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When I went to Paris for the second time, after my escape from The Leads of Venice, I was delighted at the idea of seeing again the amiable, venerable Fontenelle, but he died a fortnight after my arrival, at the beginning of the year 1757.
Dear little flame of genius, how you blaze!" cried Sylvie, catching her friend by the hand and kissing it, "Do not call Fontenelle a villain he is too charming! and he is only like a great many other men.
"I think not," and Fontenelle smiled. "Comme il vous plaira! I will tell Sylvie." "The Comtesse Hermenstein is not in Paris." "No!" and the Princesse laughed mischievously, "She is in Rome! She must have arrived there this morning. Au revoir, Marquis!" Another dazzling smile, and she was gone. Fontenelle stood staring after her in amazement. Sylvie was in Rome then?
A select society of wits and gallant chevaliers soon gathered around her, and it required influence as well as merit to gain an entrance into its ranks. Among this élite were Count de Grammont, Saint-Evremond, Chapelle, Molière, Fontenelle, and a host of other no less distinguished characters, most of them celebrated in literature, arts, sciences, and war.
Among the writers of the age of Peter the Great may be mentioned Kirsha Danilof, who versified the popular traditions of Vladimir and his heroes; and Kantemir, a satirist, who translated many epistles of Horace, and the work of Fontenelle on the plurality of worlds.
Fontenelle was not destined to stop here in his intellectual developments; when, at forty years of age, he became perpetual secretary to the Academy of Sciences, he had already written his book on the Pluralite des Mondes, the first attempt at that popularization of science which has spread so since then.
So much cool serenity and so much taste for noble intellectual works prolonged the existence of Fontenelle beyond the ordinary limits; he was ninety-nine and not yet weary of life. "If I might but reach the strawberry-season once more!" he had said. He died at Paris on the 9th of January, 1759; with him disappeared what remained of the spirit and traditions of Louis XIV.'s reign.
This article was first printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1740. The proper spelling is Baratier. The passages referred to in the preceding pages we have printed in italics, for the more easy reference. Translated from an éloge by Fontenelle, and first printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1741. The practice of Dr.
Fontenelle, Gentlemen, would have traced their horoscope in these words, so well adapted for humbling our pride, and the truth of which the history of discoveries reveals in a thousand places: "When a thing may be in two different ways, it is almost always that which appears at first the least natural."
With half Rome declaring that she WAS the mistress of Fontenelle, and the other half swearing itself black in the face that she IS the mistress of Gherardi, she certainly ought to be very happy, ought she not? Indeed, almost dancing with the joy and consolation of knowing how pleasant her 'Society' friends are making her life for her!" Aubrey's heart beat violently.
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