence of her son's education the Czarowitch, after- 

 wards the Emperor Paul. The appointments were 4000 

 a year, with residence in the palace. But still he pre- 

 ferred Paris, "the air of which agreed with his tastes 

 and habits, notwithstanding the intolerance he was 

 exposed to." 



Indeed a great change had taken place in his manner 

 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 Mdrne. Geoffrin and Mdme. 

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

 the apartment which the latter occupied in the Con- 

 vent of St. Joseph. Mdme. Geoffrin had succeeded to 

 the coterie which used to assemble round Mdine. 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 disposition, 

 and of the most active, but unostentatious benevolence. 

 His intimacy continued to her death; or rather, as we 

 shall presently see, to the commencement of her long 

 illness. Mdme. du Duffand was a woman of another 

 caste very clever, extremely satirical, extremely selfish, 

 and of a cold unamiable character. Beside meeting his 

 literary friends at her apartment, he there made an 

 acquaintance which proved the bane of his life. 



