74 Lagrange' s Memoirs. 



that this prince, who iH his leisure, cuhivated poetry and the arts, 

 had no idea of the sciences which he thought himself obliged not- 

 withstanding to protect as king : the reason is, that in reality he pla- 

 ced little value upon^ geometry, against which he sent three pages 

 of verse to D'Alembert himself. D'Alerabert delayed answering 

 him until the end of the siege of Schweidnitz, by the reason that 

 it ce serait trop d^ avoir a-la-fois I'autriche et la geomeirie sur les 

 bras ; and in fine, notwithstanding the immense reputation of Euler, 

 we see by the correspondence with Voltaire, that Frederic designa- 

 ted him only by the qualification of his geometre borgne, dont les 

 oreilles ne sont pas faites pour sentir les delicatesses de la poesie : 

 to which Voltaire added ; nous somrites un petit nombre rf' adeptes 

 qui nous y connaissons, le rest est profane : a remark more witty 

 than fair, and which Euler, in speaking of geometry, might have 

 been able to retort against Voltaire and Frederic. We see plainly 

 that Voltaire who had so worthily lauded Newton, sought in this 

 expression to flatter Frederic. He entered out of courtesy into the 

 ideas of a prince. For Frederic wished to put at the head of his 

 Academy a savant only, who had at least some reputation in litera- 

 ture, under the fear that a geometer would not take sufficient inter- 

 est in the direction of literary works ; and at the same time, that a 

 man of letters would not be more out of place at the he^d of a soci- 

 ety, composed in part of savans whose language he did not under- 

 stand. He was then right in dividing the office in order that it 

 might be completely filled. 



Lagrange took possession the 6th Nov. 1766. The proces-ver- 

 balwhich makes mention of it, gave him the names of Lagrange- 

 Tournier. 11 avait ete bien repv par le roi, mais il swapper gut bien- 

 tot que les Allemands n' aiment pas que les etrangcrs viennent oc- 

 cuper des places dans leur pays ; il se mit a bien etudier leur 

 langue : il ne s'occupa serieusement que de mathematiques : il ne se 

 irouva sur le chemin de personne, parce quHl ne demandait rien, 

 et forga bientot les Allemands a lui accorder leur estime. La roi 

 me traitait bien, added he himself, je crois qu'il me preferait a 

 Euler qui etait un peu Lhot, tandis que moi je restais etr anger a 

 toute discussion sur le culte, et ne contrariais les opinions de per- 

 sonne. This prudent reserve, by depriving him of the advantages 

 of an honorable familiarity, necessarily somewhat inconvenient, left 

 to him all his time for his mathematical labors, that had drawn out 

 for him until then only the most flattering and unanimous eulogies. 

 But once was this harmony of praises disturbed. 



