‘Y "ly of returning to Turin. Hi 
450 
‘La Grange, him in a furnished lodging, under the cafe of a confi- 
dential n charged to provide every thing. 
This incident aaa his projects. He thought on- 
e deveéell himself to the 
mathematics with new ardour, when he understood that 
the Academy of Berlin was threatened with the loss of 
Euler, who thought of returning to Petersburgh. D’A- 
lembert speaks of this project of Euler, in a letter to 
Voltaire, dated the 3d March 1766: “ I shall be sorry 
for it,” says he; “ he isa man by no means amusing, 
‘but a very great mathematician.” | It was of little con- 
sequence to D’Alembert, whether this man, by no means 
amusing, went seven degrees nearer the pole. He could 
‘read the works of the great mathematician as well in 
‘the Petersburgh Memoirs as in those of Berlin. What 
troubled D'Alembert was the fear of seeing himself 
‘called upon to fill his place, and the difficulty of giving 
an answer to offers which he was determined not to ac- 
cept. Frederick in fact offered him again the place of 
‘president of his Academy, which he had kept in reserve 
‘for him ever since the death of Maupertuis. D’Alem- 
bert suggested the idea of putting La Grange in the 
‘place of Euler; and, if we believe the author of the 
Secret History of the Court of Berlin, (vol. ii. ? 414,) 
‘Euler had already pointed out La Grange as the only 
‘man capable of filling his place. Yn fact, it was natural 
‘that Euler, who wished to obtain permission to leave 
Berlin, and D’Alembert, who wanted a pretext not to 
go there, should both of them, without any communi- 
‘ation, have cast their eyes on the man who was best 
fitted to maintain the eclat which the labours of Euler 
‘had thrown round the Berlin Academy. 
La Grange was pitched upon. He received a 
sion of 1500 Prussian crowns, about £250, with the 
title of Director of the Academy for the Physico-mathe- 
‘matical Sciences. We may be surprised that Euler and 
La Grange, put successively in the place of Maupertuis, 
received only the half of his salary, which the king of- 
‘fered entire to D’Alembert. The reason is, that this 
‘prince, who at his leisure hours cultivated poetry and 
the arts, had no idea of the sciences, though he consi- 
dered himself obliged to protect them as a king, He 
had very little respect for the mathematics, against 
which he wrote three pages in verse, and sent them to 
D’Alembert himself, who deferred writing an answer 
till the termination of the siege of Schweidnitz; be- 
cause he thought it would be too much to have both 
Austria and the mathematics on his hands at once. 
Notwithstanding the prodigious reputation of Euler, we 
see, from the king’s correspondence with Voltaire, that 
he gave him no other appellation than his narrow-mind- 
ed geomeler, whose ears were not capable of feeling the 
rip of poetry. To which Voltaire replies: We are 
a small number of adepts who know one another : the rest 
are profane. We see that Voltaire, who had writ- 
ten so well in praise of Newton, endeavours in this 
place to flatter Frederick. He enters out of complai- 
sance into the ideas of this prince, who wished to put 
at the head of his academy a man who had at least some 
pretensions to literature. Fearing that a mathematician 
would not take sufficient interest in the direction of li- 
terary labours, and that a man of literature would have 
‘been still worse placed at the head of a society compo- 
sed in part of philosophers, of whoze language he was 
ignorant; on that account he divided the situation, 
ro a two persons in it, that it might be completely 
ed, 
M: la Grange took possession of his situation on the 
‘Gth of November 1766, He was well received by the 
GRANGE. 
king ; but soon perceived that the Germaris do not like 
to see foreigners occupy situations in their country. 
He applied to the study of their sn He deve. 
ted himself entirely to mathematics, id not find 
himself in the way of any person, because he demanded 
nothing ; and he soon obliged the Germans to give hin 
their esteem. ‘ The king,” said he himself, « treated 
me well; I thought that he preferred me to Euler, who 
was something of a devotee, while I took no in the 
disputes about worship, and did not contradict the opi« 
nion of any one.” This prudent reserve, if it deprived 
him of the advantages of an honourable familiarity, 
which would have been attended with some inconve-_ 
niences, left him the whole of his time for mathematical — 
labours, which hitherto had brought him nothing but 
compliments the most flattering and the most. unani« 
mous. This concert of praises was only once interrupt« 
ed during the whole of his life. . 
A French mathematician, who to much sagacity uni« 
ted a still greater degree of selfishness, and sca’ 
gave himself the trouble to study the works of others, 
accused M. la Gr. of having gone astray in the new 
route that he had traced, from not having well unde 
the theory of it. He reproached him with having decei= 
ved himself in his assertions and calculations. La Grange 
in reply expresses some astonishment at these harsh ex~ 
pressions, to which he was so little accustomied. He 
expected at least to have seen them founded on some 
reasons either er bad ; but he discovered nothing 
of the kind. .. He shews that the solution proposed by 
Fontaine was incomplete and illusory in certain respects. 
Fontaine had boasted that he had taught mathemati« 
cians the conditions which render possible the integra« 
tion of differential equations with three variables, La 
Grange showed him, by several citations, that these 
conditions were known to mathematicians lo: 
Fontaine was capable of teaching them, He does not 
deny that Fontaine discovered these theorems himself; 
* at least | am persuaded,” says he, “ that he was as ca 
pable of finding them as any person whatever.” __ 
It was with this delicacy and moderation that he an- 
swered the aggressor. Condorcet, in his eloge of Fon- 
taine, is obliged to avow that, on this occasion, his 
friend deviated from that politeness which ought never 
to be dispensed with, but which perhaps he thought 
less haccein with illustrious pra at eg whose Feed 
did not stand in. need of these little delicacies, Every 
one can estimate the value of that apology, especially 
when applied to a man who, by his own acknow 
ment, studied the vanity of others, that he might have an 
opportunity of wounding it. We must at least acknow- 
ledge, that he, who saw himself attacked in that man- 
ner when he was in the right, and who knew how to 
maintain politeness with an adversary who had himself 
dispensed with it, uired a double advantage over 
him, besides victoriously repelling his imprudent attack, 
It will not be expected that we should follow M. la 
Grange in the important researches with which he fill- 
ed the Berlin Memoirs; and even some volumes of the 
Memoirs of the Turin Academy, which was indebted 
to him for its existence., All the space that can be de- 
voted to this biographical account would. not be suffi- 
cient even to convey an imperfect idea of the immense 
series of his labours, which Goes given’so much value to 
the Memoirs of the Berlin Academy, while it had the 
inestimable advantage of being directed by M. la 
Grange. Some of these Memoirs are of such extent - 
and importance, that they might pass for a great sepa- 
rate work, yet they constitute a part only of what these 
before 
